A.D. Winans - interview
The,following interview was conducted with A.D. Winans via correspondence in November, 2000. Born 1936, in San Francisco (California) Allan was raised a Protestant, but no longer belongs to any religion. He is a poet, writer and photographer.
BE: Allan, what is a poem to you?
ADW: I don’t give that any thought. I simply write from my life experience.
BE: What makes a poem a ‘poem’?
ADW: I’ll leave that up to the editors and publishers to define.
BE: How can you tell if a piece of writing is a poem?
ADW: That’s up to the person reading it.
BE: Who first introduced you to poetry?
ADW: I discovered that on my own.
BE: What was the first poem that moved you?
ADW: Many poems moved me, but the poem that changed the way I thought was when I read HOWL by Allen Ginsberg. I was 19.
BE: Did you begin writing poetry after reading this poem?
ADW: No, I was writing down my thoughts and experiences when I was as young as twelve. I have been “seriously” writing poetry since I was 22 years old.
BE: What sort of poetry do you write?
ADW: I’ve written all kinds of poetry: prose, free verse, haiku, surrealism.
BE: Do you have a unique style?
ADW: 1 don’t know if 1 have a unique style or not.Some people have labeled me a Meat Poet and some people have labeled me a Beat poet. I don’t like labels. I suppose Avant Garde is the closest label I’m comfortable with.
BE: Who and / or what inspired you to write poetry in the beginning?
ADW: Hank Williams, a country and western singer, was probably the earliest influence on me. His haunting lyrics made a big impression on me when I was in high school.
BE: Who and / or what motivates you to write poetry at present?
ADW: Life motivates me to write poetry. The injustices of our political system. The poor and the dispossessed; and music, especially jazz and the blues.
BE: Do you have any favourite poets and / or other writers?
ADW: Most of my favourite poets are dead: William Carlos Williams, Cummings, Blake, Ginsberg, Kaufman, Micheline, Bukowski.
BE: What is it about them that makes you enjoy their writing?
ADW: They wrote about things that are important in my own life. They wrote in a style I could understand, and with poetry that came from the heart.
BE: How do you react when you have read a poem written by someone which you feel is great?
ADW: Great is a pretty awesome term. One reacts to the poem with joy, tears, amusement, and any number of other feelings, depending on how the poem strikes you, but it’s the poems that bring forth these responses, not how “great” the poet is. Great poets can write bad poems, every poem they write is not a great experience.
BE: How can you separate a good poem from a bad poem?
ADW: From the way it makes me feel.
BE: Can a bad poem show promise through quality lines?
ADW: I’ve read a few bad poems that had some good lines in them. The secret is to discard the poem, and keep the good lines for future use.
BE: How can you tell when you’ve written a good poem? How do you react?
ADW: It’s hard for a poet to be objective about his or her own work. I sometimes send a poem I think is exceptional to a poet I respect, and get his or her opinion, but it’s often easier for me to determine when I’ve written a bad poem, rather than an outstanding one. I don’t react to the poem after it’s written. I write spontaneously, and once the poem is finished, I put it aside, and look for the right publication to send it to.
BE: How often do you re work your poems?
ADW: Not often. Most of my poems flow off the typewriter in the exact way I want them to be. But the longer poems. I do revise, some frequently, and some less frequently.
BE: What sort of changes are usually made?
ADW: Whatever changes I think will make the poem better. This might be a line change, the way a line breaks, cutting the poem length wise, or adding additional lines.
BE: What moments and experiences in your life bring out your best when writing poetry?
ADW: Any experience that moves or touches me in a meaningful way: the homeless, poverty, the death of a friend, the subject matter is endless.
BE: What are some of the most important things that you would say to a poet who has just started writing?
ADW: Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to take chances. Don’t try and imitate others, especially don’t try to imitate Bukowski.
BE: Where were you educated?
ADW: San Francisco State College from 1958 to 1962.
BE: Were you taught poetry during your school education?
ADW: Not really. There were the usual obligatory references to Byron and Shelley, and other poets who are not relative to my life. This was in high school. I avoided poetry classes in college.
BE: Do you recall certain types of poetry taught in your school?
ADW: It wasn’t really taught as a subject, just as a throw in, as part of English classes. But, once again, I’m talking about high school.
BE: What relevance do the poems that were taught at school have on your life now?
ADW: I don’t imagine they would have had any relevance to my life, unless I had taken a course in Beat literature
BE: What differences do you see with the kind of poetry that was taught during your education and the poetry that you enjoy now?
