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Poetic Profile

John Tipton

Interview Questions for John Tipton
 

General Questions

1) Where did you grow up? Was poetry and writing part of that mix?
I grew up all over the place. We moved around quite a bit when I was a kid, so I attended grade schools in Indiana, Florida, and Oklahoma; middle school/junior high in Louisiana and Indiana; and high schools in Louisiana, Illinois, and Indiana. My parents owned a house in Hobart, IN and we kept bouncing back there. That's where I finished high school, so I guess I'm mostly from there. My sensibilities (and insecurities) are Midwestern.

Poetry did play a small but significant part in my childhood. First, I was raised in a devout Baptist family. We read the bible frequently at home so I grew up hearing Psalms, Job, and Lamentations. We read them as scripture and not poetry proper but the cadence of the KJV bible seeped in and still stains what I write even though I left my parents' faith long ago. Secondly, my mother read to me and my younger sister throughout our adolescent years. I just remember spending lots of time in cars as a kid and my mother would read to us along the way, novels and stories mostly: Jack London, Laura Ingalls Wilder, C.S. Lewis. But she read a fair amount of poetry too. We had a collection of Kipling's shorter fiction and a selection of his poems that I recall her reading aloud.

2) Who are your poetic influences, favorite poets, writers, artwork, other things that inform your work?
Early on, Eliot and Stevens were very important for me. Later as I began to write, Michael Palmer's philosophical lyric became the model. I'm also strongly influenced by Louis Zukofsky, particularly his formal rigor and his counted line. My work lately, I think, bears witness to my profound respect for John Taggart, the measured pacing of his poems. And I should also acknowledge my fascination and amazement at John Cage's entire body of work. Finally, my interest in Greek and Latin literature has always colored the way I think about form and narrative.

I invest a fair amount of time looking at and reading about the visual arts, and see this as vital to my poetry. Among contemporary artists my tastes run toward the refined abstractions that came out of minimalism and the work of former minimalists. Of that cohort I think Brice Marden's paintings and Richard Serra's sculptures are particularly powerful. But recently I've been looking at very different kinds of things: the paintings of Neo Rauch and Peter Doig. One of my closest friends, Rob Davis, is a painter. He gives me recommendations of people to check out, from contemporaries to ancients, and our discussions about making art and the responsibilities of an artist have shaped my poetry as much as anything I've read.
 

3) When did you 'become' a poet when did poet become part of your everyday life?
I've known I would write since I was twelve years old but for a long time I wanted to write fiction. I received the higher calling when I got to college. Pete O'Leary and I met as freshman at the University of Chicago; we lived in the same dorm. Later we both spent some time away from Chicago--Pete went to Reed College for a year and I ran out of money for a while. While at Reed, Pete figured out that poetry was the bomb. (He was always a little quicker than I.) He came to visit me in Maine--where I was living in exile from Chicago--and he brought Oppen and Pound. It was heavy duty. I never had a chance.
 

4) Where were you educated? Was this important?
Formally, at the University of Chicago. I did manage to return from exile  and complete a degree in Philosophy. My years at Chicago were immeasurably formative for me. Coming from a working-class background, my parents weren't in any position to pay for my education even at a public university (I have three brothers and three sisters). The day after I graduated high school I joined the army as a way to college via the GI Bill. When I arrived at Chicago I was 22 years old and had been working four years just to get there. I dove into the most esoteric things I could find: Greek, Latin, and Gödel's incompleteness theorem. I wrote my BA paper on Marx's moral philosophy. To this day my father is still baffled how I ever got a job after college.

4.1) You were in the military when, was it important for you as a poet?
The army was just a way for me to go to college. I was never a very good soldier. That time was important for me as a poet insofar as that period of life--late teens and early twenties--is important for anyone. I got to travel in Europe and I met my wife, Stephanie, both of which have had a lingering effect on my life. But there really isn't much about the military that shows up in my poetry.

5) You made a conscious choice to be a non-academic poet tell me how that works? Do you find it better for your work?
I'm not cut out to be an academic. I toyed with the idea for a while and even made a miserable attempt at graduate school (lasting all of 60 days) but I've learned that I just don't have what it takes to do scholarly work and share it with others. I don't know if that's better for my work or not. It just is. But I will say it's important for me to be able to detach poetry from my material livelihood. I'm not trying to make some naïve statement about safeguarding the purity of my poetry from the taint of money. Capitalism insinuates itself everywhere, even in what seems anathema to it, like poetry. But the thought of having to talk about (and defend) my poetry in a job interview gives me the willies. I like to keep the two worlds istinct as much as possible.

