D.C. Porder’s poem “Aunt Sharon“ was the most revisited of our poems for January. Everybody seemed to have a different favourite bit and one reader, Dave Cryer, described it as “Momentary, but momentous,” an apt phrase for that fine line between life and death which D.C. drew for us with so fine a pen. So we were pleased to have the opportunity to ask him some questions on your behalf.
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Every Day Poets: Why poetry? Why is poetry important to you?
D.C. Porder: I believe in minimalism. I listen to ambient/drone music because to me it represents the richness in simplicity. I think anything that’s superfluous, in all circumstances, should be tortured in a filthy dungeon and mutilated alive. The best thing a writer can do with a word is delete it. I think one well-done image or even a precise arrangement of phonics can impart a lot more than 7 pages of data-dump in a long and boring fiction manuscript. Poetry forces you to be concise and spot-on.
EDP: What was that first encounter with poetry that so captured you that it made you want to write and which poets influence you now? And do you have an absolute favourite poet or poem?
DP: When I first started writing poetry I swore by the old-school guys like Frost, Coleridge, Eliot, and Poe. I even memorized Rime of the Ancient Mariner at some point but then I forgot it (I blame the drugs). I was so different back then. I wrote rhyming, metered poems, very formal stuff, nothing like I write now. But I think it helped me understand the importance of sound and it gave me a good traditional basis to move forward from. Now-a-days I’m an internet junkie and I read lots of the people who get up on e-zines and that makes up the majority of my reading. I also really like Tony Hoagland, James Joyce, Denis Johnson, Richard Hugo, Murakami, Bukowski, James Tate, Cummings, Kevin Brockmeier, Coleridge, and other people like that. I usually post what I’m reading on my blog.
EDP: I notice on your blog that you sometimes write poems in just a few minutes. Are those starting points? Is that how you set about writing in general?
DP: I’m a chronic editor and it definitely negatively effects me in a lot of ways. I think my best poems have everything pretty much in order in the first or second draft. Either I get it right the first time, or I don’t, and if I don’t then I just scrap the poem and write a new poem, and if I do get it right, then the editing begins. Usually I toy with language and structure for 15-20 drafts. It’s also important to get a poem workshopped so that you can see what others think. I never trust myself in terms of anything.
EDP: Are there some common themes emerging within in your poetry? And if so how did they get there? Is it conscious?
DP: Common themes in my poetry include relationships, drugs, experimental music, the internet, kids toys and Red Bull. My mind’s all over the place, so I change poem-to-poem. Usually I’ll have a jumping off point, sort of like the “triggering towns” Richard Hugo talked about. A lot of times I write about crazy things that happened to me while I was on drugs, and then I bastardize the situation to make it funny. Recently I’ve been doing psychedelic writing based on my experiences with hallucinogens. The thing about hallucinogens is that they let you break the universe’s rules, which is exactly what I want my poetry to do.
EDP: “Aunt Sharon” is a very powerful poem and it has to be said, fairly dark. Tell us about that piece and the motivation behind it.
DP: I wrote the first draft in my junior year of high school when my aunt had breast cancer and was in the hospital. Her name isn’t actually Sharon and I never actually visited her in the hospital. But the main idea in “Aunt Sharon” is that everything is getting sucked towards the narrator’s aunt, and that everything is becoming darker, which is a metaphor for how the narrator’s life is consumed by her illness. I think I botched the metaphor.
EDP: I think you are too modest, D.C. …
On your blog you say you have no plans for the future well you’re twenty, so no hurry – but you obviously think deeply about life, so what are the important things for you – the big issues?
DP: The most important thing in my life is Cartoon Network. The second most important thing is coffee. In general, I like to be unprepared and have no obligations. Important shit is scary. My favorite times are when I have the liberty (or take the liberty) to do what I want. For example, one time it was 4:00 AM and my friend I were on AIM and he was like, let’s go get wasted downtown and stay up all night and I was like, Yeah! So we went downtown and got wasted and stayed up all night. I remember walking up 5th avenue in the middle of the next afternoon and people in business suits were shuffling past us and I remember thinking about how great it was to have no where important to go.
EDP: If you could tell us one defining thing about yourself, what would that be?
DP: I’m addicted to the internet and I love instrumental doom metal and my favorite movie is called Black Moon and it’s about a talking unicorn.
EDP: Thank you for your time and patience in answering our questions. We hope to see more of your work in EDP.
One Response to “Interview with D.C. Porder”
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April 15th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Oh, Please…..