Take the A Train: The Angeline Interview

[Angeline]

I had a couple of questions, Angeline, relating to the wide swath of the NYC melting pot and how it may have affected your writing as well as how all your editing work made you a better poet; however, you seemed to have addressed those questions already, so I'll just say that "Chambers Street" really brought back memories, I probably worked in New Brunswick when you were at Douglas, and we probably passed each other in one of the shopping malls on US 1 sometime or another. (Or is it "some time or another," Madame Editor?(LOL))

I so much appreciate your poetry and what you do here as moderator.

Thank you and thank you for using the mote in your glosa. I have to reread it again (and again) and look at the meter because I think we are trying the same kinds of experiments.

Maybe we passed by each other in Tumulty's. I bet there's a good chance of that. I went there a lot.

As to your style question I think I'd prefer the first usage in a poem although the second is, I suppose, technically correct.

 

[Angeline]

It happens to me all of the time, like suddenly there's a rhyme in the middle of my free verse and it just works to perfection ... Like my e.e. cummings glosa; I had no idea I'd done such a thing until 2 days from when I posted it. Then I thought, how 'bout that! I like that it snuck in since it seems to flow seamlessly through the meter right back into that sense of fear I was trying to convey.

So, yes, Ange, you are not alone.

Thank you! Really! Even though I'm still not sure whether this is a phenomenon or we are both crazy.

 

[Angeline]

Hello, Angeline. I've made it clear in the past what I think of your poetry, so no need to go there again, but I thought I'd say something about your fear of global warming. I've spent a good deal of time studying the AGW hypothesis, and my advice to you is to spend less time worrying about the planet overheating and more time preparing for the opposite.

Interesting thread.

Ok though maybe I should not have used the term "global warming" but instead "climate change," which I think is a better description but as I said, I am a poet not a scientist! (I like saying that because it reminds me of this.)

And thanks for your comments over the years. They have always been appreciated.

 

[theognis]

Ok though maybe I should not have used the term "global warming" but instead "climate change," which I think is a better description but as I said, I am a poet not a scientist! (I like saying that because it reminds me of this.)

And thanks for your comments over the years. They have always been appreciated.

You're welcome. I can't resist adding a couple more comments. I consider the term "climate change" to be essentially meaningless, as the climate is always changing. Always has, and presumably always will, at least as long as the planet lasts.

For what it's worth, we've been the beneficiaries of an interglacial period for the last 11,000 years or so, and of noticeable recent warming and greening of the planet. The planet is about 15% greener now than it was 30 years ago, and the planet was pretty green then, but the next thirty years will most likely tell a different story, I suspect, and a much chillier one.

It pays to remember that ice ages come and go. And come again.

 

[champagne1982]

It pays to remember that ice ages come and go. And come again.

As I suspect deserts bloom and prairies tree over, then lakes turn into fertile soil. I feel like a Disney movie ... the circle of life, the colours of the wind. Ahh <sigh>

 

[champagne1982]

Ok though maybe I should not have used the term "global warming" but instead "climate change," which I think is a better description but as I said, I am a poet not a scientist! (I like saying that because it reminds me of this.)

And thanks for your comments over the years. They have always been appreciated.

I know that Bones is also not a magician... funny video and funnier ending. I admit, I LOL'd.
A List of Doctorisms >> Star Trek Minutiae

 

[Angeline]

I know that Bones is also not a magician... funny video and funnier ending. I admit, I LOL'd.
A List of Doctorisms >> Star Trek Minutiae

I am partial to "I'm a doctor, not an escalator." I may have to use it in a poem.

I'm a poet, not a ________________.

There's a challenge!

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

In one of your earlier poems (although you must have even earlier ones no longer listed) you bravely tackle politics with PDB (President's Daily Briefing). It is gentle, even innocuous by some standards and, although good, indicates how your writing has changed and grown in confidence.

What struck me was YUD's comment, can you remember your reaction to her comment and do you agree that poetry and politics shouldn't be mixed? As much as I admired and appreciated her comments this one surprised me.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Just when you felt it was safe....

Page 3 means......


The Proust 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?

 

[Angeline]

In one of your earlier poems (although you must have even earlier ones no longer listed) you bravely tackle politics with PDB (President's Daily Briefing). It is gentle, even innocuous by some standards and, although good, indicates how your writing has changed and grown in confidence.

What struck me was YUD's comment, can you remember your reaction to her comment and do you agree that poetry and politics shouldn't be mixed? As much as I admired and appreciated her comments this one surprised me.

