The Barbara Holmes Interview: Call Him William
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under interview
Barbara Holmes, known to the crew who used to populate the legendary Writers Club hangout on America Online (named by Wired Magazine as one of the best places for cybersex) was ringmaster, interviewer and host for various online chats and rooms within that hallowed space that sheltered and embraced such authors as Margaret Moseley, Harlan Coben, Tom Clancy and John Gilstrap. She was the editor of my Top Ten Lists that were archived there (over 500 of them) and interviewed me more than once for online chats, along with many, many other authors (some of whom I just mentioned). This is not her first interview for publication with me, and I hope it won’t be her last.
The interview was conducted over the past two weeks, online.
Call Him, William
By Barbara Holmes (TwisterB/Twist) with William F. DeVault (WFDV)
We met in an old AOL Writers Club chat room back in the late 1990’s. Amidst the groups collective sat me, a fledgling interviewer and humor writer, he a poet and writer of fiery wit and personality. I dare say neither were surprised at our first offline meeting. We were what we were, exactly as presented online, honest and forthright. Screen names and nicknames, yes, but no phony personas, no make believe life stories. In one word: Real.
Eight years ago I asked “But why poetry…?” He answered “Poetry is not a decision, it is a disease.” As the poet has grown, so has his abundance of work. Still one of the most prolific poets on the internet, if not “the most”, William F. DeVault continues to captivate us with an absorbing anthology of words. The result is a personal Everest, a legacy. One which, I no doubt, in our first interview he only fantasized. So, how long will he be able to maintain this frenzied pursuit; one can only chance a guess. For our sakes, if the fates rain kindly on this ever-growing garden, we will indeed be blessed.
Long live the disease of poetry.
Barbara: You’ve recently made an enormous change to your website, integrating your original website with your blog. Why?
William: It was actually on the advice of my ex (Aubergine), who was very high on the power of WordPress. She had converted her blog to it, and suggested converting my blog to it and raising its profile, its visibility, somewhere along the way it became the front-end to my site.
One of the reasons for the emergence of www.williamfdevault.com. It is going to take over the heavy lifting of displayed poetry, the City of Legends blog will remain a blog.
B: Has it changed the way you relate with your fanbase?
W: It has not seemed to have a major change, except it is easier for fans to leave comments. Which they rarely do…as they are disused to the idea. Most often my comments are hellos from old friends or hatchet jobs from someone with an axe to grind and bad information.
B: You’re a poet, what axes would there be to grind?
W: Good question. Actually, over the years I have made more than one less-than-admirer for my stance on the status of poetry as an art form, my opinions expressed (sociologically, theologically or politically) and the gravity of my romantic works. I will give you an illustration: In high school I was once administered a beating by a young man whose girlfriend had a crush on me because of my works (I didn’t even know her). I have gotten in the face of more than one other writer or editor in my life, and I have a sharp tongue. I have had ex-girlfriends call me and tell me that their new boyfriends/husbands know nothing of me and please to keep it that way, or confess they lied to me about their relationship status, when we were involved, to me and that their boyfriend/husband has just found out and is not happy with me. I can’t go into more details without breaking confidences, but I am far less evil than gullible. Which I guess, in its own way, is a harder confession to make about oneself.
B: Between the years of 1995 and 1997 your writing exploded with the Goldenheart Cycles, the Panther Cycles, the Great Cycle to the Goddess of Fire and Poetry and hundreds of other works. How do you think this compares to the more recent upsurge in your works?
W: I have actually been thinking about this. I view it as one of three distinct "explosions" of work (the Panther-Goldenheart era). The first was the early-mid seventies, with a lot of those works filtered now by time so that only the cream survives. The Second Era (the Panther-Goldenheart era) has just started getting the filtration, but in large part because of my insistence of the retention of the integrity of the cycles, there has been little elimination of lesser works. The most recent era was kicked off by the podcasting and recording I began around 2006, but also as part of a delayed healing process from my second divorce. It reached a fever pitch during the Aubergine courtship, then the death spiral of that relationship played out in poetics, which had integrity, but is interesting now to go back and read.
