94
2017
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
PHOTOGRAPH BY MATHEW WAHNER; COURTESY OF NC DEPT. OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL RESOURCES
ALAN SHAPIRO, A NOT-SOUTHERN NORTH CAROLINA WRITER
DESIGN BY MARY HATCH THIESEN; COURTESY OF NCLR
Alan Shapiro has lived in North Carolina for more than thirty years – longer than he has lived anywhere. Yet the prolific poet, memoirist, cultural and literary critic, essayist, and – since 2012 – novelist stands by the belief expressed in our interview twelve years ago: he’s a diaspora writer and not particularly from anywhere, but at home many places, especially in North Carolina’s literary community. In our 2004 NCLR interview, Shapiro stated that his sense of place in North Carolina is rooted in the writing world: “What has mattered to me enormously is the literary community here, which is unlike anything I have ever seen.”7 He says this continues to be the case. It’s been great fun to renew our conversation from twelve years ago, to pick up where we left off and note some milestones along the way including his joy to be a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award and The Griffin Prize for Night of the Republic; the 2014 North Carolina Award for Literature; and being a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his book of poems Reel to Reel, among other honors, awards, and prizes. Shapiro sees his work published in many journals and magazines, including The New Yorker. Shortly after our last interview, Alan Shapiro married sculptor Callie Warner, rooting him in the South even more by marriage if not by birth and mentality – and they set about raising their blended family on the edge of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where Shapiro is a Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing and where the twenty-first century literary community is indeed visibly in residence. The poet graced our recent epistolary exchange with his artistic vision, dry wit, and incisive mots justes. Our correspondence, which resulted in the interview below, took place between September and December 2015, during which he kept his interviewer amused with moments of insight and irony.
COURTESY OF NCLR
SHERYL CORNETT: Since our last interview a number of years ago, you have published four books: Tantalus in Love, Old War, Night of the Republic, and Reel to Reel.8 All this while you’ve been teaching full time at UNC Chapel Hill and launching your children into college and adulthood. What’s your secret to such productivity? ALAN SHAPIRO: The short answer to this question is that writing
is more fun than fun. So it’s something I want to do more than just about anything else, which may be a sanitized way of saying I’m monomaniacal when it comes to writing. It’s just what I do now, who I am. Beyond that, there’s no secret. Your last two memoirs, The Last Happy Occasion and Vigil, were well received. Any plans for another memoir? Do you have thoughts on the differences in form and genre? 9 Because you have written so much about your personal
ABOVE TOP Alan Shapiro just after receiving
his North Carolina Award medal, Raleigh, 13 Nov. 2014
ABOVE BOTTOM NCLR 2004, which included
Cornett’s interview with Shapiro
7
Sheryl Cornett, “Out of the Diaspora: Alan Shapiro on Poetry, Community and Life in the South,” NCLR 13 (2004): 90–98; Shapiro’s novel is Broadway Baby (Algonquin, 2012).
8
Alan Shapiro, Tantalus in Love: Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 2005); Old War (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008); Night of the Republic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012); Reel to Reel (U of Chicago P, 2014).