158

JH: Poetry may be what is omitted from some unknown whole. Aside from Twain's autobiography, have there been any other writings that have had an influence on your own? Influence seems to be a matter of sympathy, identification, recognition. Could one pick a text at random and assign oneself influence? Does sympathy inspire the specifics of inspiration? If someone were influenced sympathetically by Moby-Dick, for instance, that person may write a text devoid of whales and the sea, whereas someone who picked Moby-Dick at random might be sure to include whales and the sea.

AHB: I’m not sure why but it has been difficult to reply to your questions, as evidenced by my slow response time. It seems like certain writings elicit a sequence of response. I think of The Maximus Poems, which seemed impermeable but at the same time, a map driven for me. I think one can and people do pick a text randomly and assign influence. In such a case, the writer has a necessity, inchoate or undefined, that needs a resolving effort. The text then becomes the field of concern, because it already as authority. I agree quite with the observation of your last sentence. The sympathic influence creates inventive pathways. Random entrance to the work, like by a literature class, would respond to the obvious salients.

157

JH: What inspired you to write an autobiographical book? I'm looking forward to it! Do you see autobiography as yet another narrative, with authorial insight which may or may not be shared with the reader? Can more be omitted from an autobiography than can be omitted from a poem? In other words, is there an essential of autobiography as there is an essential of poetry? The omission of a single word, phrase, or line can strip a poem of the poetic, leaving it a text. Is there such a fatal omission in autobiography? Would the omission lie in the author's approach to the autobiography rather than in specific words?

AHB: Autobiography is narrative, and an available one (I know the subject). For me, I must speak of specific events in my family that has left me ruptured from my brothers. That’s a deep well. But I do not want to omit goofy things, happy things, and the radiating spans of life. Reading the first volume of Twain’s autobiography last year helped me formulate the idea to write. He wrestled with format then finally just wrote as it came. So I have allowed myself to ramble. What I consciously omit will be what seems boring to me. Jung writes about how the conscious mind refuses what it cannot comprise, hence the unconscious. Yet the unconscious, we understand, makes itself known. I have always trusted that the less I get in the way of the writing process the more valuable, or at least interesting, the writing. In a sense, whatever I omit is still there.

156

JH: Your mining analogy is a description of poem series as well as style. What is the relation of poem series to recurring characters? I cannot foresee that I will again write poems in any of my series, but I can imagine writing poems that include any character in my past writings. For me, a poem series is a matter of form rather than character. I don't consider my Virginia poems, for instance, as part of a series, though Virginia has appeared in at least two of my series. "Reminiscence" includes characters that may reoccur in future poems. The Creaky Wink may also reoccur. Speaking of recent poems, here is your "Probably So", a superb poem that makes excellent use of enjambment and prose/line interaction:

He’s

throwing his bullet wounds at us,”

said George Harrison. Could

you do the same, Absolute Reader?

Turning verbs to use nouns in the picture, and the end zone falters with completion. The idea in life makes a great prop. Charity cannot exist, but new Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine period. We must discuss the efforts of those counted for more than one. And

God said, “I will provide a train station.

AHB: I guess a general come what may attitude persists. I’m writing an autobiographical book. It roams about in time, because the logic of chronology is no logic at all. So we, writers, go for what interests us, proves useful. George Harrison really did say what I quote him saying (to Peter Fonda), at least according to the story. The image struck me as dynamic. And of course I let the bubbling currency of “news” (from radio or newspaper) seep in. A sort of reverse of Jung’s picture of the unconscious influencing the conscious. I don’t know why such a line as the last one would exist, which is exactly why I like it.

155

JH: Style may be likened to a characteristic manner of speaking. One often changes one's way of speaking depending on circumstance. In writing, each poem is approached differently by the only way a poem may be approached, by words (the only visual/audible, verifiable approach to a poem, I should clarify). Is it true that each and every poem is approached differently? There is speaking, and there is the speaker. How different can a speaker be?  A poet's style may be appreciably different than it was ten years ago, but is it likely to be much different from ten days ago? This ten-day difference may happen a few times over a poet's lifetime, but probably wouldn't happen every ten days over a poet's lifetime.

AHB: I suppose if you are mining  the earth for whatever ore you first find the precious. As you dig, perhaps you find greater concentration. As you continue, you find that the concentration diminishes as the lode pays out. I think writers tend to approach each poem the same, like with the previous.in repetition of this writing act, we find something different.

So speaking of which, you supplied Wryting-L with the following different sounding piece. No Greek, and kinda flaky:

Reminiscence

The masque at the Creaky Wink, it was some affair! Me and Het Rancifer, were we the Red Death, the Yellow King? You'd think. We, venerable, inveterate to the Wink, masqued as Gravestone and Madness Creek, newcomers to the Creaky Wink. Some pair!

