You told me: "The first book, The Draw of Broken
Eyes, is about the only true love of my life and why I am still single. She
was supposed to be home when the book was published. She still hasn’t reached
me." Expand on this,
if you could.
This is by far the hardest question for me to address out of all the
curious points in The Draw of Broken Eyes
& Whirling Metaphysics. There’s a whole lifetime going on with Whirling Metaphysics, but The Draw of Broken Eyes has one specific
purpose. Since the book was
released 13 months ago, I’ve slowly been able to let more of the story in Broken Eyes seep out to the public, not
for sake of dramatic flair, but because it is still a raw nerve I have trouble
touching. Yet, to speak of it
openly is to deal with it directly.
In my experience that is the only way to create and maintain literary
integrity, as well as a personal exercise in letting go.
I fell in love with a girl in 2003-2004, a young lady, who was the
first to fully sync with my speeding thoughts, rapid speech, manic highs, and
hellish lows without flinching. She gave me hope after a painful divorce. In my experience, those I devoted
myself to burnt out ahead of schedule due to my mercurial nature. That was not their fault, it was mine.
In her eyes I could see the home, the solid life, the stability I
wanted to experience. After two
years of courting it was obvious I gave her a similar balance and
normalcy. Providing someone else with
a sense of serenity was new for me.
Unfortunately, life had very different plans for our future than what we
attempted to create. Every attempt
to begin our life failed.
Then she vanished.
Spiritually fractured, lost, frantic I came to the conclusion that the
only way I could be sure she’d know I still loved her, that I waited in Georgia
for her to come home, that I never gave up hope was to write my devotion into a
book good enough for legitimate publication, wide distribution, the subtext
hidden in poetry my readers could also enjoy but not completely decipher. Only she would be able to decode my real
meaning.
My new dream was that she would discover the book after Googling my
name, read it, then contact me.
The crowning desire was to have her in the front row of my first reading,
smiling at me, kissing me when the unnerving ordeal was over. I could tell our story, prove love
overcomes all, and have her stand so everyone could see why I never gave up.
The
book was accepted for publication.
John Gosslee Books decided to publish both Whirling Metaphysics (the first book) and The Draw of Broken Eyes (the love letter) in one volume. I did indeed have my first reading, but she was not in the
front row, squeezed somewhere in the middle, or even hiding in the back. The girl wasn’t there. She still isn’t here.
For me, the most shocking part of The
Draw of Broken Eyes is how many quickly figure
out (to some degree) that
the book was something very sad speaking to a particular lover.
Some of the poetry most often requested
of me to read aloud come from Broken Eyes.
Some of these poems are: “myth’s driven
forward”, “Ascension, First Floor Up”, “Our
Couch”, “Conversations with Daisy”,
“We Heave Up Like the Night”, “The Tragedy of
Waiting Helen”, “blackberries
& blue morpho didius”, “There are
Hours”, and
“saturday afternoon at hilton head”. They’re about her.
They are powerful, mysterious,
and begged for an explanation. It didn’t completely blindside me. I did make the oath that
if asked I’d
answer to the best of my ability.
If I didn’t have the nerve to address the issue
in public, I didn’t
deserve to sell that story in my book.
Eventually, due to her haunting absence, I did attempt to embrace
other girls, laugh,
keep dancing, but the music was missing – the flesh was wax
paper. The attempts I made at
a relationship violently crashed into the earth
and left an unfair amount of collateral
damage on their end. I decided to keep a healthy distance
from any more attempts at
romance until I put all my questions about her, and
our dreamy future, to rest.
I’m still single.
You said:
"I had an idyllic childhood, but my teen years lead into my disconnected
feeling with society that shows hardcore in my writing today. I still write
either alone in a poem or as an observer.
In what ways was your childhood idyllic? What happened in your teen
years that caused you to feel alienation from society?
I grew up in Crawford, Georgia.
