Interview with J.T. Ahearn
The American Poet, a modest tiger
A lot of poetry is published on the Internet, a quick Google search for ‘online poetry’ displays over 65 million results. The quality of the vast majority of that poetry is at best mediocre and trying to find anything decent is like trying to teach a dog to purr. When I first came across the work of American poet John T Ahearn (JTA) I started to read with the usual sigh, expecting another bark or at best a low growl. Not so, this guy purrs like a tiger. JTA is a fiery, opinionated and hugely talented poet. His work will be the subject of doctorates in a couple of decades, if he can get published that is.
John lurked in the shadows of the literary blogs for a while, occasionally snarling in the dark with his acerbic and often very funny comments. Then one or two far-sighted bloggers including Bill Liversidge and the Inner Minx somehow managed to convince him to start his own blog. The result is Wordcarving and I suggest you get round there as soon as you can and make his acquaintance so that you can brag to your grandchildren about how you were there in the beginning.
John is THE contemporary American poet and needs to be published by a major publisher now.
The Blag is delighted to have had the opportunity to interview JTA - The American Poet. Here are the results.
BLAG: When did you start writing poetry and what prompted you to write that first verse?
JTA: It was an assignment, in the fourth grade. Mrs. Dushman gave us a homework task to write a poem about something in American history (!), and I walked home with the usual feeling of impending failure and doom. I knew nothing about poetry (or history) and didn’t want to know. It was for girls. But once I began actually hacking it out, it was fun. Easy. I got some facts wrong, and I’m sure the verse was execrable, but Mrs. D, who viewed me as a scabby, untidy imposition, seemed to see me with new eyes. She read it to the class, walked around to my seat and squeezed my shoulder. The changes weren’t lost on me, but I didn’t write anything else for a long time, until I realized that girls were nice, or could be nice. Output increased dramatically when I fell in love with Ruth—summer before seventh grade. None of these masterworks has resurfaced, and my fervent hope is that they never will.
BLAG: Your poems are obviously very well-crafted, do you find the work of crafting a poem difficult?
JTA: Crafting is the very essence of the—er—craft. Once you move past the idea of poetry as pure expression–some kind of emotional evulsion valid in and of itself—you’re left with the fact that a poem is a mechanism, a set of ordered parts working together to produce an effect in the world, an experience in the reader’s mind that’s identical, or at least analogous, to the one which impelled the writing. Whatever devices are called for to make the parts work, they do always seem to require inordinate jigging, chiselling, paring, and dovetailing, but it’s not difficult. It’s not really work. It can be enormously frustrating, but it’s also the greatest fun one person can have.
BLAG: How did you develop your skills as a poet?
JTA: We all develop—if we do—by repetition, by correcting our inevitable mistakes and learning from them, and by learning about mistakes as well. Over time, slowly, painfully, I learned that mistakes are actually what it’s all about, or they can point to what it’s all about. They’re not failures, or not merely failures, but opportunities to grow. Thinking of mistakes as failures creates self-doubt and fear of the blank page, which is the chief cause of blocking. In reality, mistakes may be the subconscious trying to inform us of things we aren’t seeing yet, or not seeing properly. My writing life changed when I learned to welcome my mistakes, embrace them, make tea for them. Listen to them. Then, I correct. And then correct that.
Of course, I could be wrong…
BLAG: What poets do you read and are you influenced by anyone in particular.
JTA: I’ve read everybody, to the extent that’s possible, but I keep coming back to Auden, Larkin, and Anthony Hecht. I had a longish infatuation with Eliot when I was young, but I find him oppressive now. I love reading Wallace Stevens, but I must confess I don’t understand much of it; still, I can get drunk on the music. For what it’s worth, I still think Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill is the loveliest thing ever written.
BLAG: How important is being an American to your work as a poet?
