All in his Stride
(Poet, Amatortisero Ede in conversation with Poet and dramatist, David O’Meara)
Amatoritsero Ede: Welcome to MTLS’ interview series, David. Would you describe yourself as a critic apart from being a poet? I ask because your “Dangerous Words: Don Domanski and Metaphor” in the Northern Review of Poetry is an incisive analysis of a particular poet’s language use.
David O’Meara: No, I don’t think I could say I’m a critic. That term should be used for someone who is regularly engaged in publicly describing and judging an art. There have been times when I wrote, and write, critical discussions of someone’s work, but it’s very irregular because I find the whole process time-consuming and agonizing. It’s floated around in the back of my mind for a while to write some kind of critical essay collection at some point, but I also feel processing and forming thoughts on poetry is a lifetime’s work, so I’m in no rush.
A.E.: In the journal, Lemon Hound, Ken Babstock remarks upon how your work is enriched by a wide reading in World Literature. Could you please elaborate on these influences?
D.O.: I can only guess what Ken may have meant. But I try to read everything I can get my hands on, in English and translation. The voices are there, tones you can lean on if your own instincts fail. You can’t write in an empty hole. In some ways, your poems are a response to all the poems you’ve read. You are in a conversation with every response to others’ experience. Tall order. So it always completely baffles me when a younger poet, a student maybe, claims they don’t read much poetry. If this is the case, they are doomed to repeat the bad poetry they are already writing. No indifference created anything worthwhile. You have to be completely horny and voracious for diction. You have to be a vampire and pervert for metaphor.
A.E.: The Babstock article was focused specifically on a poem, “Field-Crossing” from your first collection, Storm Still (1999). You have had two more collections after that and there is a new one that just came out this year. In your own observation in what ways have you grown from the first collection to the newly released, A Pretty Sight, published in September 2013.
D.O.: I’m much harder on the poems. I hoard them more, agonize over them, loathe my failures of imagination more profoundly. I’m more aware, so have to battle my mis-steps with greater urgency. I’m trying. I think I’m getting better at making the craft sound uncrafted. That’s where I want to go. Working through draft after draft to sound like there’s been no drafts, like it just fell on the page. I’ve written a number of poems in strict rhyme, then broke the lines down, changed words so the form is gone. But so the music might haunt the cadence. It’s a lot of work to sound like there’s no work involved.
A.E.: We had a conversation in 2006 while I still edited Sentinel online poetry journal. I remarked on what you described as the “ambulatory” pace and tone in your work; that was specific to The Vicinity. Is this evident in A Pretty Sight?
D.O.: It really depends on the poem. The effect you are looking for is controlled by the tone, diction, pace, etc. So it seemed necessary in The Vicinity to have a walking tone, a looseness, a conversational rhythm, due to the subject matter. In the new book, each poem occupies varied rooms of purpose. Sometimes it’s myth-like, sometimes it’s novelesque. Sometimes the lyric follows an idea rather than a narrative. There are some pieces that address people, real or imagined, and the voice has to suit. The way you will talk to your sister utilizes a very different diction and formality than if you were talking to the King of Spain. If you break the decorum, it can be comic. If that’s deliberate, great, but you always have to be aware of the effect of your word choices on the reader.
A.E.: You have written a play, Disaster. What was that experience like compared to the poetic craft? Are we likely to read more dramatic pieces from you?
D.O.: Writing for theatre is so much more collaborative and social. You actually show unfinished drafts to people, from a few scenes to more completed script. And then the director and actors read through it and question you on consistency of character, the flow of the scenes etc. The actors can actually enter your characters and end up telling you things about them that you didn’t really realize. “Would I really say this? I don’t think I’d get that angry.” Those kinds of things. It’s a frightening and revelatory situation. Writing dialogue can fun, but it takes a dab hand to create situations that don’t overplay the emotion or shifts in consciousness your characters undergo. Writing good theatre is a challenge and I hope to continue to do it, though it scares the hell out of me.
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