DB. Hello, Tim. Thanks for doing this. I know very little of you. From what I can tell, you joined Rattle somewhere between 2002 and 2004 as a Layout and Production assistant. It looks like you moved into the Poetry Editor’s position when Stellasue Lee stepped down in 2005 or 2006.
TG. You know, titles are funny. They’re useful sometimes in a business sense, but we never know what to call ourselves. For years, Stellasue was Poetry Editor, although she did almost all of the editorial work herself. Technically, my path, starting in 2003, has been Assistant Poetry Editor to Associate Editor to Editor, the last jump coming when Stellasue retired in the spring of 2006. But the job hasn’t changed much. We’re a very small staff, so everyone has a hand in everything – from deciding on which poems to publish to stuffing envelopes when new issues come out.
DB. So, take a second to tell me just a little bit about yourself. Before joining Rattle. Where were you born? TG. I was born in Rochester, NY. Growing up, my father was like a dog on a chain; we moved around constantly, but never left the general area. And I miss upstate New York. Rochester is the perfect size for a city – large enough that there are things to do, but not so large that it’s overwhelming. From a distance it also seems a nice literary hub that I took for granted, centered mostly around Boa. I miss the seasons, too.
DB. Where did you go to school?
TG. I opted for the hometown bias and went to the University of Rochester. I was looking for a school with a very good science program, but also a decent creative writing minor, and it seemed like a good fit. For some reason, I wanted to be a molecular biologist and write Michael Crichton novels on the side. Then I realized that biology is boring once you get into the minutiae. Victories in that field are very small; we come a long way, but in baby steps that I couldn’t get excited about. Sometimes I wonder, had I chosen physics, if I’d be here right now.
DB. Please tell me, since you weren’t born and raised in Southern California, how did you come to be living in Los Angeles?
TG. All Rattle. I wouldn’t have moved here by choice. Throughout college I’d worked weekends as a counselor at a group home for mentally ill adults. When I graduated, I kept doing that, working mostly overnight shifts, which was the perfect job for me – I’ve always been a night person, having had bouts of insomnia, too, and there was a lot of down-time to write. I’d work 10pm-6am, and every night, barring catastrophe, I’d have two or three hours free just to write. So I did that, and eventually started submitting to journals, and eventually came across Rattle. After sending her work, I struck up an email correspondence with Stellasue. At one point I mentioned looking for a part-time job, just in passing, and she said she was looking for an assistant – could I commute? It was a joke at first, but the next thing I know I’m working part-time from Rochester, maintaining the database. After a few months, she asked if I’d be interested in moving out and working full-time. Getting paid to work on your favorite poetry journal…you don’t turn that down.
DB. I read the poems you have posted on your BlogSpot page. Actually, it would be more correct to say I raided your BlogSpot this morning. I think I left at least four comments on various articles. Sooooo…. Tell me a bit about that, when did you know you wanted to write, what is the first thing you recall writing.
TG. Yeah, I noticed that, thanks. I especially appreciate the testimonial.
I actually came very late to the game. In middle school, high school, I was a jock, and a science/math person. English was my worst subject. My personal hell was typing up an essay on Tess of the d’Urbervilles, one clunky finger at time, when I could have been outside shooting hoops.
I was competitive, though, and always wanted the highest grades. When I was a junior, my English teacher offered extra credit for creative writing. Every week he’d give us a word or a phrase, and you’d get a point if you could turn it into a poem or vignette. So I handed in these little stories every week and thought nothing of it.
That spring I was cut from the baseball team, which was shocking and maybe even devastating to me. I was always one of the bigger kids, and the new coach said I was too slow. I literally ran home in the rain, furious and bawling, like some cheesy scene in a made-for-TV movie. The extra credit phrase that week was “angry cats,” and in a rage I sat down and wrote this poem about how I was quick like a cat, but couldn’t keep up with the dogs. I knew nothing about poetry, let alone form, but it came out in perfect tetrametric quatrains. It was awful, of course, but it was the first time I felt that spontaneous magic of writing, the meditative place you can go. I’d been “in the zone” playing baseball or basketball, and I realized that there was this other kind of “zone.”
After that, I started to take the writing assignments a little more seriously. I still hadn’t really discovered poetry, so I wrote mostly fiction. But I’d discovered that I enjoyed writing, and that was the genesis of the Michael Crichton fantasy. It wasn’t until four years later, taking a poetry workshop in college with Jim Longenbach, that I realized poetry was something worth reading and writing, and very suddenly I couldn’t get enough of it.
DB. As a poet, do you consider yourself an outsider writer?
