AUTHOR PROFILE
Matt Morris is the author of Nearing Nacoma, selected by Joy Harjo as winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, and Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand, published by Knut House Press. His poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, for which he has received multiple award nominations, including the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
|
Matt's work appeared in Pond 67
|
Why do you write?
Literature makes life better. Even hackneyed works that hold odious viewpoints provide structures to write against—in some cases, with spray paint & stencils. Who wouldn’t want to deface The Fountainhead? Yet, as is true of that rascally biological drive vital to the propagation of our species, one doesn’t create (or procreate) purely out of humanitarianism, but “[o]f necessity,” according to William Carlos Williams—& he was a doctor! In a nutshell, where I live with my dwarf hamster Hamlet 2.2, I enjoy writing poems & hope others enjoy reading them.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
I channel nearly all my creative energy, via a daily regimen of vitamins & dietary supplements, into poetry. Outside of that, I’ve kept a blog, The Greater Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, for about 15 years. It’s mostly about poetry, but I occasionally write brief book reviews & opine (one hopes) amusedly on politics.
Who is your favorite author and why?
I don’t have one. Naturally, I prefer certain writers to others, but I like to let a variety of voices influence me, keeping a dozen or so books going at once. I’m currently reading James Baldwin, Donald Barthelme, Wendell Berry, Robert Desnos, Louise Glück, Daniel Hoffman, Caroline Knox, Federico García Lorca, Howard Nemerov, Michael Parenti, Jean-Paul Sartre, Tristan Tzara, James Wright, & Dean Young. I recently finished James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, which I highly recommend to anyone who loves language.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
Sometimes I start with a line or two, sometimes with an idea or maybe a detailed plan, though I usually begin with free writing, putting words down on the page to see where they take me. When I write, I like to think of the world as a cartoon where anything can happen. If what I’ve written interests me, I try to shape it into poetry. As to what poetry is, I want each poem to stand as an example, if not a statement, of my aesthetics.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
Funny you should ask. The way I see it, “I’m Not Your Ordinary Fish” (StC, Pond 67) addresses
a similar concern, so I’ll simply refer to that.
a similar concern, so I’ll simply refer to that.