LA: When did you first call yourself a poet, or describe yourself this way? How did it feel, using the term applied to what you do?

JS: The appellation, “Poet,” is to me an honorific, much in the same manner as a title or an esteemed degree, earned through, as you have said before, “the service of words.”   While for as long as I can remember I held an inward sense of myself as a poet or rather one who creates or transforms, I could not coronate myself like a tyrant.  The term only held legitimacy once it was bestowed by another in recognition of the quality of the work itself and not any mysterious quality in me as a person.  Therefore, I struggled toward the name “Poet” like a mask to inhabit.  The process is long and full of pain and loneliness and doubt and it still continues.  It is also the greatest joy, a dream I strive to live in and maintain and overcome so as to keep discovery anew.

LA: What would you say about how much of your identity it comprises? I know you as a poet, but there is much to know about John Swain, “creator.” What are your other interests, and what might you be interested in exploring in the future? What else are you anxious to try, if anything?

JS: My totality.  While I tend to compartmentalize my life and I believe each individual is necessarily comprised of several, even infinite, aspects, these are part of a unified mind-soul-and-body consciousness that flows in and through each other ultimately toward the expression of reinvention and fulfillment.  There are many varied points along the way to be investigated, broad as the scope of human experience.  Poetry cannot be conceptualized in the economics of everyday life or even in terms of the economics of the other arts, although poetry underlies and animates the fabric of everyday life.  To me, it is as essential as survival.  Poetry is neither hobby nor a part-time job.  Often without remuneration.  Often without laurel or any validation.  Love and devotion is all.

My interests basically consist of the dynamic between that which enables the writing of poems and then decompression from the tension writing causes.  Remote places are good for both. I am interested in learning and travel. Other people’s stories.  A couple drinks.  Friendship and the movement of birds.  Fishing with my dad. My mom and sister’s cooking.  Looseness.  Someday belonging somewhere.

Two recent interests I would like to explore are performance and flash fiction.  Whereas for most of my life I have shied from contact, performance now interests me for its communal aspect and for the transformation actual breath has on the work from the perspective of both reader and audience.  And simply, a chance to meet and interact with other writers.  I don’t know which terrifies me more, reading or fiction, but somehow that is an impulse that has been coincidentally  encouraged, so I might give a go at pratfall and catastrophe.  Poetry is essential in its aims whereas fiction luxuriates in the contours of the particular.  I love hearing and telling stories, so why not write a couple down?

I try to avoid anxiety, though it often specters in so many areas.  Outside of poems, I can’t think of anything I’d anxiously strive for.  I continually attempt to conform the chaos of thought and behavior to the true and warm direction of the heart. To be certain, there is so much I want to see and experience like a scuba dive or a snow leopard or better language skills.  So I will say that I anxiously try to remain open, anxiously try to combat stagnation.

LA: Readers of your work can see certain characteristic elements: Nature, of course. Turbulence. Water and cycling life. A romantic quality-glimpses of women who often appear in near periphery. Cloth, layered or shrouding. Certain things appear throughout, spanning different works. What can you say about some of the “motifs” and recurring elements? Are they deliberate, intentionally placed? What do they mean to you, from the poet’s point of view?

A very interesting and difficult question.  While my writing might be aspirational in content and intention, I would hesitate to ascribe any comprehensive symbolism to word or image.  In my mind, the word, rather than standing in place of object or concept, is literally the object or concept.  Viewing myself as a reader, I find this allows others greater entrance into the poem. I enjoy ideas and welcoming places where one can make the time spent their own rather than sit through someone’s lecture or vacation slideshow.  Somehow an image, whether serene or embattled, belies the circumstance and toil of its reception or creation.  Cloth is as basic as bread and informs the entirety of our endeavors and is human created, an object of beauty in its own right.  Cloth can obscure and form a boundary, that which is desired, body or idea, the sacred place, or it can also protect an intimacy, a value, or a privacy, from a destroying exposure, depending on the context.  When I write the word “water” I am referring to a stream I have touched if that is where the poem is or it could be the water from the showerhead.  It is actual water, not some ideal although the preoccupation of my poetry is uncovering the hidden dimensions water or anything possesses in its living.  Similarly, when I write the word “horse” I am referring to a particular horse not some capital “H” horse.  I believe there is teaching and beauty in its living, a glimpse perhaps of the One who created, an offering to us, a blessing, all living.  I refuse to believe in meaninglessness.  Perhaps meaning is not what one would prefer or expect or rationalize.  However, our sensitivity to pain and capacity for love provides sufficient notice that we are here, and for that we should be grateful and strive to improve our condition through individual work and understanding.

