Danse Desejo: An Interview

[Desejo]

Explain the process you use in preparing a recommendation post; do you consider that to be a chore, duty, or enjoyment? Are you smiling under the veil?

I do it because I said I would, but it's not a chore. It's easier when I don't comment on every poem - I really admire bronzeage for doing that. In terms of process, I read everything posted for the day and pick out high points. The wham bam thank you ma'am poems, or ones that I consider to be unnecessarily vulgar I have a hard time with - not because I am a prude, but because it limits creativity. There is a thread here discussing hip hop and rap. I feel the same way about some of that music - if it weren't so egregiously offensive as a matter of course, people might notice the often mind boggling use of language and metaphor.

As for the "veil" - it would defy the purpose of the thing for me to tell you that. It's not about what is, it's about what you think is.

I sound like the blind guy in the original Kung Fu series. Yeesssss, grasshopper.... (ridiculous!)

 

[Angeline]

Learning a new language gives some insight into a culture, yes. But I am very wary of trying to write like a (fill in the nationality or culture that I am not). The furthest you can go with that is to build upon what you hear directly. What people say, or tell you about. If you live in a country long enough, you will understand things better. But, to paraphrase an African folk saying: no matter how long the crocodile lays in the river, it does not become a log. I can write about things I have seen that many have not. But I am very skeptical of people who claim to be experts in a country or culture because they have married into to it or lived there for years. I'm not sure what an expert is - especially in a whole COUNTRY.

Hmmm ok. Maybe I wasn't clear in my question. I'm not suggesting anything about trying to write as if you're someone you're not.

I was asking if you feel the cultures you've been exposed to have influenced the way you write and how that influence plays out in your poems, whether it's subject matter or the way you structure a line or the images you'd choose. For example, I read a lot of poems in translation by the Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad. She's one of my favorite writers. And I've read other poems by women from the Middle East and seen similar qualities in their poems that suggests something about cultural influence to me. Something stylistic. The same is true of writers like Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Jean Luis Borges, all poets from different countries but with cultural similarities. There are also stylistic similarities in the way they write. I have been interested in this for a while now (maybe should do my own research on it), and was just wondering what sorts of cultural influences, if any, have made their way into your poems. But it's kind of a complex question, I know. If it's not something you've noticed in your experience or can speak to, no worries. You're not the first person I've asked about this.

And all this talk about your avatar! I gotta ask: is that you? Very beguiling! (Mine is Laura Nyro, one of my cultural heroes.)



PS Thanks for sharing the folk saying. I like it.

 

[wakingDown]

I wanted to thank you for the advice and reviews you have given my poems. It has been encouraging. I was wondering if you have any anxieties before posting a poem. I am constantly grinding my teeth until the damned things post so I can check them again to make sure I got it right. Even then, there are mistakes left. Do you have that worry, or any worry along those lines?

 

[Desejo]

I wanted to thank you for the advice and reviews you have given my poems. It has been encouraging. I was wondering if you have any anxieties before posting a poem. I am constantly grinding my teeth until the damned things post so I can check them again to make sure I got it right. Even then, there are mistakes left. Do you have that worry, or any worry along those lines?

I've posted poems with mistakes, although I am pretty careful about proofreading before I submit. I don't worry about it once I hit the submit button. If I have any anxiety at all it is about reception or reaction to a poem, but that is more out if curiosity than anything else.

I'm glad to see you here, stick around!

 

[Desejo]

And all this talk about your avatar! I gotta ask: is that you?

It's me. Funny, cause I was just thinking about changing it.

 

[Desejo]

I was asking if you feel the cultures you've been exposed to have influenced the way you write and how that influence plays out in your poems, whether it's subject matter or the way you structure a line or the images you'd choose.

Definite influence on subject matter and images. I'm less sure about line structure. It's kind of hard for me to distinguish between cultural versus personal influences.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Well done, you're certainly holding your own with this inquisitive crowd.

Speaking of which do you find the various challenges and contests helpful and/or inspiring? This Q. was prompted by your "5 senses" poems which are almost always exceptional.

 

[wakingDown]

When you get an idea for a poem, is it an instant image that you start working out immediately, or is it a more designed-from-the-start process? Does the idea just strike, or do you decide on a subject and build the idea? I don't know if that is clear, but I can't seem to think of a better way to phrase it.

 

[Desejo]

Well done, you're certainly holding your own with this inquisitive crowd.

