Below is the second in a series of interviews with poets published in 32 Poems. Serena M. Agusto-Cox conducted this interview in January 2009.

1. Not only are you a contributor to 32 Poems, you also have a published book, Cenotaph, and in an interview with Bold Type you mentioned you once wanted to be a visual artist. Would you ever consider melding the two forms–visual art and poetry? Also as a poet and professor, what “hat” do you find most difficult to wear and why?

I try to keep the poetry and visual arts separate. Each allows me a different kind of articulation, a different kind of vision.

This last year I had the good fortune to have visual artwork in several juried shows across the country. With the visual work I am just now, at almost fifty, moving out of the amateur realm and trying my hand at the professional realm. I am feeling the same thrill and excitement I felt half my life ago when my first book was accepted for publication.

I tend to be a social creature and the writing of poems happens most often in solitude. The work of teaching gives me community and conversation and that stimulation often leads me to long once again for the solitude of writing. And then the cycle repeats.

2. Do you see spoken word, performance, or written poetry as more powerful or powerful in different ways and why? Also, do you believe that writing can be an equalizer to help humanity become more tolerant or collaborative? Why or why not?

Again, I would think the difference is one of solitude and community.

When one hears spoken word, a poetry reading, or a performance of poetry, most often that is with a larger audience and our experience of the art is influenced by the communal reaction. One hears the poem one time in real time. The experience is immediate, intense, and fleeting.

When one reads poetry to oneself either aloud or silently, alone, there is more space and time to be reflective. The experience is as well immediate, intense, and even fleeting, but with the words before oneself, one can return to reread, to meditate, to look up the history of a word.

I think the arts in general tend to make humans more aware of their humanity and I hope that might lead to more tolerance.

3. Do you have any obsessions that you would like to share?

I think if one reads my poems, the obsessions are there, plain as day. Try as I might to hide them, they well up, bleed through the surface-the condition of my soul, the pleasures and burden of possessing a body, the weight of depression.

4. Most writers will read inspirational/how-to manuals, take workshops, or belong to writing groups. Did you subscribe to any of these aids and if so which did you find most helpful? Please feel free to name any “writing” books you enjoyed most (i.e. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott)

For most of my adult life I have been in writing groups. I think it is great to have a small audience of serious readers attend to early drafts of work and I owe a great deal of to these readers. Knowing they are there as an audience keeps me on task when mopping the floor or mowing the lawn looks more attractive than rubbing two words together.

5. Poetry is often considered elitist or inaccessible by mainstream readers. Do poets have an obligation to dispel that myth and how do you think it could be accomplished?

I am not sure what a “mainstream reader” is.

I do not, for instance, read contemporary plays and really only read novels in the summer, but that is not because I find them elitist or inaccessible. I find it more pleasurable to read poetry, art history, and general nonfiction.

I think people read what they find pleasurable. Pleasure is one of the purposes of poetry.
Some people like the surface of the poetry they read to be complex, dense, and even hermetic. Some like a surface that is transparent, clear, uncluttered. Some like poetry that is laugh-out-loud funny. Some people like deeply brooding poetry. I think the variety of American poetry is great and that there is poetry out there for all sorts of tastes.

6. When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don’t listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?
I tend to listen to non-vocal music when I write-from Miles Davis to Bach fugues.

7. In terms of friendships, have your friendships changed since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have your relationships remained the same?

Many of my friends are writers. After twenty years of teaching graduate students, many have grown into dear friends. And of course, I have friends from church, the neighborhood, places I used to live, travels and such, most of whom are not writers.

8. How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?
Sometimes my dog will take me for a walk, but mostly I am out of shape.

9. Do you have any favorite foods or foods that you find keep you inspired? What are the ways in which you pump yourself up to keep writing and overcome writer’s block?

I do not believe in writer’s block. There are times when one is drafting and times when one is preparing to write. I think of each activity as writing.

10. Please describe your writing space and how it would differ from your ideal writing space.

I have a study in my house where I work, but much of my writing I do in libraries surrounded by many books that might be handy.

11. What current projects are you working on and would you like to share some details with the readers?

I am finishing my ninth book, MOON PHRASES CARVED ON A BONE. All the poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals. I would rather let the poems speak