It’s a town in Oglethorpe County just below Athens. I had all the excitement of the
University of Georgia football games and cultural events a college town that
size easily provided, but I was primarily nestled in the rural beauty of
Crawford.
My father, Chuck Brooks, a businessman who taught me the honor of
Southern heritage and tradition also gave me his humor. My love of music began with him as my
formative years were bathed in Motown. My brilliant mother, Jeanette Fleming, passed me her academic
talents, and has been a strong, calming presence. She is my biggest fan, and worries about me constantly. Both of them were/are remarkable
parents. The two-year monastic
existence I lived while finishing The
Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics, every scorching day at work
as a landscaper, all the long miles of touring, continuous, tenacious promotion,
to this interview with you – is for them. In my new book, Athena Departs,
I make it a point to prove this statement by the poetry I write about them.
As I got older it was harder for me to connect with people. My teenage years were tough on me, but I
think that all teenagers go through that typical angst. My bipolar disorder ramped up around 20
to 21, and the ability to open up, and understand, others also became more
strained.
At first being told by a professional I “suffered” from a mood disorder
made me feel dysfunctional. The
diagnosis was not understood then as it is today, and the medications made me
feel like I was walking through life fighting my way out of a wool sock. I didn’t take the pills, and to throw
off attention when shadows settled in, I used my gift as a comedian to trick
folks into thinking I was on top of the world. What I wanted was oblivion.
To escape the worst of the black dogs, I wrote myself into a safe
world of short stories where I wasn’t such an alien presence, where I fit in my
own skin, where I was in control.
Poetry came into play when women took center stage, but even then, prose
remained my mainstay. Five or six
years after I graduated from college, poetry got behind the wheel of my
professional writing career. That
was at the request of an agent who decided my introduction to the larger
literary world should be with Whirling
Metaphysics. He never charged
me a dime. We worked on it for a
year. He decided the South needed
a poet. I didn’t see a reason to
argue. During the last leg of the
process he closed up shop and took off, yet, I was too stubborn to stop.
In poetry, for reasons I still can’t explain, when I write about
personal struggles, pieces digging into me, I am alone (walking, driving late
at night, or doing manual labor to slow my manic energy). I write about myself in dreamscapes
like Raven in Memoriam, Blues Solo, Six
Chapters of Swerve, and The Fifth
Movement. In poems where I
write about others, it’s almost like an exercise in anthropology. I’m always a few (safe) steps back,
removed, confused, bemused, attempting to figure out why the world works the
way it does.
I don’t feel superior or inferior because of this quixotic glitch in
perspective. One therapist who
read my book told me it was the side effect of a dissociative disorder. Everything today has a diagnosis. Maybe I just don’t give a shit often enough
to visit the circus on a regular basis – maybe.
We both teach:
I, as a public high school literature/ESOL teacher (I have also taught writing
at a community college), and you as a teacher of adults at Chattahoochee
Technical College. I believe you said the students are getting their GEDs?
Discuss your experiences with students, and with the institution of education.
Are there any conflicts between the two? For example, I adore the act of
teaching and I love my kids, tiresome though they can be, but the institution
of education and the oppressive bureaucracy can stifle the art of teaching.
Have you experienced this at your level of instruction, or do you anticipate
experiencing this? Or is there no real disconnect where you teach? How do you
find your interactions with students? Discuss the positives and negatives.
Teaching at Chattahoochee Technical College in the Adult Learning
Center has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. I am teaching teens that left a regular
high school setting (or forced out) that didn’t fit them and adults who have
come back for a degree, get their GED.
All of them show that spark for nurturing their greater selves that I
can only compare to the lofty ideals Aristotle wrote about so long ago. Other big perks include: I don't have the red tape endured through public education, wrangling with ineffective administrators, and I have an amazing amount of free reign over how I teach.
Slowly I learn each student and help tailor a program that best suits
their mode of thinking. Each and
every soul sitting in my classroom is there because they want to be, eager to
learn, and have extensive life experiences to share that makes the whole three
hour class period more like an intellectual family gathering than a factory of
mediocrity.
