12.Question:Have you ever gone through a period of being blocked?
Yes, but I think blocked probably doesn’t describe it. Since my adolescence I’ve suffered from severe bouts of depression and post-traumatic stress, and I think the long periods when I’ve been unable to write are associated with that. I don’t get stuck, but I do sometimes abandon a poem or a story or a novel. I figure the characters will find their way back to me eventually. I also get downright discouraged owing to the oppressive commercialization of publishing. But I’m hardly alone in that malady. We tend to turn everything into a horse race. A writer writes a good book and some damn-fool reviewer asks if he will ever be able to do it again. Who cares, except the silly reviewer?
13.Question: Following the September 11th attack of 2001, there was a great deal of poetry and prose inspired by the tragedy. What are your thoughts about literature responding poetically to mass tragedy ? Can good poetry be written when there is an intense emotional attachment to an event?
I think good poetry can be written in almost any circumstance, maybe even under torture.
14.Question: Do you think that poetry and prose can play a role in healing what happened on 9/11?
Not all poetry is healing. Some is wounding. But I think healing poetry and prose does play a role not just in healing wounds, but in understanding why we are wounded. I think that the evolution of society towards greater compassion for each other depends on our artists, and that is one reason why the intense commercialization of writing and the other arts is tragic. If I had to name the single greatest deterrent to human progress I’d say it was greed.
15.Question: You are fairly well-known and well-published at this time in your life. Was there a time when you dealt with rejection and being ignored?What was that like for you? What are your frustrations now when it comes to publishing and reaching readers?
Without the Internet I’d be completely unknown. I don’t have the disposition or credentials to deal with a publishing world in which credentialism, networking and commerciality play such large roles. I write the way monastics pray. It’s a way of life, a life of prayer. But the task of becoming recognized is a nightmare to me. My wife Marilyn has put it very well. She says it’s like being shunted off to boarding school at age 5 without my stuffed bunny, which actually happened. I would also compare the process to getting molested and otherwise abused in boarding school. On the other hand, I enjoy meeting readers and reading my work and talking about it.
16.Question: What is your opinion of awards and accolades? What do they mean to you?Do they inspire writers to work harder?
I think they probably do inspire some writers to work harder. I think they’re inevitable, but I also think they’re not necessarily given to the most deserving. They’re an aspect of overheated commercialism in which everything is turned into a horse race, which serves as a metaphor for sales. The publishing industry knowingly passes off best-seller lists as measures of literary merit when they know perfectly well they’re measures of marketing success, and only that. I think the awards reflect society in general, and not just American society by any means. The real heroes are all around us and go unnoticed: the elderly facing death nobly, the homeless holding on poignantly to their human decency, all the little decencies that make life tolerable and go unrewarded and unnoted. What did it mean, for example, for the President to give a big award to George Tenet for not having the guts or sense of duty to tell us we were going to war on the basis of lies? I see people on the streets of Hudson, New York, every day who are more deserving of such a high honor.
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