As a reader, I'm drawn to the villanelle for its song-like qualities. This could well derive from my background in music.

When rendered just right, it seems to me that the villanelle form has all the impact of incantation, with a strange momentum, or power, gathering relentlessly across stanzas, a kind of call-and-response, which rises above mere refrain. I remember the first villanelle that really blew me away: "The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field." At the time I experienced the poem, I wasn't even aware it was a villanelle; yet here was a piece of writing that completely spoke to me:  

      "... I've left more wreckage than a quake / Isn't it wrong the way the mind moves back? ..."

No doubt. Thank you, Mr. Hugo.

As a writer, I find the villanelle a real challenge: The kick is to make something new while still following the rules (albeit loosely, as is the case with the Hugo poem.) When it comes off right, I suppose it's about as close to pure lyric-writing as I ever get.

 

I studied music in college. Later I became a bassist, performing in the club circuit around Portland Oregon in the 80's and 90's. Mostly Top 40, R&B. Classic rock.

I guess you could say I was a fair-to-middling bass player, and for a time was able to make a marginal living, playing in nightclubs. I was a frustrated lyricist, too: always trying to write songs back then. Chasing the brass ring. Now, I settle for ghazals and villanelles! Plus I still play a little bass and acoustic guitar, for my own enjoyment. I've always loved music. It's in the blood, both blessing and curse. Like poetry.

It's pretty mysterious to me, the way a poem arrives. More often than not I'm working from an image, or feeling, and the process is simply fragmentary at first. A line might come through, but no other clues. Sometimes a narrative can coalesce purely out of intuition, imagination and rhythm. It's a matter of staying out of the way of the flow, at first, until a draft is arrived at. At that point the critical faculties can certainly come into play. I'm a huge fan of Stephen Dobyns. His narrative poems are especially amazing. So memorable, and influential. I like to imagine his process as being similarly intuitive.

It has been the case that I've made poems out real life: either stuff that's happened to me, or that I read about, or see. But this "outside-in" process is the exception to the rule, for me. At this point in my development, anyway.

 

I remember writing a poem when I was 15, a shameless knock-off of the motif employed by John Fogerty in the CCR song "Someday Never Comes." It was a saccharine "sins of the father" sort of ballad, and I remember showing the poem to a few girls (who gave rave reviews!) not realizing right away that I'd "borrowed" pretty heavily from Mr. Fogerty! I think I tried to claim a kind of "artistic synchronicity." The cosmic genius of coincidence. ;)  Ah, kids.

In terms of my mature stuff, I like the poem "Abduction," first published in Rumble Magazine, and also a more recent effort called "Doctor Dre In Passing Bedside Manor," appearing over at The Nervous Breakdown. In these verses, I'm more or less successful at marrying emotion with mystery, in unexpected ways.

Also I'm quite partial to the poem "Billy, Ray and Melvin Have Their Say" because it appeared in the inaugural issue of Frigg Magazine; and through it, I met my friends Ellen Parker and Sean Farragher.

 

Not necessarily a particular style; but a voice, certainly. An original voice is the one quality that standout submissions always have in common. When the writing seems to "jump off the page," it does feel to me, as a reader, like a tap on the shoulder, as you mentioned: It's the old "I know it when I see it" effect. As opposed to "I've seen it before." Reading the slush, as you know, can be wearying; but also rewarding, when you come across unique and engaging work which you feel is good enough to be sent "up the chain" for further consideration.

Of course, Ellen and Sean have the final say, on what gets into the magazine. Sometimes their tastes are totally in line with mine. And sometimes not! It reminds me, as a writer, just how hard it is to publish anything. ;)  This insight has led me to be a bit more patient, in terms sitting on work. Revising it.  And being more selective as to what I do send out.

 

 

Hope is accommodation

an hour before the dawn is long:

I have my reservations.

 

Past sorrow and constellations

of dog stars, homeless throngs

know hope is an accommodation

 

arrived at by echolocation

flashing neon arrows, whale song:

So long, I've had my reservations.

 

Prayer is a pure negotiation

with angels in the right, so headstrong

touting hope as an accommodation

 

to replace stroke: tintinnabulation

of one billion clocks stopped by a gong

of long-held reservations.

 

In a blazing motel of confabulation

one vacancy: it's been here all along

though I've had my reservations,

hope is an accommodation.

 

 

It was a few minutes before dark

when the electric can opener mishap

cut off his buzz, hacked into the wrist

of Ralph. Red rivulets and spatter,

an arterial fountain he stared at

as if dumbfounded to read time

inside out, a Fellini in his own newsreel

miming about absurdity. He waved

 

as if to shoo it away; his curses bled

instead, a din into pallor, the truest kind

of babble: "Oh it's the quicker picker

upper mother fucker quicker

upper..." Ralph shaking off

 

the wine, running a roll of paper towels

which he pressed as Thalidomide into

the underbelly of a trout, yet quickly

darkening, the dangling

 

fin he clutched as a bridesmaid's bouquet

muttering "it's gone to be okay, it's gone

to be..." Ralph reached for a cell, any bloody

thing, hopped around on a Pogo stick of rising

shock; he stared out the kitchen window

 

at a luminescent strip of cul de sac

sidewalk, chalk-white and pole axed

til a paramedic came, and talked to Ralph

in a calm tourniquet of Spanish that even

shame could understand: "Sir you've lost

a lot of blood I need you to hold your head

up now oh my god how the fuck did you

manage this?"

 

The medic's voice, only in some

fantastical translation from the foot of a gurney,

and a doughnut hole of mush where the face

ought to be, incinerated pixels used by TV

censors to preserve identity. "It's so good

to meet you too," slurred Ralph, going

 

south, no clue, waving with his brain

while one hand clutched the other boo boo

wrist; some incipient Latin came to him

tart-sweet as sacramental Gallo burgundy he

remembered topping off a glass, "Just a splash,"

he said before starting in on the can of beets

pushing, then leaning on the tin lip that wouldn't

cooperate. He'd only wanted to whip up

something quick to eat before the

 

befuddlement, and rust mist inevitable as any

mayhem. "Hold it like I showed you sir," the

corpsman said in urgent Sicilian, "pressure

between your legs stay with me understand?"

Moments later, high above his sight in the meat

cathedral van, a clean recessed light sang in

perfect time with a siren, darkness and steel

belted radial thrum. Ralph heard them

 

come, so many tongues that for once in his

life he was not perplexed, knowing they arrive

only to beckon, with plain, succinct and sober

directions, repetitious across

spheres while other human fools deign

to drive. Closing down his eyes, Ralph

listened, intent on the light, wanting

in his soul to get this

one thing right.