Speaking of which do you find the various challenges and contests helpful and/or inspiring? This Q. was prompted by your "5 senses" poems which are almost always exceptional.

Thank you Tristesse. Yes, both helpful and inspiring. The "5 senses" thread I see as a puzzle, and because that thread tends to fly recently, there is also an unknown time limit before someone else jumps in and says TA-DAH! I like the variation of word on the 5 senses, but I often wonder how others would have approached the problem. So I'm happy when posts overlap. I loved the The Harry's Raincoat thread (someone link it for me if you can, I still don't understand internal links well) and even the rather dubiously named Stalking Desejo thread for that reason - poets responding to the same challenge/ idea. The Summer Erotic Poem contest has inspired some great work too.

 

[Desejo]

When you get an idea for a poem, is it an instant image that you start working out immediately, or is it a more designed-from-the-start process? Does the idea just strike, or do you decide on a subject and build the idea? I don't know if that is clear, but I can't seem to think of a better way to phrase it.

I'm glad you asked this. It's something I have thought about from time to time and I would be interested in how others work too.

For poems I write outside of the challenges (see my reply above to Tristesse2) I almost never decide on a subject and then build up. An idea comes to me - maybe a phrase someone says, maybe something I see, often a concept, and then I write the poem. The most striking example of this was writing Visit to the Lizard King. I was out jogging (more like lumbering) in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris - where Jim Morrison is buried, and the rest just came to me. I don't think I changed a single word, and I still like that poem even though it received one of the nastier comments I have ever received on a poem (its still there, y'all can take a look and decide for yourselves).

As I said earlier, I am not a very disciplined writer (of poetry or prose), so it is helpful to me to respond to things like challenges to keep writing when I don't have any ideas I feel like working on.

 

[HarryHill]

Re: Nasty Comment

Visit to the Lizard King
..
Idiot with no stories or poems, consider the source
..
Thought about this last night just before sleep: how did you pick out such a lovely username? design?

 

[Desejo]

Thought about this last night just before sleep: how did you pick out such a lovely username? design?

I wanted something simple, and since I signed on to Lit assuming I would be writing more erotic stories, it seemed to make sense. And it sounded better than SheikhaYourBooty (with apologies to Frank Zappa).

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

M. Proust has been hovering and can contain himself no longer so here he is....

My World Famous Questionaire

• If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

• What is the best gift you’ve received?

• Which hobby would you pursue if you had more time?

• If you could have any super power what would it be?

• What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?

• What was your most epic road trip?

• What food brings back childhood memories?

• Which book most influenced your life?

• What is the most valuable piece of advise you ever received?

• If you could go back and relive one day in your life. Which one
would it be and why?

• What advice would you give your ten year old self today?

• What do you most admire in a man?

• What do you most admire in a woman?

• What word or phrase do you most over-use?

• Who are your favourite writers?

• Which artists do you most admire?

 

[twelveoone]

The most striking example of this was writing Visit to the Lizard King. I was out jogging (more like lumbering) in the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris - where Jim Morrison is buried, and the rest just came to me. I don't think I changed a single word, and I still like that poem even though it received one of the nastier comments I have ever received on a poem (its still there, y'all can take a look and decide for yourselves).

i had to go check to see if it was one of mine.
mine was just a dumb riff,
well, we all leave losers.
wait I see a poem...
lumbering past the Lizard King
since this is a question thread and I was chastised once, how in the hell did you come up with the Doors?
Doing the math, he was dead before you where born.

 

[Desejo]

• If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

This again. My real answer is there is no one place. My alternate choices would be: Paris (if I could afford it and get away often), my tiny hometown in NY state (if I could drive and had something to do) and an as yet undiscovered city that is both cosmopolitan, temperate and not in the middle of nowhere.

• What is the best gift you’ve received?
A pair of bunny ear slippers from Mc Donalds. Because someone took me seriously when I said that is what I wanted.

• Which hobby would you pursue if you had more time?
I have too much time right now. I would pursue something to keep me busy instead.

• If you could have any super power what would it be?
Mind reading. I thought about mind control but that is a bit sinister.

• What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
I can't think of a specific instance. I do things all the time, so "most" is hard to pinpoint.

