#onlypoems.net

On being asked about writing poems instead of songs:

(...) songs are kind of propelling you forward all the time, rhythmically, whereas with a poem, you can kind of sit down in it, reread it. I don't know, except to say that something feels like a poem when there's a mystery there. A spiritual mystery. Something feels like a story when there's a plot mystery. Something feels like a song when there's a melodic mystery. I think that's the best I can do.

He's later asked about investigating masculinity is his poems, and his answer is somewhat boring but he says something that stuck with me:

just because it wasn't foremost in my mind doesn't mean it's not in the poems

I like this interpretation of poetry coming from an author, because some readers tend to think that poetry is like a hidden message and that everything there is intentional (which is true in some cases), and dismiss their own interpretations of the piece or assign them to the author, when sometimes there's things in a poem that not even the writer knows are there. That's the beauty of it, I think. He doubles down on this later, saying:

I don't think that I walk around preoccupied by death. But if you were to look at these poems closely, maybe there's a lot of death in them.

Overall, I wasn't expecting Duchovny to be a poet, and some of his answers to this interview are really interesting. As always, Karan poses the best of questions and reflections. The poems in another post!

Finally, his writing prompt, which I really liked:

From 'Do Over':

Be that as it may, I need to find a fiction we can agree on.

'Paper beats rock' reminded me that poems about the heart get to me incredibly quick:

My heart in a fist-sized trench coat, smoking a cigarette like an artery, on a nostalgic trip, watching carefree kids at a local schoolyard, a sad small man, trying to find the beat that she skipped to, then skipped like a broken record, then skipped like a stone on the water out of town.

There, with his left ventricle pressed against the fence unbored, watching infinite games of rock paper scissors shoot, the Authority finds my heart and places him under cardiac arrest, shipping him asap upstate in a valentine’s-shaped ice chest— where he is committed entirely, takes pills with meals, bpm within target range, writes me in crayon from a mandatory art class, requesting his black and blue cardigan, misses me, misses her, writes poems halfway through, and dedicates them to cities he’s never been to, my heart plotting his return to a world diminished by her ineradicable presence

Overall, some interesting verses and ideas, some touching poems. Better than I expected, and fitting with my image of him. Mulder could have written some of them and I love that for him.

I'm once again reading the poet of the month interview from onlypoems.net and i can't transcribe everything but just the first question has already floored me. Some answers when asked about his writing process:

I don’t require myself to write down anything in my hour or two, though I usually do. That might be a word, a line, an image, an idea. Or a revision or continuation of a line, idea or image I came up with days or weeks ago (I don’t look back). Or even a few lines of an opening, though I don’t really “work on it,” don’t push it further than it will go easily. All those things might be on a single looseleaf page, with no sense at all that they’ll end up in the same poem or even the same book.

For weeks, months, sometimes even years, these clouds will accumulate notes, alternate versions, additions until it finally seems to me there’s a poem I could finish. Then, for the first time, I bear down on it and push it a little, then a lot. That part requires a different kind of patience, and different skills. It’s challenging and satisfying, but maybe not as essential or as pleasurable as the drifting-and-gazing phase. 

Some writers are happier hammering on one poem exclusively until it’s done. If I did that, I think I’d end up sounding too much like myself — I need more Time and Chance to keep out of my ruts. And I’d worry about the poems sounding forced and Productive, like they were mainly written in order to have written a poem, which is deadly.

And the best of them all:

As to why I write poetry? That feels like a fundamental question, but it’s not something I’ve ever really asked myself or felt like I needed to know. Just as you don’t need to think you know the meaning of life to live it. Though there may be an answer to these questions implicit in how you write or how you live. 

And finally, for comfort: