Blowback I guess we can start the interview Charles Ries Why not?  And I did carefully peruse your site.  It’s raw but readable. Blowback Raw but readable???  I’m not sure what you mean? Charles Ries The graphics are not subtle, type size etc. language is economic, I like the click on poems, next to each writer rather than a long listing Blowback So is this an endorsement? Charles Ries Yes, and it will evolve.  It doesn’t remind me of any other site. Blowback The site is about the poetry, and I want to establish an antiestablishment vibe.  And that’s the best complement you could give “it doesn’t remind me of any other site” that’s like gold!!! Charles Ries Yes.  It is an odd clash of aesthetics in that the graphics are raw/tribal, but the thinking is quite refined. Blowback That’s certainly is the idea. If we are succeeding in that, thanks for the complement.  Others have noticed it to. Charles Ries You’ve accomplished it. Blowback You are a very fast thinker, processor.  Writing must really slow you down, can you write as fast as you think? Charles Ries This instant message stuff has a totally different feel in some ways better some worse. (This Blowback interview was done in MSN Messenger instant message form) Blowback I agree. Charles Ries Well thanks again for the complement. I will try to type is fast as I think.  For the record, this is my first “interview” so I am a neophyte.  Why Blowback by the way? Blowback Why not?  Do you have a better idea? I like the idea of consequences that result that are never anticipated or imagined by those who are doing whatever they are doing. I also like the sinister  association with the intelligence world of "spooks" and all of the ugly business that they conduct. When that is exposed, i take pleasure in it. Charles Ries Right, of course.  But why? Well it’s lovely.  I just thought it might have some symbolic meaning in your journey. Blowback I’m a phantom in this whole Blowback thing.  I do not identify myself, and do not want to make the site about me.  Even though I know it is anyway. It is about me my tastes, etc. I prefer to be again, the phantom than to be a “personality” or an “ego” Charles Ries Phantom.  Like writing fiction, perhaps, we are all more ourselves in our fiction than in our life. Blowback You could say I’m cowardly or that I’m humble.  I guess it depends on your point of view. Charles Ries That’s what I meant about  Bukowski. His writing more revealing that he was in person.  Intimacy is easier in the word Blowback True Charles Ries My guess is that you are both humble and cunning. Smarter than most of the rest, but with the Limited need to prove it. Blowback Very perceptive! I sound pompous, but I love that James Joyce maxim “silence, cunning, exile” I really identify with that. Charles Ries Right! Him to.  No need to demonstrate superiority.  It’s better that way.  It’s easier to teach and lead less scary to the masses and much easier to disappear Blowback Yes, so I think I’m going to pull out the revolver and pop the first ever Blowback question……………. Charles Ries Fire at will! Blowback At the risk of sounding unimaginative…….why is it that you write poetry? Charles Ries I didn’t begin to write poetry until eight years ago.  I did it for a woman.  I wrote love poems.  I guess that’s a thrifty guy’s way to score points.  I wrote her a lot of poems and she loved them.   One day she gave me Poets Market, and I decided I would start at A and go to Z and just submit to every publication that I could.  Of course, along the way, sheer type competitiveness turned into awareness, and I realized my work wasn’t that great, so I began to read and just write and write. Eventually the work transcended from the personal to the observation, philosophically - the path of all poets. Blowback So the Genesis was as simple as poems for pussy and the glowing smile of female appreciation? Charles Ries Busted! Blowback Well I find that answer unexpected and very pleasing.  Good for you!  Why do you think you arrived at it so late in life? Charles Ries It’s often true, I guess we have that thing we do to get laid to attract women…..mine was being a pretty good version of a sensitive male. Blowback You started writing poems around 45? Charles Ries Poetry gave me a writing form that was of very short duration.  I sometimes think poets are cowards who don’t write novels. Yes that’s right at 45, when I moved back to Wisconsin from LA. Blowback But isn’t it the short, compact nature of poems that appeal to you in so far as you can say so much in so little? Charles Ries I have talked with novelists who feel poetry is a unique art muscle, just as writing fiction might be. You develop competency over time, but really, I think there is something in the body of a poet that fears long writing.  Yes, it is a very forgiving writing form.  There’s so much you can leave unsaid, and there is the challenge of speaking economically.  It is a wonderful writing discipline to enter before one begins or tries to write long. Blowback That could be true.  But just as Bears are Bears and Tigers are Tigers poets are poets and novelists are novelists.  It could be that poets are doing what they do best.  I’m sure many novelists wish they could write poetry.  I know many who tried and were terrible.  James Joyce, for one in my opinion, is an example.   But someone like Thomas Hardy could do both. Charles Ries Hmmm. yes and many will tell you that, but as I wrote more poems and got more poems accepted for publication.  I thought, “Well, what the fuck!  I did that and how about short stories?” and I started at a later, a novel. Blowback And you feel as successful as a short story writer and novelist? Charles Ries I also think it depends on the type of prose writer you are.   Some lend themselves in style and voice more to poetry than others.  I would like to see Dan Brown write a poem.  I think I am writing better poetry than short stories and novels right now, but the muscle is the unscrambling of forms and technique.  I often say to friends that “writing” is the most complex board game I’ve ever played.  I will die and not feel like I have won. Blowback When you write you think of an audience or is that a total nonfactor? Charles Ries Poetry and prose? Blowback Well either. Charles Ries Lately I’ve noticed in my prose writing that I am beginning to “read as a member of the audience” as I write.  I am beginning to sense how much the reader needs to get in order to follow me.  It was surprising to me when this first happened.  I have been writing for such a short time.  As for poetry, the form is so short.  It allows me to write both for experiment as well as an audience.  I just wrote a poem I wanted to enter into a contest.   It was a contest poem.  Also one of the reasons I often collide secular and spiritual themes or humor with pain is to make the poem more readable.  So yes, I write for the audience themes that attract my mind. Blowback I want to focus a little more on your late entry into poetry.  Did you ever sense at an earlier age you were poetic?  Because while some have arrived at poetry in later years, the history of poetry is filled with those who started in there youth. Charles Ries No, not at all.  I didn’t grow up in a family where “art” was a focus.  I did act quite a bit when I was young, and I always had a deep spiritual nature, and at some level, I feel poetry is just a form of philosophy or of interpreting the world.  When I graduated from college, I traveled for two years and studied Islamic mysticism and things like that.  Later, I fell in love with Carl Jung and Buddhism.  I never wrote a poem, until eight years ago.  And then, in addition to getting the girl.  It was also an intellectual challenge of “can I do this well?” Blowback Well many poets have come from non “artistic” families.   Sometimes that seems to foster it if it exists already within the person Charles Ries I have a creative nature and that has always been a part of me.   But for such seeds to grow at a young age, they must often be planted in fertile soil.  That was not my family, but I was lucky and had a theater teacher and English teacher and high school that saw my love of such things and gave me many gifts in that regard. Blowback It would be fair to say, you were offbeat or free-spirited or unconventional in some way then, without necessarily being self-consciously “artistic” or “poetic?” Charles Ries Yes that’s true, and evident.  Always trying to be a contrarian, always trying to measure myself by trying to be what others weren’t. Blowback So why did you choose to write a poem for female gratification as opposed to picking up a guitar and being Elvis or Johnny Cash in some serenading private moment? Charles Ries Actually, I played the guitar briefly in my youth, but I never felt that I had the genetic platform to sustain it.  The soil wasn’t fertile, and I needed to work on myself to say “what the fuck! I’ m an artist and I write.”  I don’t give a shit, why do it or what will become of it all.  I just do it. Blowback Why the compulsion to review? Charles Ries And you know, I have greatly slowed my writing of poetry.  I am now writing many more reviews of poetry than poems and am focusing on my second book.  Like poetry, I want to see how far, I can go again.  I came to it also late.  I feel like I’m inhaling this art form.  This banquet of words.  When does it end?  Such a gift and a wonderful community of people to be associated with to say “what the fuck.  I’m an artist and I write.”  I don’t give a shit, why do it or what will become of it all.  I just do it. Blowback So it would be fair to say that if nobody ever read your poetry ever you would still write it? Charles Ries Yes if no one read my poetry underwrite it anyway.  