• What was your most epic road trip?
Oh, I've had lots of epic road trips. A classic: 18 hours on the road in Aceh, Indonesia during Ramadan with two American men --one gay and one uber-male-- and an Indonesian driver. We ran out of music on one ipod so the gay colleague offered his but qualified "you will not like my music". We insisted we didn't mind (we listen to everything!) and ended up listening to the Glee cast doing showtunes. For HOURS. Somewhere around hour three, Uber-male turned to me and said: "I don't mean to be rude, but which came first - the Gay or the Showtunes?". All of this in blazing heat, and no food --couldn't even buy it! the achenese are serious about Islam.

• What food brings back childhood memories?
Corn on the cob and steak.

• Which book most influenced your life?
It has to be the Bible. Not because I have read it, but because many people believe they have.

• What is the most valuable piece of advise you ever received?
Be careful of who you get involved with, because it influences your future choices.

• If you could go back and relive one day in your life. Which one
would it be and why?
I have no desire to relive anything that I can think of. Maybe I would have quit a job on the spot when I realized my boss had a direct line to Lucifer.

• What advice would you give your ten year old self today?
Everyone else is just as worried as you are. Chill.

• What do you most admire in a man?
Irreverence and drive.

• What do you most admire in a woman?
Ability to see through cultural, political and general bullshit.

• What word or phrase do you most over-use?
I'm not sure. I try to avoid extensive self-observation (it's disturbing)

• Who are your favourite writers?
I have many. But according to Goodreads, over the past few years my most read authors are: Edith Wharton, Iain M. Banks, Neil Gaiman, Murakami ,Robert Heinlein and Pramodya Ananta Toer.

• Which artists do you most admire?
Probably artists I know personally. I don't proactively follow art, go to exhibits etc. It seems like something I should do, but don't right now

 

[Desejo]

i had to go check to see if it was one of mine.
mine was just a dumb riff,
well, we all leave losers.
wait I see a poem...
lumbering past the Lizard King
since this is a question thread and I was chastised once, how in the hell did you come up with the Doors?
Doing the math, he was dead before you where born.

Uhm, no he wasn't.
And the legacy certainly didn't die with the artiste. I did go to a hippy-esque high school though.

 

[greenmountaineer]

"The Achenese are serious about Islam" sounds like good stuff for a poem.

I liked "Lizard King," 10% because it was my generation; 90% because of the poetry.

 

[HarryHill]

Omg, a Heinlein fan. I think I've read 'em all. Is it hard to choose a favorite. and if so...

 

[Desejo]

Omg, a Heinlein fan. I think I've read 'em all. Is it hard to choose a favorite. and if so...

I haven't read them all. So far, between The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land.

 

[wakingDown]

Do you try to elicit certain feelings or responses from your readers with some poems? If so, does the poem bring that reaction out in you while writing the poem or after it is finished?

 

[twelveoone]

• What do you most admire in a man?
Irreverence and drive.

would you settle for half?
you'll have to drive
hopefully I'll get my license when I turn 18

 

[Desejo]

would you settle for half?
you'll have to drive
hopefully I'll get my license when I turn 18

We'd have to get a driver. I don't have a license. Really. And no, I am not from New York City .

 

[Desejo]

Do you try to elicit certain feelings or responses from your readers with some poems? If so, does the poem bring that reaction out in you while writing the poem or after it is finished?

In some of my poems I try to get readers to think about situations differently.

I dislike political debate, especially in the form it takes in America. I don't even watch the news because it depresses me - not so much the content as the way it is presented. Everything becomes a spectacle for some serious looking hairsprayed newscaster to report back solemnly. I get the impression they are all squirming in their seats in sheer delight at the latest racial outrage, natural disaster, or terrorist attack.

That said, I get frustrated by how naive people are - and not just Americans. There are 313 million of us so in numeric terms there are more idiots, but there is no national monopoly on morons that I have found. Sometimes I will push a bit in a poem - to get people to consider the other side, or perhaps another side of things.

I don't go as far as I might with that because I really do not want to get into a flame war with someone over, for example, the middle east, immigration, or foreign aid and what it does or does not accomplish. So it's a delicate balance.

I've worked through some of these frustrations in poems, yes. I don't post all of them.

 

[butters]

Hello, Desejo. It's been a lovely discovery, reading through your writing. It takes me to new places, revisits some universal themes. My favourite - because it made me look with new insight - has to be Callous. The imagery, the desperation, the appeal to our senses as parents . . . all of that, with the bitter-coffee note it ends on, makes it, for me, an experienced poem. Thankyou.

