ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com

Poetic Profile

 

 

Chris Stroffolino

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

General Questions 

 

1. Where did you grow up? Was poetry and writing part of that mix?

 

Born in Reading, PA, (the ³Brewer² of Rabbit Run); stayed there until I was 23. Poetry was not really part of the mix until I was 18. I got into writing before I got into reading, and the writing wasnıt called poetry at first. There were two distinct forms of writing I did as a teenager. One was more public and satirical; we had an underground newspaper in high school, to some extent influenced by Mad Magazine, Monty Python and anticipating The Onion.

The second was more private; letters I wrote because I was too shy to talk to women I had crushes on. Turns out I was too shy to send them as well, but they did pave the way for many of the investigations I would later explore when I discovered poetry. In senior year of high school, a visiting ³poet in the school,² Louise Simons, brought in poets like Richard Brautigan, and even that only inspired parody in me. Rock music was much more important to me than the stuff teachers were force-feeding as poetry.  In college, however, I discovered  The Beats, WCW, Reading-native Wallace Stevens, OıHara and others, and by the time I left my hometown, poetry played a definite part in that mix.

 

 

2. Who are your poetic influences, favorite poets, writers, artwork, other things that inform your work?

 

Aside from those already mentioned, Ashbery was huge, as well Baraka, Brecht, Beckett, Handke, Tzara, Apollinaire, Laura (Riding) Jackson, Emily Dickinson, Carla Harryman, Bob Perelman, Tomaz Salamun, Rilke, Cesaire, Mayer, Notley, Vallejo, Pessoa, Gu Cheng, Bob Dylan, Corso, Creeley, Shelley, Shakespeare, Ovid, Koch,Myles, Marx, Adorno,  Cixous, cummings, Peret, Lawrence, Yau, David Shapiro, Bromige, Bishop, James Tate, Cesaire, Lispector, Whitman, Marianne  Moore, Mark E. Smith, Rodefer, Joe Strummer, Laura Nyro, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Richard Hell,Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard, Patti Smith, David Byrne, Carol Thomas Neely, Kafka, Clark Coolidge, Jean-Luc Godard,  Malcolm X, Alan Watts, Emerson  and others have all been important to me. Many friends and casual acquaintances  (regardless of whether they are writers) have been hugely important. Advertisements and other ³distractions² of mass media culture have been important without me having to do anything about it.

 

 

3. When did you ‘become’ a poet? When did poetry become part of your everyday life?

 

Itıs hard to pin a particular "once and for all" date, in part because there's been many times when Iıve "unbecome a poet" as well, but probably when I was 23 and had just received my B.A. and realized that as an "adult" in our society you were supposed to specialize, and that the identity of "poet" seemed a way to specialize without having to be pinned-down. It was at that time that I got into a Creative Writing master's program, which allowed me to "buy time" for a few years. Later I lived in an anarchist squat which also allowed me to "buy time" so that from the ages of 23-33 I pretty much lived, breathed, ate, and drank poetry. Since that time, due to other factors (such as economics and health), I have tried to temper such obsessive involvement. You may be familiar with the story if you've ever known anybody (or perhaps been one yourself) who is so passionate about poetry, and has even developed  a reputation as one of the best young American poets, but whose life in almost every other way is falling apart, or barely holding together‹not that trying to wean oneself from poetry will necessarily make the other things come together, but like any addiction, one feels one must at least make the effort to re-envision such relationships between "life" and "art".

 

  

 

4. Where were you educated? Was this important?

 

Although Iıve tried to not let school get in the way of my real education, I sure spent a lot of time in institutes of "higher" education (Temple Univ. M.A. 1988; SUNY-Albany , Ph.D, 1998) and I suppose it was important that these were not IVY league schools, and thus I didn't make "connections" there. I frankly wasn't all that aware of the hierarchies of higher education. I "choose Temple", in part because it was a ticket to the big city, Philadelphia, where I was able to partake in the largely African American "open mic" scene (this was before slams) and, later, "graduate" from an anarchist  squat. To me those experiences were more important in terms of my education, though college did allow me some relative autonomy to

read many books on my own apart from the required curriculum.

 

 

 

5. You are a poet who has always been associated with visual art is this important in your work?

 

Not as much as music, but there have been times where the language of art criticism has inspired me, in part because it's fascinating how large the discrepancy between the the visual image and the words employed so eloquently to "describe" it is. I'm still searching for visual artists to collaborate with, and am a big fan of O'Hara's collaborations with painters, as well as Coolidgeıs with Guston.