I’m sure you’ ve had this brain chemistry altering experience of hitting on the drug of quality writing and reading it the following day and thinking “did I really write that?” it still feels like a drug to me unfortunately one that doesn’t come and visit me every time I sit down to write.  Reviews?  Part of it is catching up and making up for lost time.  Reviewing is a great way to read critically and learn, so call part of it the MFA, and I meet many wonderful writers through it, and also expand my submission channels.  By providing editors with nonfiction content. Blowback Machiavellian maneuvering is a subterranean motive for reviews? i.e. “expanding submission channels?” lol Charles Ries I confess. IAM A TYPICAL POET! I love running as fast as I can.   I want it all. I want to figure it all out; the small brass is a vast universe, a sector with wonderful complexity.  It’s the game.  I call my art. Blowback So poetry as a “toot of coke” or “puff of weed?” a rush, and a consciousness, expanding endeavor? Charles Ries EXACTLY! And more!  It is also the journal, a footprint and a cave drawing, a sign that I was here. Blowback Like a dog pissing on a tree? Charles Ries Wee wee wee! My poem’s mark my territory. Blowback Or  Charles Ries loves…?….scrawled inside a heart on a tree? Charles Ries May every tree have my scrawl. Blowback I like these answers, not pretentious. Charles Ries Not much to be pretentious about.  I can’t know it all.  Nobody does. Blowback I am aware that you have something of a “following” I am not aware of its size.  How do you relate to your “fans?” Charles Ries I am not really aware of the following.  If there is one, I am sure it is small.  I have found that poets are not quick to offer praise of the brothers and sisters.  I hope that when people realize I have only been writing for such a short time.  They will chill out and realize how fucking little I know and just write me shit. You know what I mean? Blowback So what do you think of poets being jealous of each other in whatever variation that plays out? Charles Ries On some level writing/publication/reputation is a scorecard.  It doesn’t always mean the person with the most points wins or is the best.  But it is a scorecard. Talent is not illusive.  I can see it in very young poets.  It just is.  But talent isn’t always enough to generate reputation are staying power.  There are some small press poets who are everywhere.  I like their work, but I don’t think it’s brilliant, but so what?  They have kept at it. They haven’t quit.  The work is their soul and their ego.  The ones who win are not always the ones of the greatest talent, but the greatest passion for the art form. But jealousy is an odd thing isn’t it?  Disliking someone for something you don’t have.  I can feel myself get caught in it at times.  You can feel it sweep over you.  It’s something that just makes a person unhappy.  Another pointless attachment to nothing of value.  So I try to support all the writers I meet and review.  I just keep telling them to keep on plugging and to stay with it and have fun. Blowback Emily Dickinson’s poems could have never been found.  Same with John Kennedy Toole.  If it wasn’t for luck and his persistent mother, and Walker Percy Toole would be a nobody unpublished on shelve. Can you imagine how many significant poets get totally blanked out of recognition because they don’t know how to “play” the game of self-promotion, submissions, connections and cunning not to mention pure luck! Charles Ries Really, let’s erect a poetry billboard that says “TALENT IS ONLY HALF THE BATTLE!” Blowback Great wisdom in that there has to be a whole “lost” history of important poets and writers. One hopes they will be acknowledged in some other afterlife realms.  If that exists at all to begin with.   Charles Ries More than the other half is persistence, tenacity being continually pleasant, even to overstuffed personalities, and just letting things roll off your back as you grow over a lifetime of a string of friends, contacts, editors, admirers and detractors.  I don’t think so, unless you mean by afterlife, realms of the desk drawer.  The resting place of all dead or frightening manuscripts. Blowback Again whiffs of Machiavelli or Dale Carnegie “how to make friends and be successful” self-help stuff in your analysis. Charles Ries I am a fundraiser by day.  It’s not unlike being a waiter at a restaurant, if you want big tips be nice, read them. Blowback Do you wish that you started writing earlier? Charles Ries And see what they need.  What I need to write well, what I need to do for them is just be pleasant supportive and see the humaneness in them.  It’s for the fun.  Yes I do wish I started writing earlier.  I don’t regret it, but it wish I could started sooner.  I have so much to learn its such hard, complex work. I admire writers in their twenties and thirties, who are writing great prose and poetry. That is such a blessing to find what you love and are meant to do in life at such a young age.  