The administration is
helpful and supportive, always there to provide a helping hand or bit of
advice. My teaching guru, Mrs. Amy
Denney, quickly took the deep-rooted fear out of my new career while always
keeping me on my toes. Ms. Holly
Holt is a bright, highly talented poet who moonlights as an assistant to all
the teachers in Chattahoochee Tech who has given me teaching tools, and helpful
tips. I honestly can’t think of
any negatives to report.
You mentioned
you freelance write for various publications. It sounds as though you write for
varied audiences. Discuss the various types of writing you do, and the
challenges of each. (I was once a freelance writer as well; I wrote for arts as
well as technical publications.)
I freelance for Fast & Sexy Magazine which “exalts the classic
design of automobiles and the divine feminine”. My boss, Sam Bailey, is one of the most upright, honest, and
encouraging men I’ve ever had the good fortune of working for. My job is to interview the models and
car owners, then write the articles included in each issue. The only drawback at times is syncing
up interview times with those in the magazine that have very different
schedules. A challenge is writing
to the car world, which is very different from poetry or the SEO writing I do
for my other side gig. Yet, this
does not mean “talking down” to anyone simply because of the material I
cover. I think that is cheap and
offensive.
Interactive Search Marketing is the web design and SEO group I’ve
worked with for close to eight years that has taught me everything I know about
social media. Not only is this a
challenge to write in yet another way to rank businesses on Yahoo, Bing, and
Google, but the applications I’ve garnered there have given me a leg up in
promoting my own creative career online.
Here, too, I have found a best friend and brother, Greg Hosmer, who has
seen me through some rough times and helped me keep working when I wanted to
throw in the towel.
Discuss the
collective of artists that you mentioned. You said the number was "sheered
down due to ego." How did ego play a part in the disruption of the
coherence of the group? Discuss your feelings about ego in general, and how it
can obstruct.
The Southern Collective Experience is a concept formed in January
2013. I toured, bounced
in-and-out-of reading groups, and met a ton of other Southern artists these
last thirteen months, and I discovered that many luminous, unknown souls
considered themselves “creative loners” because the mainstream art scene was
rife with selfish desire. Those I
spoke to didn’t want to deal with the drama that comes along with a gathering
of artists that includes over two or three members. After a few days of consideration, I decided to see what I
could shake loose.
Instead of hoarding the attention and wrapping myself in a bullshit
mantle of literary achievement, it made more sense to me to share the stage. I started calling those “creative loners”. Bottom line, I wish to do the business
of art with folks from all genres and work against clichés (most well-earned). I have grown ill from constant whining about
the death of poetry, and the creative sloth blamed on a society that’s tossed
art aside. That’s not true. The truth is poets (artists) became
thin-skinned cry babies that hid in MFA programs, wasting hundreds of dollars
on how-to seminars, or reading groups Bukowski immortalized in Poetry Readings. If all else fails, simply write cryptic
nonsense and claim superior intellect when a poetry reader calls you out on
it. A few slipped in under the
guise of being edgy and cool for their ability to shock folks by using “fuck” a
thousand times over ten pages.
So, meticulously I gathered artists from all over Dixie who worked in
every genre where we met on two occasions. They were both weekend retreats to get better acquainted. I dislike the idea of going off to
somewhere gorgeous just to schedule the whole thing like weekend detention in
high school, but we did share literature and later play music that amazed
everyone in attendance. I believed
then, as I do evermore now, that art only survives when artists get over
themselves, put aside pomp and circumstance, and get down to the bare bones of creation. The first step was not to announce a
grand plan that the world of sound, color, and words would be salvaged from the
hum-drum abyss by this collective, but to rather sit, talk, and share our
inspiration. The first meeting
went well. I began to think this
gathering of Southern imagination was sailing ahead like the promise of free
money.
After the second outing I found that ego creeps in everywhere, no
matter how carefully you attempt to weed it out. This was not a shock to me. I shaved down our number and took a few steps back to
reorganize.
I am also a
member of The Last Ancients, a small group of individuals who reside beyond the
Southern states, who are poets, writers, editors, visual artists, musicians-music
producers, friends that includes Clifford Brooks, Isaac Kirkman, Beatsmith
Medore, Jamez Chang, and Ezra Letra.
This organization is just as specific in purpose and includes people who
are true to themselves and their chosen art form. Both of these groups have given me more peace
of mind than I’ve ever experienced anywhere else.
Neither group is standing on a mountaintop crying out for
followers. None of us plan to teach the
world how to return to a creative utopia that never existed to begin with. As I see it, we’re out to prove that an
intelligent, cultured group who are friends chill enough to throw a little hell
at each other, can also write poetry & prose, collaborate to build fresh
expressions, all while sharing combined knowledge and connections to move
forward.
What is vanity
publishing, and why do you denounce it?
Put simply – it’s cheating.
If you’re publishing something for friends/family - fine; if you’re a
motivational speaker and want literature to hand out during/after the
presentation - groovy; in the case you’re a businessman getting his new
product/service out there – that’s different.
If you want to be taken seriously in the literary community, you must
go through the trial by fire of sending out manuscripts, rejections, editing,
re-editing, editing some more, contract negotiations, and then having an editor
throw a second, or third, pair of eyes on your work to pick up on things
perhaps you missed after a thousand readings. It’s a learning process.
I get some disgruntled faces when I talk about this during readings,
but sometimes the truth hurts.
Discuss your
experiences at Shorter College. What did you study? Did you write while at
Shorter? If not, then what was the genesis of your writing career?
Shorter College in Rome, GA (Not Shorter University as it’s seen
today) was an oasis of classical learning for me as I found my niche in the
academic world. It was a Baptist
institution, but that, back then, was never shoved down anyone’s throat. The professors were brilliant and
motivating, showing me how gorgeous the world could be the more you understood
about it. I ended up with a
Bachelors of Science in History/Political Science with a minor in English
Literature.
I did write poetry back then, but it was mostly for a love
interest. Again, my creative bread
and butter was prose. However,
after I fell into an abyss of alcoholism, took a year off, and then came back
to graduate, a poem I wrote, which is in my book, “The Judas Noose Tavern”
became one of the first “real” poems I was proud to pen. That poem was also submitted to the
National Creative Society which inducted me as a Lifetime Member in 1999. Another poem from those years is the
innocent, but personally revealing poem “Sunlight Carves My Chaos”.
You worked as
a juvenile probation officer as well as for DFCS. How did you get into those
lines of work? What are your most
memorable moments from those jobs? How does that line of work figure into your
poetry? Do you think that the "poetic" can be found even in such
practical lines of work? How so?
A personal friend who worked for the Pickens County Police Department
called me where I worked at Barnes & Noble in Athens at the time. I have always had a drive to inspire
kids, help them develop their hidden talents, tutor them where they struggle,
broaden the scope of their worlds.
My buddy told me that these talents he saw in me as we grew up would fit
perfectly in juvenile probation.
He was right. I worked for
the Department of Juvenile Justice for six years until it became more about
paperwork and less about improving the life of children/teens. 99% of the cases I worked were
ultimately a success, where lessons were learned and everyone involved walked
away a better person.
However, there was a dark side.
Since I worked in Pickens County, a rural, quiet part of North Georgia,
the cases were very Mayberry in their severity. I had kids shooting deer from the road, petty theft, fights
over girlfriends/boyfriends, truancy issues, and other things, that not so long
ago, would never require juvenile probation of any kind – just a swift paddling
in the principal’s office with one waiting at home. (How times have changed.) The nightmares came with the cases of child molestation,
child abuse, and chemical dependency.
