An Interview With an Awful Poet

Interview With An Awful Poet


The following interview was conducted by Paolo Honorificas with the noted American poet Pew U. over a period of two weeks in New York and Los Angeles as well as various points in-between. Pew was hitch-hiking to California in an attempt to find warmer weather. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. The latest of which is his recent election to the Lost Bay Poet’s Hall of Fame.


Paolo: You have been called one of the worst poet’s writing in English today. How do you react to that kind of criticism?.

Pew: I’m humbled naturally. It hasn’t changed me though. I believe it is the poet’s task to persevere. Praise has a danger of interfering with one’s work. You know, no matter what praise or criticism you receive you are still the same person inside. Those who think differently are the unfortunate ones. I don’t believe in inflated egos.

Paolo: You are a collector of note?

Pew: I’m kind of caught off guard here. You do your research well.

Paolo: I try. You are known for having one of the most extensive collections of rejection slips in the U.S., Canada and England.

Pew: Yes. I have over 200 from the New Yorker alone. I’ve branched off lately into the “ezine” field of collecting. The Strand, Jacket, Cortland Review, Pif, Fluid Ink Press, as well as numerous magazines such as the Atlantic who have an “ezine” presence are examples. Some of my most amusing moments come from receiving snide criticisms from little university presses. It’s cute, they are so serious in referring to themselves in the third person like “Queens” or something. The Smithsonian is in dialog with me about the collection.

Paolo. What does the term “awful” mean to you?

Pew: Lets break it down. You have “ah” and “full”. I would define it etymologically as something that is “awe-full”. More then the eye can tolerate.

Paolo: What discourages you about writing?

Pew: Getting published. I sent a terrible poem off to the London Literary Review in the hopes of receiving one of their great rejection notices. You know…this was a bad poem…one of my worst…I was so proud of it. I was positive they wouldn’t want to touch it let alone read it. The eye strain it caused the editor must have been immense.…over 1000 lines of excruciatingly hackneyed crap. I was hurt and shocked to discover it had been accepted. Of course they edited it extensively. I would advise poets just starting out to learn from my example and keep their poems very short. Less chance of other people fooling around with them.

Paolo: What would you say have been some of your formative influences?

Pew: My ninth grade teacher. She had green hair and a mustache. Then there was this hell’s angel biker I met on Fisherman’s Wharf. He didn’t say much but his guttural grunts had a rhythm I was later able to exploit to their full potential.

Paolo: Are you speaking about your poem “Tripe”?

Pew: Yes. And others as well. I believe in repeating oneself as much as possible.

Paolo: I’m sure readers would be interested in knowing how you came to write “Tripe”.

Pew: I doubt they would. I was bored. I said to myself: “Tripe! Tripe! Tripe!” Everything else seemed to flow from that. It was an epiphany. A special moment in time. Inspiration is a chancy thing. You can’t count on it.

Paolo: What would you say is the poet’s role in society.

Pew: Depends on what you mean by “poet’, “role” and “society”. A poet’s role in society is a special one. It is to be ignored, despised, discounted and to starve to death. Solitude is my society. I don’t like poets. They are deceptive people. Manic depressive most of them. Have you ever met a poet you were willing to introduce to your wife or girlfriend?

Paolo: Male or female?

Pew: Both as well as those in-between. They’re always writing something down. They have ink for brains most of them.

Paolo: What for you is the difference between a good and bad poem?

Pew: Interesting question. Never thought about it much. Perhaps that’s why my work is so lousy. If a poem looks like too much work to read I won’t fool with it. If it attempts to be fresh or new I probably won’t like it. Actually I read a lot of the masters of the English language and then try to do the opposite. Seems to work for me. Most importantly, if there is nothing I can lift from the poem, then I know my time was wasted.

Paolo: I’m interested in your career as an editor.

Pew: It was my own poetry that led me to publishing the work of others. Fortunately, I was so bereft of any creative talent, I had to find another avenue for literary exploration. Plus I had all that experience from reading my own bad notices. That helped open doors. A good editor is one who can…at the drop of a manuscript so to speak…whip off a good rejection notice. You know 99% of an editor’s job is in the rejection field.

Paolo: You were very successful in that area.

Pew: I started a few trends, yes. Just look at Mudlark. It’s never in or out of print. The Pound-Olson continuum you know.

Paolo: Are you speaking about the poet Charles Olson?

Pew: No, Jimmy Olson. The Pound-Olson continuum represents Ezra Pound in one of his less lucid moments combined with the comic book genre. The pictures you receive are impressionary snap-shots of a momentary brain hemorrhage oozing across linguistic barriers. Of course Ashbery, O’Hara and Koch have the same ability to surprise like rutabagas in a landscape. If they shaved their heads they would be rutabagas. The problem is with the landscape. Where does it fit in?

Paolo: You taught at university?

Pew: The dean of instruction thought I did. The money was good. I would take a tape recording of various poetry readings of mine and play them in class. Before playing the recording I would admonish the post- graduate students that they could learn more from bad poetry then good poetry.

Paolo: What did they say to that?

Pew: Don’t know. Never stayed around long enough to find out. Neither did they. They simply recorded my recording.

Paolo: I find that hard to believe. You read that somewhere.

Pew: No, you did. What does it matter. Do you expect truth from poets or poetry? The shaman phase is over. Today the only place poets point to is ultimate self-annihilation . I’ve got to go. A car just pulled up.

Scott Malby

Posted over on Zygote In My Coffee
*Editor's note: Interview with an Awful Poet first appeared in DREAM PEOPLE.