TG. That’s a good question. On the one hand, I really feel that way. I’ve never felt like an insider of anything, and when it comes to writing I was just a guy working on poems at 3am in a house full of sleeping schizophrenics. And I was very wary of MFA programs, and mildly embarrassed about my English degree. I’ve always thought the best education a writer can have is a weekly trip to the library. Read a lot, and write what you like to read.
But then suddenly here I am, editor of a literary journal, about to get my MFA from USC – you don’t get much more insider than that. So there’s a degree of cognitive dissonance going on. It’s nice being inside; it feels good to be surrounded by poetry and people who appreciate it. So I’m always worried about getting too comfortable. I can take solace, though, that Rattle is a kind of rogue publication – we do our own thing, and want nothing to do with the monolithic mainstream.
DB. How would you define an outsider, or contrast that concept to the idea of an insider or established writer?
TG. Well, I think the definitions are fairly self-explanatory. There’s an established literary industry, with close ties to academia. Either you’re in it or you’re not in it. I’m not sure how useful that distinction is, however. I think a much more important divide exists between those who write for genuine reasons, and those who write for attention and self-congratulation. Those factions exist both inside and outside the establishment. The criticism that’s stated implicitly in defining an ‘underground’ or ‘outsider’ writer is the careerism, the cronyism, the cliquiness, of the in-group. And it’s obvious that these things run rampant. But just because you’re an underground writer doesn’t mean that you’re any good at it, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you’re not just stroking your own ego. For every associate professor writing for tenure, there’s a guy shouting into an open mic for people to buy his awful chapbook. For every brilliant writer who doesn’t attract mainstream attention, there’s a brilliant writer who does.
So I think the distinction that matters is whether or not a writer is really engaging language, is wrestling with important subject matter, and speaking to what it means to be human. Being in an MFA program, and reading so many submissions to the journal, it’s very easy to see who’s writing with something at stake, and who isn’t. Inside or outside, that’s what I care about the most. If you’re only writing because you want to be a writer, then who are you really fooling?
DB. What are the various things you’ve done since starting at Rattle?
TG. Well, I’ve made a few changes since taking over as editor. One of my emphases has been providing more free, original content. Any literary journal receives far more submissions than subscriptions – by as much as a factor of ten. Our goal has always been to show what poetry can do without the pretension of the academics, but without dumbing it down to pop-level either. We want to reach those thousands of people, too, who submit, but don’t subscribe. So we’ve upgraded the website, including free supplemental e-Issues twice a year, that feature extra content we haven’t had room to print. New poems from our back-issues are added weekly, and there’s a quickly-growing online review section that encourages audience participation. I started the blog, too, which I have to admit that I’m not very good at. But it’s another way to reach out. And I think people really are hungry for good poetry, if they can find it.
As far as the issues go, putting the reviews online allows more room for poetry. There’s an emphasis, too, on diversity – we’ve always encouraged and supported poets from all walks of life, inmate through academic, but I want stylistic diversity, as well. We want long poems, formal poems, slam poems, language poems. We want to represent everything that’s going on in poetry today…which is a broad umbrella.
DB. Now, from what I have read about Stellasue Lee, you had a tough act to follow. She had published a couple of books and was nominated for a Pulitzer. In an age where so many writers think an MFA is essential, she has a Ph.D. I always figured, when taking a management position of any type, it’s better to follow a loser and show improvement than it is to take over from a champion. Were you worried about how you would do? Or how the magazine would do under you?
TG. Now that you mention it…yikes! No, I hadn’t really thought about it. The plan from the beginning had always been to have me be phased in, and to eventually let Stellasue retire. Running a magazine like this is a lot of work – we project big, but there’s only one full-time staff-member. We get letters all the time addressed to the “Subscriptions Department” or “Art Department” and you can’t help but laugh. So it’s a big burden to carry, and Stellasue had been doing it for a decade. When I came in we started shifting the bags one-by-one, and like a frog in the pot, I never noticed I was boiling. And as I said above, I’ve always been wary of writing degrees, so the Ph.D. never worried me. Our mission statement says that you shouldn’t need a Ph.D. to enjoy great poetry, so why should you need one to edit a great poetry journal?
DB. How is it to work with Alan Fox? When he writes an interview he seems so easy going, is he like that in the office too?
TG. Working with Alan is great. Speaking of degrees, he has an MFA, but only got his late in life. He already had a BS, an MBA, and a JD, and had built a very successful investment real estate business. For him, business is business, and poetry is play. In a way, he’s Rattle’s target audience – he’s never been a poetry insider, and has probably read more contracts than poems. But he discovered, that, hey, poetry is really great when some professor’s not trying to beat you over the head with it. Poetry isn’t the center of his life, but it’s a very valuable highlight to it. So an editorial meeting or an interview is often the best part of his day, for someone who’s a good-natured person to start with, so we have fun with it. I wouldn’t want him cross-examining me in court, though!