JTA: I’d like to say that being a US citizen doesn’t matter much, but I suppose it does. We don’t read poetry here, by and large, not as a nation, Bobby Frost notwithstanding, and there are endless distractions. The fact is, (with exceptions—the actual number may be large, but it’s a tiny fraction of the population) nobody cares about poetry here, and they care still less whether you write it or not, though they may think you odd for not tending to business. Still, you’ll be allowed to do it, and do it as you please, if you can manage the trick of also staying alive. In other words, you’ll be totally ignored unless you take tireless steps to attract attention. This confers a degree of freedom that isn’t yet a universal in our world; I’m truly thankful for that freedom. Also, the bins are always full of wonderful food, and I’m free to sleep under some very good bridges. No, sorry, check that—Homeland Security…
BLAG: You resisted starting a blog of your own for a long time. What was it that finally gave you the push to display your work in this way
JTA: It came in an email one day—a fait accompli, all put together, passwords, even the first post—accompanied by a rather challenging note, something about a “wee timrous sleekin beastie.” All I had to do was fill out the bio and push “Publish,” that irresistible word. What could I do? Presented that way, it looked better than my previous working plan, which was to bury as many mss as I could manage in earthenware jars, sealed with propylis, and live in hope that I’d be accepted as part of the Plastic Age of AmPo by whatever archaeologists were lucky enough to dig one up in the next millenium or two. I pushed the button.
BLAG: You are a damn good poet. Have you been published? If not - why not? If just a little bit, why only a little bit?
JTA: Published? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. If you’d call it that. Back in the sixties. Eliotic clabber, preposterous, inane. Underground Press. Nothing survives, fortunately. (“Shall these bones live?” No.) Later, I dutifully sent things out, and dutifully accepted them back, from places I now see were far above my station. My problem was a familiar one, I think: I’d have been ashamed to belong to any club that would have had me as a member. I just thought the littles weren’t worth the postage, and I still don’t think they are. The reasons? Don’t get me started. Just read em.
Nevertheless, I have persevered with the journals I actually read, and so have they persevered with their returns, and here we are.
BLAG: What function, if any, does a poet have in society?
JTA: I’m not sure the poet has any function in society different to anyone else. I’ve heard it said that poets are the Voices of society, but I don’t really believe it. When Yeats was singing as an “Irish Poet,” he really wasn’t at his best, was he? It’s difficult enough to sing in your own voice, without worrying about society, but if you do it well enough, people will adopt your voice and call it theirs. Think it’s theirs.
Poets can also serve as a pointed example of what can happen to a person who refuses to conform…
BLAG: Can you explain what prompted you to write the poem Village Life (printed below). What’s it about?
JTA: place in 1648, in the Ukraine. The raiders were Cossacks, but they might just as well have been Romans, Mongols, Goths, Saxons, Danes, Romanians, Turks, Belgians, Japanese, Nazis, Janjaweeds, or good old American GIs. The salient fact about the poem is the last line: “There was no news.”
BLAG: or do you think poetry needs any explanation or should it speak for itself
JTA: I wouldn’t say poetry never needs an explanation, but if it doesn’t speak for itself it’s lost.
BLAG: Is global warming an issue for you?
JTA: Global warming is an issue for us all. Believe it or don’t—doesn’t matter. It’s happening, and there’s no place to hide.
BLAG: Is the world going to hell in a handbasket?
JTA: The world is the handbasket, a small one, and more fragile than we knew. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bottom fell out, but there are signs of hope. I think the fact that young people are increasingly singling out galloping corporatism as the chief problem is a hopeful sign. Whether enough leverage can be mustered to turn things around—without a Malthusian cataclysm—remains to be seen, but I have hope.
BLAG: Some of your poems and your award-winning short story “Snow” display a spiritual awareness. Do you consider yourself to be a spiritual or religious person?
JTA: I try to be mindful, to remember that each moment of existence is absolutely unique and irreplaceable and precious beyond calculation. I look up at the night sky and I’m struck dumb with wonder at the tiny slice I can see, and with the wonder of being there to do it at all.
I’m an atheist, but I believe Jesus was one hell of great rabbi who taught what he had to teach and wouldn’t take it back, no matter what. All the hoodoo they added later does him no honor.
Church? No, it makes me feel dirty.
BLAG: How do you earn a living?
JTA: Currently I’m a Photoshop/Illustrator jockey, but I’ve had a million jobs: electrician, editor, hemp farmer, art director, technical illustrator, technical writer, psychiatric aide, sign painter, film editor, apiarist, guitar player, stringed instrument repairman, bartender, pinball mechanic, dishwasher, breakfast cook, etc etc etc… You asked.
BLAG: If you could choose to spend a night in a pub with 5 people, living or dead, who would they be? Why?
JTA: Vincent van Gogh, Samuel Clemens, Christopher Marlowe, Percy Shelley, and James Joyce. Fine lads all. After suitably intricate and well-tempered deliberations, we’d wreck the place. And Eva Cassidy, to sing us all back home.