But if we look, we all find what it is that gets us out of bed each day, and into life Blowback Do you wish you had a MFA in creative writing? Charles Ries That’s the deal.  Just try to orient our boats toward the horizon and setting sun.  No I don’t wish that. There are always other ways to get the scope of an MFA in terms of knowledge of the field and sector. Reading and writing are two ways.  But others are comparative literature courses and study.  If you’re writing you will begin to view all words as a study.  But one must have this impulse to write. That fire that can’t be faked.  And then I would say even a person with a little talent can become a very fine writer. Blowback Do you feel like the poetry world is Balkanized between academics who control gateways with the MFA apparatus and the others who forever, whatever reasons.  Do not seek that out? Charles Ries That’s all I want to die a very fine writer.  Funny, no one makes money.  No one becomes famous and yet we have divided the field into academics and street poets.  I understand attention.  I don’t like most academic overcooked, overprocessed, academic poetry, but I’ll bet their mom and dad does.  So, who cares?   They are writing for their tribe and their tenure and their salary checks.  While we the good, the true in the beautiful rabble just write to grow a good ink score and for the fuck  of it.  I would rather write because I love to, rather than because I have to. Blowback It is interesting that in the history of poetry, the MFA is a relatively recent phenomenon. It is fascinating how this has evolved and why for hundreds of years poets did not have MFA’s. Charles Ries I work at a university.  The rules of the market apply, if they will buy it.  We will sell.  So to MFA programs and poetry.  I applaud the universities that sell and make money off these programs, and if you’re going to make a living as a teacher of writing you must have MFA.  And indeed there are folks out there who love to teach and who should teach and bless their students with their time and talent. Blowback And what is most interesting is that for many poets getting an MFA in poetry would be much easier than another degree, which would actually be difficult, such as mathematics or physics or countless others. Charles Ries Poets don’t need an MFA. University instructors need the MFA’s. For some the MFA is really a search to understand the universe of words. For others the MFA is a tool to teach, but for others I feel it is just an excuse to not start writing.  I mean, if I’d waited until my writing was good, I would still be waiting to submit all my writing Blowback So you are already anticipating my thought pattern. To what extent is the MFA phenomenon just capitalist machinery to herd cattle through gates to pay bills and make profit for administrators, and the army of MFA’s that have already graduated and need jobs to justify their degrees? Charles Ries Like I said “if they buy, we will sell it to them.” Look at pet rocks beanie babies, MFA all the same thing. Blowback Because actually you don’t need an MFA to teach you can be an English major not a creative writing major. Different elephants. Charles Ries You would need a masters degree in English to teach at the university level or one fucking great list of writing credits that make you a walking advertisement for kids to apply, but people who outscored like that are generally too busy writing to teach at the university level. Blowback Your point about teaching at the university level is true.  I was thinking of high school.  What is your take on the online poetry universe? Charles Ries It sure saves on postage, and it grows reputation and network all good things.  I don’t see print being able to do more.  Some may feel that the ink on paper scene lives forever, and there is some truth to that.  But how many magazines from 20 years ago, can anyone find?  I guess we’d have to go to some of the archives that specialize in the small press.  I also think e-zines open a publishing universe for writers to connect.  That’s how I met you in so many others, electronically Blowback What is your take on the online versus print magazine?  There is a lovely nature enjoyed to something, you can hold, but don’t you think the online world has such a greater potential to reach a bigger audience that obscurely distributed little magazines? The internet reaches in every corner of the world, whereas the magazines reach little bookshops in university towns and a few big cities. It is available to people that never could possibly access it before not only in the present, but the past archives. Charles Ries Many e-zines are beginning to do once a year best of anthologies and I think this is great.  I really enjoyed this.  It’s funny this process of communicating (instant messaging) but I thought of things in ways, I haven’t before.  I thank you for this. This is the end of Part 1 of the Charles Ries Blowback interview. There will be more parts in future.