B: It’s been 13 years since the writing of the first Panther Cycle. Where do these poems fit into your legacy?
W: The Panther Cycles are a monolith. They are a block of work that does not cap, but cornerstones a whole section of my works. There are some extraordinary works in amongst those 600 and some odd works, including my first work with villanelles.
B: How can they be compared to your present works? Or can they?
W: I think the Panther Cycles are a little less sophisticated, structurally, than the more recent works, but there are certainly some moments in there that are as good as anything I have or ever will do. The recent works are more evolved, more thoughtful, more earnest, but neither era can claim primacy in my catalog.
B: Do you ever have the urge to add to any of these previous Cycles? Situations or settings that trigger a memory…
W: Not really the Panther Cycles, although I did write a few poems over the years as a follow up when situations demanded it, like when the Panther broke a promise to me. I am far from perfect and have made more than my share of blunders, but I have never held much with people who live for each re-invention with a disdain for what made them who they are and brought them to their change. I believe in the human capacity for growth and change, but not at the cost of the truth. There have been a few works, but not enough to tamper with the framework that is the ‘Cycles.
B: The bond you had with your daughter, Peri, developed numerous fractures which began during the Panther era. Why was this particular cycle of work so crucial in the relationship’s demise?
W: I think the evidence of my involvement serves as sort of a slap in the face to her mother, upon whom the dissolution of my marriage to her the affair rested, and that leaves a festering wound, for both of us. The funny thing is, she now manages a bookstore in Los Angeles. I have not sought, nor will I seek, to have my books sold through her chain, for the very reason I don’t want that aggravation in her face every day.
B: Yes, the Panther Cycles would be bit of an irritation but why not your other works? Don’t you think she would be proud to show off her father’s work?
W: Ours has always been a complex relationship and reality. I believe she sees me in a less sterling light than perhaps she did when she was younger. Even I am not aware of all the perspectives and perceptions that have gone into our dissembling relationship. I am hopeful we shall patch it up, but I know that there are some wounds that, no matter how skillful the surgeon, there will still be a scar and a memory. You also must recall she had to endure my second wife, who was very jealous of her and did her own share of hand-grenade lobbing into the chaos.
B: Did it affect your sons as well or just Peri?
W: Yes, to a much lesser extent. Elric and Dante did not have the pre-existing depth of relationship with me when the divorce and exile to LA came. There was no real sense of losing their best friend, not on the scale of Peri and I, who were best friends for many years. In some ways I think what really hammered the issues between Peri and I were not the Panther events, but the events in my second marriage. My second wife was very jealous of how close I was with Peri and on more than one occasion I was forced to publicly give Peri the back seat. That hurt, I know, and I wish there was a way to make it up to her.
B: We’ve spoken for years of your need to return to Los Angeles. Do you see yourself there in the near future?
W: I had hoped to return to stay later this year, but it is now looking more like sometime next year.
B: What necessitates this desire for LA?
W: It feels like home to me. It is where I want to live out my life, where I want to die.
B: Why do you feel such a strong urge to go back?
W: It’s funny, I almost feel like a salmon, justifying his need to swim upstream at spawning time. It is a primal thing, I am only aware of it as a drive within me. I am at peace there, and peace eludes me.
B: I know you’ve not been feeling 100% in the past few months. Has anything else reared its ugly head to stall your departure?
W: Well, aside from nearly dying of food poisoning and having my heart brutally plucked from my chest, no, all is as it should be. Ha!
The food poisoning I acquired while visiting my daughter in Los Angeles left me hampered to a degree I would not have predicted, the side effects were staggering (and, no longer being a teenager, my powers of recovery are not as potent as they once were).
And, as you as well as anyone knows, I am driven by the champion vector of my personality. Losing Aubergine as a focal point for my energies stripped me of my vector, I became depressed and bored and boring, a laser beam became a series of small, smouldering brush fires that had no purpose or path. It has taken all I have, all the coping mechanisms and techniques for my own emotional and intellectual self-manipulation I have developed and learned over the last several decades just to rise to my feet. My energy levels were and are depleted. I am in recovery, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually.
