City of Legends

I received an email from a site called WhoHub, asking me to post a free interview on their site.  I gave them a quick once over and decided to give them a try.  If you want to see my site there, go to

http://www.whohub.com/williamfdevault

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.

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.

Black jeans?

Bare feet. No, sandals. Boots. Bare feet? Sandals? Boots. Big boots. Pirate boots. Sandals.

Shades. Small shades. Big shades. Glasses. No glasses. Shades.

Priest collar? Hmmmmmmmmmm…

I did repeated trial runs at the big three last night, listening over and over again to recordings, making adjustments to my readings (which is brutal since I HATE MY VOICE). I have them pretty much cold.

Yes, I will leave Radiant Tigers at the end of the three. I rained poetry gets me charged, Love is an Howling Beast has too much raw energy. If I don’t buffer the end of the opening with ‘tigers to turn that energy upbeat, I will roar into the main lineup ready to throw furniture and bite audience members. I understand this would be a bad thing. Maybe having someone standby with a tranquilizer dart gun might be smart.

The ezine that has solicited me for an interview is Hyperbole. I am looking forward to the exercise (always fun working with a new interviewer, as they bring a freshness to their questions). I hope he asks a lot about the new book, collaborative projects, the tour and one or more particular poems on my site, as well as my social activism and at least one "hardball" question that I am unprepared for. I think an interview without you getting caught flat-footed at least once is a press release, not an interview. I prefer making love to masturbation. You must surrender illusions of control to be happy.

After consultation with almost all of my closest advisors and friends (some are incommunicado, dammit) I think I have finally toughed out the "Sinatra" for opening the Evangelist tour:

I rained poetry - you can read it here

love is an howling beast - available here

Radiant Tigers - and right here is this one

They are strong works I know well and can knock out of the park, even on a bad night, they pump me up and help keep me standing upright so I have the will to power through the rest if I am in bad shape.

Thematically, maybe I’ll swap ‘tigers and ‘beast, have the first poem be about poetry itself, the second welcoming the audience to my world and the third about the pain of love, which is a recurring (though not constant) theme in the show.

We shall see…I might write something tonight that renders one or more of the irrelevant.

We are also looking to put together a cluster of 4-7 classic works like The Unicorns and Monument for the old fans.

Oh, I just was approached (literally, I got the email while working on this posting) to be interviewed for a poetry ezine. This will be interesting, depending on if the editor decides to ask the landmine questions. Sigh.

Truth. Love. Poetry. The faces of God, as I know Her.

 

This is the second of five parts of an interview
I’ve conducted online with William F. DeVault
over the last several days.
……………………………………………………………….
EJ:
Let’s talk about some of your more famous and infamous works?
WFDV:
Okay, I’m game. Any particular pieces or do you just want me to free associate?
EJ:
Let’s start with The Panther Cycles. These have been a lot of baggage for you, both in the creation and their part in the changes that have gone on in your life over the last decade or so. Now the book, THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. Aren’t you afraid of being caught in a rut?
WFDV:
I am sure Michelangelo was worried about the rut he was in doing religious frescoes, too. (snarfle)
Not in the least, actually. I decided it was time to put them all out there, so many fragments and individual cycles have been read and shared around the world, it sort of became that so many people came to my works like watching a single scene or montage of scenes from a movie. You need to see the whole work to truly get your arms (or legs) around it.
I realize that their inception was not an easy process for many. I’ve done my share of questionable things, but I think that tossing away these works would not be honoring people in any greater manner. When something good comes out of something bad, you need to hold onto that.
I’ve had this debate in another form, with my daughter, before. She asked me if I wished I’d never married her mother. I said that if I were to wish that away I’d be wishing away her and her brothers, which were the most wonderful of things. I wouldn’t do that. She had some problems getting her conceptualization around that.
We embrace our disgrace to learn from it. You admit your mistakes and move on, taking what you can from your failures to build on your successes. Anything else and you are trapping yourself in a cycle of failure, of ignorance, of arrogance. Life is an experiment. You are supposed to learn from experiments, even if that the experiment proves you wrong in something you once believed.
EJ:
How did the experience of living and writing The Panther Cycles prove you wrong?
WFDV:
In no way. I was a bit emotionally battered, and I may have bet on the wrong horse by throwing my emotional soul into that relationship, but what I did was follow my heart. I think there are too many people in this world who don’t do that, and I think that is a tragedy. I have had people who have publicly tarred and feathered me over the works and my divorce come to me in secret and tell me their stories of when they failed to follow their hearts and how much they admired me for having actually tried to do so. Hypocrisy is pandemic in our culture. Most people do, not what they think is right, but what they think will leave the most doors and pathways open to them. I proved in both The Panther Cycles’ milieu and my second marriage that I was willing to "march into Hell for a heavenly cause".
If anything, it restored my faith in me, in my core belief system that treasures sacrifice and charity above all other things.
Yes, I am an adulterer. Actually, I gave up adultery not so long after George W. Bush gave up cocaine and public drunkenness. The difference is I admit my sins and take something from them besides a sense of self-righteousness and an addiction to denial.
EJ:
Wow. I do note that recently you’ve taken more of a turn towards the political. Something in that?
WFDV:
Yes, but after a small comment so it doesn’t get swept to the wayside, let’s get back to the poetry. I would, at a moment’s notice, enter politics. I think we need people who actually have values, real values, values of helping the poor, of ending wars (not starting them) in the political arena. A real Christian Agenda, not this mock one we have been sold like beer and hamburgers. After the financial deprivations of my first divorce and my second marriage, after the public way I have chosen to live my mistakes, rather than in craven silence, it would be short lived. I would need a patron to swoop in and pay off some debts I have from when I was unemployed and working to save Ann’s life. I would need a second chance that is unlikely in that part of my life.
EJ:
Back to the poetry?
WFDV:
Yes, please…we can touch on personal issues later.
EJ:
What’s the best thing you ever wrote?
WFDV:
I still adore TRIUMPH. "Diogenes" has faded. I see it like Rodin’s "Burghers of Calais"…not artistically my best work, but the scale of it is impressive. Some nice romantic works in there. Hard to argue with the cult following "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love" has.
EJ:
Well, romantic works are your trademark.
WFDV:
Yes, and it’s funny to see how I am still cranking them out in romantic exile…I guess the desire and the memories sustain me. "I shall live on these crusts stained with jelly. Filling my belly with morsels and mould." Sound familiar?
EJ:
Yet another line from "Horizon", which has sometimes been called the prophecy poem because so many images of it have been fulfilled since you wrote it.
WFDV:
Precisely. I sometimes wonder if it was a prophecy, or some kind of verbal inkblot test, or I am actually trying to fulfill it with my actions. I wish I knew. One more question for the afterlife, I suppose.
EJ:
Let’s touch on your muses
WFDV:
Better ask their husbands first.
………………………………………………….