ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com

Poetic Profile

Geoffrey Gatza

General Questions

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

I grew up in Kenmore, NY which is a small suburb of Buffalo. Even though I lived down the street from UB and the fine writers teaching there, I was in the dark of the whole thing. The influence of writers and great thinkers like Robert Creeley, Raymond Federman, Charles Olson, Leslie Fiedler, and John Barth is, of course, all around us and their thoughts filters to me through the learning of those who I have studied under. Since coming to poetry, I am now aware of how important Buffalo is to American writing. It’s either very odd or very appropriate for this to occur in Buffalo. I always say, I don’t want to die in Buffalo, as this would be redundant. This is a hollowed out shell of a city that once was something wonderful.

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

Poetic influences would be, in no particular order: Ezra Pound, Robert Creeley, Charles Olsen, Yeats, Ted Berrigan, Cold Mountain, Bernstein, Dryden, Ovid, Shel Silverstein …

Jules Verne, Samuel Delany. The comic book writer Alan Moore stands out in his field. Painting and other visual arts are very informative. I often take trips to the Albright Knox art gallery to become overwhelmed in the instantaneous reactions colors and shapes can produce. I am taken with Warhol’s works and method, especially the effects of the Brillo Boxes and how this transfers to poetry.

3) When did you 'become' a poet when did poet become part of your everyday life?

I went to college in my late 20’s after a 4 year stint in the USMC (participated in the first gulf war and the Liberian civil war) and after wanting to get a higher degree from my associates degree in Culinary arts. I had the odd opportunity to go on a special scholarship to Daemen College, a small private college just outside of Buffalo. In my freshman year, I hated poetry and wanted to concentrate on fiction. Actually, I was simply sheltered from poetry and my professor challenged the class to write a poem for extra credit. So after several attempts at what seemed to be an easy task, I found myself completely absorbed by the complex process. It’s been 8 years since then and I am still hopelessly addicted to poetry.

4) Where were you educated? Was this important?

I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in ‘93 and from Daemen College in ’02. I think both very important to who I am today. I loved my time at both places and if I could, I’d be a student for the rest of my life :-) I love to be challenged in a classroom setting more than anything else I have done. I feel that most of my poetic craft comes from the Culinary and my application for poetry is directly from Daemen. I feel that I benefited from the awful job market for literature professors. The English department at Daemen is a wonderful and supportive group of highly positive professors who were eager to help an enthusiastic student. It’s their energy that I cherish above all in American poetry, as they were the primary source for my love of avant garde poetry. They tuned me into what was happening in contemporary poetics and even help forge friendships and mentoring with Robert Creeley and Charles Bernstein. I never got to study with either Creeley or Bernstein as they left the UB Poetics program just when I ready to enter the program. They have both reassured me their decision to leave was not based on my entering :-) I decided to not pursue a higher degree at this time because of their departure. This too is important to my writing because I inherently feel out of place in a field made up mainly of academic oriented professionals.

5) BlazeVox has Ezra Pound as your editor in chief, tell me about Pound and how he influences what you do? Do you think Pound is the greatest poet of the modernist period?

First, I would say there is no greatest Modernist poet, however when I think of my personal ‘greats’ that list would include, Yeats, Pound, Williams, and Stevens. All of whom influence my work. I would include Dickinson too although she is a bit to the left of the Moderns in my mind. Pound represents the best and worst of 20th century Western thought. His actions, words and poetry can be seen as a fine representation of that century’s turmoil. He is a complex figure with tremendous flaws, so severe they can neither be avoided nor forgiven. He is also the freest, far reaching poet I can draw on to help edit the journal. Poetry is completely in his debt for many ideas and concepts that are today, simply taken for granted. Oddly enough, Ezra still receives quite a bit of fan mail to the site. There is at least one letter a week from admiring poets. And yes they do know it’s not him and it’s really fun to see his impact and enthusiasms for his energy in young writers.

5.1) You are a prolific writer and editor of BlazeVOX how do you separate the editor from the poet?

There is a saying in the kitchen, you never season another cooks soup. And this is always followed as chef’s are invariably sociopaths who are skilled with knives and ‘editing’ can get one hurt. So, I try to not edit, or touch, or put me into another poets work. I believe that selection is the key good editing. This may be an odd statement as Pound’s editing efforts in Yeats, Eliot, and so on are legendary. However, this isn’t what I want BlazeVOX to be. I see the BlazeVOX as a conduit for the poet to audience, and I try to pick poems that best represent the poet and fit those poems with the other contributors in a way as to make a gallery setting and not just a collection of texts.