LA: You seem to be everywhere right now, which is wonderful but no doubt requires a lot of hard work. How do you keep the momentum, the energy, and do you worry about it? Do you face periods of dryness, or uncertainty about your interest or discipline?

JS: Yes, I worry.  I face periods of dryness and they scare me more than anything.  It is a challenge to accept the necessity of the fallow.  At some instinctual level, dryness is not a rest, it is a wasting.  There is a fear that the contact is lost and there will be no more poems or more immediately no more sharing and experience.  If it came down to an ultimate choice, I would rather lie down in a field than write about it.  Rimbaud was correct when he said “I is someone else,” but it is nevertheless undeniable that the poet lives in the poem.  If I am not writing, I feel I am not living.  The energy to continue writing is the excitement of sharing a discovery or mutual experience with a friend.  Writing is never separate from life, it is only unseen.  As far as the work being out there, I am only so thrilled to contribute in my tiny way to a larger energy of people struggling to express and create an alternative vision to counter so much of the darkening forces of our time.  I have received such gifts of awareness in immeasurable returns from the art and generosity and vitality of courageous people living today without sponsorship, only with idea and heart.  To me, that is real hope.

LA: Who do you admire? Poets, influences, artists, etc.?

JS: I admire people who find a way to experience their dreams.  Recently, I encountered the visionary art and writing of Walter Anderson, which startled me like a reminder with its pure intensity.  As far as contemporary voices, Stephanie Bryant Anderson and Sophia Argyris are both producing exceptional work with language that is poignant, haunting, and precise.  The photography of Lucien Clergue is a poetry of the physical image, which is disorienting in its tender and violent beauty.

LA: What’s next for you?

Hopefully, a trip somewhere fun.

Interview with John Swain for Full Of Crow by Lynn Alexander.

John Swain also has a chap and ebooks at Full Of Crow:

Burnt Palmistry (chap or ebook) and

The Feathered Masks

Dan is an avid reader who has been publishing in the small press for years, always supporting new writers through reading and promotion and lending his hard earned wisdom. It is my pleasure to share with you this candid interview with Dan Provost.

-Aleathia Drehmer

AD:  You grew up in a household heavily laced with music and athletics.  How do you think this has affected your outlook on the world as a child and as an adult?  Do you think these things influence your writing and if they do, in what way?

DP: Being exposed to such a variety of music gave me an opportunity to experience different genres.  My grandfather and father were both jazz drummers; they introduced me to George Shearing, Buddy Rich, and Gene Krupa.  My brothers, Chip and Tim, were influenced by rock and blues, while my sister Judi, who played the organ and piano–played everything from classical to the Allman Brothers.  For me, the lyric content was always the most fascinating and relevant.  What was the writer of the lyrics trying to portray and how did he say it?  Was he indignant, sly, and boastful?  I always admired those who could sing in a way that could relate to the theme of the song.  Even today, great lyricists heavily influence my writing.  Pete Townsend–who wrote songs on so many different levels, about subjects like growing up, isolation, and fame, is one of my favorites.  Ronnie Van Zant, who very quietly, but honestly, sang about gun control, the environment, and the frustration of a stereotyped south that lingers to this day.

