Winter 07

G: Why Wisconsin?

PD: The Wisconsin in my book is a fictional Wisconsin, the Wisconsin we have all lived in whether we lived in Nebraska, California, or South Carolina. Yes, the Wisconsin that borders Kansas and New York. It may appear that many of the poems are about the peculiarities of Wisconsin landscapes and I trust the poems do make comfortable the reader who is familiar with the factual Wisconsin, I would suggest that the Wisconsin poems are more about what other states share with Wisconsin. Many states have professional football teams. Snow geese migrate over many states and rest in national refuges. Other states have coffee shops in rural areas that have lost sons and daughters. Many states border the Great Lakes or other large bodies of water. I have never lived in the state of Wisconsin that you find on road maps.

G: It is interesting that you mention this idea of reality versus unreality. In some of your poems you reference real and unreal things together. For example, "How Galileo Scored His Tickets to the Super Bowl," or "How Dickeyville, Wisconsin Might Have Got Its Name." What is it about this interplay between real and unreal things that interests you?

PD: Don’t poets by definition give possibly equal credence to what is “real” and what is not? It seems to me to be within the essential character of the poet. I am sure that in one of Leibniz’s possible worlds, anything imaginable by me would be logical and real and thus whether it actually happens in “this world” seems almost “by accident.” Is there an Elm Street in Saginaw, MI? I am really not sure, but does it matter to me as a poet? I am sure there could be an Elm Street there. But if there were no Elm Streets anywhere, it probably can’t subsist in one of my poems. Does that make sense?

What is fascinating to me is that being accompanied by the literary imagination through my trek through history and life does not mean “well, anything goes.” In the Galileo poem for example, it is absolutely imperative that I be aware and faithful to the actual historical facts. It would have been terrible not to have known that Galileo lectured at Padua. If I had said any place else, the poem would have been a lie. Some details in the poem seem ruled and governed by the real and others by the imagination and you better not get that mixed up. Go figure.

G: Is your writing primarily autobiographical or fictional?

PD: Fictional, of course. Don’t try to figure out my bio or any information about my family from reading my poems. Admittedly though something happens that gets the poem moving and sometimes it is a personal event. But other times too it is just a sequence of words or a rhythm or an image or anything. Probably in most of my poems there is something that seems biographical but don’t let that fool you. I can guarantee you that for anything that you could argue was “autobiographical” and then if you were to try to analyze the poem that way, there will be other details in the poem that would then have to be considered lies. I don’t like that way of putting things. I would rather “not go there” as they say at the office…. Well, at least, Galileo is not biographical. ?

G: Obviously geography plays a large part in these poems. Do you consider yourself a
"midwest," or "regional" writer in the way some people consider themselves "southern" writers?

PD: I think I can be “geographical” or regional at times and I do relate to poetry that is. I do find Midwestern themes resonate for me often in their sense of intimacy and stroking memory. But I don’t think I am essentially geographical. The Wisconsin poems may be more geographical than what is typical for me. Rarely are any of my prose poems geographical. Galileo is not geographical.

G: You published extensively in the '70's and then you stopped. Recently, you've begun publishing again. Why'd you stop, and why'd you start again?

PD: Maybe we shouldn’t say “extensively.” One makes the adjustments necessary to live one’s life. For one reason or another, things did not fall into place for me to settle into an academic environment or any environment that encouraged writing and publishing as I had hoped. My family is critically important to me. I made a living for my family where I could (in Data Processing). I pursued other interests that fit somewhat more comfortably with the life I needed to live. Meanwhile, I never lost the belief in the magic of writing -- that ultimately it helps you make sense of and elevate your experience. So when circumstances changed later in my life and poetry again could become a tenable part of it, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.

G: In your bio, you mention owning an out-of-print book business. Is this something you still do? What interests you about out-of-print books?

PD: Since graduate school, I always found something richly satisfying about haunting old bookstores looking for gold. I used to want to buy every book I could find. At some point, it came down to the fact that I had to figure out how to justify the time and money. The solution was to sell some for a good enough price that I could buy that book back and another one or two as a bonus. Now however, I have 6,000 to 7,000 old books that I will never read and the opportunity to sell used books at prices to support my greed seems largely gone. But I do still sell a book online occasionally.

G: Have you found that writing outside an academic environment has been difficult? Have you experienced any prejudices stemming from this?

PD: It is difficult to sustain writing poetry if you don’t know anyone who thinks writing poetry is as worthwhile as calling a staff meeting. So you write and pretend you were reading technical documentation or doing a crossword puzzle. It is probably just as difficult to write where you are surrounded by people who listen to poetry but for the wrong reasons. I don’t know if any academics are like that, do you? ?. Poets who are focused only on their own academic careers, I am sure, don’t have time to read, uh, my work.

G: How has your experience with Parallel Press been?

