Gabriel Gudding is an assistant professor of creative writing at Illinois State University and is the author of A Defense of Poetry and Rhode Island Notebook. Buy his book here. See some work here, here and here. 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why? I don’t recall that I ever loved, as a kid, an entire poem. I remember loving as a boy some phrases of “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, mostly because my mom would recite them to me and tickle me whenever she said “Gitche Gumee,” with emphasis on the “git” as in “I’ll git you,” when she would tickle me, and then she’d continue the rhyme: “On the shores of Gitche Gumee,/ Of the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood Nokomis, the old woman, Pointing with her finger westward, O'er the water pointing westward, To the purple clouds of sunset.” It was a poem about the early peoples around Lake Superior. I grew up among the lakes of Minnesota and felt that here was a poem about the land around me. And I found the rhythm noble and it made me want to dance and listen. I recall how happy I was to see these driving epic rhythms and rhymes were taken up and slightly altered by the Hamms Beer radio and TV commercials. (The writer of this jingle, Ernie Garven, who grew up in the same town as I did, died a short while ago): "From the land of sky blue waters (waters), "From the land of pines, lofty balsams, "Comes the beer refreshing, "Hamm's, the beer refreshing." 2. What is something/someone non-“literary” you read which may surprise your peers/colleagues? Why do you read it/them? I am currently reading a 19th Century Burmese book called “Vipassana Dipani,” or “Manual of Insight” by a famous teacher of vipassana meditation called Ledi Sayadaw, a very learned scholar and monk and a master of vipassana meditation who lived in Burma and died in the early part of the last century. The book is basically a manual of theory meant to supplement the serious practice of vipassana meditation. Vipassana, which means in Pali, “to see things as they really are,” is the principle method of meditation taught by the historical Buddha. He said that vipassana bhavana (or the cultivation of insight) was the only way he found to completely purify his own heart and mind. He went so far as to say that it is the only way ANYONE can do so. I am also reading a 5th Century A.D. book concerning Buddhist Abhidhamma mental and ethical cultivation called the “Visuddhimagga,” which is a Pali word that means “path of purification.” Pali is the now dead middle Indic language spoken by the Buddha. It is related to Sanskrit as Italian is related to Latin. The Visuddhimagga is basically a huge manual of meditation. It lists and discusses in an outline format all the various methods of mental cultivation taught by the historical Buddha. I am reading these books because I practice vipassana meditation two hours each day and have done so with strict discipline since December 2003. I was taught vipassana by the foremost living lay teacher of our day, S. N. Goenka, a Burmese man of Indian descent now residing in Bombay. Mr. Goenka oversees FREE OF CHARGE silent ten day courses in vipassana meditation taught by videotape and audiotape all over the world. Anybody can go take these courses. My last such course was Dec 26 to Jan 6, 2005, which I sat with 40 other people. I took it at the recently opened Illinois Vipassana Meditation Center 140 miles north of where I live in Normal, Illinois. There are courses taught in camps and centers in this tradition all over the US and the world. The courses are all free of charge, all volunteer run: you get your own room, they put you up for eleven nights, they feed you, and you obey a strict schedule, up at 4am each day. One undertakes a strict code of discipline and undergoes a very methodical and rigorous course in three kinds of meditation: observation of respiration (anapana); observation of all mind-body phenomena (vipassana); and, on the last day, the cultivation of loving-kindness. For the first three and a half days one learns anapana, during which time the mind becomes very sharp, calm, clear, and one-pointed. On the fourth day one is given instruction in vipassana, a very powerful and no-nonsense method of observing all mind-body phenomena. The final method one learns, on the last day, is how to cultivate an attitude of loving-kindness. There is no catch: all courses are offered on a donation-only basis. Some people don’t donate anything -- and that’s okay. Despite this -- or perhaps because of this -- refusal to charge any money these courses have grown radically since Goenka began teaching them in India in 1969. The first permanent center in North America opened up in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts in the late 80s. There are now 7 permanent centers in North America. You can find books related to vipassana in this tradition at www.pariyatti.com. Though I have only in the last year become a serious daily practicioner of vipassana, I first sat one of these courses at a rented camp in British Columbia in 1991. I just completed my sixth course and plan to take another one in June 2005. You can find more information at www.dhamma.org. Dhamma is just the Pali version of the