And, as with all such actions, reality plays its role. The logistics of the move, my sons, my aging parents, my grandmother (who just turned 97 and is fading) all play into the timing. As much as I like to tell myself I am immune to the fates, the truth is I am always at their whim.
B: You and I have had stimulating discussions on the subject of Muses, and your oft times dependence on them to write. Who was your most recent Muse?
W: In the absence of a dominating muse, such as the Panther or Aubergine, I am reacting to moments and minutes, so there are many muses in the sky at this time. I foreswore the use of the totems, last winter, and am now evaluating going back to them. I don’t honestly know what is next or who is next or where my soul is at this time.
B: What work did they inspire you to write?
W: Readers should look at the last two or three months of Amomancer (http://amomancer.blogspot.com) for some of the new inspirations and works.
B: Who would be perceived as your greatest Muse?
W: Wow. The natural, safe answer would be the Panther, but you have to realize that she makes up only a tiny percentage of my works, and not the best works. If I died tomorrow, Aubergine would end up with the crown, owing to the recency of her regency. "More than Gods can comprehend", "Aubergine", “ the entirety of the book "As such…" and the works that frame the end of that age of grace, all are so powerful. Who knows what happens tomorrow?
B: Who is “Aubergine” that she deserves this lofty state of regency?
W: Remind me to set boundaries next time. (Scowl) She was a friend, a writer, whom I had a crush on for some time, mostly because of the power of her writing, there was an earnest, raw energy to it, and I admired her greatly. I can’t go much more into that without dragging her fully into the fray. The relationship evolved unexpectedly, intensified at a speed and on a curve that would astound a hurricane forecaster, then fell apart under its own intensity mere days after my last book came out (some cynic pointed out that women tend to wait to leave me until after their book comes out, but the Panther was 9 years gone from my bed when "The Compleat Panther Cycles" came out!) [Note: The interviewer is not the aforementioned “cynic.”]
In four years, she was the first person to say and do the right things to get around the walls I had put up. I had not really given myself in some time (by the way, celibacy is a bitch) and I threw myself into the relationship with the blind emotional vigor of a teenager.
B: What caused this fall from grace?
W: I have my own theories, and have had many (some who have no knowledge of what transpired or was said within the relationship) present theirs. In the end, even if there were sworn testimony of a thousand angels, I would probably still not know all, and I was privy to most things.
I think it was the old Rita Hayworth trap. She once said that men "go to bed with Gilda" (perhaps her most famous role) but wake up with her. Over the years a lot of women have fallen in love with the poetry, ironically enough it is often works written to another, but then can’t find room for the third dimension when I am off the page and in their lives. No shame to them. I am not an easy person to love, in the real world. I am mercurial, literal, intense, sexual and can be slow on the uptake (dropping clues on me is usually wasted, use anvils and shout a lot, that works better). I shoulder my failures.
B: In recent years you’ve become more politically active, with such works as "Darfur (Jesus Wept)" and "An American Father". Is this an evolution in your conscience or just a side ultimately being revealed?
W: I have always been politically active, but have kept that largely out of my poetry. I am a liberal pacifist feminist Democrat. Tom Clancy calls me an anarchist.
B: You’ve graduated from exclusively written prose to recording your work. Why now, why do you feel your work needs a voice?
W: It adds a dimension, and it records how I perceive a work should be read. I fell into it, after reading an article on podcasting. Now we have five CDs and a 24/7 internet radio station at Live365.com
B: You have also stated these recording take an enormous toll on you so why not another voice, why yours?
W: It would be disingenuous to give the job to someone else. These are my words, my thoughts, my soul. No one else can speak for me, I wouldn’t want them to.
B: Undoubtedly, you’ve heard other people read your work. Weren’t you satisfied with their readings or do you just feel you give a better presentation?
