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2008-08-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

deb olin unferth

robert baumann

dorothy wang

greg bachar

heather christle

k. silem mohammad

matthew zapruder

lara glenum (forthcoming)

paolo javier (forthcoming)

carla bluhm (forthcoming)

kelly ginger (forthcoming)

2008-08-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

Greg Bachar (students) is the author of many stories and poems (click links to read) published in 3rd Bed, Conduit, Quick Fiction, and other places; all his things can be found here.

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What differences were there between teaching "you are a little bit happier than i am" and "cognitive-behavioral therapy"?

I taught one book in one class and one book in another class. The first book is easier, I think, and maybe more "fun." The second book requires the reader to do some work to figure out what you're trying to say, if you're trying to say anything at all. In both classes, some students seemed worried about you or said they think you're crazy. A few in each class seem to "get" you right away and laugh a lot while reading and talking about your work. A lot of students seemed to want to "psychoanalyze" you as a person before getting into an analysis of your work. A lot of them think you are anti-social and withdrawn from society, living in a state of isolation. So I asked: if he's isolated, why does he have a blog and a Myspace profile? Why are there clips of him on Youtube walking down the street in New York? Why is he laughing? Why does it look like he has friends hanging out with him and having a good time? Why does he do readings? Why does he answer e-mails? I try to get them to think about your ideas instead of worrying about you as a person, your poems instead of your personality.

Have you know anyone who really lives in isolation, like doesn't see anyone in person, but maybe still uses the internet a lot; or maybe doesn't use the internet and also doesn't leave the house, or does leave the house but doesn't have friends or acquaintances?

Emily Dickinson would have loved the internet. I lived near her house in Amherst when I was in grad school and heard that although she was a known recluse, she sometimes lowered baked goods in a basket to the neighborhood kids from a second floor window. A second Emily Dickinson memory, unrelated to your question, took place in a graduate level literature course. One day the instructor had us arrange our chairs around an empty chair in the middle of the circle. He told us to imagine Emily Dickinson was sitting there and to ask her questions about her poetry. All questions were answered with silence. The professor began to weep and said how beautiful the moment was. The thing about being any kind of recluse is that you have to become KNOWN as a recluse, which means you have to publicize the fact in public or appear infrequently but consistently enough for people to think you must be a recluse. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t leave the house and doesn’t use the internet. Maybe I walk by them in the grocery store, but they aren’t wearing a t-shirt announcing the fact. Perhaps a RECLUSE t-shirt would be a good idea. I bought a baseball cap at Walgreen’s a few months ago that says “Leave Me Alone” but I never wear it because I bet people will read the hat and do exactly the opposite. I don’t know anyone who does leave the house but doesn’t have friends or acquaintances, although I once had a neighbor that might have been someone like this. He didn’t acknowledge anyone in the hall and always left at night with a heavy-looking leather bag we assumed was filled with tools. I like to think he was working on bank heist tunnel jobs. My favorite bank heist tunnel job story occurred in Paris in the 1970s. A group of robbers tunneled into a vault and made off with millions of dollars. As far as I know they were never caught. The best part of the story is this: not only did they get away with the heist, but they brought china, silverware, bottles of wine, chairs and a table INTO the vault with them and cooked and ate a five course meal before making their getaway. I thought that was a nice touch. Perhaps the best criminals live like people you describe in your question. I watch Masterminds and it seems like the thing that trips up every mastermind of every great heist is either a need to talk about it, telling a friend or girlfriend who then feels a need to talk about it, or drawing attention to themselves by spending a lot of the stolen money on things like cars and partying and women. In the criminal world, the contradiction between the need for secrecy and the desire to be recognized for one’s criminal work must be powerful. The real masterminds are the ones who don’t care about publicity, who pull of the big heist and are never heard from again. I know a lot of people who use the internet a lot and perhaps live in “isolation,” but are they really “isolated” if they use the internet a lot? Many writers and artists seem to live and work in isolation, maybe caring that their work gets attention but not themselves. Many other writers and artists appear to be very social and seem to enjoy having as much attention paid to themselves as to their work. Most of the people who appear on the cover of Poets & Writers seem to fall into the latter category, but how would one know for sure? The interesting thing about the internet age is that one can be both a recluse AND a “celebrity.” I wonder if Emily Dickinson would have a blog, though. Maybe she would be an internet recluse in addition to being a social recluse.

