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Poetic Profile

Devin Johnston 

General Questions

1) Where were you born and what was your formation?

I was born in Canton, New York, quite close to the border of Canada; but I lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina from the age of two, so that’s the home to which I return. As Winstons and Salems would suggest, it’s also the home of R.J. Reynolds tobacco and Hanes Mill, cigarettes and underwear. The smell of tobacco processing – a sweet earthy odor on hazy or cloudy days – remains indelible. I recall the city as a generous place in some respects, with the Appalachian foothills beginning some forty miles west (Pilot Mountain most visibly), as well as clear strains of local music and art. Winston-Salem bore no relation to larger cities, with Washington and Nashville and Atlanta too distant to enter my consciousness. Much remained inaccessible, but little was thrust on us.

2) What are your poetic influences?

From early on I wanted to write clear compressed lyrics, and those who have done so well remain models for me. To pick just one example, I encountered the Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats fairly young. His off-rhymes, in particular, stuck with me, offering tonal shades I hadn’t found elsewhere.

3) When did you realize you were a poet?

I began to write with some determination in high school, though mostly in “notes” rather than poems per se (scribbles in pocket notebooks, a sort of pleasurable feedback). Long after I had committed myself to writing poems – having abandoned the possibility of doing much else - I still resisted calling myself a poet (not wanting to be anything in particular, and because the identification can sometimes be mildly embarrassing). I have since accepted it as an inevitability.

4) How is Devin the editor different than Devin the poet?

Most of the work I do for Flood Editions requires organization, regular habits, and some entrepreneurial energy. Those are not (or should not be) requirements for a poet. The editor in me gets up early and works late, sober and industrious; the poet says “I prefer not to.”

5) Favorite team or sport?

I am a mild and inattentive sports fan, but I do watch college basketball finals and some baseball as background to my summers (the St Louis Cardinals).

6) Food?

My last meal might include parsnips, some native pear, Hog Island oysters, fried walleye, and a glass of beer.

7) Vacation Spot?

I like to see new places or else old friends – it could be anywhere, really.

8) Swear word?

Though I don’t swear all the time, I like them all (“fuck” always has a reliable weight to it). As Mark Twain said, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

9) Are you working on a book?

Yes, I am finishing a new book of poems.

Craft Questions

1) How do you write a poem?

A poem usually begins with a phrase or image or idea, something I roll around in my head. My greatest sustained concentration comes with walking – to and from work, or walking the dog to the park. That’s when a poem starts to unfurl. Only after I have a sense of its shape do I put words to paper.

2) Is poetry a synthetic or organic process for you?

I would say organic, in that I rarely know where I am going at the start. But once underway, I sometimes decide to be consistent (in a stanza, meter, rhyme, et cetera).

3) Where do you write? Is ambience important for you?

Circumstance would not prevent me from starting a poem (they start anywhere, often sparked by a new place or experience). I do need a little quiet to finish poems, I find.

4) Do you use sources?

I only use sources – in terms of books on my desk – when I am translating. Occasionally a snippet of poetry or prose starts a tune in my head, but it usually gets forgotten and left behind as the poem develops.

Links:

http://www.omnidawn.com/johnston/index.htm

http://www.paperbarkpress.com/catalogue/Telepathy.htm