An Interview with Carl Phillips

Justin Bigos: One of my favorite poems in your latest book, Double Shadow, is “The Need for Dreaming,” which you read for us last night at the University of North Texas. The poem asks the question of the usefulness of love, of beauty: “useless? It gets harder to say.” The voice, in this difficulty -- over and over, throughout the book -- finds a way past the question into maybe not an answer, but a better proposition: “I think/ to be useless doesn’t have to mean/ not somehow mattering.” The poem can be read as a defense of poetry itself, but maybe more importantly as a private struggle over the point of living. The sharing of this struggle is a profound gift. This is a huge question, but what do you hope for your readers after they put down your poetry?

Carl Phillips: Partly, I hope that a reader might see that not only is there a private struggle that each of us is going through -- just part of being alive -- but that our struggles aren't always all that different from another person's. I'd like a reader to feel that I've been able to give some sort of language to what maybe the reader has felt but not been able to articulate. Or there's also just the comfort of knowing that you aren't alone in your quest for something like purpose in a life . . .

JB: Another poem you read last night was “Fascination.” The poem ends with the image of a dying fox beneath thick brush. After reading the poem you mentioned that someone had recently asked you where such a world exists -- and you quipped, “In my backyard?” Do we sometimes forget, or not see, the natural world around us, especially in our cities? Even when not in, say, the botanical gardens of St. Louis, are you thinking of foxes, dragonflies, star magnolia, yellow-crested night heron?

CP: I guess many people do, in fact, miss the natural world for the urban one that can seem so much more overwhelming. But it's everywhere. I do live in a city, but I can catch sight of a spider's web in the light of a lamppost at night, and stand for minutes, just staring at it. For me, the natural world is all the more stunning when it surprises us where we hadn't expected it. As for me, I don't know that I'm always thinking about these things, but I'm open to them -- so, when a chicken hawk flies right overhead as I'm walking my dog, I notice it. Which is different from looking for it. I think these things are around for us to see all the time -- we don't have to be looking for them.

JB: Before the reading you mentioned the T’ang Dynasty poets, in particular Li Po and Tu Fu, as early influences. Last year in North Carolina I taught a poetry workshop themed around the parallels between ancient Chinese and Appalachian poetry, and it was amazing to see how strongly the students responded to writers like Tu Fu, Wang Wei, and Li Po. What do you think these particular poets -- even in translation -- have to offer a young writer?

CP: I think they are proof that poetry can be powerful simply by being clear, straightforward, elemental. Because of the clarity, those poems seem to speak with an immediacy that feels very contemporary, which is to say, it immediately includes us as readers. There's also an intimacy to the poems, that also includes us. I return to the T'ang poets almost every night before going to bed -- what's strange about the apparent simplicity is that the poems seem to deliver something new each time . . . For young writers, I think the appeal is that poetry, in the hands of Li Po, Wang Wei, and Tu Fu, seems approachable, not just because of the clarity, but also because so much of it is about being human and flawed: getting drunk, being sad, missing a friend. When I was first shown poetry in school, it was nothing like this -- everything seemed to require translation, even from English, into something I could understand. It made poetry seem intimidating from the start.

JB: It meant so much to have you here with us in Denton. Thank you.

CP: Thank you, Justin -- I had a wonderful visit.

Carl Phillips is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Double Shadow, currently a finalist for the National Book Award. He is a Professor of English and African and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.