So when did you get bit with the poetry bug?

I knew I was a writer when I was ten years old, but it took me another six years to find poetry. I had read around, trying to figure out why it was a genre, Ferlinghetti here, Robert Frost there, the Oscar Williams anthology that was the kind of poetry you could get in any book store circa 1960. But when I came to William Carlos Williams' The Desert Music at the Albany Public Library, it was like somebody suddenly lit up the room. I never looked back.

What is most interesting to you about the poetry?

The poetry, huh? That's an interesting way to phrase the question. I wonder what distinction my mind draws when I add that article – it sort of makes it seem like an independent agent. As in, "the poetry crossed the room to the door" or "the poetry galloped through the meadow."

All writing for me is a disciplined process for thinking – the poetry is sort of the center of that process. It is where writing is most itself. It allows me the greatest discipline.

Do you ever abandon many poems that you write?

There's a hundred page completed manuscript sitting in the archives at UC San Diego that isn't going anywhere during my lifetime at least. I wrote that in the mid-1970s and it's probably the last poem I truly abandoned. Since I take months, even years, thinking about a poem before I begin writing, that tends to be unusual. But once I do start writing, I often (always?) discover that it surprises me in ways I had not expected – so there are more than a few poems that have had something like multiple starts before I zoned in on what I wanted to do.

What inspires you?

My children, my wife, a well-constructed line, people who devote their lives to helping others.

What are the tools of your writing process? Do you write in a notebook or on a computer?

I almost always use a notebook at some stage of the process, and often plot out poems predicated at least in part by which notebook I've chosen to use for the work. Sometimes I employ a computer – most often my Palm Pilot – but not always. When I'm working in notebooks, I've used the same Waterman pen for the past 25 years or so, unless the paper is too porous, when I will switch over to something else. I think a lot about paper when I buy a notebook, consequently. And I keep a ready supply close to hand, which can cost me anything from nothing to $100 per volume.

What is your idea of complete happiness?

The San Francisco Giants win the world series.

What to you is worth fighting for?

I'm a pacifist and tend to see that as a self-canceling idea. There are a lot of things worth dying for. There are almost none worth killing for.

What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen?

This would cause my wife to blush, so I'm going to let it pass.

What annoys you about today's poetry?

It's not as ambitious intellectually as I wish it were. There are too many poets satisfied with just being "good," not enough who want to transform the meaning of poetry forever.

What was the last book you read?

Macbeth for the umpteenth time.

Is there a writer you like to come back to to get the creative juices flowing?

It varies over time. Barrett Watten, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Williams' Spring & All have played that role for me, as have Charles Olson & Rae Armantrout. And here I am reading Shakespeare. 

Who would you be willing to wait in line for?

Louis Zukofsky, Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman. This is problematic, given which line one would have to stand in.

What gets Ron Silliman out of bed in the morning?

That's the easy part. I'm not much of a sleeper. Four or five hours & I'm good to go.

What scares you?

Economics, politics, the challenges confronting my children & their generation.

If you could collaborate with any poet, who would it be?

Rae Armantrout. Even better, I have collaborated with her, on "Engines," a section of The Alphabet.

Ron
Silliman

Ron Silliman's baseball career was impeded by the fact that he was a slow, left-handed second baseman who couldn't hit a fast ball. He has been a semester's credits short of a B.A. degree at U.C. Berkeley now for 34 years. These days, he lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania. His most recent book is Under Albany and his weblog is at http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Photo credit: Ericka McConnell