Interview with Ralph Angel and Adela Najarro’s Advanced Poetry Writing Class at Western Michican University

Betsey: Welcome to the Sarabande in Education Chatroom everyone. I work here at Sarabande, and will be moderating... just sort of keeping an eye on the time, etc. Let's get started!

Adela: THis question is from Paul: How do you know when to attach or detach your personal life to poetry?

ralph: after a while, poetry becomes a way of life. there is no detachment, for better or worse. i do distinguish, however, between public and private reality. very different realities, in fact.

Adela: What do you mean by public and private reality?

ralph: i'm either in the material world, teaching, giving readings, doing book-signings, talking to the vice president of my university, or i'm alone, at home or with friends, or hanging out here, in my study--that kind of thing.

Adela: Do you write about both areas? The university and the friends... Is there some kind of fusion?

ralph: a good question. a difficult question. a poet has only two tools with which to work: the language in which one composes and the fact of one's experience. so, yes, both worlds (the public and the private) inform my poems.

scott: Hey Ralph. My name is Billy. Revisions for me are a bitch. I find it hard to take stuff out that I enjoy and expand upon things I thought were clear. How do you approach revisions...

ralph: each poet approaches revision differently, and my own approach continues to change and evolve and keep changing. the important thing is one's orientation to and rapport with language--how one hears it, and, in that way, experiences it--and, as well, the desire to make contact with a potential reader. one aspires to create presence, and one has to achieve a kind of clarity of expression to make that possible. and by clarity, i don't mean only logical, rationable or even reasonable clarity necessarily. but the "fact" on one's experience must be clear, must become a world unto itself, in hope that it might spin a reader or listener into his or her own world. and that's the reason why we revise, to satisfy our own relationship to language and expression, and to make contact with other human beings.

nina: This is my question, Ralph. What is your favorite poem that you wrote? As in, What best describes your writing style, past, just you as a person? Please, give me a specific title!!! By the way Ralph, we are hanging on your every word. Really.

ralph: can't answer that one, honestly. when i look back, which is usually when i'm asked to read publically, i tend to see my work as the best i could do at the time. but other people are quick (and kind enough) to tell me constantly which poem or poems or book is their favorite. that's enough for me.

nina: If we were in your poetry class what intellectual thought would you hand down to us to become a part of our poetry repertoire?

ralph: read read read. write write write. actually, faulkner said that.

Adela: Angela's favorite poem in Twice Removed is Late for Work. Is the setting of that poem a coffee shop or a car?

ralph: thanks, angela. i think it's both a car and a coffee shop. and all sorts of external/internal parts of being, i suppose. but if that poem speaks to you in some way, please trust your own experience of it, and the way it spins you into your own reality.

Caitlin: How does teaching workshops effect you? Do you find yourself learning from your students and their writing?

ralph: absolutely. their need to express themselves creatively, their humanness, their own quirky relationships to language and what it is to be alive are reasons to work hard for them and be there for them. it can be wonderfully inspiring at times.

scott: i find a lot of poetry to be ambiguous as to any sort of concrete meaning. Do we have to give away everything?

ralph: parts of life are ambiguous, some times ineffable, even unspeakable. a lot of life experience, if we get honest with ourselves, makes little rational sense. be we must aspire to clarity, to making human contact. so it's not about giving everything away. it's about finding a language that might depict the absolute fact of one's reality, of whatever one is writing about.

Adela: We've been reading your poems while you respond, and we noticed that your poems capture the little moments and don't have one fixed meaning. Adam wants to know Shouldn't poetry have a fixed meaning?

ralph: a poet must shoulder the responsibilty for his or her work, so one tries to eliminate certain possible conveyances. if one is not a racist, for example, one doesn't want to allow for a racist interpretation of a given poem. but a poem means different things to different people because people are different, their unique experience of life is different. and that's cool, our diffenrence.

Kelli: Is it difficult to become an established poet by writing spontaneous poetry?

Kelli: Is it difficult to become an established poet by writing spontaneous poetry?

ralph: no matter what kind of poetry you make, it's difficult to get one's work into the world, much less find oneself established there. i'm a fortunate, very fortunate, person.

Kelli: Is it difficult to become an established poet by writing spontaneous poetry?

Adela: Kelli's question is a computer glich

scott: If the reader can have several interpretations of your poems do you take into consideration all there interpretations or do you have one specific meaning.

ralph: i try to hear a language that might make it possible for a reader to enter and feel present in the world of the world of the poem. if a reader is engaged, if he or she feels present, the poem will spin the reader into his or her own imagination, his or her own internal reality, his or her own world. my job, in part, is to make human presence possible.

Jackie: Do you have any advice for beginning poets on how to keep organized? Do you keep separate files for each poem? Or do you group poems by subject?

ralph: i've just been busted--every other room in this house is airy and spare and tidy, but this room, well, it is testament to how disorganized i can be. you're all invited to take a peep someday. Thu Mar 21, 2002 12:40 pm
Caitlin: What do you do to overcome writer's block?

ralph: there's no such thing. poetry is a way of life, like eating or sleeping or taking a walk. i'm either in my trance putting words to paper, or not. i don't much distinguish among the two. but while i'm in my trance, when i stop myself or grow impatient or know that i'm not hearing language in a pure way, well, i will tell you that i'm known to break up some furniture or to seriously consider killing something.

Kelli: I'm an art major and sometimes when I'm working with ceramics, there's a motion to the work itself, which makes me feel like I'm putting myself into the art. So, what I'm asking is, do you write according to a rythm you have physically or mentally with the emotion attached to that particular piece?

Kelli: I'm an art major and sometimes when I'm working with ceramics, there's a motion to the work itself, which makes me feel like I'm putting myself into the art. So, what I'm asking is, do you write according to a rythm you have physically or mentally with the emotion attached to that particular piece?

ralph: you're right there, kelli, and you've made an important discovery about making any kind of art object. intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, it all unfolds into the rhythm of being and working.

Kelli: In poetry can you put too much emotion into your work?

Betsey: Just a heads up that we have about ten minutes left.

ralph: human emotion is human emotion. there is an organic place for it in poetry. federico garcia lorca's poems might be a good example of how intense emotion can find its language.

Caitlin: what poets have influenced you the most? What do you take away from these poets and their words?

ralph: an impossible question to answer, unfortunately. but i can say that in the early days, in my middle twenties, i was influenced and inspired by creative expression itself. painting, music, fiction, film, theatre, so many incredible, life-altering artists. the first poets that influenced me were dickinson and stevens--they validated, in part, my youthful intellect, which needed validating at the time.

Kelli: Is it always necessary to revise emotional based, spontaneous poetry? Can it be harmful to the moment and the language it self?


Kelli: Is it always necessary to revise emotional based, spontaneous poetry? Can it be harmful to the moment and the language it self?

Betsey: Four minutes left..we should start saying our goodbyes in just a bit.

Adela: Yes, Kelli's question is the last one planned.

ralph: probably. i've only made one poem that came out in a fell swoop and was published in a book just as it came out. win $100. find that poem.

Adela: Thanks for the chat!!!!!

Kelli: thanks!

Caitlin: bye. thank you

Jackie: Thank you for taking time out to talk to us. It was very informative. :)

Andrew: Yes, much appreciation.

Betsey: Thanks Everybody, and Take Care! I'll e-mail a transcript to all those who registered.

scott: Thanks

ralph: and thank you all. it was a pleasure chatting with you. all best. be well. hang in.