Anthony Robinson teaches composition and literature at the University of Oregon. He also co-edits The Canary with Nick Twemlow and Joshua Edwards. His poems appear in obscure print and online journals everywhere 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why? There were no poems in my childhood, Robert Louis Stevenson’s “I have a little shadow,” being the only exception I recall. We memorized it in Mrs. Peterson’s second grade class. The first poets I read as a young adult were Blake and Cummings, an odd pairing. I loved “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” which seemed the perfect text for a rebellious adolescent. I also loved the small Blake poems. “The Tyger,” “I Asked A Thief,” and “The Garden of Love” were among my favorites. I read the prophetic books, too, though I didn’t understand a word of them. I was sure that William Blake was from Mars. The first Cummings poem that attracted me was probably “[Somewhere I have never traveled, beyond]” or “[Since feeling is first].” Those may have been the first poems I memorized. I still love Cummings partly because I’m a sentimental sap, you know, cry at the movies and all that. I like that the emotion in these poems is...not simple...but pure. I loved Blake because he was a rebel. I loved Cummings because he was (mostly) good-natured, able to see the brightness in the corners. Even in political poems, like “I sing of Olaf, glad and big,” he always manages to balance anger or sarcasm with levity. Later, when I was in college—-in college late, as a “non-traditional” student—-I fell in love with Wyatt and Donne. 2. What is something/someone non-“literary” you read which may surprise your peers/colleagues? Why do you read it/them? It should come as no surprise to those who know me, or read my blog, that I own a lot of cookbooks. Probably over two hundred on my kitchen shelves, and more elsewhere. I buy new cookbooks more frequently these days than books of poetry. I subscribe to Saveur, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit, and have for years. Food is my abiding passion. Poems are great, but you need food to survive. Men die every day for lack of food. I’m not so sure they die from lack of poetry, though the idea intrigues me. As a child, I read a lot of trashy magazines. When I visit my parents’ house, I still read them--People, Us, Star--celebrity gossip. I guess I’m fascinated by the lives of people who are very different from me. When I was younger, I also read a lot of biographies. One of my favorite books as a ten year old was Oscar Lewis’ Children of Sanchez, an anthropologist’s biographical study of a poor Mexican family. It fascinated me because I was well aware that my immediate extended family referred to themselves as “Mexicans” (though they were, more accurately, Mexican-Americans). My mother reminded me all the time (and still does) that I was two things first: Mexican and Catholic. Well, when I read this book I was stunned that these people were so different from me, led lives unlike any I had known. We weren’t particularly well-off, but Sanchez and his family were poor. I began to feel some anxiety about how I would construct my identity--though as a ten year old I didn’t think of it in those terms. Comic books, too. Howard Chaykin and Mike Baron sustained me through the 80s with books like “The Badger” and “American Flagg!” 3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why? My initial instinct is to say, “not very,” though that would be misleading. I have a vexed relationship with a lot of philosophy because I am a recovering aesthete and born again pragmatist. I don’t particularly like turning ideas over in my head for the sake of it. I like to see ideas in action. I used to cling to the Wildean notion that poetry was useless, purely for pleasure. I disdain that purist’s attitude now, as I disdain pure philosophy. I want it to DO SOMETHING. On the other hand, I have read widely in rhetorical theory, which overlaps with philosophy in places. Hans-Georg Gadamer and Chaim Perelman have been influential for me in how I think about writing, have helped me to write with an eye toward being accessible without being facile. Writing is an argument. It’s all rhetoric. William James, John Dewey, Paul Goodman, Kenneth Burke, Hannah Arendt, too. I guess there are some philosophers in there, though when I hear the word “philosophy,” I think of Hegel and Kant, whom I read with great effort and, ultimately, little reward. 4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why? Early on, predictably, Neruda. I’ve recently begun reading the fiction of Haruki Murakami, though I’m not sure I like it yet. Yasusada, if he counts. I must admit I’m terribly under-read in non-Anglo-American literature. A few people have tried to push Polish poets on me, but I haven’t read any very deeply—-a little Milosz, a little Zbigniew Herbert. I guess it’s a question of time management. I’m reading Dante’s Vita Nuova right now, and every year or so I attempt read Don Quixote. Of the contemporary Hebrew poets, I like Dan Pagis, Natan Zach, Amichai. If African-American lit counts, then of course, there’s Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, more recently, Harryette Mullen. 