Contributor’s Corner: (Poetry): Mark J. Mitchell

M M ARK J. ITCHELL INTVW BY KEITH AYUMAN

I’ve found that poems I plan don’t turn out well. The poems that are ordered up by the Muse work out better.

NRM: As I was reading your work, I noticed that despite the burden this pandemic has bestowed upon you, you remain hopeful and that became the certain theme in the poems you submitted: Hope. Was this your intention as a writer?

Mark Mitchell: I don’t really know about my intentions. I’ve found that poems I plan don’t turn out well. The poems that are ordered up by the Muse work out better.

As far as being hopeful, I think I tend to be optimistic ultimately. Part of being something of an aging hippie, I guess. Also, these pieces were written at the beginning of the pandemic. Who knew it would run on this long? That also means it was spring, and flowers were blooming. As things got bad during the summer, there were chalktivists expressing solidarity on sidewalks alongside invented hopscotch diagrams and we had demonstrations where we would wear our masks.

And there’s the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge and astonishing views wherever you turn. So, there are always things that lift you up.

NRM: What are the influences that light up your imagination?

MM: The city of San Francisco, for one thing. My latest book, Roshi, is all San Francisco poems. My wife, always. Poetry in translations. I tend to keep to the Romance languages because I took Latin in high school and so have some idea what’s going on. I do like to discover new forms from translations as well. And of late, I’ve been going back to heroes of my youth— Camus, Dante, Kafka—you know, the comedians.

NRM: To lighten up the mood, what was the wackiest thing a friend or a reader of your work suggested you to write?

MM: I don’t often get requests to write on demand. I was asked to write the script for a tour of Sausalito, across the bay from The City (SF), and I knew almost nothing about it. I kind of delayed it until it went away.

I’ve also written acrostic poems for my nieces and nephews as they join us on the planet. That sort accidentally became a custom in my family.

A student asked me a question of great length about the influence of Celtic mythology and Catholicism on my poem. I had to blurt out, “I dropped a pen.” That’s what the poem was about

NRM: Your work has been featured in some of the most prestigious compilation books. Can you tell us your favorite remarks from a reader?

MM: I was once presenting my poems to an AP English class at an elite high school here in San Francisco. After I read a short poem, a student asked me a question of great length about the influence of Celtic mythology and Catholicism on my poem. I had to blurt out, “I dropped a pen.” That’s what the poem was about.

And my best-known poem, “Minor League Rainout, Iowa” was plagiarized by a retired minor league pitcher turned evangelical preacher.

NRM: As a writer, what do you think is your role in a world suffering with a pandemic?

MM: Joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. Trying to find and share the beauty in the trials of the time, the rose in Spanish Harlem, so to speak.

NRM: What makes Mark J. Mitchell unique?

MM: Well, I haven’t had a haircut since the Carter administration, yet my hair remains shoulder length. I rarely write in the first person. This is probably the most sustained use of the vertical pronoun in my work in quite some time.

As far as I know, I am the only person who can see the angels that hover around Washington Square Park in North Beach.