Meteor is a pocket-constellation of persona poems. In other words, these
are not memoir but confections of the imagination. They are also— to steal part
of the title of an anthology in which the title poem appeared— my goodbye to
the Twentieth Century. (That anthology was American
Poets Say Goodbye to the Twentieth Century, edited by Andrei Codrescu and
Laura Rosenthal.) I think of this collection, starting with “Meteor” and ending
with “The Building of Quality,” as my song to and of the twilight of the Pax
Americana.
What boundaries did you break in the writing of this book? Where
does that sort of courage come from?
I don’t know if there is a boundary
between poetry and fiction, but if there is I broke it. Many of of these poems
I had originally considered flash or micro fictions, and indeed a few were
originally published as short stories— but then I had too much fun chopping up
and arranging stanzas! Does this take courage? Yes and no. Yes, because making
any art takes courage; there is always the risk that someone, for whatever
bizarre or valid reason, may attack your work. On the other hand, no, this does
not require courage. I’m old enough to realize it’s just sad that someone who would
attack my work doesn’t have anything better to do. In my experience, those who
attack other artists are even better at attacking themselves.
Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to
publication.
It was mostly low, as in deep down
in the salt mines, nicely preserved. These poems were written by a younger poet
who moved on to writing tomes of nonfiction and an epic historical novel and,
somewhere in there, edited a literary magazine and a collection of Mexican
writing in translation. From my informal polling of published poets it can take
many, many, many and multitudinous submissions before a book of poetry gets
published. Let’s just say, that sounds believable to me. In the poetry world a
common path to publication is to submit your manuscript to a contest to be
judged anonymously—your name and address and any other identifying information
stripped off the manuscript. I submitted the manuscript to contests, but irregularly,
lackadaisically. About a year ago I decided it was time to make this happen
and, bingo, it did. Linwood D. Rumney, author of Abandoned Earth, who selected Meteor
for the Gival Press Award for Poetry, and whom I look forward to meeting one
day, I send you showers of lotus petals!
What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?
If you want to do it, you’ll do it.
If you want to watch TV and scroll through social media, you’ll do that. You
could train a giraffe to ice-skate, if you really wanted to. Now whether
there’s a market that wants to fill a stadium to watch your ice-skating
giraffe, that’s another question. And the market isn’t everything. Sometimes
the market is just stupid. I’m thinking of Roman entertainments. They liked to
watch giraffes getting gored by rhinos.
My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises
you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?
The same thing that has surprised
me in writing all of my books, that there is a door in consciousness that
opens.
Who is your ideal reader?
Someone who can contemplate nuance
and ambiguity and, above all, see with the heart.
Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s
associated with your book? (Any recipes* I might share?)
No, but I will be delighted to
share my recipe for baba ghanoush. Roast a bunch of eggplants whole. When cool,
peel off the skins. With a fork, mash the eggplant with tahini, lemon juice,
salt, pepper, olive oil, and plain good quality yoghurt. This will look like a
nasty grey mess, but that’s OK, it tastes great. Sprinkle parsley and paprika
on top for both added flavor and color.
READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.cmmayo.com
ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR PILE: http://www.cmmayo.com/METEOR/index.html
READ A POEM FROM THIS BOOK, “In the
Garden of Lope de Vega”:
March 29 ~ Gival Press 20th Anniversary Celebration Reading event, 7 PM
March 30 ~ signing at the Gival Press table in the bookfair, 10 AM - 11:30 AM