5. Do you read a lot of poetry? If so, how important is it to your writing? I would like to say, “yes, Lance, I read tons of poetry,” but I never feel that I read enough, especially compared to some of my peers. As an editor for two very different journals (The Northwest Review and The Canary) I guess I do read a pretty wide spectrum of contemporary poetry. As far as books of poems go, I probably manage a couple a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. I’ve most recently enjoyed books by Dan Beachy-Quick, Daphne Gottlieb, Clark Coolidge, and Susan Howe. I read a lot of poetry on blogs, and online at magazines like Typo and Octopus. I like to dig through anthologies at random, to trick myself into reading writers I wouldn’t normally just pick up. And I do review a lot of current journals-—one of the perks of being an editor is you get a lot of freebies and trades. Then there are people I read frequently: A.R. Ammons, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, the poems of my friend Kristin Kelly, the poems of my other friend (and human to an evil cat) Nick Twemlow, the poems of Robyn Schiff (co-human to the evil Twemlow cat), Berryman, Dickinson—-poets I return to. Catherine Wagner and Gabriel Gudding may have written my two favorite poetry books of the past couple of years. I don’t know—-I guess I read a lot of poetry, though I never think I do. I read poetry every day. Sometimes just one poem, but I rarely go without. Regular reading is incredibly important to my writing. I probably wouldn’t write at all—-at least not in a concentrated, purposeful way—-if I didn’t regularly read. Of course, the danger is that one begins to consciously or unconsciously ape the styles of others. I’ll cop to that. I still do it. I’m still learning to be a writer. 6. What is something which your peers/colleagues may assume you’ve read but haven’t? Why haven’t you? Oh Lord. I don’t have any idea. I haven’t read all of Shakespeare—-maybe half of the plays. Still haven’t finished Don Quixote. I haven’t read a lot of contemporary fiction, actually. I devoured Raymond Carver and Nabokov in my teens and early twenties, and then lost interest in fiction. I occasionally read a novel that inspires or intrigues me, like Russell Hoban’s “Riddley Walker,” or John Berger’s “To the Wedding,” but this is rare. Again, I don’t have all the time I’d like, and straight narrative usually bores me. Maybe I just have a short attention span. I’ve never read a word of Jane Austen. 7. How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old? It’s a way to have fun with words; you can say something important but say it in an unusual, exciting way. 8. Do you believe in a Role for the Poet? If so, how does it differ from the Role of the Citizen? I’m a bit squeamish about the word “poet.” I rarely call myself a poet because I don’t like the way it sounds--snobbish or elitist. I think a man or woman is a citizen first. That doesn’t really answer the question though. A poet’s responsibility is to communicate something he or she feels is important—-be it intellectual or emotional. I believe a citizen must live in and contribute to the community to which he or she belongs. There are myriad ways to do this. The poet does the same thing because the poet is a citizen. I don’t believe in art for art’s sake, but I do believe in beauty. See “Ode on a Grecian Urn” for a more elegant articulation of this idea. 9. Word associations (the first word which comes to mind; be honest): Lemon**Pie Chiseled**Panther I**Samson Of**Relativity Form**Hamlet 10. What is the relationship between the text and the body in your writing? I write a lot about physical things, human bodies among them. I never really consciously think about this, though-—I just write the poems, and then look back and see bodies everywhere. Then I move them around. I’m interested in the body in the usual ways: as a site of eroticism, longing, human appetites. The body gets hungry, the body wants sex, the body has to take a piss, the body wants to get drunk, the body gets exhausted and exhilarated by physical exercise. We register our experiences with the world first through our bodies; the mental part comes later. I’m also interested in the fragility of the human body, that it can be easily destroyed or worn down. We are, more or less, ephemeral. There’s a reason why poets write about sex and death, you know. My poems try to deal with erotic longing (which is often more mental than physical, but the brain is part of the body, I suppose) and violence, or the idea of violence, though if you were to read my manuscript, you’d probably find 3 parts longing and 1 part violence. We live in bodies. We may as well use them. Since I’ve been writing poetry seriously, the past seven years or so, I’ve gained nearly fifty pounds. As my textual production increases, so does my corpulence. There must be a connection. I used to have the profile of Frank O’Hara. Now I have the profile of Ted Berrigan.