I am sure that my initial reaction to YDD's comment was something along the lines of "I'll just sit here in the corner with a dunce hat on my head."

But the best thing about YDD, to me, was that she could make herself clear--and every point she makes is well taken--but she also finds good things to say and her voice is neutral. She was being critical but not judgmental. I'm sure she had a strong academic background in writing. I never knew her credentials but she was a gift to this place.

I think she was reacting to what she called "the invective." I don't even remember what news briefing incensed me enough to write that poem, but it is clearly written in anger. Like I said earlier, my poems can be conceived from the deepest emotions but need to be written from a certain emotional distance or all that comes through is the emotion and not the ideas. That imho is a real problem with PDB. The writing is not bad though it could be stripped down, but it isn't doing much beyond being sneery and angry. The idea got lost in it.

I choose to think she made that comment about politics and poetry because she reacted to the invective. Maybe she meant one should not be directly political. I wrote Soldiers a few weeks later because I was still trying to say what I felt when I wrote PDB and I wrote it in a calmer frame of mind. The use of the terzanelle form (which can sound like elegy) and the monuments standing in as a metaphor for an antiwar message worked better there, I thought. Maybe not, maybe it still comes across as too potitical to some. Btw, when I wrote it I was thinking of the Korean War Memorial in DC, which is a ghostly and moving monument.

 

[todski28]

Does a poem ever reverberate in your head until you get it down, or at least the bare bones of it down?

 

[theognis]

As I suspect deserts bloom and prairies tree over, then lakes turn into fertile soil. I feel like a Disney movie ... the circle of life, the colours of the wind. Ahh <sigh>

Optimist.

But it's all true. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Sahara

 

[Angeline]

The Proust Questionaire


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

I like where I am now, up in the mountains of Appalachia where the Blue Ridge and the Great Smokies meet. It's beautiful here. I do however miss being near an ocean, so maybe a nice villa on the Amalfi Coast surrounded by lemon and olive trees would do--you know for the winter months. Maybe even the Maine coast because I loved living there, but I would not do it without a heated garage and a big damn snowplow.

Oh and I would live in NYC (in a New York minute, as they say) but only if I could live somewhere great like a grand suite at the Plaza or some Upper West Side apartment in a pre-war building with a terrace and a view of Central Park.

• What is the best gift you’ve received?

My two kids. No question.

In terms of more conventional gifts, on my last birthday eagleyez surprised me with fireworks. That just delighted me. Does he have mad style or what?

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

I'd love to study drawing and painting though I don't know that I have any talent for it. My daughter thinks I do though...so maybe. I'd get a lot better at photography, too, if I had more time for it.

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

Hmmm. Flight or invisibility? How about invisible flight? And I would like to be able to instantly relieve people of pain and fear. That would be a great super power!

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

I would say sex with a conga player on a fire escape was pretty bold for me, even in my younger days. Still...je ne regrette rien.

• What was your most epic road trip?

The move from Maine to North Carolina was the most stressful because we drove down to find a house, drove back, stopping to see family in Jersey, and packed up everything and drove down there again. That was around 3K miles over a three week period. We were both just fried by the time it was over. I remember the day we moved in, we were so tired and our furniture was not arriving until the following day because of some snafu. We had our pillows and blankets in the car trunk and we took them out and passed out on the bedroom floor.

• What food brings back childhood memories?

Mostly Italian food because I grew up in an Italian neighborhood. Some of the best recipes I make now came from watching somebody's grandma make it and learning.

Every Friday night when I was a kid we had what was called a "dairy dinner." It's a Jewish thing. We'd have bananas cut up with sour cream and cheese blintzes with stewed fruit (tsimmes) or a noodle kugel. But the best part was seltzer from the old-fashioned squirt bottles (they used to deliver them, just like milk). We'd make our own sodas or egg creams. That was awesome!

• Which book most influenced your life?

Probably Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I first read it at school when I was 13. It was difficult to understand and Dickens does not write a short novel! But it was also wonderful to me, the way he wrote, how clear his observations were and how alive his characters felt when I read. I think it was the first time I really understood what great literature could be. When I went to college my concentration in literature was the Victorian novel and I did two years of independent studies on Dickens, so it was huge for me.

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

Live in the present. You can't forget the past or predict the future, but if you try to stay in the moment your perspective will be more real.

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

I guess I would choose an early summer day with my parents and sister and grandparents, just a normal summer day at that first little house we lived in. My grandfather and I had planted lilac bushes all along our back fence and I'd sit back in those bushes and read and the petals would be brushing me in the breeze and it smelled wonderful. I'd hear music coming from the house. I'd love just one of those days back.

