Q&A with Michael Hogan

 

 

 

Michael Hogan is the author of the new book Walking Each Other Home: Intimate Conversations on Writing and Life by Notable Poets of the 20th Century. His many other books include Abraham Lincoln and Mexico. He lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Walking Each Other Home?

 

A: The death in recent years of poets who were also friends with whom I had worked and shared the stage with: Sam Hamill, Richard Shelton, Reg Saner, Ray Bradbury. I realized that I should write my memories which included intimate conversations with them and others before they passed as well.

 

I especially wanted to include Marge Piercy who was ill and had been a special friend, along with Bill Merwin, and Bill Stafford, both of whom were unfamiliar to many of my students.

 

Q: Are there any stories that especially stand out for you?

 

A: Oh, yes! Reciting poetry on the back of a flatbed truck in Commerce City, Colorado with Charles Bukowski stands out. Being kissed by Allen Ginsberg on live TV (no, I am not gay) was another. Teaching a class with Ray Bradbury when he was in his 80s at Claremont College in California was yet another.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from this new book?

 

A: William Carlos Williams once wrote, “You can’t get the news from poetry, but people die every day from lack of what is found there.”

 

I hope that when people read this book, they will see something in the interviews, in the excerpts of poems offered by various poets, as well as their personal observations on life, that entice them to come back to poetry in a fresh way, and read some of these authors’ works, and maybe even write their own poems.

 

For teachers, (especially AP Lit teachers and creative writing professors), my hope is that they will find ways of helping students appreciate poetry written by masters, such as Nobel Prize laureates Seamus Heaney and Joseph Brodsky, as well as National Book Award recipients Jane Hirshfield and Naomi Shihab Nye, and seeing them as excellent models as they craft their own verse.

 

Q: You are an incredibly prolific author and editor--how do you do it?

 

A: I once missed a deadline for an MFA class assignment while on a fellowship and my professor at the time, Steve Orlen, gave me a low grade. He said, “Michael you’re a good writer, quite talented. But most writers fail, not from lack of talent, but lack of character.”

 

That stuck with me. I decided then to always turn in assignments on time, to become disciplined in my writing habits, to edit carefully, to seek advice, and to treat writing as a vocation, just as my teaching was.

 

I write every day and once I begin a project I set my word count, and don’t retire for the night until my quota for that day is realized.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: My two mentors, Richard Shelton and William Stafford, really helped with my writing.

 

Shelton suggested that if I was going to write about the Southwest, I should learn a bit about the biology and ecology of the Sonoran Desert and other locales. So, to him I owe my knowledge of the flora and fauna of Arizona, my friendship with the environmental activist Ed Abbey, and my love of the outdoors.

 

William Stafford’s suggestion that I work on syllables as well as words in the process of revision was immensely helpful because it gave my own free verse a rhythm and musicality that it would not have otherwise had. He also taught me to walk the edge of sentimentality without falling in its pit.

 

My recovery from alcoholism with the help of Tess Gallagher and Richard Hugo was, and still is, especially important. It reminds me each day of the importance of fellowship and service and being willing to surrender to a spiritual experience which is so crucial for recovery from addiction.

 

And, finally, I am forever grateful to those that helped me get through terrible days of grief following the death of my son, especially Jaime Sabines, the Mexican poet.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Michael Hogan.