I am an only child so I had lots of fun catching flies with one of my mother's metal colanders and then taking off a wing here, a leg there—generally being an asshole to some of the lower life forms. I regret having thrown salt on so many toads to watch them bloat. I ask their forgiveness now since I live and the woods and every Spring we get a frog army coming through.

A lot of kids grow up with different career aspirations. What are some of the occupations you wanted to pursue, and who and what brought you to the written word in helping you decide writing was what you wanted to pursue further?

I wanted to be an animator for Disney, but I also wanted to be like Ron Jeremy, you know, the porno actor. I've always been attracted to characters. Most of the things people do for a living bore me. Don't inspire me, though I love the folks who sell their wares in flea markets. I love people who build things with their hands. That's why I can't get enough of the great motorcycle builders like Indian Larry, Billy Lane, and the infamous Jesse James.

Do you believe artists are born or made?

Artist are made. You can be born with a bit of talent, but I've seen people infinitely more talented than me not do a goddamned thing. Writing is a discipline. It is something you do everyday. No bullshit, no excuses. Isn't that a clotheslines? Should be.

Describe the relationship you have with poetry vs. fiction, and writing all together?

I love all the genres I work in, but I find that poetry is the one closest to my restless spirit. It allows me spontaneity. It lets me take chances. Fiction takes too damn long and you keep robbing time away from your life and the lives of others around you, in particular my children. I'm tired of the dog-eat-dog world of fiction. I simply write a story, then I shut up about it.

I remember taking a workshop of yours, Virgil, and you saying something about how poetry can be anything. I didn't know what you meant at the time, but I do now. I think you have a strong grasp for what writing is and what it can be. Do you know what I'm saying?

I know what you are saying. Poetry is liberating for that reason. Poetry is absolute freedom. There isn't any subject matter you cannot tackle in a good poem. I like that. Extremely democratic.

Form seems to play a big role in your poetry. How important is form for you, and what do you think it does for the sound of the poem and the pace?

You think so? I don't. I don't pay too much attention to form, but I do pay a hell of attention to sound, to rhythm. I want my words to resonate, to bounce off each other effortlessly. I write for the image. I live for the visual in my work. I love telling stories, but I mostly tell them to get at that which is visual and lingers in my mind's eye.

I love that family plays a big picture in your fiction, as well as in your poetry. Could you talk more about that?

Well, these are the people I keep coming back to. My cast of characters. I've been lucky to have such a colorful family. I keep returning to these same folks. My grand parents. My parents. Uncles. Aunts. Cousins . . . there are so many of them. My mother and father both come from large families. Go figure, and they only had me. I don't understand it.

With family and career responsibilities, how do you find the time to write? Tell us your secret.

I sit on my ass every day for up to 10 hours. Even when I am riding my motorcycle I am writing AND sitting on my ass. My prostate is bigger than an inner tube. A raft. I've been doing this diet, you know, the South Beach thing, and it's gotten a lot of weight off me, but I could lose more if I only got off my ass.

I love sitting around, thinking, writing, going places with my mind.

What pisses off Virgil Suarez?

Oh, there aren't that many things that piss me off. I'm pretty laid back, except for people who want to keep poetry in chains with their preciousness. With their pretense, with their god damned warped aesthetics. A good poem, they might say, takes years to write. They can go fuck themselves with their good poems. I write poems that call to me. I write them down and work on them for as long as they call out to me. I don't have to theorize about it. I don't have to think about it too much.

How big of an influence is Florida on you and your writing?

Without Florida, its humidity, its mosquitoes, its landscape, my work would be nothing. I love being home. I love traveling the backroads and getting to see things I didn't think still existed, those Americana places. The kitchy Florida appeals to me. I like knowing that somewhere around Palatka lived The Bearded Lady and The Alligator Man. They fell in love and lived together. I love the Everglades, all that glorious water.

Do you feel that as a Cuban American writer you have a responsibility to your community, and society in general? Do you feel as if you need to be a spokesperson/representative of your community?

My responsibility is to my children, my life as a father and husband, then to my work. I don't care in the least if people react well to my work or no. I've been lucky in that people generally react well to it, and like it. But it doesn't mean that I would stop writing if they didn't. The Cubans all over Florida have made great contributions not only to the State, but to the country. I'm proud of what has been accomplished, but we need to do more.

Why do you think fiction is so socially acceptable over poetry?

Because too many people think it can get them rich and famous. Too many people are gambling to make it to Hollywood. To become the next something or other. I don't know. I no longer know why people come to creative writing programs to write novels. It certainly cannot be for the fame and fortune, for the job possibilities, to be liked, etc... I don't know. Then again, I don't blame those people who get fired, or laid off and who want to do something different with their lives. That I can respect. But we get a lot of young people who haven't seen the world, but they want to write about digging up bones in Africa, or write about their last job as monkey masturbators for some laboratory that hires itself out to NASA.

Outside of other writers, who influences you?

My grandmother had a lot to do with my becoming a writer. I think many of my teachers too, in particular in High School when I could have easily become a porno star addicted to sniffing glue, bank robber, god knows? A few angels have saved me along the way. I hope they did the right thing.

How do your folks react to your writing?

My father is dead now, but when he was alive he had no idea what I did for a living. He thought I was a teacher. My mother doesn't understand either, but she's learned to tolerate my madness.

What are you reading right now?

Many many things. I am reading PAX ATOMICA by Campbell McGrath—what a juggler of words and ideas that man is—and I am reading lots of Sherman Alexie, and Adrian C. Louis. I'm reading lots of exciting work by Native American poets. As always, I love reading the work my students—in the twelve years of teaching—have been publishing out there. Yourself included, of course. You've been pretty damn prolific and I respect your for it, and for the fact that you have stayed true to your voice. Nobody else out there writing like Shane.

Do you ever feel a sense of closure to your work?

No, I hope not. And I hope I don't start to repeat myself too much because then I will quit until I can think of something new to say.

Are there any writers out there you feel we should watch out for?

Other than you, I would say be on the lookout for a couple of young poets of great promise coming up, Sammy Miranda from Washington DC, JoAnn Reyes Boitel, from San Anto, and Ada Udechukwu from Nigeria. She's a tremendous short story writer.

What's on the Suarez agenda for the near future?

More of everything. Bring it on.

Portrait of Mr. Suarez by Henry Denander

Virgil Suarez poems appear in
The South Florida Issue of MiPOesias
&
Volume 19, Issue 1