Laurie Kuntz: My bio is as
elusive as my estrogen levels. Sometimes I remember I am a poet and sometimes
not. I lived and worked as a writer and teacher in the Philippines, Thailand and Japan for 35 years, but am now in nomadic retirement
mode. My poetic themes are a result of working with Southeast Asian refugees,
living as an expatriate, and being an empty nester. Three of my poems
were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. My chapbook, Women at the Onsen,
was published by Blue Light Press; another chapbook, Simple Gestures, won
the Texas Review Chapbook Contest; and my full length poetry collection, Somewhere
in the Telling, was published by Mellon Press. I enjoyed long walks
with my two dogs, Sage and Merlin, named for wisdom and magic, but
unfortunately both dogs are running loose in doggy heaven, so now I walk alone
with haiku angels.
DV: So, tell me, Laurie, how did you get into the writing game? Especially, how
or when or why did you decide to be a poet?
LK: When I was a child, my father turned off his TV, (the Mets must have been
losing ), and he read me a poem. That was my beginning. In high school a rogue
English teacher read me an e. e. cummings poem, that was another beginning....
some place in between those two beginnings, I picked up a pen and "opened
a vein," as they say, and I began.
DV: Well, back then the Mets were always losing, so I guess it was just a
matter of time that Casey Stengel and his boys would open a door for your
dad. And cummings! I used to hate him. I always read a lot, and widely, but I
guess my tastes were pretty conventional. The process of figuring out "in
Just-" -- not only why it was constructed the way it was but the layers of
meaning and association that could be peeled away like an an onion -- was an
important milestone in my own development. Do you remember your first
poem -- not necessarily in the sense of being able to recite it, but the way it
came into being?
LK: My first poems were written in the voice of teenage angst questioning the
universe. I wanted to make a difference, and felt poetry allowed me to do so.
Of course, those first poems were dreadful, but writing them allowed me to have
a voice and a direction for the voice to go.
DV: Once you found a voice and a direction, how have you been able to stay on track?
You've obviously been at it for some time.
LK: As
Bob Dylan says: I 'm a poet and I know it, hope I don't blow it. Poets
pay attention to details and consider every moment in life fodder for a poem.
So, for me, even if I am not writing daily, I still feel I am on track, as
every experience, even the mundane, has the potential to be turned into a poem.
DV: Wow! "I Shall Be Free No. 10!" That's certainly one of Dylan's
more obscure songs. I find it very odd that it appeared on ANOTHER SIDE OF BOB
DYLAN, while "Mr. Tambourine Man," of all things, was left off. The
last verse begins, "Now you’re probably wondering by now / Just what this
song is all about." Do you ever feel that way about your work or your
audience? How do you react to that feeling?
LK: There
is a famous quote, much controversy as to who said it, many people think this
is a Robert Browning quote, but it has been attributed to the German
writer, Johann Paul Friedrich Richter. Regardless, the quote goes something like
this: "When I wrote it, only God and I knew the meaning; now God
alone knows." For me, God is a metaphor in this sense, to the
universal audience. I believe that regardless of what I originally meant my
poem to mean, poetry is dynamic, like language, forever changing. So one day
the poem might be a love story, but on the next reading it might be a political
statement (and aren't all love stories political?). So when I write, when the
poem is finished, it goes out to the universe-- as a gift. God is my audience,
they will garner the meaning they need.
DV: I too think love stories are political, especially in the sense of the
popular quote from LOVE STORY, about "never having to say I'm sorry."
It's hard for me to imagine that you never wrote a love poem, because the theme
is so ubiquitous, especially for beginning writers. But, however they may
actually turn out, do you sometimes write what are intended to be political
poems?
LK: Oh, I am
not saying that I never wrote a love poem, actually I think all of my poems are
love poems. Love has many facets, so a bittersweet poem written to a husband of
many years is a love poem, a poem written in a motherly tone is a love poem,
and political poems are most definitely love poems ... love for a homeland, love
for freedom, love for humanity... it all adds up to love. I worked with
Southeast Asian refugees for 12 years in Thailand and in
the Philippines, much of
my canon of work is a result of working with refugees, these are my political
poems, as are my poems about marriage, parenting, and identity. For me,
the strong political poem is not a soap box poem, but one which takes a
detail(s) and creates a metaphor for a larger statement. One of my favorite
political poems is "Try to Praise the Mutilated World," by Adam Zagajewski, which appeared in the New Yorker
Magazine on Sept 23, 2001 and is the iconic poem for 9/11. In this
poem, the poet talks about curtains and feathers and "the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns."
DV: Southeast Asia, Japan. These are considered to be "exotic" places by
most people. How about New York? Is that where you grew up? Were you an habitue of Greenwich Village back in your formative years?
LK: Yes, I grew up in Brooklyn, which
is now what seems to be the hippest place on earth. When I grew up in Brooklyn, born in the fifties and bred in the sixties, Brooklyn had no status--most of my friends wanted to lose
the accent, which I, through no fault of my own, still have. I was in
high school when the 60's were raging, and I do have memories of Greenwhich Village. I remember wanting to
change my look from collegiate high school girl to hippie, and my best friend
and I took the subway to the East Village, and we went to a seedy second
hand store and bought leather fighter bomber jackets, which was my emblem for
the 60's... I wore it to Woodstock, to the
Pentagon to march against the Vietnam War and to every street corner
hangout. My mother hated that jacket and all it symbolized, and one day
unbeknownst to me, she threw it out. I wish I still had that
leather jacket, it was very cool. I met my husband in Brooklyn in front of the Jolly Bull Pub on Flatbush Ave... Just
this summer, my husband and I passed by the building, no longer a pub, but the
building is still there--we were with our 27 year old son, who has heard
"We met at the Jolly Bull Pub" story many times---it was a most Aha
moment for me.
DV: In the Village, did you attend any of the folksingers' or Beat poets'
performances? Dylan? Kerouac? Did the ambience affect you any way, artistically?
LK: No, unfortunately, I did not get to see the
beat poets or the folksingers. I was in high school and bound by parental
rule. But I did go to Woodstock! And, of
course the ambiance of the sixties had a huge effect on me socially and
artistically then and now --Go Bernie Sanders!
DV: Many people write poems at some time in their lives without considering
themselves to be "poets." When did you first come to identify
yourself in those terms?
LK: I
started to feel validated as a poet when I found myself in a community of
poets. Showing one's poems to friends and lovers is not validation,
friends and lovers will always say you are the next Shakespeare. Validation
came when I started publishing poems, when I went to poetry workshops, when I
went to grad school for my MFA in writing. The people I met in these venues
offered validation through constructive criticism, a passion for the art, and
camaraderie. These are the essentials for feeling validated as a poet,
and of course, getting published. Getting published is the Ben and Jerry's
flavor of the month for validation -- so thanks, Duane.
DV:
Gertrude Stein said we should write for ourselves and strangers.
LK: I loved doing this interview; it really helps me think about the art.
DV: Do you have
anything you would like to say before we close this interview?
LK: "Carry on, love is coming, love is coming to us
all."