CB: Several of your poems describe working in a funeral home, for example, “Growing up in a Funeral Home”. If you don’t mind, tell me a little about your childhood. Was it a family owned funeral home? From what age did you work there?

JC: My grandparents owned the main funeral home in Brockton. MA. My father married into the business and ran the second funeral home in Bridgewater, MA, the funeral home that I lived in throughout my childhood. When I was in the ninth grade, the Bridgewater funeral home was sold and my family moved to Brockton, MA.

I was the oldest grandchild, and my family expected that I would eventually become an undertaker and take over the family business. I starting working at the funeral home in the ninth grade: washing cars, moving caskets, setting up rooms, cutting the lawn, and doing similar odd jobs. When I got my driver’s license at sixteen, I began working funerals and going on “pick ups” with my father.

CB: So this probably had a profound affect on your childhood, exposing you to ideas of mortality many of your peers may have been completely unaware of – was this troubling to you? Or did you have problems "fitting in" because of your family's work?

JC: Yes, growing up in a funeral home had a profound affect on me because I think that my brother and I saw too much too early. Becoming an apprentice in the trade of death is not the same as learning a trade like, let’s say, plumbing. Now that last statement is rather obvious and perhaps a tad dramatic. The truth, and the honest answer to your question, is that it wasn’t so much the life of growing up in a funeral home as it was growing up in a home with two alcoholic parents. As the poems in the Comstock Review chapbook suggest, my family life was, quite simply put, crazy. A few years ago, my brother, sister, and I were talking about our childhood. My sister and I both commented on the fact that, when we read A Long Day’s Journey Into Night in college, our classmates were shocked. My sister said that something to the effect that reading the play was a “Sunday walk in the park.” My poem “Telling My Sister on How I Taught a Lesson on Child Abuse” is, I suppose, a window to the craziness of my childhood.

I did not have trouble “fitting in,” although I was a reticent child who was very angry. As I grew older, I became obsessed with football and boxing—two outlets for the mute rage that I carried with me. My brother and sister and I were all overweight children. My brother and I had the luxury of becoming football players—we were captains of our high school teams—but my sister really is the one who was profoundly affected by our childhood.

CB: Is your writing primarily autobiographical?

JC: I think that my best work is autobiographical. As the poems suggest, my childhood was psychologically chaotic and rather tragic in some respects. My parents died young: my mother died six weeks after turning fifty and my father died at fifty-three, and, most noteworthy, my mother died exactly six weeks to the day after my father died. Capturing the psychological chaos of the family alcoholism, the Irish Catholic brainwashing, and growing up in a “death house” gives my best poems their power. The artistic challenge has been to earn the power that comes on tap because of the subject matter of the poems. Now, of course, I have many poems that are more imaginative works and are not “autobiographical” per se. However, the poems that mean the most to me, the ones that seem so much more authentic to me, are the poems that are autobiographical. I really do wish that I had more range in my work, and this lack of range certainly suggests that I am, in some respects, a very mediocre poet.

CB: I wouldn't say that. Many of our greatest writers are obsessed with certain material. Some of them rehash what is essentially the same idea over and over. Maybe it's this obsession that makes the work great.

JC: Well, of course, I do agree with you. Nonetheless, I stand by my claim of being a mediocre poet who has a couple of really good poems. And those good poems come from the wellspring of the funeral home, a place where I can achieve true originality and authenticity. I suppose that Richard Hugo might have said that the funeral home is my “triggering town.” What I know is that the poems that come out of my childhood are honest poems, as honest as I can be in this world. I wish that I could write poems like James Wright or Dave Smith or a couple dozen other poets whom I could name, but I am limited in some respects. I suppose all writers could say that they, sometimes, at least, wish that they could write like other poets whom they admire.

CB: It seems that what you are saying about your own writing is that you focus more on the story or the emotional impact. Do you think this is accurate? With my own writing, I've found that sometimes when I focus more on the story, I sacrifice language. Do poets that you admire tend to focus more on sonority or narrative?

JC: I like the narrative poem. While I know that I sacrifice language, as you put it, I always try to give sound the last word. Sound is everything for me because the tone of the poem is what has to be honest and not borrowed. I know when my work is borrowed, when the tone, style, and the like are imitative.