154

JH: Few of my prose poems exceed five sentences. Can I say that I don't intend to write short poems? Brevity accompanies the lyric, and although I know there are many kinds of poems, I hold poetry and the lyric as synonyms. Regardless, I don't deliberately write short poems. Is cleaving to a type of poem a definition of style?

AHB: I do not feel like I cleave to a style. I write how I can. I think about style, as an object of originality, about as much as I think of my fingerprints in the same light. Sometimes I consciously put limits and dimensions to my writing, but in all cases the writing discovers itself. It does seem like it takes a certain confidence to know that the one sentence that you have written is ‘done’. I mean, a certain momentum exists in the act of writing. And see, I have written a short reply.

153

JH: I never had mentors outside of books. It is indeed no easy task to become a better writer of sentences. To me, a prose poem is a poem that just happens to be in prose. What is the structure of prose poems if not the words themselves? One exception could be punctuation, which can provide the space that line breaks provide in verse. Another exception could be paragraphs. Often, your prose poems are several paragraphs long. How would you compare stanzas and paragraphs? Also, is there structure without space (separation) as there can be structure without repetition?

AHB: John Ciardi, or someone like that (someone much quoted as an authority but not so much someone we look to for the poetry itself), said (effectively, ie, I'm just about making it up) poetry snaps into shape whereas prose can be constantly whittled. I form paragraphs both semantically and visually. If it feel like the thought has changed, I move to the next paragraph. I also break if the appearance of hte word block looks too imposing. I have no problem with endless prose blocks but some pieces want air space. There can be structure without space but that can really be imposing. I'm thinking of ancient Greek and Roman writing with no spaces, which often can be rendered in multiple meanings. The reader, allowing for a modicum of interest, will find a structure. You, by the way, having been writing poems of single sentences.

152

JH: Welcome to the Billiverse is indeed genius! To comment on "Familiar Actaeon", and to answer your question "What's this with nails and wings", I present my most recent poem, "Shepherds' Council":
Hands that to roods have nailed paws lupine, and have nailed paws leonine, nail to cypresses wings cygnet, as Artemis holds cygnets dear, chaste Artemis Who disdains display even for vengeance, and holds vengeance dear solely upon discovery: this is had from Her nymphs when they hymn of Actaeon by Artemis imbruted, which change surely befell shepherds of late vanished to us.

* * * * *
Unlike with Virginia, I did not intend to write more Actaeon poems. After I wrote my first two Virginia poems, I knew I would write many more Virginia poems. It is not only characters that can influence one's future poems. A poem can influence its poet's future poems, sometimes to the extent of altering how that poet writes poems. Has there been such a poem for you? For me, that poem was "And now refers only to Lethe's diverting ripple",
And now refers only to Lethe's diverting ripple
which struck me as having a natural use of the line. I wanted to see if I could write natural lines at will. This led me to a consideration of the line. In a poem lacking measure and form, how to end the line? Eventually, I began writing prose poems. I came to realize that unless the poem calls for lines, whether naturally or by formula, there is no need for lines. Sentences can make a poem as much as lines.
You write mainly in the prose poem. What caused you to write prose poems?
AHB: While in college, I suddenly started writing lines across the page, underhanging the next line below the last letter of the previous. It was a breakthru for me.When Robert Grenier, my teacher saw the poem, he got excited enough to publish it in This 3. In that poem, let us say, I accepted what Olson wrote about the open field of composition.

I do not recall a breakthru that said Write poems in prose now. Certainly it meant something to me to read, say, Baudelaire's Poemes en Prose, for the license (tho those poems are largely stories). I think semantics concerned me. That is, I understood the sense of line musically (thanks to Creeley especially, him and his enjambments), but I found line breaks getting in the way of the sense I wanted to make. For a long time, commas were the only punctuation I used. Which means endlessness. I'm going afield in my answer but I think it's all apposite. When I kept a journal,rather than fuss sentences and punctuation, I used dashes. These could be end stops or brief pauses (periods or commas). So I got a sense of freedom and structure, both, in using them. And as I became a better writer of sentences, no easy task, I heard the rhythm and sound better. And finally, I recognized that I could be straightforward, at least in delivery. Poetry as we find often loses itself in the mystery of invention. We do, after all think, in consciousness, in sentences. I think poetry without structure is gibberish. That a poem is a structure. Random words mean nothing until the brain discovers a structure (whether intended by an author does not matter).

I mentioned Grenier earlier. Have you a had a mentor? I mean someone you knew personally who helped your writing. Obviously I claim Grenier, tho I never stayed in contact after that one year.