PD: I am indebted to Elisabeth Owens and Parallel Press. I believe they publish quite attractive chapbooks, don’t you? It is important that there are still opportunities to find a chapbook publisher without needing to pay a fee to win a contest. Parallel Press gave me that opportunity and then the freedom I needed to make changes in the manuscript even after it was accepted and approved. They suggested removing a Rilke translation that I had to agree didn’t fit all that well with the other poems, and they agreed to include a few additional poems that had been written after the initial submission.

G: What are you reading now? Have you discovered any "gold" recently?

PD: I will be honest, C.L. The last book I read from cover to cover was tragic and I have to say it discouraged me from writing for a few months. Henry Hart’s James Dickey: The World As Lie. James Dickey (no, no relation) was one of my writing heroes when I was first writing poetry in the late 60’s and early 70’s and this book seems to expose him on a most fundamental moral level, particularly in what he did to his family to write his poetry. That is truly tragic. Having a poetic consciousness which I have always assumed to be a “high calling” of sorts was as powerless to save him from his own and his family’s destruction as he would have been had he “only” been a successful athlete or movie star (which, of course, he really would have preferred to be.)

Maybe poetry really doesn’t matter much, after all. Of course, for most all of us (even we who call ourselves “poets” and “writers”) what we give of ourselves to our families and not what we write down on paper is what makes our lives successful or not. Anyway, for a few months, I lost a bit of the feeling that writing poetry was, as I mentioned earlier, “magical.” But don’t worry. I am getting over it. Soon I will again be as idealistic as I ever was about it.

G. What's next?

PD: Well, I will not win a Pulitzer this year?. I do have a prose poem coming out in a Firewheel Editions anthology that is meant, I think, to teach native-speaking Chinese to read English prose poetry. I constantly am re-arranging poems into proposed chapbooks and full-length collections. I don’t know. Maybe someone will want to publish one of these in time. I have some to do’s around the house. The tree in the back yard needs to be removed. I have promised myself that I will not procrastinate on getting the taxes done this year for a change. I would like to see my son, my daughters and sons-in-law in Bloomington, Grand Rapids, and Edmonton. And somehow, through it all, some new poems will get written.

