FACE 

DG: How old were you when you began to write?  

 

LT: Like many writers, I began scribbling – with the usual, awful adolescent angst – in my late teens. 

 

DG: What would you say have been the most important aspects of your journey as a poet? 

 

LT: The journey to Beg No Pardon, for example, was marked by a substantial hiatus from writing during the period when I was practicing law and doing little else.  One day, I literally woke up realizing I was aching to write creatively and more consistently and with a greater consciousness of craft.  I left the world of litigation and—happily—now immerse myself in the world of poetry as much as I possibly can.

 

DG: What motivates you as a writer? What do you believe drives you? 

 

LT: Poetry is like most disciplines, I believe, in that the more you do, the more you do.  Now, I find myself always looking and listening for opportunities to put my experience of the world into my work. I make an effort to write something every day (and I include the all-important process of revision when I say that.)  I've found that almost anything has the ability to cause me to pick up a pen (or turn on a computer): bird twitter at dawn; an article on current events; music – the latter being a powerful undercurrent in my poems.

 

DG: Who would you consider to be your greatest literary influences and why? 

 

LT: This is tough.  I read as much contemporary poetry as I can, so one day it's Natasha Tretheway, the next Alberto Rios, the day after that David Roderick (I just finished his Blue Colonial and loved it!!).  But, two poets in particular motivated me to believe that I could become a poet.  East Coasters Jayne Cortez and Everett Hoagland came to Scripps College where I was a student in the early 70's and gave readings and taught classes and just blew me away!! Here was living proof—Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden and Gwendolyn Brooks notwithstanding—that not all poets were dead, white males. Hoagland and Cortez were black, young, hip and relevant….who knew!!?? I was sold.

 

D.G: Beg No Pardon moves through your childhood into adulthood.  You play a lot on memory (how memory reveals itself in the everyday language, experience, etc.).  How do you relate to memory and what does it mean to you? 

 

LT: Memory is one of the muscles that help us make sense of the why of the present. Why do we do or fail to do some things?  What are the bases of our likes and dislikes?  Why do we gravitate to certain persons and not to others?  The answers often lie in our memories and this is what I was tapping into in “How I Learned Where We Come From” and “Song for Two Immigrants.”  Sometimes the answers lie deep within our memories, and when they float to the surface and out onto the paper, it can often be to quite surprising effect.  When I finished writing “She named P_____ at birth, speaks to me, says,” I was stunned to realize that I still had feelings of guilt and disappointment surrounding the circumstances of my birth and subsequent adoption.

 

DG: I notice that you play with form, but seem to be guided by narrative poetics and classic form, risking enough to make those more institutional forms really work successfully for your voice.  How do you feel about form?  What’s your philosophy? 

 

LT: Early in my writing career, I swore that free verse was the only way to go. I was too inexperienced to realize that (1) free verse doesn't always imply a lack of form (or to quote Brendan Constantine:  “there is no such thing as a formless poem”) and (2) traditional forms can be used to amazing effect.  As a result, I've been trying my hand at Petrarchan sonnets, ghazals, and pantoums, recognizing they are other tools in the kit to achieve the rhythms and sounds that are integral to the poem.  Although I must say that as often as not, I like the idea of subverting the form ever so slightly; see for example, “Imperfect Ghazal for an Unknown Mother.”  My goal? To write a double abecedarian – Julie Larios is simply amazing at it – now there's inspiration!

 

DG: When I read your poetry, I feel as if it really speaks to the reader, as though to an intimate, a friend.  Is this something you feel, or is it a technique that you are using? 

 

LT: I can't say that I regularly write poems with a particular reader or group of readers in mind—unless the fear of family or friends' reactions is at work, as with “Half Brother Holler.” But, if a sense of intimacy and connection with the reader comes through, then, of course, I'm pleased. However, I'm always looking for ways to bring depth to the poems by transforming auto—or semi-autobiographical—details into universal themes and perhaps it is this effort that came through.