W: Better? Not so much, but more accurate to my intention. As an example, there’s a band in North Carolina named "johnnydirtyshoes" that did a reading of my poem "Darfur" at a fundraiser for "Doctors Without Borders". You can see it on YouTube. The reading is technically fine, but the nuance isn’t my nuance. Writers write for several reasons, but part of my motive is to be understood.
B: You’ve spoken a few times of the CDs’ “band”. It has a synthesized ring to it so who or what is this band?
W: Mostly it’s just me, with Garage Band on my Mac. I have had a few quest musicians and vocalists contribute, notably Alan MacDonald, Kevin Bond and The Selke. I manufactured a second face for the band’s lead guitarist, Izzy Durden, when Izzy is me on the synthesizer, indulging my love of the film "Fight Club" and the notion that no one would imagine me as a wild-man guitarist. "Is he (Tyler) Durden?"
B: The "Evangelist" is your fifth CD in three years. How does this differ from the others and what is the symbolism behind the name and cover?
W: It has some cuts from the previous CDs. Aubergine had suggested a "Greatest Hits" compilation, so I met her halfway. The cover is a woodcut of Paul on the road to Damascus, struck blind by his confrontation with Jesus. I added the blood effects to intensify the look and contrast. The symbolism is that the "Damascus Road" moments we have, when we think we have been transformed by our finding love, are real, but only within a frame of reference. It took me months to recover from the break-up with Aubergine, and the CD kept changing form…finally I realized I needed to make a testament to love itself.
B: Which of your books are you the most proud of, so far?
W: Pride is a tough emotion for me, they are all flawed. I have to admit a certain awe for "The Compleat Panther Cycles" though.
B: Which of your CDs?
W: "Evangelist". It is honest, earnest and true, and it brings together a spectrum of my works and styles.
B: Which do you feel exemplifies your work?
W: Books? "Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite". CDs? "Evangelist".
B: Which process satisfies the real Amomancer? The writing? The readings? The recordings?
W: None of it. The writings are necessary as my adaptive mechanism for life. The readings became a tool for interfacing with my public, meeting new people and selling books (plus, when I press for it, I can make more money on a single night’s reading than in a month of book sales, plus sell some books and CDs). The recordings? Damn, I don’t know why I am doing that except that I can. People seem to like it and I have some fun doing it.
I am not satisfied with anything. I sometimes wonder if it is possible for me to be satisfied. Hell, I sometimes wonder if it is possible for me to be in love, that maybe this whole tapestry has been an illusion, played to random chance or otherworldly amusement.
B: An interesting personage you noted on your “who influenced me” blog list was “Dangerous Liaisons”, Viscount Valmont. This character was exceedingly egotistical, a tremendous womanizer not to mention emotionally abusive. How and why do you feel this type of personality influences the growth of your own moral fiber?
W: Valmont discovered his conscience through love and did the right thing in the end. I have never been the kind of man he was in the beginning of the story, although I have seen that beneath the surface. When he saw the monster he was, he gave himself up, and gave others the power to see the truth. I’ve spent too much of my life working with people who have been abused, trying to help them get their lives together. If I ever thought I was Valmont, the monster, I would have to take myself out. I lack his ego, his skill with women and his hollowness, ethically.
B: The list also contained many individuals who could be classified as “Heroes”. Do you see yourself in this light?
W: I have my moments. I want to do the right thing, which is sometimes clouded by the arrogance of life and the nature of the world. I think if I was truly free to speak all truths I know, the world would see me in a gentler light, for sure. I have a certain stripe of the heroic bent, the sort of kid who burns himself pulling moths away from the fire.
B: You had the chance to “speak the truths” in your book. Why haven’t you finished it?
W: Many times I am constrained by the "Dragnet" clause. "Names have been changed to protect the innocent". There are things I cannot say because they would hurt others, but at the same time there is the compulsion to speak the truth, so I let myself come as close as possible, sometimes even destroying works before they are published, as I find they will reveal something that hurts another. Sometimes I don’t realize I have crossed a line until after I have crossed it (I said I can be dense). Those are moments of great moral conflict and true horror.
