9/1/19 (A palindrome of time)

Lynn McGee and I recently exchanged a set of questions about each other’s latest volumes of poetry, and the ensuring conversation has just been published.

https://www.owllightnews.com/methods-and-materials-the-sojourns-of-affinities/

As a “sneak preview,” I present our opening queries:

Lynn McGee: When I opened the padded envelope with The Headwaters of Nirvana: Reassembled Poems, I stood at the kitchen counter reading almost the entire book. I’m thinking now of the pivots and line breaks in “Vallejo,” the precise unfolding of images in “Eye Chart for an Orbiting Space Station.” Of course, I recognize many of the poems, like “Rules for Building a Labyrinth,” which you set into a letterpress pamphlet in the nineties. I also noticed some familiar poems aren’t in this new book, like the one about a roommate who leaves broken glass on the kitchen floor. I know your editors selected the poems for this collection. Did their choices surprise you? What are your thoughts on how to assemble a collection of poetry?

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Lynn, I’d like to talk about the title of your new collection. While the cover art reinforces the image of public transportation, the word “tracks” also has the common association of physical footprints. In your poem, “Sign,” the opening image is of your perilous trudge through snow and ice, “feet deep in the prints of those who gone / before me.” On a literary level, one could think of any poet’s work as walking in a similar manner. Are there any particular poets who influenced this project?

* * *

I hope you find our answers to these and subsequent questions as tantalizing as I did upon re-reading this collaborative interview. I want to thank Lynn McGee for all her work on this project.

Lynn McGee is the author of the poetry collections Tracks (Broadstone Books, 2019); Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016), and two award-winning poetry chapbooks: Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press, 1997). Her poems are forthcoming or appeared recently in The Tampa Review, Lavender Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Potomac Review, The American Poetry Review and Southern Poetry Review. McGee earned an MFA in Poetry at Columbia University, taught writing at private and public colleges and led poetry workshops in NYC public schools. A 2015 Nominee for the Best of the Net award, McGee received a Recognition Award from the NYC Literacy Center, and Heart of the Center Award from the NYC LGBT Center. Today she is a communications manager at Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York.

Bill Mohr is the author of The Headwaters of Nirvana / Los Manantiales del Nirvana, a bilingual collection of poetry from What Books/Glass Table Collective, 2019. An internationally recognized poet whose work has been translated into Croatian, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, Mohr authored Hold Outs,The Los Angeles Poetry Renaissance, 1948-1992 (University of Iowa Press, 2011). He holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, San Diego and is a professor at California State University, Long Beach. Editor and publisher of Momentum Press, 1974-1988, his own poems, prose poems, and non-fiction essays have appeared in dozens of magazines, including Antioch Review; Blue Collar Review; Caliban On-Line; Miramar; Santa Monica Review; Sonora Review; Blue Mesa Review; Spot Lit; Skidrow Penthouse; and ZYZZYVA. His many anthology appearances and on-line reprints include POETRY DAILY; all three editions of Stand Up Poetry; as well as volumes such as Grand Passion; Wide Awake; and Coiled Serpent. His stand-alone volumes of poetry include Hidden Proofs (1982); Penetralia (1984); Bittersweet Kaleidscope (2006) and a bilingual volume published in Mexico, Pruebas Ocultas (Bonobos Editores, 2015). Mohr’s critical commentary, articles, and reviews have been published in Chicago Review; William Carlos Williams Review; Journal of Beat Studies; New Review of Literature; OR; IdeAs (Idees d’Amerique); and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His academic awards include a Visiting Scholar residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, as well as awards from the Huntington Library in San Marino.