Hennessy on Hennessy, the showdown

Okay, so that heading is tongue in cheek! Let me explain….So as you may know, I've done my fair share of interviewing poets and writers.  Well, recently I took on a different kind of subject—myself.  On the occasion of Love-in-Idleness's publication, the kind folks over at The Nervous Breakdown asked me to take part in their signature feature, the self-interview.  The interviewer had to be the interviewee.  After an initial struggle at having to be in the 'hot seat' as it were, I realized, hey, it's just me.  And I had a blast doing it. It's not too long but I think it covers some important ground and, I hope, deepens any reading of my book.  Please read the self-interview here or here.

To get you interested, a few tastes:

"The world is a very dark place, full of sick (though maybe beautiful) boys who like to kill things. To run from accepting that is dangerous and intellectually and creatively lazy. I want the world I describe to reflect these things, to wonder about them, and to be troubled by desiring something that is so awful."

"When I write about sex, love, desire, I try to remember what the body felt like in moments of sex, love, desire. Then I try to bring my poetic imagination online and give that physical memory a kind of linguistic shimmer."

"If sex weren't dirty—"the animal spit of ejaculate"—we wouldn't need to find ways to make it beautiful. And the thrill would be gone."

And if you want to see my Press's update page, surf over here. They've added links to a review, this interview, and my video reading.  Thanks, BAP!

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