I presume by "your book" you are speaking of the body of my works? Or of my discarded memoir? The memoir was discarded as I realized it would destroy so many sandcastles out there, and I am trying not to reveal myself at the expense of others, especially those who may be criticized or attacked merely for human failings.
You know, of all the people who have wounded me in this life, Aubergine was the only one who apologized in or after the act of my evisceration. Perhaps that is part of her special place in my memory and tapestry. She demonstrated that she has a soul.
But to the question: Truth is never complete, where humans are concerned.
B: If you died today, what happens to the hundreds, even thousands, of works you claim to have never released previously?
W: My children gain control of them. My brother has the master password to unlock the virtual vault I keep them in. What happens to them after that is of no concern to me.
B: What would you like your legacy to be?
W: He wrote well and championed the couer rage to love.
B: On your headstone, help me etch the testament: "William F. DeVault ….
W: "We don’t know where his body lies, but let this be where those who would curse or praise his memory come to express what they perceive as true. May love free us all from madness."
My thanks to Barbara Holmes for this interview.
the interview is imminent
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, interview
I received by email the final text of the interview that Barbara Holmes has conducted with me online over the last several days. Not sure I want to post it…I don’t come off so well. But, truth be served, I said what I said and I’d rather be honest than occult.
The problem is, she didn’t include the blurb about her, and I hate posting someone’s hard work without some trumpeting of their accomplishments. It seems so, so dismissive.
So I’ve asked for her to throw a blurb on it and I’ll post it as soon as I get it.
And once I do, a free book to the first person who names all the muses I speak of, whether by real name or totem. More than one, less than all, I assure you.
Les Entrevues Dangereuses
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, interview
One of the points brought forward in the first round of my interview with Barbara Holmes is the lady calling me to task for stating that the character of the Viscount de Valmont, from Dangerous Liaisons, is one that has had an impact on me and my worldview. I think I acquit myself somewhat in my self-defense. I recognize that, for the most part, he is not a sympathetic character and for most of the book, play and film he is exactly the sort of person I would despise and, despite my nonviolent nature, be inclined to take a swing at.
My acknowledgment is that, in the end, Valmont is, if not entirely at least partially, redeemed by the power of love and seeks to make amends for his failures. You can argue his motives, whether he is truly repentant or just guilt-ridden, or whether perhaps he sees himself trapped and sees no way out but to die and take his revenge on Madame de Merteuil. I tend to take the romantic view, that this man has been transformed by his first real taste of love and is trying to make amends for his evils.
It is that element in the character that has had an effect on me. Just as there are aspects in every character I mention in my influences list that I would not want a part of me, there are elements of the Viscount that I would not want to carry. I have never seen conquest as a sport, I have never been able to comprehend, much less sympathize, with those who view women as objects, rather than people.
And you think I have fun with that question? Wait until we get into the quagmires of my relationship with my daughter, weighing the Aubergine works in balance with the Panther Cycles and the question of legacy.
the parasitism of Chinese commerce
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, interview, politics
Lovely cover, isn’t it?
Not really. The book, published in China and available internationally, features a cover by my friend, American artist and photographer Jean Fan. Its full title is 钱.性.孩子–好女人不可不知的婚姻雷区(爱情智慧系列丛书 (Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting about the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage).
Only, she didn’t give permission for the photo to be used.
Everyday thousands of new products, millions of not so new products, and all sorts of adaptations of products are stolen, "borrowed" and hijacked in places like China, where there is no respect for the rule of international law, business ethics and common decency.
Jean is lucky to have found out about it. A friend saw a copy for sale and sent her a photo of the cover.
The watermark across the middle of the picture has been skillfully removed by the thief, but it is her picture (See below for the original, reprinted with permission).
It is not that stealing other people’s work and making money off it is new (right, Mr. Gates?) and we really can’t completely expect people to play fair when we don’t even play nice in our own sandbox. In our culture, which has suffered under the parasitic nature of capitalism for centuries, we still haven’t quite got it right, how are we to expect foreign lands that are just now coming to grips with the Darwinian forces of the marketplace to understand?