Did anyone say anything about the dog in the author photo on the back of "cognitive-behavioral therapy"?

No. I think they noticed it subliminally. Maybe they were looking at the author in the dog photo...

Do students ever google you and read your writing and then "use that against you" in class sometimes?

No. Sometimes one or two students a quarter says something like "I Googled you." To which I usually say: “Oh yeah? Let’s take a look at today’s reading assignment.”

If you had a lot of money would you still teach or would you focus on writing, or something else?

I used to have a better plan for what I would do with my life if I won the lottery than I had for living my everyday life. When I hear of someone hitting the jackpot and then saying they're not going to quit their job, I feel sorry for them. There are so many things one could do with a lot of money, like start a publishing company, buy an apartment in Paris, or a small house on George Clooney’s lake in Italy. I would first pay off my student loans. Maybe I would keep teaching. I like teaching. But between running a publishing company in Paris and working on my own writing, I don’t know if I would have time to teach. I don't know if I would write more or less, hopefully more. I don't think money has much to do with writing. One needs things to do in one's life. I need to leave the house every day and feel like I'm a part of humanity, and I need to read and write and buy used books. I would definitely buy more used books if I had a lot of money, maybe some rare editions too. I would probably throw a party for my friends like they had at Jay Gatsby’s house. How much money are we talking about here, anyway? It seems like the times I was broke were the times I lived the best, like when I was doing temp work and had twenty bucks to last until Friday and it was still only Monday. You have to get imaginative when you only have a little money to last you for a while. I imagine having a lot of money would require a lot of imagination too if one wanted to do it up right.

2008-08-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of the story-collection MINOR ROBBERIES (McSweeney's, 2007) and the novel VACATION (McSweeney's, 2008) which comes out in September and has a trailer.

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What did people say about the iguana in my story about cancer?

I love this story. It's so funny. I'm not sure if the students thought it was quite as funny as I did. I think they thought it was a little disturbing -- maybe not as disturbing as Diane Williams, but disturbing enough--and disturbing that I liked it. I think what I like about it and the reason I used it in a class is that it shows how effective it is to leave out explanation, exposition, backstory, and also how the repetition of the word cancer creates this appealing rhythm, and yet you vary the rhythm, such as at the end, the phrase "stomach cancer" disrupts the rhythm of the rest of the piece slightly and allows you to end the piece on a different-sounding note. Otherwise, it could have sounded too repetitive. I like that.

Maybe you should put a link to the piece here, in case someone wants to read it.

Did anyone think I was a girl from reading my poems from my first poetry book?

No. Did that happen? I wanted to teach your poetry when I first read it because it surprised me and I hoped my students would be surprised too. I remember being very surprised when I first read it. It had such a clear pronounced voice that was flat in a way that I found interesting but also had a lot of emotion and humor and moments of odd writing in it. I really like the moments of odd writing. Here, I just read one of the poems from that collection and here is a line that reads, "I said I was going to pants you." Ha! What a strange thing to say. It feels sexual but it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out not to be. That kind of playfulness is lovely to me. It is very hard to strike a balance so that the playfulness doesn't feel sloppy or overdone or unclear. But I feel like you have control over it and that makes it work and makes it exciting.

Did most of your students want to leave Kansas for New York City or somewhere else after college?

I guess I get all kinds of students. Some want to stay where they are. Some go to New York -- like Antonia. I have ex-students in Chicago, in Utah, in France. I have fantastic students. i am very lucky.

I had a class one time where everyone pressured the teacher into making her bring in her own writing to pass out for everyone to talk about, did any of your students ever do that or try to do that to you?

It is possible that they have asked me to do that but I never would. Classtime is their time, not my time. But I like it when my students read my work -- when they find it on their own and read it outside of class and maybe mention it to me in the hallway or something. It means a lot to me because I take a lot of care with their work, I read it several times and I think about it and I write them long letters about it on their papers. It's nice when they've read my work too.

I substituted one time a college class and near the end I "lost control" and saw that people were looking at their cell phones a lot and eventually they pressured me, sort of, into just letting the class "be over" 40 minutes early, has that ever happened to you? If that happened what would you do?

