Donald Revell was born in The Bronx, New York in 1954. He is the author of seven previous collections of poetry: From the Abandoned Cities(1983), The Gaza of Winter (1988), New Dark Ages (1990), Erasures (1992), Beautiful Shirt (1994), There Are Three (1998) and Arcady (2002). His translation of Guillaume Apollinaire’s Alcools was published in 1995. His honors include the PEN Center USA West award, the Gertrude Stein Award, the Shestack Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as from the Ingram Merril and Guggenheim Foundations. He has taught at the University of Tennessee, Ripon College, Denver University, the University of Missouri, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Presently, he is a Professor of English at the University of Utah. Buy his books here. 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why? The first poem I ever loved was "Fern Hill." Why? Because its sound was absolutely intoxicating and because it perfectly expressed a vision of the childhood I looked (and look) forward to having. 2. What is something/someone non-“literary” you read which may surprise your peers/colleagues? Why do you read it/them? I read Gourmet magazine every month. Cooking is my prozac, and restaurants are my health clubs. 3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why? THEOLOGY is important to my writing, as I rely upon my poems to chart and charter my relationship to the divine and to eternity. Thus, everything I read by choice BECOMES theology...Kenneth Grahame, Henry Thoreau, the letters of Levertov, etc. 4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why? I love Guillaume Apollinaire, as I hope my volumes of translation will attest. He is mon oncle d'Amerique. I love Rimbaud because of his unrepentant innocence, his rabbit praying to a rainbow. 5. Do you read a lot of poetry? If so, how important is it to your writing? I don't read much poetry anymore. I read Thoreau in the mornings, and prose (biographies, novels, belle-lettres) in the afternoon. When I feel lost, I read Williams and Pound, in a sortes vergilanae sort of way, and they never fail me. 6. What is something which your peers/colleagues may assume you’ve read but haven’t? Why haven’t you? I've never read THE PRELUDE. I try to, almost every year. Can't get past page 1. 7. How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old? A poem is something made of words that you enjoy. 8. Do you believe in a Role for the Poet? If so, how does it differ from the Role of the Citizen? For me, poetry is sociopathic. It is a message from The Alone TO the Alone. To paraphrase Rousseau, a man can be a poet or a citizen, not both. (Though, I know, that Auden came darned close to managing it!) 9. Word associations (the first word which comes to mind; be honest): Lemon **Yellow Chiseled **Features I **Claudius Of **Grammatology Form **Feeling 10. What is the relationship between the text and the body in your writing? Poetry IS health...though, as Thoreau said, there is no way to distinguish the boundary between health and disease.