 

 

 

6) What is your favorite food?

 

Probably water. Gosh, I have a big problem with food, especially now as I've gained too much weight after an severe knee injury.  Cigarettes and coffee can be great dietary aids, but I've lapsed into various junk from fast-food meat to chocolate. I'm planning to go on a fast very soon, and get back into the ricecakes, fruit, tabouli, and lots of water, and then to reward myself once a month with a pepper and onion steak in the Philly style (sans cheese, as Iıve become lactose intolerant). My body felt better during the times when this was my routine, but the desperate convenience store-trained tastebuds have turned tyrant once again.

 

  

 

7) Sports team or Activity?

 

In the NFL (the one mass-media sport Iıve become most passionate about), The NY JETS, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES, NEW ORLEANS SAINTS are the top three. I'm often an "underdog" guy; so in baseball "anybody but the Yankees"; I've been known to especially pull for the Phillies, Mets, As and Red Sox in recent years. I tend to listen to sports while walking (back when I could walk) or riding the bike it kind of kills two birds with one stone; like "can I make it to that traffic light by the time they walk Barry Bonds".

 

  

8) Vacation spot.

 

 A little plot of land, often called a park, preferably very close to where I live. I donıt travel much (though I've lived in quite a few places, so that in a sense I never get to feel at ³home² anywhere, which might have as many disadvantages as advantages), though I like "working vacations" like doing poetry readings or rock and performances.  Since most of my closest friends are scattered around the country, and increasingly, the globe, places where they are New Orleans (Brett Evans), Vancouver (Clint Burnham), NYC (too many to mention), greater Nashville area. Etc. Oh, last time I was in CHICAGO I had a blast!

 

 

 

 

9) Curse word.

 

Corporate(?)

 

 

 

Craft Questions

  

 

1) How do you form a poem? Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?

 

Each poem is formed somewhat differently. Usually when I write, I try to tell myself, I'm starting from a "pre-genre" place and let it go where it will; sometimes it turns out to be something recognizable *(well, by some) as a poem (if not exactly "verse"), sometimes it turns into essayistic prose, or a "journal entry," sometimes even a "song lyric". The process is probably more organic than synthetic, although perhaps one can't be one without the other i.e. I'm fascinated by seeing any piece of writing (whether my own or others) from both perspectives. If a writer tells me that their work is primarily CONSTRUCTIVIST and  has little or no EXPRESSIVE element, I tend to look for and find it. Conversely, if a writer says there work is a transparent expression of their soul or self-creation, I try to look at ways in which that work can be seen as more synthetic, constructivist, and  even somewhat mechanical. I tend to read myself as I'm writing, and so the organic process may seem less organic to one who considers the second-guessings of self-consciousness a kind of corrupting influence and sometimes I see that as the case, but other times  I distrust the binary dichotomy as too simplistic  and even in bad faith.

 

 

 

2. Where do you write? Is ambience important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write? 

 

I often tend to write better on days when I don't have to work that much, and after I've exercised and "sun worshipped".  An inspiring conversation or letter correspondence can help, as can coffee or pot. Cigs are often involved; the few times in my life I've quit cigarettes I've often had to slow down or stop writing. On rarer occasions, I can write right after I've woken up (I'd like to do more of that). Often writing keeps me up very late at night. I write in a notebook usually first, and then, sometimes later, type it up. I like writing outside, but donıt do that enough (it's March; if you ask me that question in September I'll probably have a different answer). Ambience is very important, but there are so many factors involved that it's hard to prescribe any formula.  Essayistic  prose (cultural criticism and the like) is a little easier to write when I'm overworked than poetry is.

 

 

 

3. In the balance between found language and created language where does you work fall?

 

Probably too much on the "found language" side for some and too much on the "created language" for others. The "chance operation" often associated with Jackson MacLow has never been very fruitful or satisfying for me aside from an exercise to get the juices flowing. That being said, however, I have taught creative writing classes that encourage people to open up their language energies by forcing them to do cut-ups or use the limited vocabulary of magnetic poetry boards. On another level, however, one could say that all language is found, insofar as even the quirkiest of us would not be able to communicate without having imitated. I'm very sensitive to the aphorisms, buzzwords, and clichés that are in common circulation, and tend to embrace them (the better to explode them?).