Ha. That's very funny and cute. I've been teaching for years now. That sort of thing doesn't happen too much to me anymore. But I've had plenty of uncomfortable classes over the years, especially when I first started teaching. I think the worst teaching experience I ever had was the first time I tried to teach Diane Williams's book Excitability. To me, the book made perfect sense and was such a fantastic book, it didn't even occur to me that someone might not understand it if they hadn't been introduced to that kind of work. So I assigned it with no explanation or preview and I showed up in class the next week, eager and happy and unsuspecting. It was my first year teaching, I think. I had a class rebellion on my hands. They hated the book. They thought it was pornography. They thought it was ungrammatical. They thought I was outrageous for having assigned it. They had gone to the chair and complained about it and me and the class. They yelled at me. It was awful. It was the last semester I taught at that school.

But I'll tell you what happened. The last day of the semester in that class, the students were supposed to do little presentations on stories they picked from any book we had read in the class. They were supposed to talk about different elements of craft. Almost all the students picked a Diane Williams story to present, even though we had read about ten books. And the pages of their Diane Williams's books were very dog-eared and the books looked worn and had bookmarks sticking out all over the place and bent covers. So in the end, Diane Williams won, even without my help.

2008-08-12T22:43:00.001-07:00

Matthew Zapruder is the author of two poetry-collections, AMERICAN LINDEN (Tupelo, 2002) and THE PAJAMAIST (Copper Canyon, 2006), a translation, SECRET WEAPON: THE LATE POEMS OF EUGEN JEBELEANU (Coffee House, 2007), and is an editor at Wave Books.

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What kinds of foods have you seen students eating in class?

Hamburger, Snickers bar, cous cous, milkshake, G.O.R.P., something in a tube, smoothie, chicken salad, steak sandwich. And I don't actually even allow eating in class.

What is the largest meal you have had immediately before or after a class?

Before class. Bowl of chili, large Greek salad with grilled chicken, steamed cauliflower, coffee, frozen yogurt.

Did you ever spill coffee on a day that you also taught class?

I find it impossible not to spill coffee a little bit on my hands or pants when I get it to go with those plastic containers.

You came into Angelica Kitchen while I was working one time and ordered a special and ate it really quickly. I thought you were a nice customer because you didn't take a long time to order or seem like you would complain about anything even if there was a bug in your food or something. Do you remember that? Can you describe your experience of doing that?

You pretty much describe my experience. I was surprised to see you. You asked me if I knew that you worked there, and I said, "no. I just wanted some healthy food." Or something like that. I was coming back from the gym and felt weird first of all because you are a friend, or at least someone I know, and you were suddenly serving me for money which felt irresolvably uncomfortable and wrong, and second of all because I was wearing gym clothes, and I felt self-conscious about being a person who goes to the gym. Am I a horrible bourgeois? Why was I not serving you? Anyway the food was really good but I ate it very quickly, first of all because I always eat too fast and second because I felt awkward being your "customer" and third because I was wearing gym clothes and thought maybe you would think that I always walk around like that.

What is Wave Books publishing in 2009 and 2010 and are there plans for more anthologies after State of The Union?

In 2009 Wave is publishing individual books of poetry by Noelle Kocot, Maggie Nelson, Chelsea Minnis, Rachel Zucker and Joshua Beckman, as well as Dara Wier's Selected Poems.

We have no plans for more anthologies, though we are not opposed to it either. If an anthology that seems really necessary, in that it really contributes to a greater understanding of poetry and the world, comes up, we will try to make it happen.

2008-08-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Robert Baumann is the editor of Mitzvah Chaps which (as of 9/28/08) has published Anne Boyer, Mike Hauser, and Chuck Stebelton. He co-curates An Actual Kansas, a reading series in Kansas.

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What Tao Lin literature did you teach in your class and why did you choose those?
I taught two poems from different books: "i am going to touch you very hard" (from this emotion was a little e-book [Bear Parade 2005]); "i will learn how to love a person and then i will teach you and then we will know" (from cognitive-behavioral therapy [Melville House 2008]. Based on this, one of my students choose to write a paper analyzing "i am about to express myself" (from you are a little bit happier than i am [Action Books 2006]).