Athletics was and still is a huge part of my life.  My family is very competitive and sports give all of us a venue to play, work, and achieve.  Football was my sport and I still think there is nothing on the face of the earth that will tell you more about yourself than football (except if you join the military).  Think about it, you play the game with 15-20 pounds of equipment on, games take place in any type of weather, (believe me it is not fun to be out there in 100 degree heat or -15 degree wind chill), the practices are long and somewhat tedious–and you have that one day where you have the opportunity to see if all that practice time was worth it…the game on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.  I think I took from the game two important values that I try to live by: one is to never quit; the easiest thing in life is to give up and go lie in the sand somewhere …that accomplishes nothing.  The second is to let the ability do the talking for you.  I admire individuals like Barry Sanders, Bill Russell, and Michael Jordan… who simply let their playing speak for themselves.  I have tried to incorporate this attitude in writing poetry, letting the words speak. I realize that this naïve, but it is something I believe in.

AD:  You talk about letting the work speak for itself, but why do you think that is naive?  There is an underlying theme of covert observation of the human public and often raw emotional reactions to other people that sometimes become self-inflicted wounds.  What do you find so fascinating about these people in the periphery of the world’s eyes?

The naive part I was referring to is the project of marketing the work.  Telling the “in-crowd” that you have a new blog up, or a new chapbook out by so and so.  I know this is necessary in order to get recognized, but for me personally, I really have to go outside myself to do this.  Let’s face it; poetry is not the most popular art out there.  So the ability to reach an audience that might be able to relate to what you are saying has to be found by spreading the word.  Poets are very observant people.  They see emotions from the loner, the guilty, the poor and the forgotten that many others just pass on by daily.  The tears of a barfly father who has not seen his son in ten years, the wife whose husband left five years ago and she cannot get over the loss.  People who have given up for some reason or another–they feel, they desire, they want…but they express it in such destructive ways sometimes the non-writer has to turn away.  Sometimes, my work tries to understand the pain of the lonesome and the isolated.  I try to emphasize this because my life has been filled with self-isolation and pain trying to come out nine ways sideward.  I guess in some warped way, I can identify with the loner.

AD:  What kind of work touches you the most?  What poets, both famous and not, really reach out to you when you read them and change the way you perceive society and the universe as a whole?

Work that is real…when you read it you can tell it’s been written from the soul.  John Sweet is one of my favorites.  He takes the reader to places he does not want to go…he makes you think about subjects that many refuse to talk about; the certainty of evil, man’s violent nature.  Jacob Johanson is another great writer who writes blunt, but can be taken on so many levels.  I can relate to him when he talks about the gains and losses in his life.  Jason Hardung and John Dorsey are two more I really like.  Jason describes his daily battles with force and urgency while John takes characters and elements of today’s society and intertwines them with his own search for discovery.

AD:  I find that Dan Provost the man and Dan Provost the writer tend to be juxtaposed.  As a man, you seem easygoing and even jovial, but your writing leans towards this dark and sometimes menacing shadow of a man.  Why do you think this schism exists?  Do you channel these fits of rage into words, instead of into something physically harmful?

DP:  I think everyone has a dark side inside them that they either refuse to acknowledge or let out.  I choose to do this through my words.  I admit, I was a bit of a red-neck in my younger days, hung out in places I should not have been; been in a few scuffles.  These were places where violence and hatred were celebrated and necessary.  Football is a great, yet physical game where if you cannot match the intensity and aggressiveness of your opponent–you’re going to get kicked around the field.  I’ve also suffered severe bouts of depression…something I would not wish on my worst enemy.  To put these emotions into words sometimes helps the healing process or at least recognize the dankness I am feeling.

AD:  It just so happens that you and I will be book mates this year when our 69 Flipbook is released from Tainted Coffee Press.  Your collection is called “A Quiet Learning Curve”.  Can you tell me a little bit about the underlying theme of this collection and how it came to be?

DP: Many of the poems are about observations of myself; the strengths, weaknesses, and the core beliefs I possess.  They came to me very quietly and gently, by just looking outside myself and seeing how I relate to people and events.  I found that a series of poems I wrote in the same time period were very reflective and revealing.  It’s an honor to be published with such a talented writer as you!