ADW: Poetry is now considered a subject matter in its own right, and not just something that was part of an English course.
BE: What censorship with the media (eg. newspapers, radio, T.V., etc.) have you experienced?
ADW: Censorship is everywhere and always will be as long as we have organized religion. When I published Second Coming Magazine, a printer in Ann Arbor Michigan refused to publish a book by Terry Kennedy. They found some of the words inside offensive. 1 found this amusing. I didn’t know it was a printer’s job to read the book they were hired to print. Just recently, a small magazine doing an interview with me, dropped one of my responses to her questions. She asked me what inspired me to write. and I said “the demons”. She wrote back and said she was a religious woman and could not face Judgement Day if she were to publish this response.
BE: Do you find it easier to get your poetry published in this country or overseas? If so, why do you think your poetry has been accepted in this way?
ADW: I’ve had no problem getting published, either in the U.S. or abroad, but I think the English and French have a deeper appreciation for poetry. 1 think my poetry has been accepted largely because I communicate the concerns of the common man and woman, and in a language that that is easy to understand. You don’t have to go to a dictionary and look up certain words to understand what I have said.
BE: Do you think that more poets from your country are looking for publishing overseas?
ADW: I have no idea what other poets and writers are looking for, nor do I particularly care. That is up to them.
BE: Have you ever had your poetry criticised?
ADW: I have received criticism on a few occasions. 1 think we are all sensitive to criticism, but if you’re a writer you have to develop a thick skin, or the sharks will draw blood. I have disagreed with criticism of my work when the critic didn’t know what he was talking about, usually commenting about my life or where I am coming from. Critics should critique the work and not the poet, and they owe it to their readers to back up their criticism.
BE: In your view, does the average person appreciate and value poetry?
ADW: I think more so today than in the past. But if a poet wants the average Joe out there to appreciate his or her work, he must write about topics that relate to the common man and woman.
BE: Is poetry appreciated and valued differently by people from other cultures as compared to people in this society?
ADW: You have to remember the U.S. is a relatively young country, and I’m afraid with the new technology age, and the use of computers, that less and less people read books, and instead rely on the media and quick sound bytes for news. This is one of the reasons why I largely detest e mail. Poets and writers have forgotten how to write letters, how to express true feelings, for the convenience of chit chat e mail exchanges.
BE: Are certain kinds of poetry (eg. performance based) becoming more popular in this country, or do you think that they are more appreciated in other cultures?
ADW: Most performance poetry I have heard is bad poetry practised by bad poets. Most performance poetry does not work on the written page. I think, perhaps, it is more prevalent in the U.S., but I see evidence of it spreading across the globe.
BE: Do you think that many young people today appreciate poetry?
ADW: I think young people who have been exposed to poetry at a young age appreciate it more than in the past, but you have to catch those people young, and unfortunately here in the U.S., the school system is turning out students who can’t even write a complete sentence, and have a short attention span.
BE: Do you believe that anybody can write poetry? Are there certain skills that a person needs to be able to write?
ADW: No, it’s a myth that anyone can write poetry, anymore than everyone can be a carpenter or car mechanic. I don’t know what skills one needs to be a writer, other than to feel, have a basic command of the English language, and a burning desire to express those feelings.
BE: Personally, what purpose does poetry provide for you?
ADW: It’s been the wife and children I never had. It fills my life with meaning rather than personal possessions.
BE: Do you see poetry as having a role or purpose in society? If so, what is this purpose?
ADW: A society without poetry, art, literature, music and theater is a dead society.
BE: Can poetry be used as a political weapon?
ADW: It not only can be, but has been, more so in places like China and Latin America, than here in the U.S.. But remember what Mao said: “After the revolution is over, the poets must be the first to go.” He knew a poet can change the thinking of people, and that’s dangerous to any revolution. Here in the U.S., the major poets have been opted into the system. They become Professors, are given government grants, made poet laureates, and such. Ferlinghetti owns valuable real estate, plus two homes and a cabin in Big Sur. Ginsberg sold his archives to Stanford University for over a million dollars. Burroughs made television commercials. The biggest sell out of them all is Bob Dylan, who sold his song “The Times They Are A Changing” to a corporation, who used it in the background for a television commercial.
BE: Can you recall any time/s in history when poetry was used as such?
ADW: If you need an answer to that, you haven’t studied history.
BE: Do you feel the need to be published as a poet?
ADW: Not any longer.
BE: Do you sense any pressure from a person or group to have your work published (eg. expectations to prove a ‘track record’)?
ADW: No.
BE: Have you been published as a poet?