I chose them because I liked them. When I read them for the second, third, fourth, fifth, and in some cases sixth times, I still liked them. When i read "i am going to touch you very hard" for the sixth time I liked it a little less but that was after I had already made photocopies for all of my students, so I still 'taught' it.

I told my students that the only thing valid they could say about the poem was whether they liked it or didn't like it. Hating it or loving it was not a valid reaction to the poem because they only read it once and they normally don't read literature. Then I told them just kidding and had them try to identify 'themes' in the poem. They noticed helicopters were a theme. Also, assholes, folding chairs, and vaguely asian hamsters.

What questions have students asked you?

How old are you? Do you have a girlfriend? How long have you been teaching? Where did you buy those jeans? What's your favorite movie? Have you ever had sex? When is this due? Do we have to meet you individually because I'm afraid of you after reading these Tao Lin poems?

Tao, you ruined my 'shot' with co-eds.

Just kidding.

What questions have either of your parents asked you in the last year?

On Sunday my dad asked me: Are you living in that one place? (yes) How many people live there? (4) Are you happy? (with what?) What are you eating right now? (grilled tofu on a bun with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and pickles, and some kind of sea vegetable salad on the side) Are you happy? (did Alabama die in the hurricanes?).

Would you rather publish a 1000 page novel or three 350 page novels and why?

Anyone who publishes a 1000-page novel in the next decade will be called 'the __________ David Foster Wallace', unless it is a shitty 1000-page novel. I would like to be called 'the __________ David Foster Wallace' but there is a chance my novel will be shitty. I would also like to be called 'the author of three 350-page novels'.

I think if I finished 3 novels of any length and they were all published I would feel pretty good.

As a publisher and not a writer, I would rather edit and publish a 1000-page novel because I think that it would be a 'big deal' and would have a better chance at being good because I would not publish it if it wasn't.

What is a scene or moment that you remember clearly from Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie?

I remember clearly when Tao Lin said, "trade" and then repeatedly stabbed me with a massivley neutral facial expression and I fell down in my apartment. Tao Lin dropped the book in question on my chest and stood over me. "Victory," he said. I weakly motioned for him to take Anne Boyer's poetry collection The Romance of Happy Workers. Tao Lin said nothing. Then a mildly edudite brown recluse spider said, "you can't get hurt when someone stabs you with a facial expression," and bit my face. Some of my face flesh melted a little, which is why I am ugly.

I also remember when Charles cooked some sort of meat roast for Sam. I wished they were vegetarians, but I really liked that everyday Charles came home and thought about food, then bought food and made it at home or ate food at a restaurant. I want to read more literature with compelling characters eating food on a daily basis.

Also, Pete wanted Turtle Wax but first he wanted a Honda Civic. He got the Honda Civic then Charles got him the Turtle Wax. I should get a Turtle Wax tattoo. Would Ann Beattie marry me? I would like to type in the near future "Robert wanted to marry Ann Beattie but first he wanted a Turtle Wax tattoo. He got the Turtle Wax tattoo and then Ann Beattie got him a marriage to her."

I just remembered Deb Olin Unferth's story "Juan the Cellphone Salesman" and thought that story was part of Chilly Scenes of Winter because the part where the girl has to get picked up from Juan's apartment by her mother and sister reminds me of a combination of the waiter's apartment in Chilly Scenes and the part where Charles and Sam drop Betty off at her apartment. in all of these scenes there were cold, awkward, lonely drives, and apartments, and drunkenness. Both are good pieces of literary fiction. Thank you, Tao.

2008-08-08T14:46:00.000-07:00

Dorothy Wang is an assistant professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.

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Did anyone mention "Lorrie Moore" in class when you taught stories from Bed?

NO.

I know your class, or one of your classes, is also a class about New York City; did you or your students visit places you read about in my books?

ST. MARK'S BOOKSTORE and CHINATOWN.

Have you ever had a student who you honestly felt had "hatred" towards another student?

NOT REALLY.

When I visited your class 2-3 of your students "defeated me" intellectually, I think at first I tried defending what I was talking about about identity and being "Asian" but at one point I said, "I don't know," or something a lot, I was defeated, do your students ever defeat you?