BLAG: Any personal information/biographical details you wish to give?
JTA: I’ve just turned sixty. I’m getting a bit worried. But I just got a fresh pair of rock and roll shoes and a new pair of cheap sunglasses, and I hope to be still twitching when they carry me out of here.
***
Village Life
by JT Ahearn
Once there was a village. Sheep,
a few cows here and there,
barley all around, gold
enough. Down the gentle slope
a little stream cut through
willows and waist-high grass,
where fishes raced each other to see
which would grace the tables first.
There was no priest, but one would come
from time to time to shrive what sins
there were and praise the local ale.
Life went on. Things made sense.
Raiders came one day at dawn.
They didn’t stay. They killed the men,
cut them to bits with their famous swords;
they dashed out the children’s brains
against the ancient trees, forced
the women to watch their children die.
Then they raped the women to death,
praising the local ale. They slit
the women open when they’d finished,
filled the cavities with cats,
unholy beasts they didn’t like.
Then they were gone. Good afternoon.
No one was left to bury the dead.
Dogs and carrion birds grew fat;
nothing else moved, except
curls of smoke here and there,
the stream with its new fingers of blood.
The village became a place of death;
no one came to praise the ale.
Any who chanced upon the scene
retraced the steps that brought them there,
found a way around the place,
left it to sun and rain and birds
to purify the scattered bones.
Word spread. Neighbors wore
the blank mask of grief and fear.
They turned on their radios
to hear the news. There was no news.
***
John T Ahearn blogs at Wordcarving.
On first arriving in Paris the first bookshop I was told about was WH Smiths. Its reassuring Britishness meant that it was one I had to visit. While it is filled with the usual fare: newspapers, magazines, DVD’s, games, greeting cards and of course books, it is a far cry from the bland bright interiors I have come to associate with this store in Britain. It’s glitzy location on rue de Rivoli, opposite the Jardin de Tuileries and just off Concorde, means that it is often filled with a healthy spattering of surprised Anglophone tourists as well as Parisian regulars. Downstairs are posters advertising book readings and events for expats, while upstairs its interior of dark wooden beams and uneven floors gives the impression of a mediaeval bookshop. While I find Smiths a little on the pricey side, you can rely on it to find books on any subject, the staff are generally helpful (as long as you can speak French) and they will order books in for you.
Next up was Tea & Tattered Pages, which I am afraid is how I would have to describe the state of the books that were there. This was a accidental discovery as it was a couple of doors from an Anglophone video store. Perhaps it was the fact that I could never master their opening hours – they always seemed to be shut when I passed by, but the outcome was that I never felt encouraged to purchase anything from this tiny shop tucked away in the back streets of the 6th arrondissement.
The San Francisco Book Company on the other hand was a completely different matter. Again this was an accidental find, near the famous ‘Dix bar’ in the Latin Quarter where the soixantehuitards planned yet another revolution back in the day. The San Francisco Book Company is also a second hand book shop and a veritable treasure trove. They offer a comprehensive range at very reasonable prices. It is also evident that the owners are book lovers from the condition of the books they take on, only well treated books are bought. If you are a traveller passing through Paris and want to unload some of your paperbacks this shop is well worth a visit.
The Red Wheelbarrow is so named after a William Carlos Williams poem. This small store in the heart of the Marais district of Paris, is a little on the kooky side, a bit like the poem. Crammed from floor to ceiling with books, you can be sure to receive a warm welcome as well as a flash book review if you so request. The shop runs events, book signings and trade fares in Anglophone schools in Paris. You feel confident that the founders of the shop know their books and if it is cheerful helpful staff you are after then you won’t find a happier place. Again the books are reasonably priced and if you can’t find exactly what you are after, they can order in, or make alternative suggestions.
Lastly, Shakespeare & Company, located opposite Notre Dame on the left bank this bookshop is the epitome of madness. The building is one of the last remnants of mediaeval Paris, and is a cross between a bibliophile’s dream and a claustrophobic’s nightmare. In a world where the Dewey decimal system exists this shop should not. There are books everywhere, along with a healthy spattering of cats, tourists hoping to get a glimpse of the infamous founder of the bookstore George Whitman and volunteer workers popping up from barely visible beds 
So why, among all these gadzillions of words floating round cyberspace should anyone bother to read yours? The obvious answer is to offer something different; something new and exciting; to have a Unique Selling Point, in other words.