Jean, sorry this is happening to you. Sorry we so much want the market that is China that we don’t slap meaningful sanctions on them for this sort of conduct.
It is a lovely picture, though.
Side-note to those waiting to hear word: Barbara Holmes and I completed the first round of her interview with me today. Awkward. She asked some questions, particularly based on my recent list of cultural influences and my muses, that I was not sure how to answer. So I did the smart thing. I spoke the truth.
ground rules for the interview
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal, interview
To Barbara Holmes (Twist):
I am communicating with you the ground rules for the interview you are soon to conduct with me in public, here, so that you and the readers will know exactly what restrictions I have placed on the subject, content and context of our interview and what my expectations are.
I am of a mood to speak. I have allowed too many things to simmer, to boil, to burn, and consistent with my temperament, I have not spoken openly and plainly of them, out of a sometimes misguided loyalty to friends and people in general to not strike out unless absolutely necessary, even sometimes allowing slanders to go unchallenged.
Aside from some basic human decency issues of not revealing actual names of certain people in my past due to vow I have made to them or damage it might do to their relationships or careers, or to keep certain key confidences, expressed and unexpressed, out of a general sense of decorum, I will answer openly, directly, even brutally, any question you have the insight, balls and desire to ask.
I encourage my readers to contact you directly, or through here, to suggest questions and contexts.
Better than anyone who has ever interviewed me in the past (I count 6 interviews you have done with me over the past 13 years), you know me, my history and my works, you knew me before there was a Panther, you were my editor for my humour column at AOL’s legendary Writers Club, we have broken bread together, mourned mutual friends, and had you call me on my BS in interesting times. I look forward to an interview that leaves me feeling sodomized, purified and with a clear conscience that I have spoken the truth as it is known and has been revealed to me.
Yours,
William F. DeVault
Can I quit now?
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Evangelist, Poetry, Video contest, interview, music
I was sifting through the works I have been composing over the last few weeks. There’s a lot, a lot. An interesting melange of anger and fear and lust and love and pain and joy and hope and despair and the human condition. Some fairly well writ material, I am pleased to say. We’re creeping up towards 17,000 works in the catalog now. That is almost the equivalent of having written a poem a day, every day, since I was five years old.
Can I quit now?
No.
Poetry never deserts you, lies to you, betrays you. It never says one thing but does another. Poetry speaks the truth, without regard for agenda. I think of the scene in All That Jazz when Victoria Porter is up in Joe Gideon’s apartment and she asks him if he thinks she has what it takes to be a star. He clenches his fists because he can’t lie to her about THAT, and tells her no, realizing at the same time it probably will derail his whole seduction strategy.
She rationalizes it away and sleeps with him anyway. But he was willing to not sleep with her, in order to keep his integrity in the moment.
I’ve never lied to a protege, no matter how pretty or willing, and told her she was good when I knew she wasn’t. I have been fortunate enough to be involved with some remarkable writers. People with the power to shine like the sun and roar like the thunder. That few have lived up to the potential I have seen in them is no insult to or indictment of them or me, some choose a different path. I don’t think a barber or an office worker or an ice cream salesman is less than me, just different. There are days I would gladly trade my place in this life for theirs. Gladly surrender. Trade it all for one honest kiss.
Trust me. I believe in surrender, I just can’t find anyone to surrender to. I have tried, really tried. At least a few times. But I keep hearing that "I know what I said and I know what it sounded like, but it was said in the moment and I had my fingers crossed anyway and…" speech that tells me that poetry is still my only earnest mistress and master.
I am anxious to see more of the TVC2008 entries, anxious to see more of what people see in their heads when they hear my words. I am coming to pieces trying to finish the Evangelist CD. In part, because there are a half-dozen unfinished tracks I cannot complete for various reasons, either AWOL collaborators (Kitabu) or production delays (Aubergine) or a sense of incompleteness (gotterdamerung). This may be my last CD for a while and I want it right.