-CL Bledsoe


	What Wisconsin Took: An Interview With Paul Dickey

	G: Why Wisconsin? PD: The Wisconsin in my book is a fictional Wisconsin, the Wisconsin we have all lived in whether we lived in Nebraska, California, or South Carolina. Yes, the Wisconsin that borders Kansas and New York. It may appear that many of the poems are about the peculiarities of Wisconsin landscapes and I trust the poems do make comfortable the reader who is familiar with the factual Wisconsin, I would suggest that the Wisconsin poems are more about what other states share with Wisconsin. Many states have professional football teams. Snow geese migrate over many states and rest in national refuges. Other states have coffee shops in rural areas that have lost sons and daughters. Many states border the Great Lakes or other large bodies of water. I have never lived in the state of Wisconsin that you find on road maps. G: It is interesting that you mention this idea of reality versus unreality. In some of your poems you reference real and unreal things together. For example, "How Galileo Scored His Tickets to the Super Bowl," or "How Dickeyville, Wisconsin Might Have Got Its Name." What is it about this interplay between real and unreal things that interests you? PD: Don’t poets by definition give possibly equal credence to what is “real” and what is not? It seems to me to be within the essential character of the poet. I am sure that in one of Leibniz’s possible worlds, anything imaginable by me would be logical and real and thus whether it actually happens in “this world” seems almost “by accident.” Is there an Elm Street in Saginaw, MI? I am really not sure, but does it matter to me as a poet? I am sure there could be an Elm Street there. But if there were no Elm Streets anywhere, it probably can’t subsist in one of my poems. Does that make sense? What is fascinating to me is that being accompanied by the literary imagination through my trek through history and life does not mean “well, anything goes.” In the Galileo poem for example, it is absolutely imperative that I be aware and faithful to the actual historical facts. It would have been terrible not to have known that Galileo lectured at Padua. If I had said any place else, the poem would have been a lie. Some details in the poem seem ruled and governed by the real and others by the imagination and you better not get that mixed up. Go figure. G: Is your writing primarily autobiographical or fictional? PD: Fictional, of course. Don’t try to figure out my bio or any information about my family from reading my poems. Admittedly though something happens that gets the poem moving and sometimes it is a personal event. But other times too it is just a sequence of words or a rhythm or an image or anything. Probably in most of my poems there is something that seems biographical but don’t let that fool you. I can guarantee you that for anything that you could argue was “autobiographical” and then if you were to try to analyze the poem that way, there will be other details in the poem that would then have to be considered lies. I don’t like that way of putting things. I would rather “not go there” as they say at the office…. Well, at least, Galileo is not biographical. ? G: Obviously geography plays a large part in these poems. Do you consider yourself a "midwest," or "regional" writer in the way some people consider themselves "southern" writers? PD: I think I can be “geographical” or regional at times and I do relate to poetry that is. I do find Midwestern themes resonate for me often in their sense of intimacy and stroking memory. But I don’t think I am essentially geographical. The Wisconsin poems may be more geographical than what is typical for me. Rarely are any of my prose poems geographical. Galileo is not geographical. G: You published extensively in the '70's and then you stopped. Recently, you've begun publishing again. Why'd you stop, and why'd you start again? PD: Maybe we shouldn’t say “extensively.” One makes the adjustments necessary to live one’s life. For one reason or another, things did not fall into place for me to settle into an academic environment or any environment that encouraged writing and publishing as I had hoped. My family is critically important to me. I made a living for my family where I could (in Data Processing). I pursued other interests that fit somewhat more comfortably with the life I needed to live. Meanwhile, I never lost the belief in the magic of writing -- that ultimately it helps you make sense of and elevate your experience. So when circumstances changed later in my life and poetry again could become a tenable part of it, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. G: In your bio, you mention owning an out-of-print book business. Is this something you still do? What interests you about out-of-print books? PD: Since graduate school, I always found something richly satisfying about haunting old bookstores looking for gold. I used to want to buy every book I could find. At some point, it came down to the fact that I had to figure out how to justify the time and money. The solution was to sell some for a good enough price that I could buy that book back and another one or two as a bonus. Now however, I have 6,000 to 7,000 old books that I will never read and the opportunity to sell used books at prices to support my greed seems largely gone. But I do still sell a book online occasionally. G: Have you found that writing outside an academic environment has been difficult? Have you experienced any prejudices stemming from this? PD: It is difficult to sustain writing poetry if you don’t know anyone who thinks writing poetry is as worthwhile as calling a staff meeting. So you write and pretend you were reading technical documentation or doing a crossword puzzle. It is probably just as difficult to write where you are surrounded by people who listen to poetry but for the wrong reasons. I don’t know if any academics are like that, do you? ?. Poets who are focused only on their own academic careers, I am sure, don’t have time to read, uh, my work. G: How has your experience with Parallel Press been? PD: I am indebted to Elisabeth Owens and Parallel Press. I believe they publish quite attractive chapbooks, don’t you? It is important that there are still opportunities to find a chapbook publisher without needing to pay a fee to win a contest. Parallel Press gave me that opportunity and then the freedom I needed to make changes in the manuscript even after it was accepted and approved. They suggested removing a Rilke translation that I had to agree didn’t fit all that well with the other poems, and they agreed to include a few additional poems that had been written after the initial submission. G: What are you reading now? Have you discovered any "gold" recently? PD: I will be honest, C.L. The last book I read from cover to cover was tragic and I have to say it discouraged me from writing for a few months. Henry Hart’s James Dickey: The World As Lie. James Dickey (no, no relation) was one of my writing heroes when I was first writing poetry in the late 60’s and early 70’s and this book seems to expose him on a most fundamental moral level, particularly in what he did to his family to write his poetry. That is truly tragic. Having a poetic consciousness which I have always assumed to be a “high calling” of sorts was as powerless to save him from his own and his family’s destruction as he would have been had he “only” been a successful athlete or movie star (which, of course, he really would have preferred to be.) Maybe poetry really doesn’t matter much, after all. Of course, for most all of us (even we who call ourselves “poets” and “writers”) what we give of ourselves to our families and not what we write down on paper is what makes our lives successful or not. Anyway, for a few months, I lost a bit of the feeling that writing poetry was, as I mentioned earlier, “magical.” But don’t worry. I am getting over it. Soon I will again be as idealistic as I ever was about it. G. What's next? PD: Well, I will not win a Pulitzer this year?. I do have a prose poem coming out in a Firewheel Editions anthology that is meant, I think, to teach native-speaking Chinese to read English prose poetry. I constantly am re-arranging poems into proposed chapbooks and full-length collections. I don’t know. Maybe someone will want to publish one of these in time. I have some to do’s around the house. The tree in the back yard needs to be removed. I have promised myself that I will not procrastinate on getting the taxes done this year for a change. I would like to see my son, my daughters and sons-in-law in Bloomington, Grand Rapids, and Edmonton. And somehow, through it all, some new poems will get written. -CL Bledsoe

	This spring, the Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin - Madison Libraries released Paul Dickey's new chapbook What Wisconsin Took. (For a review, click HERE.) Paul's poetry has appeared in over 30 journals both print and online, including Southern Poetry Review, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Cue: A Journal of Prose Poetry, The Cider Press Review, Swink Online, and Rattle. Another recent collection of his poems They Say This is How Death Came Into the World was a finalist in the 2005 Red Mountain Review chapbook contest.