Rob Plath: On the Record.  By David Blaine

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Rob Plath is a 37 year-old poet from New York. He has published well over a 150 poems in 50 magazines and journals in print and online . He has one book of poetry called Ashtrays and Bulls published by Liquid Paper Press--home of the Nerve Cowboy and has a forthcoming chapbook from Cat Scan Press called Sour Milk For The Soulless. He was one of the last students to study under Allen Ginsberg from 1995-1997. In 2002, Rob went into Tiki Studios on Long Island to take part in the recording of the Jack Kerouac tribute spoken word CD 'Northport Celebrates Jack' which features world famous musician David Amram on all its tracks. Plath is currently the poetry editor for The Whirligigzine.

DB. Rob, I also share my name with a famous celebrity so I have to ask you, how often does someone ask if you’re related to Sylvia Plath?

RP. People who actually know who she is ask me all the time and then there are the people who just heard the name before somewhere and ask. I usually tell them Sylvia and I are not related, but sometimes I get the strange urge to scrub the oven in the middle of the night. The ones who are familiar with her usually crack up over that. I then ask them if they know why Sylvia stuck her head in the oven and when they ask back why, I tell them that it wouldn't fit in the toaster oven.

DB. Do you find that annoying?

RP. Sometimes. I don't like peoples' obsession with fame.

DB. Are you related to her in any way?

RP. I never looked into it, but we are in spirit because of poetry. I feel unrelated to most of my immediate family members. Buddha supposedly said that you can be related to a stranger you meet at an inn more than your "real" family. I think we should question everything . I always ask people if you weren't related to your family how many of them would you want to spend time with if you ran into them in a cafe or bar?

DB. I understand that you were born in Brooklyn. You still live fairly close to New York City, someplace on Long Island, don’t you?

RP. Yes. I live about an hour away from Brooklyn. It's a real industrial part of town. It's both fascinating and sad. I moved here recently and just realized that I live a minute away from a no frills WD-40 factory I used to work at.  I worked in the cooking room.  It was horrible. I used to have to wash my hair four times a night to get the crap that was in the air out of it.  The frightening part was that they used to gives us those cheap masks like they wear in hospitals. A few miles down the road used to be the place where I worked for a night making neon plastic dog bones. It's weird to be back. 

DB. Do you have a lot of family close by?

RP. My immediate family is pretty close but I cut all ties with them. Long story.

DB. Have you ever spent any long amount of time away from the area?

RP. No. For a long time I refused to go anywhere. For a while I tacked wool blankets over the windows of my already-dark hovel and didn't have light enter for a long time. It was like a grave beneath a grave. It's strange because a lot of people think I should live in Europe. They cannot believe I've never visited there. I enjoy visiting different places, but underneath I know each place is the same just with a different blanket over it. It's a trick. Buddha said that wherever you go the world is on fire.

DB. In your bio you mention writing poetry since you were nineteen. What was the first thing you ever recall writing?

RP. I actually can recall the entire poem! A buzzword and two fucking clichés, but I think it was a rather witty statement about the way people repress death.

Eternity--
so neatly tucked away
in the back of your mind
you can't feel it breathing
down your neck.

DB. Can you give us a little background on what took place during the five or so years between that first poem, at age nineteen, and when you eventually became published in magazines?

RP. A lot of reading. I was saturating my brain with hundreds of books, including a lot of stolen ones. Instead of going to bars all the time, I'd sit in the parking lot of an old bookstore, drinking from a flask and then go inside buzzed and pull down dozens of books and read parts. I didn't have money to buy them at the time so I just skimmed. Ones I really liked I got out of the library. There were ones I just needed near my bed at night so I stole them from the library. I tore out that metal sensor strip in the pages and walked out with them.

DB. You were one of the last students to study under Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College. How do you think that’s affected your writing? Do you think if you would have had a talented but lesser known professor that you would be a different poet today?

RP. He was an amazing teacher. A true historian of poetry. He wasn't just all about the beat generation. He was extremely well read. I remember he'd come in all excited holding some Hungarian poet's book in both hands over his head, shouting that we had to read it. He was extremely well read from Sappho & Homer up to the most recent stuff being written. I used to sit with him an hour a week in his office and we'd go over my poems line by line. He really taught me to tell the truth in my writing. To let loose the storm inside my body. Candor. And he gave me the go-ahead to keep on writing poetry. I felt very honored. A huge connection to the past, which I took forward with me. Another professor wouldn't have had the same impact.  Ginsberg was a fucking bard and I'm honored he gave me his blessing.  

