Victoria A. Hudson's Blog, page 20

Three by Five Presents Daniel Shapiro, Part II

“Write Only What you Can Write.”

VAH – Daniel, when did you know you were a writer and what got you there?

DAS – I have known I was a writer since high school, but I didn’t start writing poetry seriously until about 15 years later. I had considered myself a music critic; I wanted to be the next Lester Bangs or Robert Christgau. Eventually, I wrote professionally as a journalist and advertising copywriter, and my experiences in those media have informed my poetry. When I was writing advertising blurbs for a catalog company, a couple of my co-workers were poets, and they would exchange poems with each other across cubicles. It was a sort of bonding experience, so I started participating in that and haven’t stopped writing poems since.

VAH – You have several chapbooks and a book – what is your best advice for emerging writers?

DAS – The only advice I can think of is that the best way to fit in is to acknowledge that you don’t fit in. Write what only you can write. Don’t tell people what you think they want to hear. If you’re a reality-show-loving Samoan with a scholarship to play the tuba, write about reality shows, Samoa, and tubas. No one else can do that! If you are that person and you decide to write about trees in autumn, ocean surf, your dying grandmother, and/or a difficult break-up, I will fly to Samoa and smack you with a stick made from the tree you wrote that poem about.

VAH – Many entering writing explore the idea of the Master of Fine Arts degree in writing – any thoughts?

DAS – I do not have an MFA. I am neither for nor against MFAs.

VAH – Writers write, read and seem to travel to where other writers gather – Do you have a favorite conference or writing retreat or seminar and what makes that one worth your while?

DAS – I have attended the AWP conference a couple of times and have loved it. It is a lot of fun to stalk your heroes, meet online friends in person, read poems aloud in places you’ve never been, meet the editors who have accepted your work, and hear poems you’ve admired for years read by their creators. It’s expensive, but it’s hard to put a dollar value on its overall positive effect. I plan to keep going.

VAH – What supports you so you may continue writing?

DAS – I am a special education teacher. When I tell people this, some of them say, “Bless your heart.” My job can be difficult, but it’s not the sort of thing you would see on “American Horror Story.” If any of the work weighs on me, I turn the weight into a poem, but usually I keep my career and writing separate.

Later in the month – Parts III and four of Three by Five’s presentation of Daniel Shapiro.

(Part I - Daniel discusses favorite literary characters, influences, his first creative piece of writing and why he writes.)

Pulitzer Remix Day Thirteen

Found in the story The Bleeding Heart, on pages 164-165 was the poem Household Mystery.

I departed from the basic form of the preceding poems in the project which all make use of line pairs, each stanza with an even number of lines, even when the stanzas themselves have a different number of lines. Household Mystery was the first poem in this series that did not use line pairs, but moved to stanzas each with three lines.

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix Day Twelve

Another poem delving into mortality and self. Conjecture was found on pages 154-155, within the story The Bleeding Heart. 

 

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix Day Eleven

Mortality is a timeless, classic plot line. The found poem The Moment was sourced from pages 1444-145 and the story A Country Love Story. 

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix Day Ten

Worlds Away is a mother’s reflection. Drawn from pages 136-137 and the story A Country Love Story.

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix Day Nine

Once away, sometimes we just want to return home to mom, even if just for a little while. From the story Polite Conversation, pages 124-125, the poem Mother was sourced. 

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix Day Eight

Today’s installment of Found Poetry for the Pulitzer Remix project is entitled Playtime. The source story for this poem was The Hope Chest, pages 116-117 of the The Collected Stores of Jean Stafford. 

Just to recap – found poems look at existing text and then remix the words, producing an entirely new work. Consider the source text as a finite pool or bucket of words (resource) and the poet crafting the poem has the task to create something from only the resources at hand.

For my found poems in this project, all words come from the source. The only occasional exception is the title, which sometimes is also drawn from the source text but sometimes, like the poem itself, is a new reflection of the piece.

Pulitzer Remix is a project of the Found Poetry Review.

Pulitzer Remix Day Seven

Today’s poem entitled Confession reminds us that destiny is not ours alone. Also sourced from the story Life is No Abyss, pages 106-107. 

Pulitzer Remix Day Six

The found Poem Unyielding explores mortality, sourced from pages 94-95 and the story Life is No Abyss. 

Pulitzer Remix Day Five

Today’s found poem is entitled Dinner. The story Caveat Emptor is the source text, pages 82-83. Food is such an intimacy when shared.