community literary arts CT: I’ve had some poems that I’ve been working on recently that I can’t because I’m trying to push the humor as far as I can. Even further than the penis poem, because I feel like with humor. But the reason I do it is because I feel like with humor, we turn towards it. And I’m interested in finding ways for people to turn towards my poetry. Instead of me saying, “Well we have a long history of men treating women like shit.” That’s going to turn the reader off. I want to find a creative and funny and creative way to make all readers turn towards it. I can’t look up when reading that poem, because there are so many penises. 11: What has the response been on that poem? CT: People seem to like it, they laugh. So I like to read it early for a way for them to laugh, and be more receptive to my work. Because I have a lot of feminist poems, I am a feminist poet. If I read that poem earlier, they are much more receptive to what I am going to read after that poem. 11: Can we talk about the poem “To The Guy Who Unfriended Me on Facebook After I Got Married?” What inspired that title? Was it anger? CT: I don’t think it was anger, it was this idea of technology. I was more humored by it. But this idea of how disconnected we’ve become through technology. My sister likes to say I’m a luddite. I just started texting for the first time in my life a year ago. I had a flip phone and had the phone company block text messages until they wouldn’t block them anymore. Then my flip phone died so I bought an Android. I don’t even know how it works yet. So it’s just this longing to connect, basically. 11: Can you talk about how disconnected we’ve become because of technology? CT: I feel that just since I’ve been texting in the last year, what it’s done to me. Basically the reason I have been a luddite is because I find I have the monkey brain. Even though my friends can get very upset with me for not texting and doing
all of these things on social media. It’s because I feel that I need that alone time and that solitude to create. I need that time to daydream. I need to spend five hours in the morning losing track of time and daydreaming. If not, I’m not going to create. So I try to limit my amount of distractions when it comes to technology. It’s hard. I have noticed that since I’ve started texting for the first time in my life a year ago, I can feel more anxious without my phone. I can feel more overwhelmed. 11: Do you think there will be poets and those sorts of people who will shun the overuse of technology and stay on the page? CT: I hope so. I’m a little bit of a nihilist these days. It’s not looking good, but I hope so. I think we need that. I think it is definitely making us feel a lot of anxiety, more alone, more depressed, more disconnected. When I was a kid I was definitely lost in my imagination. Every report card said “Daydreams too much.” So it will continue, because there will be people like us. 11: What about having your stuff online, for exposure? CT: Well that’s funny, when the Internet first started to become the beast that it’s become, online journals would ask me for my work and I’d always give them my crappiest work. Because I was saving it for the revered print journals and I didn’t realize that “Oh wait, this is going to stay online forever. Actually people are going to read my work this way instead of the print journals.” So it’s been an interesting revolution. Now I’m much more aware. » - Scott McHale
So Far, It Looks Like I May Live a Long Life Vivas to those who have failed! –Walt Whitman Failed first grade. Almost failed ninth. Failed to show up. Failed to stop smoking weed. Failed to pay a parking ticket. And then another. And another. Failed to write letters when we still wrote letters. Failed a business. Failed to understand poets fail at business. Failed my savings account. Failed to wash the worm from the lettuce. Failed my first marriage. Failed the man I should’ve left my first marriage for. Failed love. Again. And again. Failed my driver’s test, three times— actually, it was my sister, but genetically speaking. Failed California. Failed Ohio. Failed Oregon. Failed to close the stupid blinds as I stepped into the shower this morning. Failed to do the dishes. Failed to change the oil. Failed to make love in a houseboat. Failed to realize there would only be one night with a houseboat and the Pacific and her face barely visible under the failing moon.
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