Ellington

Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited for brevity

Q: In the United States, where a thousand books is a best-seller in poetry compared to 500,000 in science-fiction, where do you think the relevance of poetry as a genre stands today in relation to American poetry, and how do you think it can grow or come back as a main cultural avenue?

Well, a thousand is not a best-seller in poetry. A thousand is a best-seller in garbage collection. I have one book that sold 37,000 copies. I don’t expect that all the time. “What Work Is” sold 37,000 copies. So I would say, today, more people are reading poetry in America than ever before. There’s a myth of this great golden period. … It’s not my, or any poet’s, job to make poetry more popular in America. That’s not what I do. I write. I write because I love to write, because I feel I need to write, it’s for my emotional and physical and spiritual health. And it’s what I do best, and I’ve loved doing it. It will either sink or swim on its own.

Q: What advice do you have for a young poet?

I think the best thing would be to find a community that’s congenial, of people who write or love poetry and encourage them to tell you the truth, no matter how wrong they are. Of course they’re wrong. This is great stuff. Why don’t they see it? But the only thing you can get that would be helpful from other people is the truth, or what they think is the truth, because there is no ultimate truth. And we all, I think, need other people. … So surround yourself with, or at least get involved with, people who will make those daily transactions that you make with poetry, will make them meaningful and will respond with candor. And don’t you lie with your friend poets. Don’t be mean-spirited, but don’t bullshit them, because they really need that feedback.

Q: When did you realize you were a writer?

I’m glad you used that last word — a writer. The other day, I was being filmed. It was going to be a national thing, “Crossing State Lines.” So they sent some guy to film me, and what he asked was: “When did you discover you were an artist?” He didn’t say writer. And I said, “I’m not an artist. Maybe I am, but I’m not certain.” But I know I’m a writer, because I write things, and they’re published. That’s what writers do. Only if it’s really poetry am I an artist. Then yeah, okay, that was art. Otherwise, it was just scribbling. Or it was journalism, or whatever the hell it was. It was meant to be poetry. … It’s a craft. Like masonry, carpentry. … It’s a craft, and if it’s done well enough and with enough depth, then it’s poetry. … I started writing when I was 14. … I would compose poems in my head, memorize them, and my joy in them was reciting them, outdoors, in the woods. … Then somehow my production seemed to slacken off.

Then I started reading modern poetry; it wasn’t taught in school. And when I started reading modern poetry ­— Hart Crane, T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore — I discovered Emily Dickinson on my own; it was never taught in school. Then I started writing with a sense of form. … I would say by the time I was 19, I was pretty certain about [writing]. This is what I wanted, this is what I want to do. I just don’t feel complete or whole without it.

Reach reporter Lauren Kronebusch at weekender@dailyuw.com.