With White Wolf, I didn't get that same engagement, though the shock of the narrator's voice on seeing the apparition filtered through. If this is written on a deeper level, and holds alternate meanings and interpretations, I'm afraid it was lost on me Question: Do you ever revisit older writes and tinker with them with your more developed skills, or do you mentally take notes for future reference and use that instead? Some writers are really bad at letting old pieces go, worrying away at them constantly. Others consign them to the Bottomless Bin Of Time and move forward, feeling little or no shame

Ghost in the Machine is another I really liked - on-the-surface simplicity but with a wealth of emotional undercurrent, a sharing of a common-enough experience that most readers must surely engage with it easily. Especially liked all the connotations of Trojans that develop that ending so well. Your title is one I've seen often, even used it myself, but your take on it refused to allow it to be cliché - and holds a poignancy echoed by the body of the text. Question: was this drawn from a personal event or from the generic Shared Human Experience pile?

Lastly, on reading your piece The Palm of your hand, I got the impression that you said all you needed to say in the first strophe. Not to say the rest wasn't good reading, just that I believe you implied - and a reader could infer - what followed without even having to say it. Really lovely, and (once again) a piece so easy to buy into; I'd also imagine this (as with GITM) can be viewed with a gender-equality, since we all know men are really just as squishy inside as women. Question: did you capitalise the Palm of your title for its visual, fanned connotations? If so, it worked for me.

Thanks for your interesting replies to other questions in this thread. It's been . . . illuminating.

 

[Desejo]

Hello, Desejo. It's been a lovely discovery, reading through your writing. It takes me to new places, revisits some universal themes. My favourite - because it made me look with new insight - has to be Callous. The imagery, the desperation, the appeal to our senses as parents . . . all of that, with the bitter-coffee note it ends on, makes it, for me, an experienced poem. Thankyou.

That's an interesting favorite - an example of where I was trying to push people a bit. Thank you.

With White Wolf, I didn't get that same engagement, though the shock of the narrator's voice on seeing the apparition filtered through. If this is written on a deeper level, and holds alternate meanings and interpretations, I'm afraid it was lost on me Question: Do you ever revisit older writes and tinker with them with your more developed skills, or do you mentally take notes for future reference and use that instead? Some writers are really bad at letting old pieces go, worrying away at them constantly. Others consign them to the Bottomless Bin Of Time and move forward, feeling little or no shame

Oh Lord, I hate that poem. It's terrible. It was part of the Halloween ballad challenge or something like that, and one of the conditions was that we post our entries. I did so kicking and screaming, but apparently I still have too much respect for rules to do what I should have - which is to bury that thing six feet under and make sure it was undead. I think this is one of the problems with form. I could have written that much more effectively in free verse. It's not that I am terrible at form - I sometimes try my hand at it just out of curiosity and at the suggestion of some here as a way to practice. But it's not my natural way of writing, and it shows. Perhaps it is now safe to remove that aberration!

Ghost in the Machine is another I really liked - on-the-surface simplicity but with a wealth of emotional undercurrent, a sharing of a common-enough experience that most readers must surely engage with it easily. Especially liked all the connotations of Trojans that develop that ending so well. Your title is one I've seen often, even used it myself, but your take on it refused to allow it to be cliché - and holds a poignancy echoed by the body of the text. Question: was this drawn from a personal event or from the generic Shared Human Experience pile?

Personal event. And still being fought, unfortunately. Instead of a Trojan war, at times it feels more like the Peloponnesian war. I await a THIS IS SPARTA moment (hopefully in which the entire cast of men in iron panties from 300 materializes on my doorstep).

Lastly, on reading your piece The Palm of your hand, I got the impression that you said all you needed to say in the first strophe. Not to say the rest wasn't good reading, just that I believe you implied - and a reader could infer - what followed without even having to say it. Really lovely, and (once again) a piece so easy to buy into; I'd also imagine this (as with GITM) can be viewed with a gender-equality, since we all know men are really just as squishy inside as women. Question: did you capitalise the Palm of your title for its visual, fanned connotations? If so, it worked for me.

I was trying to work on sound and rhythm in that one (since I do not always do it well and it is something I really have to think about). Gender and I have a tense relationship - not that I am uncertain of mine - but it is a subject that tends to annoy me. That said, many (men) have told me I do not "think like a woman" whatever that is supposed to mean, and, in spite of my aversion to the topic, also commented that some of their most interesting conversations with me revolve around gender issues. Maybe that is what you are picking up on. 'Tis a puzzlement. No, I did not capitalize Palm on purpose - but that is interesting.