DB. The first issue of Rattle that I ever bought was number twenty-two. You had a poem published in that issue, Cooking Dinner. Was that your first publication in Rattle? What other places have featured your poems?
TG. That was actually my first publication, period. It was only about a month after I decided to start submitting poems that I sent that piece to Rattle, and about a month after that when they accepted it. By the time the issue came out a year later I was on staff, and copy-editing my own poem. So you might say that “Cooking Dinner” was the poem that got me this job. Or helped me fall ass-backward into this job, however you want to phrase it.
Since then, I’ve had poems in too many places to really list, but I still can’t crack the real heavy-hitters. The newest issue of Nimrod…The Connecticut Review, Florida Review, Mid-American Review, and so on. But Poetry rejects me every time. My first book-length collection, American Fractal, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2008.
DB. One thing I admire about Rattle is that you publish the work, not the poet. By that I mean, you’ll have a first time publication by a truck driver next to a poem by Alan Shapiro. Rattle seem to be very egalitarian. Could you respond to that for me?
TG. It’s great to hear you say that, because that’s our vision for the magazine – you can have a vision yourself, but it’s always more important that other people see it, too. Our ultimate goal is to give the love of poetry to people who didn’t think they could love it. That’s never an easy sell, but it’s even harder if you’re paying attention to names that those people don’t even know. I ask my mom to list all the poets she can think of. She says, Li-Young Lee, because I dragged her to a reading once, and she liked him. Then she says Maya Angelou, because she saw her on Oprah. And that’s it. She reads books, and, you know, experiences the entire depth of human emotion and intelligence. But who’s Jane Hirshfield? That’s the state of poetry in America. So what difference does it make if you have a poem by Donald Hall, if there’s a better poem by a truck driver with a story to tell?
As far as I know, we’re one of just a few journals that make it a point not to solicit work, not to pay attention to names or bios. This might be the lit mag industry’s dirty little secret, but only a fraction of the work in a typical magazine comes from the so-called “slush pile.” At Rattle, it’s all slush pile. And that’s definitely hindering – when a poet gets big enough, they don’t have to submit their work anymore. So we probably don’t get as many big names into each issue as we could otherwise. But there’s a problem with soliciting, too – if you ask for a poem, you’re stuck with it. I think that might be a reason why some journals are so unbearable to read.
The no-soliciting policy leaves us free to just look for poems we can fall in love with, and great things happen. We have poems appearing in both Best American Poetry and the Pushcart anthology this year. The former is a great lyric by Gregory Orr. But the latter is “Sloan-Kettering,” a narrative poem by Lynn Shapiro, that was actually the first poem she ever published. We didn’t know at the time, but Lynn is a choreographer by trade, and hasn’t been writing poetry all that long. It doesn’t matter, though; that poem is beautiful, and will punch you in the gut. She’s the archetype for what we hope to do.
DB. I love the way you encourage less serious bios than other publications. By the standards of say, The New Yorker, you are a small publication, but at six thousand copies per issue, you are a large literary journal. Do you consider yourself an outsider publication? Why, or why not?
TG. It depends which day you ask me. We’re trying to bridge that gap between insider and outsider, and so we have one foot on each side. We’re definitely a rogue journal, in that none of the editors have ever been career poets; none of us have taught at university, none of us have been published in Poetry, or written dozens of books. More than anything, we’re fans of poetry, who want to keep it vital, and we don’t mind cutting our own path when necessary. We didn’t hesitate to dedicate the most recent issue to slam poetry, for example, just because it’s looked down upon in a lot of circles. We don’t care about the circles, and in that regard, I hope we always remain outsiders. But on the other hand, great poems are written by the established poets, too, so we don’t want to turn our backs to them, either. A good poem is a good poem, no matter where it comes from.
DB. The current issue is a departure for Rattle, because you are featuring slam poetry for the first time. Alan interviews Marc Smith in this one, the fellow who started slam at Chicago’s Green Mill back in the Eighties. You mention on your blog that before this issue, you had been discounting slam yourself. What changed your mind? What made you want to dedicate an issue to this form?
TG. As mentioned, we’re very conscious of being an egalitarian journal, and slam is a genre that’s popular, that’s converting a lot of new lovers of poetry, so for us there couldn’t be a better fit. We want to present everything that’s going on in poetry, even if it might not match our personal aesthetics. So we’ve had our eye on slam for years, it’s just been a matter of finding a reasonable way to include a CD, which we felt was necessary. The issue was lined up before any of us had ever attended a slam.