Sometimes though not too often because being a professor is a lot like being a performer. One tries to turn their questions around to ask them what they're thinking, etc. But sometimes I'm somewhat defeated. I had two "mean girls" in that class you met and they tried to get the upper hand and actually made that class rather unpleasant. They were bullies and I suddenly had flashbacks of an earlier time. I suppose that's some sort of defeat.

What kind of beverages do your students bring into class?

Not much--sometimes water or coffee.

2008-08-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

Heather Christle has published poetry in Octopus, Glitterpony, Pilot, and other places, was anthologized in THE BEST AMERICAN EROTIC POEMS (Scribner, 2008), and is an editor for Jubilat.

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Did anyone call me or the narrator in the book "a pussy" or imply that using other words?

Nope.

What kind of clothes did people who disliked my writing wear?

Nobody disliked it, as far as I could tell. There was a lot of enthusiasm. Some of the enthusiasm may have been stronger in certain cases than others, but even among the only mildly enthused I got a sense that they had been pleasantly surprised.

Was the term "emo" used?

Some students called each other emo. I'm not sure if that counts.

Were you nervous people were going to think "it's not poetry" or "it sounds like a twelve-year-old" and think you're not a good teacher?

No, I was pretty sure that they would be excited about it. Part of that may have been because we were halfway through the course when we read it, so I already knew that I was dealing with a fun and curious bunch of people. But even before that, when I was putting together the reading list, I didn't have any real qualms. I had seen you read and knew that generally people would find your work appealing.

Do twelve-year-olds sound like you? I'd be impressed.

The feeling in the room the day we discussed your book was pretty electric. We read a lot of the poems out loud (including "i am unemployed" in its entirety), and people mentioned how exciting it was for them to realize that they could write about superficially boring, ordinary, ubiquitous things. Then they wrote like crazy.

I think you told me that you teach Matthew Rohrer's writing also, have you ever had a student who felt a lot of "hatred" towards his writing?

Very early in the semester, in the first week, we read "The Ideograms," (on Bear Parade). I think that it's pretty common for students to dislike poems they encounter in the first week, especially if they haven't had much exposure to contemporary poetry in the past. So there's a way in which Rohrer was my sacrificial lamb. Some people felt angry or frustrated, as though Rohrer "thought he was smarter" than them. I have the feeling that this response had more to do with strange ideas of how poetry can behave than with Rohrer himself. (And I should say, too, that some of the people in the class responded very positively.)

A little bit later on in the course we listened to Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty, and most people loved that.

Teachers at NYU taught Tony Hoagland's writing a lot I think when I was there. Have you ever used a poem by Billy Collins in class?

I saw Tony Hoagland read at Smith recently. There was a very large crowd, including one man drinking lots of beer and emitting fantastic belches. Huge, loud, throaty ones. Hoagland closed with a poem about Britney Spears and then invited the audience to discuss "why Britney Spears is the way she is." There was a short pause while the audience began to gather their ideas together, and then, before anyone else could speak, the belching man yelled "TRANS FATS." And Tony Hoagland stopped talking after that. This is just to say I have never used a Billy Collins poem in class.

What do you do when everyone in your class is talking a lot of shit uncontrollably about someone's poetry (or does that not happen)?

Hasn't happened yet. I try to switch the metaphor of the class from "workshop" to "laboratory," so there's not much room for that kind of thing. I imagine I'll have to deal with it at some point, but it would all depend so much on the individuals involved, the dynamic of that particular group. People seem to be pretty good at realizing that a poetry class is a room full of actual humans, and behave accordingly.

2008-07-30T02:43:00.000-07:00

K. Silem Mohammad is the author of three poetry-collections, DEER HEAD NATION (Tougher Disguises, 2003), A THOUSAND DEVILS (Combo Books, 2004), and BREATHALYZER (Edge Books, 2008), and has a blog called {Lime Tree}.

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Why did you teach "Eeeee Eee Eeee"?

Because I thought it might inspire at least some of the students (it was an intro creative writing class) to try something new. And it did.

Did any students make personal attacks against me?

Yes. Not physical ones, but then you would know if they had.

Did you tell students that "Eeeee Eee Eeee" is a kind of Flarf but for novels?

No.

Do students mention your blog in class?

Hardly ever.

Are you ever going to write and publish a novel?

Maybe.