I hate shutting down peacat, especially with at least two external authors in line to publish through it, but I see no moral or ethical alternative. I am trying to feel my way through a complex labyrinth, but I am making headway.
Henry Plantagenet was right. But I am not quitting. Not on poetry. Not on life. Not on love. I can’t let the disease of other peoples’ complexities hobble me, taint me and take from me that which I require to do what I am required to do.
So, buckle in, people. And get ready for some Crazy Ivan turns that will reap the whirlwind. Daddy’s home.
A quick interview with the poet
Posted by admin | Filed under Journal, interview
I got the boss to answer a few questions that I submitted, half jokingly…I didn’t expect answers, but after he did answer them he did give me permission to publish them, so…here goes.
E.J.: Okay, what’s the thing you’re proudest of?
WFDV: Wow. Tough one. Probably my children. There are days I wouldn’t bother taking my first breath if they weren’t in the world.
E.J.: Your greatest disappointment?
WFDV: More of a disillusionment - that the success of a relationship rarely has anything to do with the sacrifices you make for it. A hot and bitter drink that is to swallow.
E.J.: Living author you admire most?
WFDV: Aside from myself? Hmmm…you had to make it living? Cecil Adams, who does the "Straight Dope" columns. I learn from him and he amuses me. "Behold the snow. It fornicates" Still cracks me up every time I think of it.
E.J.: One thing you’ve read and said "I wish I’d written that?"
WFDV: "The Gitanjali" by Rabindranath Tagore. Yeats wrote a foreword. It won the Nobel for Literature. It is amazing.
E.J.: One thing you’ve written you wish you could unwrite?
WFDV: Ha! I knew this was a trap! Trying to get me in trouble again, hm? Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, let me tell you…I may not like the poem "Weaver"…I may find it lame, amateurish and insipid. But…it has got me laid. So, I can’t count it anymore. Hmmmmm….er…"The Strings of Pearl" as it turned out that muse was a ruse. I hate wasting intellectual and emotional energy on a con.
E.J.: If you could control who or what your next muse would be like, what would you build?
WFDV: Wow, dangerous question. I guess I would love to fall in love with a woman who comes from a different culture than I, perhaps China or Japan, maybe Eastern Europe. Even Russian. It would add to the breadth of the relationship, it would make it more of a learning experience. I’d also like to see someone tackle translating some of my works into other languages. I know it is only a matter of time, but I’d love to see it now, so I can see how it goes.
E.J.: The three people you miss most, every day?
WFDV: Too easy. My daughter, Peri. Then Brigit. Then Alisha. I never learned the knack for making close friends with men, so my daughter, then my lovers, have always been my closest friends.
E.J.: If I gave you one wish, what would you wish for?
WFDV: A means to an end. For one of my books to take off like a rocket and be sold for a movie adaptation. The money from that could fix a lot of mistakes I’ve made.
E.J.: Which book?
WFDV: Well, at this time it would have to be THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES, as it tells a story…but give me a few months. I was actually working on a children’s book a few months ago, but it got so depressing, owing to my estrangement from my daughter…I just couldn’t do it. I was becoming suicidal just editing it.
E.J.: Whjo would you want to play you in the movie?
WFDV: William L. Petersen, been a huge admirer of his work since Manhunter and To Live and Die in LA. He’s got the gravitas, although he is better looking than me. Don’t ask about the other roles.
E.J.: Regrets?
WFDV: Not making things right with certain people in my life. Getting blindsided by duplicitous people…not for the pride, but because it then kept and keeps me from doing more than I can.
E.J.: Epitaph?
WFDV: He cared. He dared. He did.
There ya go, people…his next two books of poetry, to my knowledge, also do not have a story line…so I have little idea what he is intimating about another "concept" book. We shall see.
My guess is he is storing up a lot of emotional energy for his next muse and plans to make her the "breakwater" muse…the one that pushes the past back to where it belongs. He’s ragged, but raging.
~so while hanging out in your corner...