\n| \n “The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader”<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n By John Poch<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the Cowboys cheerleader cheers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n for a body it is her own in blue and silver<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n like a dove thrown into the sky fleeing gunshot<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n successfully, arcing her torso into a holy spirit. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Her athleticism is nearly unimportant.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n She is the reason they make lipstick<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n into the shape of a bullet.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: Your Twitter bio notes that you are \u201ctrue to form.\u201d Image <\/em>magazine said that one of your many skills is the long narrative poem. Texases <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span>is a mix of forms: prose poems, formal poems, free verse. What does true to form mean for you and how do you decide which form a poem should take? Do you have a favorite? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: \u201cTrue to form\u201d was something Beto O\u2019Rourke said in response to Ted Cruz at one of the debates last year. It thought it was a humorous rejoinder. And I\u2019m happy we\u2019ve got a Texan such as Beto running for president; we\u2019ll see what shakes out. But for me, yes, it applies to poetry in that I\u2019m always deeply concerned with the form of a poem, whether it\u2019s a sonnet, free verse, or a prose poem. The form of it must be connected with the function. I don\u2019t break lines randomly. Every word, rhyme, and image has its place on the page in the same way every part of an engine needs to work in concert with the others to move the thing. I love the strict sonnet. It\u2019s the greatest traditional form in English for poetry. Nothing comes close. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: You were born in Erie, Pennsylvania, earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Florida and a PhD at the University of North Texas. You\u2019ve taught at Texas Tech University in Lubbock for eighteen years. You\u2019ve made Texas home yet you also call yourself \u201ca stranger in a strange land.\u201d What is it about Texas that inspires you? In what way \u201cstrange\u201d and are we all, to some degree, strangers in a strange land or do some of us inhabit the land we call home more effortlessly than other people? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: Right before Moses has his encounter with God speaking from the burning bush, he and his new wife have a son, Gershom, whose name means, Stranger in a Strange Land. Moses himself is in exile far from where he\u2019d grown up, but this place is where he encounters the holy. I can identify with that. See the first epigraph in Texases<\/em>. On a more secular level, West Texas is strange as all get-out, and that\u2019s part of what I like about it. I suppose I have some advantage not having grown up here, so I can see what others might take for granted. Buddy Holly was not just another high school kid. We all want our kids to behave, but we also need to give our kids some creative freedom. Buddy did things his own way, and I like to think that the best of Texans have this independent rock-and-roll spirit. Lyle Lovett\u2019s got it. Terry Allen\u2019s got it. Amanda Shires has it. I\u2019ve got a song, too, but no instruments. I like to joke and say that when I was a kid I used to play on the linoleum. I think a lot of Texans have it easier than me here because they have extended family. All my family is back East and in England. It makes one feel a little lonely not to have a deep sense of family around. That\u2019s a struggle for us. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: The land features prominently in your work. You\u2019ve written poems about the Llano Estacado, about mesquite and coyotes and cotton farmers, about Paducah, about water. Why the land? Do you think the physicality of the landscapes in Texas shape the place and the people more than in other places or merely differently? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: A lot of poets write about land and place. I think the effect in Texas might be the same as anywhere else. But no, Texas is just more intense: the size and variety of what we have here is outrageous. Texas goes on forever, it seems. The sky is beastly. Some years ago, I saw two tornadoes at once. Have you ever driven from El Paso across the state to Texarkana? That\u2019s eleven hours if you don\u2019t stop. I think we\u2019re nearly the size of France, right? That\u2019s pretty crazy. A lot of people miss what\u2019s going on up close in the land because there\u2019s so much of it. I guess as a poet I want to slow down and look at a turkey feather snagged on a mesquite branch and say, what is this beautiful thing in the midst of all this expanse and sky? I want to praise the horse crippler because everybody else seems to just pass it by or curse it and try to kill it, and to me, if I get right up on it, it\u2019s like encountering a tiger or an alligator. The extremes here are undeniable. If you can\u2019t hack it, I suggest Italy. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: Time and melancholy also feature prominently in your poetry. In your poem \u201cGod in the Shape of Texas\u201d you write that \u201cno one here speaks of centuries.\u201d In \u201cSonnet on Time\u201d the melancholic feel is strong, the passage of time not necessarily a good thing. In \u201cThe Iberian Muse\u201d we get a distinct atmosphere of time immemorial, of history celebrated as such. What do you think of when you consider the clock and millennia? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: I was just yesterday talking to my graduate class about my obsession with Time. Shakespeare was obsessed with it in his own way. Every poet cares about it, but I can\u2019t help but come back to it again and again because Time is such a great mystery due to God outside of it (and in it!), relativity, repetition (if that\u2019s even possible at all), memory, and prophecy. If you want to see what I really think about time you\u2019ll have to read the poems and the introduction in <\/span><\/span><\/span>Between Two Rivers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>, which is forthcoming with Texas Tech University Press next month. The river is the most obvious metaphor that helps us understand the problem of time. I\u2019m obsessed with rivers because there aren\u2019t any around here! Put me in front of a river, and I start to cry. I literally start crying sometimes in the summers when I get to Taos and step into the Rio Hondo, and not just because the snowmelt is brutally cold. I\u2019m a real goofball that way. Auden\u2019s \u201cAs I Walked Out One Evening\u201d is one of the greatest lyric poems about time you\u2019ll ever read. The clock dominates the poem, but the river runs on at the end of the poem. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: As you mentioned, <\/span><\/span><\/span>Between Two Rivers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>, a collaboration of photographs and poems about the rivers and landscape between the Brazos and the Rio Grande, for which you provided the poems and Tech\u2019s Jerod Foster provided the photographs, is scheduled to be published this month by Texas Tech University Press. Please tell us about this project and how it came about. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: That\u2019s a crazy long story, and I\u2019d need a couple pages to do it justice. Suffice it to say that Jerod and I met in Junction, Texas about fifteen years ago, and we both grew to admire each other\u2019s art over the years and wanted to collaborate. The time finally came around, and I had all these river poems, so this became our project. I\u2019m pumped about the book. I think it\u2019s going to sell like twenty thousand copies because it\u2019s so doggone beautiful. It might take a few years, but if you see it, especially if you\u2019re from New Mexico or Texas, you\u2019re not going to be able to walk away from it without wanting to have a copy in your house. It\u2019s not the same as Texases<\/em>, in that no one will probably sit down with a big coffee table book in their lap and read all the poems. Your legs would fall asleep. But one is likely to leaf through, looking at Jerod\u2019s beautiful photos, and stop to read a poem or two, and that\u2019s good enough for me. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: You are a co-founder and longtime editor of 32 Poems Magazine<\/em> and the series editor for the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize at the University of North Texas. What do you look for when choosing and editing poetry? What is your advice to aspiring poets hoping to be published and win prizes?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: Poems have to please my ear, eye, heart, and intellect. There are so many varieties of poems that I have to keep an open mind, and I surely don\u2019t want to choose poems that only sound like what I write. I\u2019m always looking for a poet who knows how to write a beautiful sentence, use lines like a good surgeon uses a scalpel, and give me an architecture of fresh images which create a world of meanings and possibilities. As for publishing: it\u2019s important, as this is the way we share our work. You can go around handing people your poems or reciting them aloud, but it\u2019s kind of special when others go around handing people your poems for you. Aspiring poets probably shouldn\u2019t think too much about prizes, but they likely help bolster your confidence to get you writing more. But they can also give you a satisfaction that gets in the way. Stay hungry, whether you win the prizes or not. Stay hungry. Don\u2019t try to always satisfy or feed your hunger. Admire your hunger. Turn it over in your mind like desiring your beloved. Hunger is power. Meditate on the ache of it. And prize rejection, because it will give the poems time to get better with revision. Time is the greatest editor. That\u2019s a hard truth. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: How did you decide\u2014or did you decide\u2014that poetry would be your life\u2019s work? Which poets do you most admire and why? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n JP<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: I was supposed to be an engineer, but poetry found me and it called me. I wanted to be happy every day, and poetry brings me deep joy and satisfaction. Working out formulas stopped exciting me at some point, and I had to take a big risk to let that go. Most people were like: <\/span><\/span><\/span>you\u2019re going to do what? How does a poet make a living?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em> Well, we teach, and I wasn\u2019t sure I wanted to teach back then, but I knew I was going to write poems the rest of my life. And stories. There are too many poets whom I love to name just a few, but I\u2019ll say one: W.S. Merwin, who just died, seems to me one of the last great poets. There are a lot of good poets, but he was a great poet. I can\u2019t believe he never won a Nobel. Bob Dylan won the Nobel. What a shame. Bob Dylan, great song-maker that he is, can\u2019t hold a candle to Merwin\u2019s accomplishment. Don\u2019t believe it? Fight me. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LSLL<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong>: Please tell us what you\u2019re working on now and wha<\/span><\/span><\/span> |