ADW: I’ve been published in over 500 literary journals and anthologies worldwide, and had 27 books of poetry and prose published, but I dare say few people outside of the alternative press scene know who I am.
BE: If so, how difficult was it to get your poetry published?
ADW: I was published early on, and have had no difficulty getting published.
BE: In general, what kind of feedback do you get from editors concerning your poetry?
ADW: The feedback is almost always favorable. However, there are editors who like to take an easy out (when rejecting you) stating “these poems came very close”, or “these poems almost made it”. That’s a cop out.
BE: Were there inconsistencies with such feedback? If so, what overall impression of the literary scene did you get as a result of this?
ADW: Sometimes the feedback is sincere (90% of the time) and sometimes it is not.
BE: How many rejection slips did you receive, from publishers during the early phase of writing?
ADW: I started writing prose, not poetry, and submitted to the big name magazines. I think I accumulated around 200 rejection slips, which I pasted on the walls of my small apartment.
BE: How many do you get now as a ratio (ie. rejected / accepted)?
ADW: I can honestly say, I receive very few rejection slips these days. The ratio is probably nine to one, with acceptances making up the nine.
BE: When were you first published as a poet? Who published the poem?
ADW: I don’t recall who published my first poem. But I was in my late twenties when I sold my first poem to Poetry Australia and my first short story to The Mendocino Robin.
BE: What was the poem’s title? What was the poem about?
ADW: The poem was untitled, and about watching old people dine in the Tenderloin. The short story was some absurd story about a rich woman, her young lover, and her French poodle.
BE: Did you receive a payment of some sort?
ADW: $10 for the poem and $5 for the short story, plus contributor copies.
BE: Did you have to pay any money for publication of your poem/s (aside from postage)?
Never.
BE: What are your opinions of the vanity press market? Do you feel that vanity presses bear a role for the serious poet and provide a positive approach to the value of poetry in general?
ADW: I think the vanity presses will publish anything, no matter how bad, if they can con the poet into paying them. I’m talking about commercial vanity presses, not the few small presses who publish poets on a co op basis.
BE: Do you feel that poetry editors fulfill their roles as editors or do you feel that improvements could be made? (Feel free to discuss a good and / or bad experience here).
ADW: Poetry editors, for the most part, are saints. I was one of them myself, editing and publishing Second Coming for over 17 years. They put their life blood and money into publishing others, solely for the love of poetry. There are few rewards, certainly not financial ones. On the other hand, there are a small number of editors who publish only to see their name in print; to trade favors with other small press publishers, and to publish their own poetry alongside those of more established poets and writers, but these editors are, fortunately, in the minority.
BE: If you were offered the chance to have a poem published, but the editor suggested some changes to the piece, to what extent would you take the amendment?
ADW: Only if, after careful consideration, I agreed with the suggested changes. I seldom make compromises, but I am open to the suggestion of an editor I respect.
BE: Aside from the general comments that are provided by editors, do you believe that there have been other motives for your poems to be rejected (eg. a poem’s content)? If so, please explain why.
ADW: Oh yeah, I have been very outspoken in the poetry community, and often have expressed my feelings in poems. I have definitely been rejected, because I offended someone or the friend of someone, and a few times out of jealousy.
BE: Have you had any problems with poetry editors in regards to your submissions (examples of situations are preferred rather than the names of those involved)?
ADW: Not really. But I do have some problems with lazy and / or arrogant editors, who return your work without the courtesy of the briefest of notes, who make comments on your manuscript, and otherwise show a lack of respect for the writer.
BE: What do you think of poets who submit their work simultaneously to other mag’s? Do you see a conflict of interest between poets and editors in this regard? If so, why?
ADW: It’s okay, as long as you let the editor know. I do think it is ridiculous, however. that some editors refuse to publish a poem that has been published elsewhere. I mean, many of these editors publish a zine with a distribution of no more than 100 copies and often have no means of distributing the zine outside of a small circle of their friends. When I published Second Coming, I often published previously published poems. What kind of ego is it that an editor feels he has to have exclusive rights to a poem? l mean if these editors were paying you, and had a huge distribution base, that would be another matter, but they don’t. Good poems should be kept in circulation, not relegated to obscurity.
Brad Evans
This is the full Brad Evans interview with A.D.Winans. A short amended version previously appeared in Kevin Rings’ Beat Scene.
Page(s) 5-14
magazine list
- Features
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- Acumen
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- Ambit
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- Chroma
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- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- North, The
- Oasis
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- Pen Pusher Magazine
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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