AD:  Thank you, you are too kind to say so.  Do you think these types of poems will surprise your regular readers?  Are they very different from what most us are used to seeing from you?

DP:  I think they may be a bit more reflective and positive than what I’ve done in the past.  Like I mentioned earlier, I’m getting older; I’m much more mellow than I use to be!  LOL

AD: I often contemplate, to myself, the effects of environment and region on a writer’s work.  Do you think a writer’s surroundings influences how and what they write, even on a subconscious level?  Do you find living in a larger city gives your poems a predilection to urban experience?

DP:  I do believe that the environment affects the body of a writer’s work.  If it’s territory that the writer is not accustomed to, he/she will comment about the adjustment he/she is trying to make, or the loneliness of being away from familiar surroundings. Fortunately, this can work in a positive way as well.  If you live somewhere that you love, many times the words will reflect this. Describing beautiful nature or the sunset over a city skyline…described in many styles by wonderful authors.  As far as my writing, the city of Worcester has provided me the opportunity to witness many lifestyles, both good and bad.  My latest chapbook “Fallen Empathy” tells of some of the seedier parts of the city and my reaction to encountering the individuals who lived there.

AD:  Lastly, what is your favorite song lyric and why?

DP: Great, but tough question.  So many to choose from!!!!  I guess it would be a line from the song “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd: “All that you need, is in your soul.”  Individuals who put their soul into anything are usually successful.

LA:When was the first time you can remember calling yourself a writer, describing yourself that way? When did you start writing poetry?

PCR: I probably first described myself as a writer when I was drunk and trying to impress a girl at a party or something. I do remember getting kind of snotty and elitist about it around the time I started working at the New College of California just before 9/11. I got sick of everyone calling me a poet so I started referring to myself as a writer. Of course, everyone totally made fun of me after I started doing that.
I didn’t really start thinking of myself as an actual poet until quite recently, probably around the time I published my first book Coming World/Gone World (Howling Dog Press) in 2006. But I really did start writing poetry in 1989 for the sole purpose of trying to impress girls, while I was burning to be a tortured playwright, or filmmaker, or sketch comedy writer. When I got tired and burnt out on all that shit, and tired of impressing only girls with poetry, I found I still wanted to write poems for myself.

LA: How did you become an editor at Cherry Bleeds? What do you think sets it apart from many of the sites out there?

PCR: Tony DuShane created the position of poetry editor at Cherry Bleeds in 2006 so I would stop stalking him. The evening I pulled the junior scout camper up outside his apartment is maybe when I crossed the line. Truthfully, I don’t know why Tony did it. Except for Bukowski, he pretty much hates poets and poetry, but for some reason he let me publish flat out poems in Cherry Bleeds before anyone else did, and then I think he probably started getting inundated with poem submissions so naturally he said, “hey, let my fanboy do it.” And of course he knew very well I would accept the post without properly thinking it through.
The reason for that is because Cherry Bleeds is one of the oldest running e-zines around…we weren’t the first transgressive online journal; we weren’t the first online lit journal in California…but we’re maybe the first truly “roots” lit e-zine since it really grew out of the Live Journal community almost as a regular fiction workshop. The periodical was always there and always consistent, and it definitely did not rub shoulders with Academia the way some “outlaw” magazines like to. Not that there’s anything REALLY wrong with that if one is up front about that intent, but with some of these folks it does smack of Courtney Love wearing Gucci.
That said, Cherry Bleeds is probably going to go under dramatic changes in the next year, because it has become something of a neglected dinosaur…some of its staff, including yours truly, have suddenly discovered “careers” which is always a bad thing for a small ‘zine, but one thing I know is no matter how distracted we get, we’ll never leave the enterprise in uncaring or compromised hands.

LA: You have a rather eclectic list of creative influences, and you seem open to many different styles of writing. How would you characterize your own? When do you feel the most at ease, creatively?