DB. Your bibliography is mind-boggling! Do you try to appear in any certain type of publication, or are you submitting to any and all calls for poems?

RP. I do research. I don't send to publications that don't publish my type of writing. I like places where you can curse your head off. The other places that publish poems full of creeks and willow trees and starfish I stay away from. I don't waste their time or mine.


DB. Could you tell me what your rejection/acceptance ratio is? Do you still get rejection notices?

RP. I'm not sure about the ratio. But yes, of course, I get rejected and most of the time they are right. The poem isn't quite right. I don't know if I'd like it if I didn't get rejection notices. It would be like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy thinks he's in heaven and he gets everything he wants. He breaks at pool and all the balls go in . He wins every time. But the twist at the end is that he's in hell. Hell is winning every time.

DB. Your first book, Ashtrays and Bulls, was published after you won a chapbook contest. How many contests do you think you entered before you won that award?

RP. That was the only one! And I nailed it. I waited, that's why. I built up a collection that I had a very good feeling about. Five years of poems. And they even told me that it was one of the best manuscripts that they had seen in a long , long time.  I saved the letter. It's whiskey stained but readable still.

DB. What criteria do you believe a successful poet would possess? Do you consider yourself there yet?

RP. Oh that's a hard one to discuss here. I think jail time, being shot at from close range, getting an incurable disease, cleaning an unborn child off the floor, suffering the dt's, having a collector for a loan shark as a father etc.  Aren't you glad you asked? If I’m not there I never will be.

DB. I understand you are taking over as poetry editor at The Whirligigzine. Do you have what most of us would call "A Day Job" too, or are you supporting yourself through the art?

RP. I'm a con artist. that's all I'll say.

DB. So, without going into details about how you do earn a living, are you saying you don’t make money from your writing?

RP. I don't make any money off of poetry.  Maybe I get a few shots in a bar for reading some poems but that's it.  I prefer it that way. I write to give away myself.  I really don't want monetary rewards.  I just like to effect people. 

DB. What plans are there for Rob Plath’s future?

RP. Jim Morrison wrote, "The future is uncertain and the end is always near." I have no plans.

DB. Yes, I remember!  And just before that he said, “I woke up this morning and I had myself a beer.”  Boy, I remember buying that record when it was new.

DB. Would you please tell me what encourages or discourages you about the state of poetry in the U.S. today?

 
RP. Whenever I browse through any bookstore's poetry section it bores me.  It's not that I'm impatient either or that I am addicted to immediacy. It's just that most of what I pick up is uninteresting and dead.  Even some small hole-in-the-wall bookstores that claim to push out-of-the-mainstream stuff carry boring shit.  So I have to go searching for what I like, and that's fine. I rather like it that way. The search.  Going into caves for crazy truth on the walls.  But it's just sad that the general reputation poetry gets is that of cryptic academic drool.  This MySpace is a great thing I think.  I just joined not even six months ago and I met great writers, found out about some great books, and I myself have three forthcoming poetry books since connecting with publishers here. But like I said before, outside in the bigger world poetry is flat and dead like road kill. 

DB. Do you think that's from the inbred press promoting their favorites rather than looking for the good stuff?  I guess that would be a lot easier than real work.

RP. Yeah I think there is a lot laziness and no risk taking in the publishing world.  Everybody is in fear of losing their jobs, their security.  This is the land that is quickly turning smoke free and for every unlit cigarette there is a surveillance camera mounted.  

DB. What advice would you pass on to those aspiring to become poets?

 
RP. Cut your cable wire.  Don't worry about your clothes too much.  Put a fat cigar out on the palm of your hand for no reason.  Almost drown at least once.   Read Loren Eiseley's The Immense Journey and Arthur Schopenhauer's Art of Pessimism.  Observe cats.  Don't wear a fucking watch. 

DB. Thanks a lot, Rob.  Good luck with all your future endeavors.  

Last update : 15-05-2007 18:31

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