That said, I have no problem with poets seeking employment in the academy. My schizophrenia is a little extreme and I don't expect most poets to shun jobs that allow them to write and talk about poetry. Almost all of my poet friends are scholars or teachers. And because I'm in contact with so many of these folks, I can't say that I feel like an outsider. Publishing hasn't been a problem for me (once I started writing stuff that didn't suck) and I don't feel any more neglected than any other poet.

6) What is your favorite food?

I can't say that I have a favorite but I'm awfully partial to simple, Italian cooking. And what's better than Cheetos®?

7) Sports Team? or Activity?
I follow the White Sox. I enjoy hiking...

8) Vacation Spot?
...in southern Utah. My wife and I are also crazy about Italy, Rome especially.

9) Curse Word?
shucks

9.1) Married? Kids? Pets?

Married 16 1/2 years. I've spent the last decade with two indolent cats that I'm convinced will survive me.

10) You always seem so not Chicago, with this I mean you are not a beefy sports fan type how do you reconcile Chicago aesthetics with your work?
People often think I'm from the east coast. I guess it's because I'm in touch with my feminine side. Have you seen my hair lately? I honestly don't think I need to reconcile what I do with what people expect from Chicago, whatever that may be. There are a number of people in Chicago with whom I share affinities: Eric Elshtain, Jesse Seldess, Bill Fuller. In any case, I feel very connected with the community here and with the city itself.
 

Craft Questions

1) How do you form a poem? Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?
I don't think in terms like organic or synthetic but I am very concerned with process. I try to find an appropriate process for a given form. Once I have a way to generate my form with acceptable results I repeat it, writing and rewriting a given poem dozens of times.
 

2) Where do you write? Is Ambiance important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write?
I write at the dining room table. I like to have a decent amount of work space, good light, and music. It's ridiculous how compulsive I am about writing. I write at the same time every morning, Monday through Friday and usually for an hour on Saturday morning. I always write in pencil and I need coffee. Beyond that is nobody's business but my own.

3) In the balance between found language and created language where does your work fall? Do you use many sources?
Since all language is found--we don't invent it, we're given it--my poetry uses found material. But in fairness to the spirit of your question, I'd say that I don't do much with "found language" per se. I do on occasion lift phrases from what I've heard or read. The poem 'flat' is dedicated to Jeff Marlin because I took a phrase from one of his paintings: "imagine a town where tornadoes."

Lately I've been using linguistics texts, syntax books mostly, looking for patterns of grammatically deviant language. I very rarely quote the examples in these books. Instead, I use the syntax violations they discuss as templates for the kinds of distress I want to employ.


Questions About Surfaces John  Tipton's New Book from Flood Editions

1) Allot of this book is written in couplets, do you use this form allot? What does it bring to the language?
I like that 14-word (2 x 7-word lines) couplet. I find it's a nice measure when I have something specific in mind and I use it for poems that have narratives or narrative features. It allows for a kind of call and response, where the second line in the couplet comments on the first. Consequently I can undermine or disrupt things locally but still progress toward some other goal with the poem.

2) Explain how you created 52 surfaces? It is so stark and jarring what was your intent?
The poem is dedicated to two painters, Dan Habu and Rob Davis. I was talking with Rob about my writing process and he mentioned to me that Dan always carried dice in his pocket. That led me to use a pair of dice to determine the line lengths of the poem--the lines run from 2 to 12 words long. The poem explores the nature of surfaces as a general idea and the way in which a poetic line has and is a surface.

3) In Patterns you use political images are you a political poet?
I suppose I am, but that's not saying much since I believe that anything anyone writes is freighted with his or her biases, culture, gender, sexuality, and voting record. I don't focus on specific, topical political issues but I do feel it's important to speak about ethical and moral problems and this always takes you into political or politicized terrain.

4) You tend to use traditional forms, stanzas et cetera how do you marry your avant garde side with these traditional forms?
I'm essentially a formalist. That is, form is central what I do. I don't look at form as a vessel that gives a poem shape but rather as a domain of exploration, something deserving investigation. For some reason this can be surprising among poets but visual artists don't think anything about the innovative use of traditional forms. Think about Guston's and Pollack's landscapes or Giacometti's portraits.