McGrath
voice." You title one of your books "American Noise." Poetry seems to be at least, in part, for you about sound, melody, musicality. And effective noise requires skill. How do you strike a balance between technical or formal aesthetic devices and voice when a student argues that all poetry is art?
CM: Poetry is a schizophrenic art form. In MFA programs we spend our time analyzing the text, in poetry slams people are bowled over by the sonic power of the art. But poetry exists in their intersection-it is the music and the message. SK: What do you say to students who say "all poetry is art?"
CM: I say-maybe. I say-prove it. SK: In Pax Atomica, the voice is musical, repetitious, rhythmical as the word "song" for example is repeated in a list in the poem, "Train Journal." Similarly, form and movement are especially important in "Of Pure Forms." These poems seem to grow organically from the form whereby the techniques are in harmony with the conceits.
CM: Poems are not like organic beings, they are organic beings. They begin like little seedling popping out of the soil. The poet's job is to grow that into a plant. But some poems are tomato plants, some are oak trees, and some are weeds. How do you know the difference? Practice. The more poems you read, the more you understand the categories of poetic possibility; the more poems you write, the more you grasp your own capabilities, strengths, tendencies. SK: When you compose, what do you generally consider first-theme or technique? What is your writing process?
CM: At first, most poets spend a lot of time trying to rum weeds into oak trees. But eventually you learn to differentiate, to learn from the poem what it is likely to become and nurture it in that direction. But one should err on the side of generosity and positivism. Never throw away a draft, a stanza, a line-someday you may wake up realizing the rest of the poem it belongs to, or how to fix it, or what transformation if might be subject to. That is, poems that appear to be tomato plants sometimes grow into oak trees. And even weeds may turn out to be dandelions- which are beautiful things in summer. You have to tell the truth in poetry. You have to be willing to say what you 54
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