Barry Schwabsky was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and now lives in London. Aside from his poems, published in Opera: Poems 1981-2002 and [ways] (both from Meritage Press) as well asthe chapbook Fate/Seen in the Dark (Burning Deck), he is the author of many works of art criticism, including The Widening Circle: Consequences of Modernism in Contemporary Art (Cambridge University Press) and contributions to the volumes Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting (Phaidon Press), Jessica Stockholder (Phaidon Press), and Gillian Wearing: Mass Observation (Merrill Publishers). He writes regularly for Artforum and other publications and has taught at New York University, Yale University, and Goldsmiths College, University of London, among others. Buy his books here, here and here. See some work here; editorial work here. 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why? When I was three years old I had a big book of poems and stories that I loved very much. One of my favorites was a little poem about a turtle. A google search reminds me that it went like this: There was a little turtle Who lived in a box. He swam in the puddles And climbed on the rocks. He snapped at the mosquito, He snapped at the flea. He snapped at the minnow, And he snapped at ME. He caught the mosquito, He caught the flea. He caught the minnow, But he didn't catch me! I'd had it read to me so often that I knew it by heart, so I told my older sister; I know how to read now, listen!, and pretended that I was reading the poem to her from the book rather than reciting it by heart. Somehow, though, she knew the truth. Subsequently, however, the paradigmatic poem for me became (and still remains) Wyatt's "They flee from me that some time did me seek". 2. What is something/someone non-"literary" you read which may surprise your peers/colleagues? Why do you read it/them? I sometimes read badly written things that have to do with my art writing projects, but for pleasure I don't generally read things of no literary value. But since I love music as much as I do poetry or art, I do sometimes read around in various branches of the British music press. I don't read any of the magazines religiously, but some people might be surprised to find me reading Jockey Slut even once. 3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why? Philosophy and poetry have the same concerns, in my view. 4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why? The fiction writer (who is also a poet) whom I am always pressing on people is a Bolivian, living in Mexico, Alvaro Mutis. He writes stories about a sailor called Maqroll. If you Boys' Life-type adventure stories as written by a disillusioned 18th century philosophy, you'd get something like the Maqroll stories. A couple of my favorite novels of recent years are by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk-The Black Book and My Name is Red. He's the true heir of Italo Calvino. This summer I'm looking forward to reading his newly translated novel Snow. Two of the 20th century poets who have been most important for my own work are Pierre Reverdy and Paul Celan. Of course the greatest writers of modernity are Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka. 5. Do you read a lot of poetry? If so, how important is it to your writing? One of the greatest pleasures of publishing a book of poems has turned out to be all the books other poets send you in return. Of course I read a lot of poetry. Not only contemporary. Have just picked up Robert Henryson's selected poems, for instance. 6. What is something which your peers/colleagues may assume you've read but haven't? Why haven't you? No idea. I don't think anyone is thinking about what I've read. And while I've always indulged the vice of reading obscure curiosities before classics, I've read my share of the latter as well--though never a word, I have to admit, of Rabelais or Tolstoy. Let alone the Maximus Poems. 7. How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old? What's to explain? Every seven-year old know what a poem is. Here is one by my five-year old daughter: Apples are rhyme Plums are red Roberty is sleeping In a blankety bed The world is nice And nothing to believe Roberty can't wake up For the mornings and the days The bees want honey In a big apple tree Roberty didn't care He wanted to sleep So not only a seven-year-old but even a five-year-old knows very well what a poem is. But maybe it gets more interesting when you reach the point where you don't know any more, and therefore have nothing to explain. 8. Do you believe in a Role for the Poet? If so, how does it differ from the Role of the Citizen? We have a lot of work to do in just coming to terms with a role for the citizen, let alone the poet as such. We live, unfortunately, in a post-democratic era. In the UK where I live, a million people took part in a single demonstration against the war; every poll shows that the majority of citizens were and remain against it. But that was of no account to their government. 9. Word associations (the first word which comes to mind; be honest): Lemon**RIND Chiseled**MARBLE I**AM Of**OF?? Form**FICTION 10. What is the relationship between the text and the body in your writing? See the writing.