George Bowering Interview Pt. 2
AF: Several pieces in BOB are occasional poems for other poets. What draws you to this poem? Are they, for you, a kind of "serious goof"?
GB: I think you might be referring to what I call my tribute poems. Actually, they are arranged not in lines but in sentences that usually take up two lines on the page. I have been publishing them in a number of books, and there will be another group in my next book of poems, from Talonbooks in Fall 2006. These are pieces I write when a poet (usually) dies, or gets a big birthday and hence a commemorative anthology or issue of a magazine, or the like. I have occasionally (ha ha) thought of someday doing a volume of them, but then I think well, no, the procedure is that they are ongoing, a thing that happens when you get older in the art. There are some objects of these things that are still alive-- Leonard Cohen, Pat Lane, etcc. These are real occasional poems, as the occasion really existed and would have whether I contributed or not.
AF: Print vs. Online publishing: would you like to weigh in?
GB: I'm still a print fetishist, if that is the right and fair word. Lately, as in your journal, I have been publishing online, and though I have come to think that it is not totally secondary I still favor print magazines. I know that the circulation of online poems is bound (ha ha) to be greater, but what about books? Books are marvelous objects, amazing machines, so portable; I read a book in the post office lineup, which I don't do with online stuff. I have been using computers since they first came to individuals-- I hate to think how long that has been, but I noticed yesterday that I am still using a password a "techie" in Denmark gave to me in 1995. I loved having a feature shot in JACKET, yes. I guess it all depends. I think that my feeling about online mags is similar to my feeling about print magazines-- the attraction is the compatny. Who are you with?
GB: I think you might be referring to what I call my tribute poems. Actually, they are arranged not in lines but in sentences that usually take up two lines on the page. I have been publishing them in a number of books, and there will be another group in my next book of poems, from Talonbooks in Fall 2006. These are pieces I write when a poet (usually) dies, or gets a big birthday and hence a commemorative anthology or issue of a magazine, or the like. I have occasionally (ha ha) thought of someday doing a volume of them, but then I think well, no, the procedure is that they are ongoing, a thing that happens when you get older in the art. There are some objects of these things that are still alive-- Leonard Cohen, Pat Lane, etcc. These are real occasional poems, as the occasion really existed and would have whether I contributed or not.
AF: Print vs. Online publishing: would you like to weigh in?
GB: I'm still a print fetishist, if that is the right and fair word. Lately, as in your journal, I have been publishing online, and though I have come to think that it is not totally secondary I still favor print magazines. I know that the circulation of online poems is bound (ha ha) to be greater, but what about books? Books are marvelous objects, amazing machines, so portable; I read a book in the post office lineup, which I don't do with online stuff. I have been using computers since they first came to individuals-- I hate to think how long that has been, but I noticed yesterday that I am still using a password a "techie" in Denmark gave to me in 1995. I loved having a feature shot in JACKET, yes. I guess it all depends. I think that my feeling about online mags is similar to my feeling about print magazines-- the attraction is the compatny. Who are you with?
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