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

Be strong. You can survive what's coming.

• What do you most admire in a man?

Intelligence, kindness and humor

• What do you most admire in a woman?

Same as for a man

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

beautiful, wonderful, amazing (I am prone to hyperbole)

• Who are your favourite writers?

Besides the poets I've mentioned, Dickens, John Irving, TC Boyle, Marge Piercy, Rohinton Mistry, Chaim Potok.

• Which artists do you most admire?

I love Marc Chagall, especially his stained glass work. I saw his America Windows at the Art Institute of Chicago and it was like walking into his world.

I also love black and white photography, especially the work of Alfred Stieglitz and the great jazz photographers like William P Gottlieb and Herman Leonard.

 

[Angeline]

Does a poem ever reverberate in your head until you get it down, or at least the bare bones of it down?

I think more about things I want to write about than actual poems though I may have a phrase or line stuck in my head that I build a poem around. But I never know where my ideas will go until I actually begin writing. Often, I will think I know what I'm going to say and something unexpected will come out and the poem will just move in a different direction, if that makes sense.

 

[todski28]

I think more about things I want to write about than actual poems though I may have a phrase or line stuck in my head that I build a poem around. But I never know where my ideas will go until I actually begin writing. Often, I will think I know what I'm going to say and something unexpected will come out and the poem will just move in a different direction, if that makes sense.

It does, must be a me at the moment thing haha,

In all of this word riddled, double meaninged sometimes mumbo jumbo, is there a particular phrase or metaphor that when you wrote it you say back and thought "where did that come from?

 

[Angeline]

It does, must be a me at the moment thing haha,

In all of this word riddled, double meaninged sometimes mumbo jumbo, is there a particular phrase or metaphor that when you wrote it you say back and thought "where did that come from?

I think so though often the whole poem is a surprise to me lol. Sometimes I think the reason I am so driven to write is that I often won't understand why I am feeling a particular way and then I'll see the answer in what I've written. I once wrote a poem called 1942 about the Warsaw ghetto, about children working there and I used two lines something like "they look at the Sun and see butter/at night all the stars are yellow." I realized afterward that I had said something about their hunger and the yellow stars, of course, were the Jewish stars they all had to wear. But the way those two lines reinforced each other and sort of saturated the poem was unexpected. Most of my maternal grandfather's family died in Poland during the war, so I think there was emotion about that coming out in the poem that I did not expect when I set out to write it.

 

[Angeline]

I'll be unsticking this thread tomorrow to make way for a new interview. I just wanted to thank everyone who asked questions or had kind words or just stopped in to say hello. And thank you to anyone who took the time to read. I appreciate all of it.

And many thanks to Tzara who was kind enough to suggest I do this interview and who put all that work into getting it started. I'm outing you as the good guy you are. So there!

s and s all around.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I'll be unsticking this thread tomorrow to make way for a new interview. ......snip/>

A reminder to all that, just because this thread is a non-sticky doesn't mean it's out of bounds. I know I'm not finished sith the question marks.

 

[Angeline]

A reminder to all that, just because this thread is a non-sticky doesn't mean it's out of bounds. I know I'm not finished sith the question marks.

I was worried I might get questions while I was trying to get the intro to the next interview finished, but I did, so fire away whenever. Feel free to bump this thread in six months and ask me whatever. I am resigned.

 

[Tzara]

I want to thank Angeline for her willingness to "do the Interview thing" and for her graciousness at how well she did it. And I would thank all of you poets for your interest in her and her poems. (I hope it doesn't cheapen it to say that I knew you'd love her work and have a lot of questions about it. And that she'd be open and gracious answering questions. And that I'm kind of saying "I" a lot, for which "I" apologize.)

Anyway. Thanks to one of our best poets for putting up with Tess's Proustian thing.

Feel free to fade away like Stardust, m'dear.

Though, I hope and know you won't.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Don't even suggest it, Lit without Angeline would be like soft boiled eggs without soldiers (now go and figure that one out, the Englanders will know what I mean)

 

[todski28]

Don't even suggest it, Lit without Angeline would be like soft boiled eggs without soldiers (now go and figure that one out, the Englanders will know what I mean)

Aussie get it too

 

[champagne1982]

Aussie get it too

So does the Canadian contingent.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Don't even suggest it, Lit without Angeline would be like soft boiled eggs without soldiers (now go and figure that one out, the Englanders will know what I mean)

....or toad in the hole without the toad.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Who from the past would you like to sit down and 'pick their brains'?