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10 Questions for Jim Daniels


At the Saturday market, enormous eye-
bulge of skinned rabbits. My son, nine,
bulges back, looking, but not.
—from “Natural Selection”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)

 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I’ll tell you about the first two pieces I got published, in the same issue of my high school literary magazine, because they led me down a path I continue on today. One was a horrible piece of teen angst that was written based on what I thought poetry was supposed to be about and sound like: “I who am about to die/I who weep but cannot cry…” The other, “Growing Up in a Party Store,” was my first real poem—it was set in the store I worked in for almost three years and it was full of the things in the store, juxtaposing the names of the various liquor brands we sold with the names of the penny candy we also sold—and the customers—adults and children—who had very different but also similar kinds of needs. I realized the value of concrete imagery and setting through that poem, and it also set me on the path of writing about workplaces that I’ve continued to this day.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Tom Wayman, a Canadian poet, was a big influence. He has written a lot about various jobs and edited a number of anthologies of writing about work. He gave me confidence to continue writing about factory work at a time when I really needed it. I wasn’t seeing much poetry written about daily work until coming across Tom’s work. I wrote him a fan letter, and he wrote back. He’s been very supportive for a long time. The novelist and filmmaker John Sayles is also a big influence. Not only for his powerful writing and filmmaking, but also because he never compromises his artistic vision or politics in his work.

What did you want to be when you were young?
A professional baseball player. I am an obsessive person, so I devised my own spring training rituals, etc., at an early age, charting everything in handwritten scrawl.

Then I started writing.

What inspired you to write this piece?
I have taken advantage of the academic schedule and sabbaticals to spend some time abroad. When my kids were young, we lived for a few months in a tiny village in France. We’d do our weekly shopping at the Saturday outdoor market in a larger city nearby. Everything’s stripped bare to the animal essence—no plastic wrap. I was struck by the tension between the rabbit carcass’s eyes and my son’s, and the sunflowers’, and the naked animal and the naked person on the postcard. Something about our primitive selves, natures, and thinking as a parent about how to help my children negotiate what will come their way as they grow into adults.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
Detroit. No question about it. In both my poetry and fiction, Detroit has been a major character, from my first book of poems, Places/Everyone, back in 1985, to my new book of short stories, The Perp Walk.

Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
Music is one of my obsessions (see anthology below), though I rotate a lot, depending on what I’m working on. Typically, I veer between hard-driving rock with an R&B vibe and quieter singer-songwriters, depending on whether I need to get hyped up or calmed down. But, yes, almost always music playing.

Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
Not as many as I used to. The main thing is that I carry 3x5 notecards with me at all times and keep a stack of them on my bedside title. I jot down ideas when and where they occur, then type them into a computer file and try and expand them into poems or stories when I have the time.

Who typically gets the first read of your work?
My wife, the writer Kristin Kovacic, when she has time. With her own teaching and writing, she’s pretty busy herself. I can also count on a couple of friends, David James and Marc Sheehan, who have been reading my work for over forty years. They know my sensibilities and are not worried about hurting my feelings, and I trust them completely.

If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I have done a lot of collaborative work with artists and filmmakers, so I feel like I have a foot in other arts forms, even if I have no talent in them. Charlee Brodsky, a wonderful photographer here in Pittsburgh, and I have been working together for over ten years, combining her photos and my poems. We’ve done two books, Street, which won the Tillie Olsen Prize from the Working-Class Studies Association, and From Milltown to Malltown. Currently, we are working on a manuscript combining photos and poems that deal with the American flag in various contexts.

I have also written and produced or co-produced four independent low-budget films that have made the rounds of various film festivals. My primary film collaborator has been John Rice, a fine filmmaker who teaches at Point Park University here in Pittsburgh.

What are you working on currently?
My current collaborative project is a very large steel “mural” in the Tepper Quad, the new home of the business school here at Carnegie Mellon University. It combines my text with the imagery of Mark Baskinger, a very talented design professor here. It should be installed by the end of 2019.

I am co-editing an anthology, R E S P E C T: THE POETRY OF THE MUSIC OF DETROIT, with my friend, M.L. Liebler, that will be out in Fall 2019—it combines lyrics and poems that focus on the rich musical history of the Motor City. Also, working on a new collection of poems and new stories.

 

JIM DANIELS'S recent poetry books include Rowing Inland, Street Calligraphy, and The Middle Ages. In 2017, he edited Challenges to the Dream: The Best of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Writing Awards. His next collection of short fiction, The Perp Walk, will be published by Michigan State University Press. He is the Thomas S. Baker University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.


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