That said, I did have my doubts. I had in mind the caricature of slam – the rapid-fire shouting of cliches into a microphone…which renting certain DVDs didn’t exactly help alleviate. I was worried that it might be hard to find enough good work for an issue. Even after the first few days at the National Poetry Slam in Austin last summer, I kept worrying. As anyone in slam will admit, there’s a lot of muck to wade through – for some, that’s even part of the fun. At an event, that’s fine, but I don’t think our readers would appreciate paying ten dollars for muck. As the NPS advances, though, the bad poets are weeded out, and the stars shine through as what they are – great poets, who also happen to be great performers. When slam is on, it’s on – it’s a visceral, communal, amazing experience. Better than a movie, better than a great book, better than your favorite poem on the page. The easiest thing to compare it to is a religious revival – the ecstasy of all those minds being temporarily one, the poet’s words becoming your words. So at that point, the worries disappeared, and I was just excited for the chance to put the issue together.
DB. I believe this is the first issue you’ve ever coupled with a CD. Is it too soon to know if that is helping sales of this issue? Do you think it might be something you will do again in the future, or even make a regular feature?
TG. It is the first issue that’s included a CD. It’s far too early to know anything about bookstore sales – check back in six months – but online sales for the individual copies are up quite a bit. And while it won’t be a regular feature, we’re definitely going to do it again, at least once, with an issue featuring poetry accompanied by music. The only instrument allowed in slam is the human body, but a lot of poets perform with bands outside of slam. Other than that, and maybe a follow-up slam issue far down the road, I don’t see how it would be useful. The poetry we fell in love with is a book in the corner of a quiet room, or what you can recite to yourself while stuck in traffic. That’s poetry’s magic, and what we’re interested in the most.
There are plans in the works for an audio section on the website, though – so you can hear our contributors read their work in their own voice. Check back for that very soon.
DB. Rattle is supported in part by the Frieda Fox Foundation? Is it accurate to assume that without that help, or some equivalent, it couldn’t exist?
TG. We’re fully funded by the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation, as one of their operating programs. They do a lot of great work, focusing on children and youth education. For more info, visit www.fcfox.org. They also pay the balance on our budget, and we couldn’t stay afloat without them. I don’t know that there is a fiscally-solvent poetry magazine in the country, unless they sell a lot of ad-space, though secretly that’s one of my long-term goals – I want the magazine to pay for itself. Maybe in twenty years. Without getting into details, I can say that we might not need the support if I worked for free, and all of our subscribers were willing to pick up their copies themselves at the printer. This is the arts in 21st century America.
DB. Tell me what excites you about the future of poetry in the United States.
TG. Further democratization. Print-on-demand technology and the internet have the publishing industry in a panic right now. How can they be the gate-keepers of literature if you can get any book in the world at a print-on-demand kiosk at the coffee shop down the street? How can they make a profit when you can read whatever you want online? We’re already at the point where almost anyone can afford to self-publish a book and have it for sale on Amazon. If there’s anything Rattle shows, it’s that there’s a wealth of talented writers who are too busy working as doctors, stewing in prison, taking care of their kids, to have the time and energy to jump through the traditional hoops of getting a book published. I see the future of poetry as a lot like a slam – large numbers, loud voices, lots of muck, but for the first time we get to decide what’s good. I see more people writing and therefore more people reading, and that excites me.
DB. Tell me if anything worries you or disappoints you about poetry right now.
TG. Nothing in poetry disappoints me right now – poetry is more vibrant, diverse, and plentiful than it’s ever been in the history of the human race. More poetry books were published this year than last, more last than the year before that. We have so many movements going on, being expanded, that’s impossible to even talk about a generational style. If it’s ever been done, it’s being done right now, and done well.
What’s disappointing is consumer culture. More people watched each other getting hit in the balls 30 times on America’s Funniest Home Videos today than read a poem out loud. There’s no doubt that entertainment is getting flashier, shorter, shallower, every year. We gravitate toward activities that discourage thought; our combined arrogance and stupidity is becoming legendary. Mainstream society is utterly disappointing, and the relative popularity of poetry is just one example of it.
But I think poetry can also be an antidote. There’s a common complaint that poetry itself is an outsider’s pursuit, that it’s become specialized to the point of irrelevancy, exclusive as an aristocrat’s polo club. “No one reads poetry but poets,” they say. “We’re only talking to each other.” But I don’t see that as a problem. I see poetry as a way to teach those mindless masses how to actually engage with the world. “Look, here’s a great poem by Lynn Shapiro, doesn’t reading it make you feel more alive? Good. Now drop the PlayStation controller and go write one for yourself.” I think we’re due for an intellectual revival, and poetry can help.
DB. And Timothy Green, what do you see in the future for him?
TG. I’ll be here, holding down the fort. As long as we have funding, I can’t imagine a better job…I really don’t think there is one. With any luck I’ll be here, reading and writing, until the asteroid hits.
DB. Thanks very much.
TG. Thank you, Dave.
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