Sanksrit “Dharma.” Before finding vipassana as taught in this tradition (by Goenka) I studied Zen meditation, mantra based meditations, and other forms of vipassana. But for me NOTHING compares to vipassana for efficacy and immediate pragmatic benefits, some of which include: • Increased energy and efficiency • Improved concentration and mental clarity • Decrease in stress, anxiety, fear • Strengthening of ethical foundation • Increase in creativity and enjoyment of all aspects of life • Improved relations with colleagues, family, friends • Deepened sense of purpose • Greater balance when facing challenges • Progressive elimination of anger, animosity and ill-will. The next books I’m going to read are THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ST JOHN OF THE CROSS, trans Otilio Rodriquez, and JOHN MUIR: NATURE WRITINGS, the latter given to me by my dear friend and fellow vipassana meditator Maria Schmeeckle. 3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why? Profoundly. Because theory and practice must go together. One must understand what one is doing. One must understand how one lives. Not to do so leads to suffering. My favorite philosophers are all pragmatists. I am in love with the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus. He and Siddhatta Gotama begin it for me. Recent philosophers of great import to me are Thérèse of Liseaux, William James, John Dewey, Emerson, Rorty, Levinas, and Ivan Illich, who died two years ago. 4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why? At the moment, Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa, because he’s the dude who wrote the _Visuddhimagga_. 5. Do you read a lot of poetry? If so, how important is it to your writing? These days I don’t read a lot of poetry. I go in cycles. I just finished guest editing a magazine and because of that got to read a lot of really great new poetry. In the next few weeks I'll begin guest editing for Mipoesias.com. 6. What is something which your peers/colleagues may assume you’ve read but haven’t? Why haven’t you? Not much of the old WCW. Just keep forgetting to do so. But also I’ve always found his poem about the wheelbarrow utterly blah. I think it’s that poem more than any other has turned kids off to poetry. If that’s a poem, why not just go for a bikeride instead. 7. How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old? I have a seven year old too. I told her a poem is a like a song that you can stick anything into. But that you don’t have to sing it. 8. Do you believe in a Role for the Poet? If so, how does it differ from the Role of the Citizen? Haki R. Madhubuti said recently in his most recent book, RUN TOWARD FEAR, that a poet’s job is to find peace. I feel that, at base, at heart, what we do is either find peace or make misery. Those are basically the only two roles one can play. Whether a person is a poet or a citizen, we all want to find peace and to be happy. The problem is we don’t know how to do that. I feel strongly that my job as a poet is to help people find to peace and to be happy. 9. Word associations (the first word which comes to mind; be honest): Lemon** Eye. (Lemons are shaped like eyes) Chiseled** Roy. (Because last week I saw a guy named Roy using a chisel) I** Anatta. (One of the three marks of existence, according to the Buddha) Of** Warm. (The word “of” I think connotes “warm” for me because “oven” starts with “of”) Form** Dorm. 10. What is the relationship between the text and the body in your writing? I don’t understand the question. It’s too broad for me to answer. Like what? If I didn’t have a body I wouldn’t be able to write? I don’t know what you mean. I wrote an article on the body’s history in genetics that showed up in The Journal of the History of Ideas once. Or do you mean something like what use do I make of the body in my own poetry? Lots I suppose. The body in my work is transformed into an instrument that is elastic rather than brittle, mutable rather than fixed, and just as subject to decay as it is liable to explode. It is a thing dripping with feces and tipped with lips. The body in my work is in many ways simply the unlit basement of the mind. I want to show the necessity of its becoming illuminated and understood as something subject to death and pain but not to suffering. That is to say, I want to drive a wedge between the fact of pain and the apparent inevitability of suffering -- and to show that in fact though we must feel pain we don’t have to suffer it. In fact, this is the insight that vipassana has brought me over the years. And too, this has been, for me, the principle gift of Comedy to world literature: that suffering (misery) is not necessary; that we can accept and laugh at the great amount of pain we experience without having to be miserable in the face of it. The body, then, in my work, has I think been a rather elastic thing: eyeballs on a strabismic face clubbing each other, feces changing into babies, and a vulva flying up a nose. Thérèse of Liseaux, who died of tuberculosis at 24, said, ""I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more because all suffering is sweet to me." You can see that in Beckett's _Molloy_ -- and in so many other places where the body is ridden hard in literature.