ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com
Poetic Profile
David Baratier 
General Questions
1) Where did you grow up? Was poetry and writing part of that mix?
I grew up in America as part of the first generation to survive corporate downsizing, the crack epidemic and all of the fallout caused by it. Writing became a part of this mix because I found out there was another option for my life besides selling drugs or flipping burgers.
2) Who are your poetic influences, favorite poets, writers, artwork, other
things that inform your work?
I don’t know, it’s such a loaded question, so many to choose. So far, the most important American poets from the last century are Paul Blackburn, Lorine Niedecker, Muriel Rukeyser and Kenneth Patchen. From elsewhere I would add Aleixandre, Peret and Neruda. I mention all of these names with reservations as there may be more, I think there are many writers out there who are living or have passed recently whose scope of work is currently unavailable. Like Carroll Arnett, an author who I have been fortunate enough to read all of his work in preparation for our Collected, but with the exception of Joe Bruchac and Geary Hobson, other poets are not aware of his full significance. In addition to those previously mentioned, other heavy influences are Blake, Sidney, Shakespeare, Riding Jackson, Rukeyser, Mallarme, Dorn, both of the Brownings, James Wright, Wieners, Anonymous, Berryman, Bronk. Of those who are still alive who I’ve had limited personal contact with: Bill Knott, Jack Gilbert, Lucille Clifton, Anselm Hollo, Gerritt Lansing. The rest are people who I have published, done collaborations with, been close to or am in correspondence with. For criticism: Susan Stewart, Pound, John Clarke (From Feathers to Iron) Ron Silliman’s Blog experiment & Ted Berrigan’s interview books. Biography is Tom Clark, Olson’s life would have been unreadable otherwise. Fiction: Momaday, Silko, Colson Whitehead, Pynchon, James Baldwin. The primary artist used to be Francis Bacon, but I suppose now it is the active visual poets like John M. Bennett, Karl Kempton, Ficus Strangulensis, Jesse Glass. Most of what informs my work is having a crappy life for a few decades and using writing to laugh like hell for the duration.
3) When did you 'become' a poet, when did poet become part of your everyday life?
When I was born I came out with a green wreath on my head. I was born channeling the isthmus of poetry toward the impure stratosphere of placement and labeling thru the motional psychology that was demanded from a person like me. Yet and so, to be a 24 hour poet, one all the time, causes such strain to the personage, one is strung through with the demands of that which is placed upon each of us who are to bear in such a moment of asking for that which will lead here. Most days I feel edgy like I am establishing the legacy years of a presidency solely on the basis of words.
4) Where were you educated? Was this important?
I have a year in Engineering, a BS in Marketing, a Masters in English; this kind of education is irrelevant. I was educated by reading 7 to 13 books a week for years, and hanging out with nationally established poets since I was 15. The best education is still free, I did various forms of service work to learn the craft, created venues for them to read in, did their household chores, pasted up flyers, bought them a meal, published their poems, listened to what these poets who came before me had to say. People who donate their time to our press get this same kind of practical, personal, hands on education.
5) You have been many places and today you are in Ohio, what is it like?
It’s been a hotbed of experimental poetry for at least four decades, since the days of DA Levy and the Xerox revolution and I don’t see much changing. There are more McDonalds and Wendys. Even Letters to Wendy’s has roots here. We have it all in Ohio.
5.1) Your book, In It What’s in It (Spuyten Duyvil, 2002) is so different from most American poetry books, where does the work originate?
The seventeenth & twenty first century.
6) What is your favorite food?
Seitan & Manna
7) Sports Activity?
The Biathalon. I love having a 30 / 30 on the slopes.
8) Vacation spot?
Chicago.
9) Curse word?
If it counts as one, “poop!”
10) Pavement Saw has published a wide range of writers whose work is diverse, what do you attribute the lack of diversity in many small presses and large ones? How does PS avoid this fault?
Some other publishers have mistaken product branding to mean their label can only publish one primary kind of poetry rather than the highest standard of various forms of poetry. The other problem is that most presses need approval from their distributors to publish a poet or else they need to sell a certain number of copies of each title yearly to keep their distributor. It leads to mediocrity. This pressure leads large publishers like Faber & Faber to publish the “poems” of Billy Corgan or HarperCollins to publish the “poems” of Jewel and rely on a persons already accrued fame rather than developing an audience for poetry.
11) You are a poet, publisher and more who is working in the Midwest do you find that there is a good level of fine writers in our region? Or not?
Sure. It’s a wide range. Maj Ragain, Steve Kuusisto, and David Baker are three of the best narrative poets in the US, their work shines; there is Terri Ford’s bizarre delightfulness; Kent Johnson has a mean 3 point shot; Peter O’ Leary and Devin Johnston seem like flip sides of a coin only found around these parts. Hell, if I wasn’t living in Ohio there would be no reason to read poets from far away states and countries.
12) What do you make of the professionalization of poets and poetry? The divide between those who are academics and those who need to have regular jobs to survive do you think this is hurting the artform?
I think the lack of distribution for independent books caused by the three primary booksellers in the US combined with readers not going out of their way to purchase from independent presses and bookstores is the primary problem. Poets who read for free at local chainstores are tools, they sell books that are not theirs; they entertain the people who come and go, buying high priced coffee, Grisham and Cosmo.
13) The last "movement" in American poetics was Language, since its breakdown no other "movement" has developed, why do you think younger poets are averse to being a part of movements?