PCR: In the end, my writing is essentially dramatic; either a monologue or a dialogue because my first real love was playwriting. I really started by thinking of my stories in scenes and shots. It was only later that I learned poetry was the basis for not just all other written art forms, but really for all rhetoric. A poet and a lawyer used to be the same job back when we were colonizing caves. Now the professions sit at opposite ends of the rhetorical intent scale: A lawyers job is too strip all meaning from words until a group of them can only mean one possible thing. A poet’s job is to try and infuse as much possible meaning into a group of words. No wonder poets make so much more money than lawyers.
I’m most at ease creatively when I’ve got my fangs on an idea and I’m not in a mood to let go because I’ve got the idea dead to rights. It isn’t always writing. Sometimes it’s performing or producing; sometimes it’s editing; sometimes it’s introducing people as a connector, preferably over a drink and/or a smoke. I’m at my greatest ease creatively when I know I’m engaged in activity that is going to have impact years down the line. Obviously this doesn’t always work out, but the risk is always worth it.

LA: Do you feel that your goals have changed over the years? How have you changed with respect to your writing and performances as a family man with multiple and often competing responsibilities?

PCR: My goals haven’t really changed; I’m still as ambitious as I ever was, though I’ve learned that as I get older goals have to be a little more refined and given more time to ferment. Only a very few twenty and thirty year olds get to rule in the literary jungle. And that jungle beats most down naturally, but I’ve also learned that if you beat back at it, goals have a way of suddenly materializing on the path in the otherwise overgrown wilderness. Maybe not the way you planned or thought they would, but you learn to take what the jungle gives so to speak.
I think getting married and becoming a parent gave me a little bit of perspective in that when you take on those obligations, not everything lives and dies with the most recent issue of P & W or the local lit supplements. Being forced outside the industry pressure cooker can actually be helpful, can get the artist to be truer to themselves because you almost have to learn not to tolerate the expectations of others. The best things materialize when you least expect it. My first book contract showed up in the mail the same year my daughter was born, and I think just being overwhelmed with parenthood, that REALLY caught me by surprise.

LA: Who’s out there now, doing what you love, admire?

PCR: In the small press right now I’m really a huge, huge fan of Luis Rivas, Aimee De Long, Sara Fran Wisby, Sara Beth Hamry…I know, its like the attack of the three-named Sara’s. And I think all of them are writing really insanely good stuff right now, each at or near the top of their respective games. Up in the major leagues I’m like so many others, tied up in Roberto Bolano though right now I’m reading “Nazi Literature in the Americas” which I think flies under the radar as his most heady stuff. In poetry Ann Carson is pretty much Goddess in my book. It’s the whole playwriting thing again.

LA: Your writing, such as in your new book of poetry “(neocom)muter” (link to publisher, Tainted Coffee Press, etc) often includes observations about society and it’s systems, structures, priorities. Would you say that social criticism is an important part of your work?

PCR: The thing about neocom(muter) is that it’s much less political and way more shoe-gazer than I think what my very small but very loyal and devoted audience has been used to from me. That’s a mixed blessing; now I find myself wishing I had been less self-absorbed and more strident, but of course when I was developing the neocom manuscript, I wanted to be less politically polemic and more “transgressive.” I’m learning how to balance the two extremes, so you can probably expect my future work to ramp up the social criticism while still trying to keep the darker emotional tones in whatever happens next for me.

LA: What’s next for Paul Corman-Roberts?

PCR: Readings, readings and more readings. Will continue to promote Cherry Bleeds, but will also be featuring at the Main Street Rag reading in Kansas City in August and doing my first Lit Quake festival gigs in October for their 10 year anniversary in San Francisco. I’ll be work-shopping lots of fiction, both flash and short stories, and trying to develop longer sustained pieces, maybe do my part to help re-invent the novella, which I think is a very important movement in literature right now that’s trying to jumpstart and defy the industry, much like the online people are trying to find ways to defy the old model. The more ways we can find to re-invent and re-re-invent the beast, the longer we can keep from getting real jobs.

Paul Corman-Roberts Website

Neocom(muter) At Tainted Coffee Press

Review of Paul Corman Roberts at Crow Reviews

Cherry Bleeds