THE ANTHOLOGIST SINCE 1927 THE LITERARY AND FINE ARTS JOURNAL OF RUTGERS COLLEGE I N T E R V I E W S Reprinted from The Anthologist Fall 1998 David Trinidad's next book of poems, Plasticville, will be published by Turtle Point Press in the Spring of 2000. His other books include Answer Song, Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988, Pavane, Monday, Monday, Monday, and Essay with Moveable Parts. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including New American Writing, Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, and High Risk: An Anthology of Fordbidden Writing. A native of Los Angeles, Trinidad has lived in New York City since 1988. He currently teaches poetry at Rutgers University and is a member of the core faculty in the MFA writing program at the New School. How did you get into writing? I started writing in the early seventies, when I was an undergraduate at California State University, Northridge. I took a couple of fiction workshops there, and both professors suggested I try poetry. My stories were strong on description, but weak on just about everything else-characterization, dialogue, plot. So I enrolled in a poetry workshop taught by Ann Stanford, who was a nationally recognized poet. My first poems were based on Joni Mitchell and Dory Previn songs, which I though were pretty poetic. During the course of that workshop, I had a kind of breakthrough and wrote my first "real" poem. From then on, I was hooked on poetry. How did you education influence your writing? Well, the workshops I took with Ann Stanford were certainly a big influence. I also studied independently with her for several years. I wasn't that into the poetry being taught in my literature courses. Then, Lowell and Berryman and Delmore Schwartz were all the rage. I discovered Anne Sexton's poetry, which had a huge effect on me, on my own, while browsing through the poetry section in a mall bookstore. Later I discovered other poets I liked-Sylvia Plath, Diane Wakoski. What are your influences? Anais Nin was my first literary hero. I loved her diaries, simply devoured them. Then came Sexton, Plath, and Wakoski. I liked Ted Hughes, William Carlos Williams, H.D., Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Elizabeth Bishop. On my twentieth Birthday, my roommate gave me a copy of Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems, and that influenced me profoundly. I've always been influenced by my friends, work. In College, I was close to the poet Rachel Sherwood, was devastated when she was killed in a car accident. Later, I became friends with Dennis Cooper and Amy Grestler. I love their poems. Dennis introduced me to the work of James Schuyler. Schuyler, like O'Hara, was a profound influence. Years afterward, Schuyler and I became friends, which was wonderful. Other poets who have meant a lot to me include Tim Dlugos, Elaine Equi, Joe Brainard and Alice Notely. How often do you write? Is it structured? I've gone through different periods in my life. At times I've written every day. At other times there have been months, even years between poems. In recent years, I've tried to devote at least one day a week to writing poems. The trick is to sit down and coax them. Once a poem is in process, I work fairly incessantly until it's finished. Do you have a theory of Poetics? To tell the truth, my personal truth, has always been a foremost concern. Anne Sexton once referred to herself as the star of her own autobiographical play. I liked that, took that to heart. I strive for simplicity, clarity, directness. The perfect honest image. I find a lot of beauty in unadorned language. Is there an overall theme that you follow in all of your poetry? That's a hard question to answer. It's not something I try to determine in advance. I don't think, "Ok, I'm going to write a poem and its theme is going to be such and such." What happens is more instinctive than that. I'm participant in the process, I'm trying to work something out, I learn from the poem, both during the writing of it and looking at it later, after its finished. I suppose there are several recurring themes in my work. Autobiography. The awareness and pain of difference. Issues of gender. Obsession. Fascination with pretty Pop things. The sad human limits of relationships. Longing for the past. How did you come to Rutgers to teach poetry? Three years ago, I asked to come to Rutgers to teach poetry workshop and to direct the Writers at Rutgers series, and I was pleased to do so. I am also on the faculty of MFA writing Program at the New School. How do you feel about the literary community here? I can speak about the poetry community, which I think is quite lively. There's Alicia Ostriker and Miguel Algarin, who are here on faculty. Since I've been here, a Number of Poets have come through to teach workshops. Susan Wheeler, Sophie Cabot Black, Chris Stoffolino, and Elaine Equi were here. Currently there's Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Nick Carbo, Denise Duhamel, and Joel Lewis. Many, many readings take place in New Brunswick. Students are lucky that there are so many accomplished writers at their disposal. You mentioned that you organize Writers at