This tragedy was increased when I moved into the Department of Family
and Children’s Service where, again, many more family issues were peacefully
resolved, but those that weren’t drug out for years and began to eat away at my
soul. As I sat in court watching
monsters put on trial for robbing innocence it became obvious that in order for
me to maintain some semblance of control I would either drown myself in the
nearest bottle of brown liquor, or purge the rage through creative
writing.
I am a passionate fan of Dante’s Divine
Comedy. One day at work I
thought, “Hell is too good for some people”. That’s the moment “The Gateman’s Hymn of Ignoracium” was
born. I invented a fourth
afterlife, previously unknown to mankind, that included three “sinners” that
the Inferno considered too vile for a place of pain. These individuals were 1) Those who exploit people through
religion, 2) Those who exploit the people through dirty business practices, 3)
Those who molest children and beat women.
I never considered it for publication because in our sound bite society,
an epic didn’t seem like a commercially sound investment. However, my publisher, John Gosslee
Books insisted it be added at the book’s end and has since garnered a generous
amount of praise.
Discuss your
landscaping stint and how it influenced your way of being, and your writing.
At the ten year mark working in government positions, I realized that
in order to write my book honestly, with all the scars included, I had to find
other employment. To the dismay of
my family, I announced out of the blue that I was giving up health insurance,
retirement, and a 401K to cut grass and write poetry. For two years I worked manual labor seven days a week and
wrote late into the night.
Being out in nature was the blissful side effect of dropping DFCS and
picking up a weed eater. I was
left alone all day to obsess over edits, new poems, and jot notes where a
“straight job” wouldn’t allow it.
There were many 4am moments where I looked at my sunken, hungry face,
desperate, too-wide eyes, and thought, “What in the name of God have I
done”. Hard, physical labor helped
me stay focused and took me away from my computer which I wouldn’t have
otherwise. That serenity did weave
itself into my poetry in places where flowers, wildlife, and more pastoral
feeling crept in. Looking back
now, I know my decision to write full time was what saved me from a life of an
unhappy marriage, miserable job, and mediocre existence. I can say that my family rests easier
these days as well.
How does
region - specifically Georgia, but also the south as a whole as a distinct
cultural area of the country -
play a part in your writing?
I never set out to be known as a “Southern poet”, for the same reason
I refuse the laurels of a “bipolar poet” or “alcoholic poet”. Too many people think it wise to divide
themselves because of location or personal issues instead of the quality of
their work. All of these things
are simply facts of life. I write
what I know, and Georgia is what I know.
I do not glamorize it or apologize for the fact I was born below the
Mason-Dixon. There is a disturbing
trend that’s gained speed in this nation that it’s shameful to be proud of
roots in Dixie. It is not a
paradox or peculiar to be born and raised in this lush, fragrant state and lack
social graces and/or a formal education.
It is not rare to be Southern and not be racist.
The coastline, lowlands, and mountains that Georgia calls its own
still have veins of the Old South that aren’t synonymous with hatred, intolerance,
or ignorance. I was blessed to
experience a very rare upbringing with one side of the family wisely investing
in business over generations with a plantation house where even today I use as
a hiding place the real world can’t invade. My momma’s family tree is packed with country genius who
also farm, work hard labor, and love like love is all there is around to keep
each other warm. I speak often of
my nanny, Virginia Smith “Gin Gin”, the financially sound family life, and the
grace of wanting for nothing. The
other side of this coin is that my whole life I’ve dealt with the unfounded
resentment of my family’s hard-earned wealth, or the idea that I owed someone
who grew up without it a paycheck.
I grew up hearing the nearly forgotten myths of this region, and they
play a big role in my next book of poetry, Athena
Departs. I received an
excellent private school education in college, and then traveled the state to
glean all I could from the gorgeous tapestry that’s weaved deeply in my roots
that, no matter how far I wander, I’ll always find my way back home. I find the word “redneck” as offensive
as any other racist epithet. Yet,
that word is not only tolerated, it’s celebrated. It is an injustice I do intend to attack with a vengeance.
What music,
movies and visual art inspires you, and plays a part in your poetry? Which
poets, living and dead, known and obscure, do you admire, and why?