There have been many
movements since Language, many with more impact population-wise if that is the
measure of importance, I mean, Slam Poetry has way outstripped the impact of all
other movements. While I find a lot of problems with it, usually because the
poems are really “poems,” a piece of writing given that name simply because
there is a need for something an audience can call poetry to say they have
experienced it. There are a lot of movements going on, we published the first
collection of “flarf” poetry by Rodney Koeneke, an Ohioian is known for the
creation of New Formalism. Starting slightly earlier, the Xerox art movement
also had more importance and ramifications to future poetic technique.
Unfortunately, most younger poets are part of a movement, they perceive poetry
as a combat field where poetry needs to be labeled, objectified and reified in
the manner that they are taught by corporations from a young age. I am a “X”
poet. Or “I need to find my voice.” Most of what comes to the press further
exemplifies the young poet’s desire to fit in rather than write literature.
Since the bloom of “avant-guarde” writing programs in the mid 90’s the material
falls into three categories. The pseudopod avant guarde writer has read a few
books by experimental poets and under the tutelage of an avant guarde teacher
they have learned to make poems that seem experimental but have no truck, no
weight of thought, depth or interest beyond the codified “absorption” of the
surface. While I do not believe Pound’s dictum of make it new has much relevance
in a land where we plop a new strip mall on top of the old one, I do think that
reading too much Gertrude Stein, and writing directly afterward is detrimental
to editors, creating burnout. For a variant, some have their words appear with
lots of space around them. Yee-haw, color me impressed. Another big category is
the pseudosurrealist who has studied under prizewinning poets who write this
way, the thing is the younger duplicates rarely have any notion of where the
surrealism comes from, have not translated it, and their writing smacks of
watching too much television for metaphors. They often write in prose poem form
or in couplets. If you ask them why, they have no idea. They cannot defend the
form. The others are the standard set to pick on, the typical narrative program
material which either does not have the living experience or junctive poetic
insight to make the poems shine. Often, the “poems” are exercise-like also.
Rarely do I see writers look to the past or even try to find those who came
before them to learn from as I have been taught to do. I use every possibility
to keep my audience reading the page, I’ll use slant rhyme, echoalia, hemorrhage
a line, bust a move, and give a glottal fricative like you’ve never heard. It is
no wonder that I am one of the few of the younger set who can write in bursts of
dactylic hexameter in 6/8 time with a trochee every third line for a
self-serving tee-hee.
14) Poetry has been called the orphaned art form for many reasons-- but mostly because of the fact that poets cannot make a living as poets and that most are academics. Do you think that poetry is weaker as an art form because so many of us are academics as well and so few poets are like Williams or Stevens and have regular jobs and life experiences?
I don’t believe poetry has weakened as an artform, it is just harder for a reader of poetry to find a real poem instead of a “poem.” I think notions of the inside and outside abound but as a lecturer for hire, or as a consultant, or as a non-profit administrator, the only conclusion I come to is that people think they have to write a lot of poems to be a poet. Stevens’ wrote four books and a chapbook, Niedecker, less, that is all that is needed. Brenda Coultas waited a long time to have her first book published, it is probably why it is so spectacular. We could blame corporate multi-book poetry contracts and academic pressure to publish for the weakening of poetry but ultimately it is the authors who have created the situation. There are a lot of paper stainers out there. It is the way one writes, the decision of what small output to keep, the fine tuning of the voice of the poem to suit the author, to fit the page, then having the result followed through with an equal resolution in living; all of these lead to a strong collection.
15) Finally, of the new/younger poets writing today whom do you think will be important in the future?
I’ve already published first collections by many authors who have become important, Chris Stroffolino Amy King, Rodney Koeneke, Joshua McKinney, Jeffrey Levine, Sofia Starnes, Naton Leslie, and many others who I hope will become better known like Julie Otten and F. J. Bergmann and the rest of the title list. I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to publish collections by many of the important future poets and, through word of mouth without much advertising, to have my beliefs confirmed within my lifetime through an operation that continues to thrive. Of the non-coastal people that I haven’t published a book by who are under 40(I am guessing on some), the collections I have read by Tony Tost, Terrance Hayes, Micki Myers, Jeff McDaniels, and Sherman Alexie are excellent.
Craft Questions
1) How do you form a poem?
As variously as
possible.
2) Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?
Both
3) Where do you write? Is Ambiance important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write?
I like to write in places that I am not supposed to, the ambiance of excitement intensifies my writing. Currently my favorite place is writing in a speckled notebook inside people’s cars who happen to leave the door unlocked. The make and model does not seem to noticeably affect the poem quality.
4) In the balance between found language and created language where does your work fall?
I do it all. There is even a form of portmanteau word called the Baratier which is nearest to a kenning in effect. A bit lengthy to describe at this moment, but an abbreviated essay about it appears in the journal Cranky.
Some
of his work can be found at
http://jacketmagazine.com/07/baratier.html
http://www.theeastvillage.com/tten/baratier/a.htm
http://www.muse-apprentice-guild.com/fall_2003/1essays/david_baratier/the_mag.html
http://www.canwehaveourballback.com/8baratier.htm
http://www.slipstreampress.org/issue18.html
http://www.generatorpress.com/pages/6/
http://www.poeticinhalation.com/v3i8.html
Here are a few collaborations:
http://www.twc.org/forums/iremember/iremembers/
http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooThree/murphybaratier.html