Rutgers: What are your goals with this series? What do you enjoy most about it? My goals are simply to present as diverse and as interesting a series as possible. Its wonderful to be able to invite writers to come here, and to be able to pay them decent honorariums, to be able to make posters for each event. The writers feel appreciated, and that's so important. It's great for the students as well. Many not only hear the writers speak, they have the opportunity to interact with them, sometimes in a workshop setting, sometimes during the question and answer sessions, and sometimes at the receptions after the readings. I enjoy scheduling writers I admire, like Charles Simic, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Patricia Spears Jones. I also enjoy getting to know writers I've never met before. A job like this forces me to get over my inherent shyness, to be an adult! How do you approach teaching poetry? I basically teach poetry the way I was taught by Ann Stanford. I design a series of assignments that allow students to experiment with a variety of poetic forms and strategies. I encouraged them to read as much poetry as possible, and try out in their own poems the things they admire in the poems they read. I also encourage playfulness, which I think is often an undervalued aspect of the creative process. What is your approach in criticizing Poetry? I personally try to give suggestions that will make the poem better, try to make the student aware of what's not working and why. And I think it's important to let each student hear, from the members of the workshop, a whole range of conflicting opinions. It's a good thing if the writer goes home confused. Some people liked a particular word or line; others thought it was bad and should be cut. What to believe? The writer has to sort through all the yeas and nays and ultimately decide for him and herself. That's one of the ways a young writer develops a sense of critical judgment, that little voice in our heads that tells us, as we're writing and revising, that this line's too cluttered, that word's not the perfect word, that stanza can go altogether, ect. How do you approach public readings? I try to be as prepared as possible, know in general what I'm going to read, even what I'm going to say about specific poems. I get terribly nervous before readings, and being prepared helps give me an edge. Waiting to "go on" is the worst part: I always think I'm going to pass out or die or something. Then, once I get up before the audience, I'm fine. I actually enjoy some readings. I've been doing them for twenty years, but that initial terror just won't seem to go away. In the early days, I'd be so nervous I'd shake uncontrollably throughout the reading and have anxiety attacks. That doesn't happen anymore, thank god. Where do you see poetry going? I worry that the poetry world has become too factionalized, and that each faction is too rigid and close-minded. There's the so called mainstream poets, the spoken word poets, the language poets, the new formalists, and so forth. They're like different clubs, or worse, political parties. They're all so sure that their way is the right way; they seem so intolerant of other kinds of poetry. There are lots of different ways of writing a poem. I wish there was more appreciation of that difference, more interaction between the various aesthetics. Another thing that troubles me. The kind of careerism that the MFA programs seem to have created. These programs are spitting out the hoards of young poets who feel that, with their neat little degrees, which they've paid thousands of dollars for, they're entitled to the book contract, the teaching gig, the grant, the award. One needs time to grow up as a writer, to practice, hone, experiment, absorb your influences. And yes, Creeley who said, "When you're twenty, you're twenty. When you're forty, you're a poet." There's a lot of truth to that. I just wish everyone would slow down. I wish we could put the ambition on the back burner, and put things like craft and fellowship and humanity on the font. The more politicized the poetry world becomes-with everyone maneuvering, manipulating, positioning themselves-the more need there will be for free-spirited or the Confessionals or the New York School poets in their day. And these voices, most likely, will come from left field, from completely surprising places. You can't manufacture your visionaries, your truly unique voices. They spring through the cracks to awaken us. If there was one thing you wish someone told you when you were getting started, what would it have been? Learn to like what you write. Let that be enough. Don't look for approval from the outside, from some mythic poetry authority figure. I used to think that poetry editors could really tell what good poetry was, that they could give me some kind of stamp of approval. But they're just people with their own odd individual tastes, just like you or me. It's all subjective. And be open minded. Just because someone writes differently than, it doesn't mean they're the enemy. You can learn from them, maybe even be inspired by them. Read across the board. Appreciate as much as you can. Taste it all.