The Next Big Thing: Interview With Howard Faerstein

What follows is a self-interview entitled “The Next Big Thing” that is making its way through the blogosphere. Every Wednesday, writers who have a recent or forthcoming book answer the following questions, post them on a blog somewhere, and tag five more writers to do the same the following Wednesday. This interview is of and by Howard Faerstein.

What is the working title of the book?

Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn is the title of my book.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to see my poems collected in a book…(Actually, I did have a chapbook published, my juvenalia, but that was 36 years ago.) I guess the question could be focused on where the idea for some/all of the poetry comes from, and to that I’d answer: from my life. There are poems about childhood, my parents, my living through the sixties, the jobs that I’ve had. There are political poems that were written in response to political events; poems of exile and return; poems of love and the end of love; poems evoked by the natural world, poems that attempt to paint every space of white on the canvas and those that focus on the tiny corner hidden by clouds.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a
 movie rendition?

Have they started making movies out of poetry collections? No one told me…damn. Well, most of the actors that come to mind are dead: Sal Mineo, W. C. Fields, Paul Newman, Harpo Marx…How about Pacino or DeNiro?

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Wrong question for a book of poetry, especially for one like mine that isn’t a “themed” work. Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn is collection of poems that come out of my experiences. It is one possible way of being & surviving as a human being in a beautiful, terrifying and absurd world, in this case, being Howie Faerstein who has lived for 65 years (and counting).

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I’ve been working on & revising the book for about a decade, maybe longer…Some poems go back at least that far while others were written over the past six months.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Gerald Stern, Michael Waters, Larry Levis, Allen Ginsberg, are some of the poets who have inspired me by their writing and by their teaching. Old rock & roll (doo wop even), the great jazz of the 1960s, and delta blues are other sources of inspiration. I’ve wanted to write the book for as long as I can remember…and I finally found a publisher willing to take it on.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

If you’re interested in reading poetry of place you’ll find works that are set in Brooklyn, the Berkshire Hills & Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, Taos & Santa Fe, New Mexico, Southwestern Colorado, to name a few of the many locations.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The book has been published by Press 53. (Check out their website: As of now it’s in the pre-order stage. I expect that it will be available in a few days…It can now be purchased on Amazon.com & Barnes & Noble.com…

And here’s a poem from the book—(originally published in Nimrod)

MISSIONARY RIDGE

On October Sundays
when we lived in Colorado
we'd drive to watch the osprey

in Vallecito,
to see if they'd left.
We'd pass the ridge

burned 2 years before,
buffalo & grama grass
rising toward somber foothills.

Under a Neanderthal moon
blackened pine lined the lake's rim
& the raptors flew on

both sides of the darkening road.
We weren't there for the fire,
we were in New Mexico

with its orange-furred bumblebees
& ring-tailed cats
in the ruthless Sandias.

It was a roaming time, my late 50s,
I was always thinking of other towns--
of Roanoke, its crepe myrtles

& I'd begun dreaming of the rain in Brooklyn
& the Italians
wrapping their fig trees in burlap

& a doctor at my daughter's birth
diagnosing an enzyme deficiency
he said would lead to retardation.

He was wrong,
but we spent a day in Bellevue
finding that out in a closet-sized room

filled with broken parents.
Months before Vallecito,
in the dining hall

by the Contoocook,
a phoebe flapped in panic
below the ceiling.

Its mate in a willow outside a window.
In the wildfire
the ospreys stayed with their chicks

as flames slapped at their tree.
I saw the charred
wingtips. Then

talons-first
they plunged
into water.

The Next Big Thing: Interview with Terry Lucas

What follows is a self-interview entitled “The Next Big Thing” that is making its way through the blogosphere. Every Wednesday, writers who have a recent or forthcoming book answer the following questions, post them on a blog somewhere, and tag five more writers to do the same the following Wednesday.

What is the working title of the book?

Altar Call. It is, however, published in a compilation anthology of four chapbooks entitled Diesel.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

This particular collection of poems did not emerge from an idea. Rather, the book itself came into being as an accretion of individual poems that adhered to one another after searching through five or six times the final number of poems that made the cut for the final draft.

The title, Altar Call, came last, after adding a “found poem” from a famous fundamental evangelist preacher’s fervent plea for sinners to come forward during an invitation service, typical of those I sat through in scores of revival meetings as a child. It was immediately apparent to me that I had not only found the proem to the manuscript, but the title to the collection, as well.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Lee Marvin is a pretty good approximation, both in physical stature and tone, for my father. The poem, “Lesson” begins with the lines “My father once broke a man’s tailbone / With the toe of his roach-killer boot / For having an American flag / Sewn on the seat of his jeans.” I can see Lee acting that out. My father was a man’s man—a heroic/tragic survivor of WWII who suffered from PTSD all of his life.

My mother would be a cross between Rosie the Riveter and the last of the Puritans—maybe an early Barbara Stanwyck.

The only actors who could “play” the roles of the preachers and evangelists in my poems would be the actual people from my childhood they are based on like Freddie Gage, Angel and Homer Martinez, “Little” George Havens.