CB: I like your honesty. It's refreshing to see humility in a writer. A friend of mine described the difference between the creative writing graduate program at a college, and the English graduate program. The writers were of the opinion that they were writing the work that the English students would study. And the English students felt that the writers were unimportant because they only created the work. A similar butting-of-heads seems to exist between writers who teach for a living and writers who work outside of academia.

JC: That the “English students felt that the writers were unimportant because they only created the work” seems rather ludicrous to me. Without the primary source, the critics would not be able to write secondary source material. I state the obvious, of course, but I have always identified with the writer and not the critic-- and I rarely ever read literary criticism.

Teaching for a living is what I like to do—who I am. Teaching high school is, though, draining, because the schedule and work load are demanding. I find it difficult to write during the school year, but, if I were truly committed to my work, I would find the time to do it. When I was younger, I did write more routinely.

CB: So what do you think makes a great poet?

JC: Ivor Winters defined a great poet as someone who writes one great poem. I think that a great poet is someone who has created a body of work that is universal and stands the test of time. The great poet uses language in extraordinary ways and possesses genuine originality. The mediocre poet lacks this true originality. While many poets are historically important and are taught because they have a place in literary history, they are not great. For example, Ginsberg is not “great.” Richard Wilbur is great, and, in time, he will achieve the status of being one the twentieth century greatest poets.

CB: Who are some of your literary influences? Who are you reading?

JC: Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Robert Penn Warren, James Dickey, Dave Smith, and Don Johnson come immediately to mind.

Who am I reading right now? My students’ work! As I write this response, I have a stack of poems to read!

CB: According to your bio, you teach at Milton Academy. What sort of school is this? How has teaching affected your writing? Does it feed the writing, or do you find teaching distracting?

JC: Milton Academy, founded in 1798, is a private preparatory school. The students are fifty percent boarding students and fifty percent day school students. The school is considered to be one of the finest secondary schools in the country, and Andover and Exeter are among its competitors.

I taught fourteen years in city high schools before I was hired at Milton Academy: one year in Boston and thirteen years in the Brockton. I have been teaching at Milton Academy for twenty-four years.

I suppose one could say that it is somewhat ironic that I choose to work at the beginning of life (teaching the young) instead of choosing to work at the end of life (burying the dead). I have always thought of myself as a teacher who writes poetry and not as a writer who teaches. Teaching has always been more important to me than writing. Although I have published almost ninety poems, I have not published a full length collection. I have made the final pack in the major poetry competitions many, many times and have twice been the “second manuscript,” the runner-up that just was not good enough to win. Being the bridesmaid, if you will, has been somewhat discouraging, but last year I decided to try the chapbook route. I entered two chapbook competitions and won them both. I must say that my confidence in the worth of my poems was restored, and, perhaps, before I die, I may even get the full length manuscript published. As I grow older, the publication stuff means less and less. That teaching has been preeminent in my work life probably accounts for the fact that I do not have a book yet. I love teaching and plan to teach for as long as I am able to do so.

CB: Was the other chapbook published? If so, by whom?

JC: I won the Providence Athenaeum’s Philbrook Award. What pleases me most about this award is that the book was selected by Martin Espada, a poet whom I deeply admire and respect. I did not know Martin before he selected the book, but he and I have become friends. We share a passion for boxing and the history of the “Ring.” Another judge probably would have selected another book, but he was certainly the right reader for my work because he and I are, in many respects, aesthetically similar. Now, listen, you must understand that I am not comparing my work to his: he is in another league. (And for the record, he has eleven books and I have two chapbooks. Okay, so anticipating your response to this last statement, let me say that I do, of course, realize that writing poetry is not a competition, that the value of the work is intrinsic and not extrinsic. As Frost once said, “You can’t write them to pay the gas bill, because, if you do, you probably won’t.) His latest book, The Republic of Poetry, is superb, and, if you haven’t read it, let me know and I will send you a copy because I have some extra copies. He has been called the “Latino poet of his generation,” and he is, in my view at least, one of America’s most significant poets. He just won a Guggenheim and serves on the President’s Council for Latin Affairs (I don’t think that I have the title of the council quite correct. I am paraphrasing, but I am close enough to make the point.). I taught his work this year, and my students were really taken by his poems.

CB: I'm familiar with Espada and have read some of his work, but not Republic. I'll look for it.

How would you describe your experience with The Comstock Review – are you pleased with how they’ve treated you?

JC: Excellent: All of the people with whom I corresponded with during the publication process were very professional and helpful.