Music is the reason I
write poetry. There is always a
melody moving behind me while I’m creating poetry or prose. Right now I listen to a great deal of
Gary Clark Jr., The Black Keys, Ben Harper, Alex Clare, Motown, Beethoven, and
Led Zeppelin. The poets that
ignite my creative riots include Bukowski, Rilke, Stevens, Williams, Millay,
cummings, and Yeats. I consider
all of these musicians and poets guardian angels, mischievous family, and close
friends. All of them stayed away
from the pitfalls of cryptic imagery and/or dripping sentimentality. They are men among sniveling children
who do not cram their opinions down your throat, or make excuses for being
bards. For this reason they are
all also my personal heroes.
Can anyone be
a poet? Is poetry a craft to be honed and labored over, or should it be a
spontaneous endeavor, more stream-of-conscious/subconscious outpouring, or
something in between, or none of the above? Who has the better idea about
poetry - the surrealists, or the academics with their MFAs? Or someone else
entirely? Elaborate on your thoughts.
No, not everyone can be a poet.
Unfortunately it can’t be purchased through seminars, conferences, or
how-to books. These can help hone
the natural born skill innate in every creative soul, but at the end of the
day, if it ain’t there, it ain’t gonna be. Conferences help, as do seminars, to create connections with
other artists also in attendance, but be aware that some of these are
money-making machines that care nothing about an author’s future. Desperation blinds many who want to be
“called” a poet, live that stereotypical lifestyle, but down deep know the
immortal fire will never spark. I
see this creative façade on Facebook when someone names themselves “Poet John
Doe”, or “Author Jane Doe”. If you
are a poet, if you are a powerhouse in prose, it will show through you without
the pathetic announcement. I don’t
believe anyone’s Christian name begins with “poet”, “poetess”, or
“author”. You never see “Gardener
Jim Smith” or “Teacher Bill Watson” on Facebook.
The urge to create is steady with me, but I don’t sit down at a
predetermined time in an attempt to force it. I carry moleskins around at all times to jot notes that give
me a rush at random times. I am
amazed that in my scribbling I haven’t walked into traffic or bumped into more
innocent bystanders. Art picks
you. You can choose to appreciate
all the arts, have a true, soulful appreciation for their existence, but I
don’t think that it’s source can be willed into one’s talent set. This is where too many get suckered
into vanity presses, or submit to subpar ezines to say they’ve been
“published”. No, they’ve been
desperate, and it isn’t a subtle hint, it’s a freight train to the face. All of this may sound like a mixture of
cruelty and mystical guesswork, but after twenty years in the business, and it
is a business, I’ve learned these to be absolutes. What is cruel is to be “nice” and not make this information
available.
You mentioned
you are working on a second book of verse, Athena
Departs. Discuss how you feel about it.
I am more excited about my second book of poetry with every day that
passes. This is the first one that
sees me as the man, the owner/creator, the Southern Son sure of his
abilities. I am very blessed with
the support and critiques of The Last Ancients and The Southern Collective
Experience. I crave honest
feedback even if it’s as harsh as, “This poem honestly brought me to the verge
of puking”.
Athena Departs picks up where my
first books left off with my new life as an independent wordsmith on the verge
of a new phase in life. Never before
have I felt so confident, focused, and unfettered by doubt. I am humbled by the attention I get due
to my craft. Every interview is a
journey for me as I learn to be more honest with the public, and most
importantly, myself. The second
book speaks in direct, affectionate, earnest words to family, friends, and the
fates I dodged last time. I have
already had some of it picked up in different magazines for publication. New publishers are approaching me to
get a first look at the finished product.
Yet, I rush nothing. I am
diligent, but I cannot force life to happen. For me, letting life sporadically unfold makes the best
poetry.
Editor's note: This interview is continued here: Part II
Photo credit: Aisha Cleapor
Southern Collective Experience/Last Ancients Banners credit: Ezra Letra
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