As far as composites of childhood friends and family members—I have no idea.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Synopsis is not really the appropriate word choice for one sentence about a poetry collection; it suggests that plot is the most important element. In poetry, unlike in other genres, “language itself” is the answer to the question “what is it about?” I can share what the poet, Dorianne Laux, writes in her cover blurb:

"In Terry Lucas’s Altar Call we encounter not only the human spirit stripped bare, but also the spirit of language made resonant through an attention to and fascination with everyday details: a couple’s first night together in a motel bed, a boy’s first strained swim toward his father, the loud confessions of Christian believers filled with the spit and swagger of hell-fire preachers—A pilled woolen shawl, a limp blue glove, the gauzy smudge/of a palm on the cold back of a gray metal folding chair—these are some of the images that populate and haunt the peripheries of this syntactically acrobatic, passionately crafted chapbook." —Dorianne Laux, Raleigh, NC

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Some poems were written well over ten years prior to the most recent ones. They all went through an extensive revision process. The poems were collected in their final form and placed in their final order just a few days prior to submitting them for publication last fall.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I don’t resonate to the word inspiration, but my father, who was truly bigger than life, influenced many of the poems in this collection, as well as growing up in a pathological religion. I consider myself a victim of childhood post-traumatic, fundamental-religion disorder.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Hopefully, the lyricism, the humor, the horrific moments. Hopefully, the intersections with the ineffable in a geometry of survival.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Neither. The book is published by the San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival and will debut in their book fair and readings in West Covina, CA on February 15-17, 2013, and can be ordered here:
http://www.amazon.com/Diesel-Anthology-Gabriel-Literary-Festival/dp/0615755496/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:

Howie Faerstein, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, and Jenn Monroe, all of whose interviews will be posted on this blog,
and Ivy Page, who will post her interview on her own blog: http://www.poeticentanglement.com/blog/?p=168

Another Journal You Should Read

Here's another journal you need to read:

http://www.meadmagazine.org/Mead.html

Not only does Mead publish award-winning, as well as emerging, authors and poets, it's a fun place to hang out, have a virtual drink, and swap stories. Besides, one of my poet friends (Paul Scot August) has a new poem up you should check out ("Burnham's Island, Prairie Lake").

Stop by, put your feet up, throw one back, and enjoy the poems and stories.

Journals Under the Radar that You Will Want To Read

I'm revitalizing this blog. And what better way than by serving its faithful readers with links to journals somewhat under the radar (depending upon whose radar you are using), that you will want to read (and possibly submit to).

Here are five journals I've recently come across that publish excellent stories and poems--places I would be proud to see my work, that you probably won't find listed in Best American Poetry or Best American Short Stories--YET!

Organs of Vision and Speech Magazine http://ovsmag.com/

The Citron Review: http://thecitronreview.wordpress.com/

THIS Literary Magazine http://www.thiszine.org/

The Portland Review: http://portlandreview.org/

The Blue Lake Review http://bluelakereview.weebly.com/

ENJOY!

Trio House Press Contest Submission Period Now Open!

I can't believe it's been a year since Trio House Press opened its contest submission period. Now it's time again to submit to "The Trio Award" (for poets who have not published more than one full-length book) and/or to "The Louise Bogan Award" (for all poets writing in the English language--no matter how many books they have or have not published).

Here is the link to THP's website, with all of the guidelines and information you need in order to submit! http://triohousepress.org/

The judges this year are Mihaela Moscaliuc (Trio Award) and Joan Houlihan (Louise Bogan Award)--both fantastic poets in their own right.

And congratulations to our first two prize winners: Iris Dunkle (Trio Award) for "Gold Passage" and David Groff (Louise Bogan Award) for "Clay." Both books will be out around the first of the year.

Also, congratulations to Matt Mauch for his manuscript, "If You're Lucky Is A Theory Of Mine," selected by the editors of THP in the summer open submission period. Matt's book will be out soon, as well.

Ok, now let's get those manuscripts submitted!

Terry Lucas' New & Upcoming Work

In case any readers want to check out my work, I have new poems online in MiPOesias (Fall, 2012) and 200NewMexicoPoems.

In print, I have work in the current issues of New Mexico Poetry Review (Winter 2012), and Naugatuck River Review (Winter, 2012).

I also have upcoming work in Best New Poets 2012 (available December 6), Great River Review and Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, (both available Spring 2013).

A more complete listing of online work is available in my profile on my blog, "The Widening Spell" (http://www.thewideningspell.blogspot.com).

Thanks for all for your support!

Terry Lucas

Tassajara Writing Retreat

For the next four days I'll be at Tassajara Zen Center in the Carmel Valley. There's a poetry workshop in progress, but my domestic partner and I will be doing "our own thing" (without computer/cell phone access), which will consist of sitting in water, sitting in sun (hopefully), reading, writing, and the normal (depending upon the range of your bell curve) things romantic partners do on vacation in a secluded, wilderness retreat environment.

There are no electrical outlets in our rooms, so I will either have to write with pen/paper, or pay $10/night to have my computer charged up in the office. In case that system fails, I printed out lots of beginnings of poems to flesh out, as well as some completed drafts to edit. I also brought books by favorite poets/authors to prime the pump: Michael Waters, Alicia Ostriker, Michael Ryan, Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dawn McGuire--the latter, a new addition to the pantheon.

Mainly, I brought a new perspective, fueled by a fresh environment, 4 days of no responsibilities except to let my imagination rule--

I'll let you know how it went...