I have found that I can do either edit the journal or write poems. I can’t do both at the same time, so this contributes to erratic publishing schedules :-) I like the separation of efforts as I can approach another’s poetry with the love of a maker of poems without trying to make that poem my own. I do not write everyday as I get frustrated in the process of writing when I have nothing to say. I get into writing moods I lock myself up in a room and write continuously until the project is complete. It’s almost like being possessed with a spirit or something equally absurd, but it happens and I have learned to trust this experience and am happy to live with it.

6) What is your favorite food?

I work as a chef in a 4 diamond hotel where we prepare haute cuisine. After working with exotic food all day, I crave, simply, a Burger King Whopper with Cheese Value Meal and Coke, king sized.

7) Sports Team?

Detroit Tigers, mainly because Magnum, P.I. wore a Tigers ball cap. I grew up in Buffalo when the Bills were just plain awful, fans even went to the games with brown paper sacks over their head so they wouldn’t be recognized. Even with their later successes I find it hard to become overly attached to any sports team. I save this relationship for comic books, and my favorite team is The Justice League of America.

8) Vacation Spot?

Waikiki, Hawaii

9) Curse Word?

Motherfucker, and I use it all the time. It rolls off of the tongue just the right way to express exactly that non-verbal anger that situation deserves :-)

10) What is your opinion of Avant garde American writing in comparison to other avant gardes from other places in the world?

I have a high opinion for the American avant garde and feel most at home in it. It’s a lonely place to be but it’s the only expressions that hold any value for me. I am taken with the Russian AG, especially Zuam, who created their own transrational language to accompany imaginative illustrations.

Craft Questions

1) How do you form a poem?

I form poems the same way I do in cooking by having my ‘mise en place’ ready. Literally translated from the French, “to put in place,” this means is to have all your ingredients prepared and ready to go before you start cooking. So when I approach a poem I have an idea of the final piece and gather textual items that will somehow flush out my points for the poem. I write in long forms and feel comfortable working in long projects but this is hard on a reader to go through. A few years ago a dear friend gave me what he called, the sermon of the one page poem, and I have tried to be very sparse in what and how I lay out a single poem. Pound stated that poetry could be divided according to three essential elements: phanopoeia, melopoeia, and logopoeia – the central workings of image, music, and meaning. And I try to use all of these items, and am expanding on the idea of image an poem. In Asian arts, the poet was equally apt at calligraphy as well as painting. Even though I use nonessential elements for my poems, every aspect makes a necessary contribution to the poem.

2) Do you use collage, parataxis cut ups or other tools?

I use many tools to achieve different effects in my poems. I like to adopt different tonalities on the feel of my texts. Say I want to have the tone of voice of a bureaucracy, I will go to the IRS.gov and get involved with government speak then form lines around what I need for my poem. I use Google very often for new direction in developing new lines of thought when I get caught on a word. I find it illuminating to see how one word searches will branch out in the many ways that word is employed. I generally work in projects that comprise several poems exploring themes under one umbrella concept. I use the internet for so many aspects of my poetry it is a blur of self and the outside world that creates opaque textures for the poems.

3) Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?

This is an organic process. This comes from somewhere with in me and I find it hard to shake off until the poem comes, fully out of my being and onto paper. I have worked with a synthetic process of writing, word games and algorithmic structures but I haven’t had any successes. I can see how beautiful these can be from authors like Lewis Lacook, Alan Sondheim and Sheila Murphy. I do like to play with poems and texts and I will never be closed minded on trying anything.

4) Where do you write? Is Ambiance important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write?

I write only on the computer and this is the only way for me to fully complete a poem. I take notes on a palm computer when I am out and about, then transfer that into a Microsoft Word document or an Photoshop image and go from there. I smoke a lot of pot and cigarettes, wear loose clothing if any at all, have a bottle of water and a large carafe of black coffee. I cannot listen to music when I write poetry as the grooves and bits lyrics filter into my poems, which was one time a fun aspect to play with, but today I find somewhat troublesome. I write at night when the house is quite and I am alone. I like the room dark with the blue glowing lights of the TV. In many ways I was raised by the television and it’s gentle hum is warm and maternal.

5) In the balance between found language and created language where does your work fall? Do you use many sources?

I would say I lean more towards found language and a support structure for created language to be applied. I use many sources for my work. Recently I went through a copy of the magazine Art In America, and wrote poems based on the what I saw in the paintings and photographs. Other times I use found objects to make poem pieces, like a McDonald’s value meal wrappings as the paper to display the poem. I also like to corrupt old myths into modern poems. So, the internet is an invaluable resource tool in referencing ancient poems and their relevant criticisms. One example of this was a poetic study of dragon myth as a response to differences between western and eastern thoughts.