Interview with Robert Pinsky

Spalding:  Why Poetry, why not a musician or rock star?

	Robert Pinsky: If I could play the horn like Sonny Rollins or Dexter 
	Gordon, it would be tempting indeed to trade poetry for it.  But the 
	thrill I get from certain poems by say, Yeats or Ben Jonson or Dickinson
	or Cavafy--I like rock, but I've never gotten a thrill like that from it.
	In truth, no art has thrilled me quite as certain poems have.  
	And why not try to emulate what has seemed the greatest to you, for you. 

When did you know that being a poet is something that you wanted to 
spend your life doing?

	Sometime in my late teens or very early twenties. 

How did you begin as a poet?

	One answer might be imitating Yeats, Allen Ginsberg, Frost, Eliot. . . 
	another might be, reading the dictionary and daydreaming about 
	the sounds of words when I was a kid. Another might be, liking 
	entertaining people when playing the saxophone as a teenager. 

Eliot's The Waste Land, a poem I'm quite sure you're familiar 
with... What do you think of The Waste Land?

	A great, personal poem once mistaken for a work about large historical & cultural materials. 
 
Poets are sometimes liked for their work, but despised for their views. 
Clearly there are those who dislike Eliot for his anti-Semitism, Pound for his 
political views and even Kerouac for the same (who near his own end, was 
a big William Buckley fan). What is your opinion, can one TRULY like the 
poetry but not the poet?

	Maybe, probably--but the limitations of all three of those artists 
	as artists--members of America's provincial upper middle class, who warred
	with that class's attitudes while embracing them--are deeply related to 
	the meanminded aspects of their social & political attitudes. Wouldn't 
	Pound be a greater writer if he had attained something more like Joyce's
	complex humanism, for instance?  Wouldn't Kerouac have more depth as a 
	writer if he had managed deeper views of American politics & culture? 
 
What was your initial reaction to being named Poet Laureate?

	After the initial feelings of pleasure at the honor and fear at the
	work (I knew how much energy Bob Hass and Rita Dove had expended), I
	mused a little about the title itself: I had always preferred "Consultant
	in Poetry to the Library of Congress" as more dignified and nobly American.  
	But "Poet Laureate" has magnetic connotations for people, too. 

What is the most enjoyable thing about being Poet Laureate?

	The responses to the Favorite Poem Project have been various, 
	enthusiastic and moving beyond expectation. 

What do you want to do when your term as Poet Laureate expires?

	Keep writing, keep enjoying my family.  Maybe spend a little more 
	time on music. 
    
What text (language etc.) did you translate the Inferno from?

	My main text was the Singleton en face in the Bollingen edition, with
	Singleton's wonderful notes.  And I had much recourse to other translations
	(Sinclair, Musa, Mandlebaum, Binyon, Longfellow) as trots and consultants. 

What inspired you to translate the Inferno?

	It was an accident, an assignment to do one canto for a group project. 

When you sit down to write, what kind of setting do you have? Are there
any objects that you keep around you?

	I don't care about all that. 

Who is the biggest critic of your writing? (like the wife etc.)

	I am.  Friends like Frank Bidart and Louise Gluck help, as does my
	wife and many other friends, but the main and most fearsome and important 
	critic is the author. 

If you were stuck on a desert island and could only have three books
and three music recordings. Which would they be?

	Ulysses, Paradise Lost, The Complete Works of Ben Jonson.  
	Toscanini, Parker, Ellington boxed sets. 

If you were stuck on a desert island with Rod McKuen, what would
you do?

	I'd ask him to tell me his candid, unexpurgated memoirs of people 
	like Auden, Cary Grant, Charles Laughton.  I imagine that the gossip 
	would be spectacularly entertaining. 
  
What is current status of Poetry in America today? 

	"Status" or "State"?  Both seem amazingly high. As to status of it,
	People are nearly pious about it, often, even though practice of it is 
	uneven.  Writers like Frank Bidart, Louise Gluck, James McMichael, 
	Mark Strand, CK Williams, Anne Winters--as to the state of poetry's 
	practice--have produced amazing work, despite the deplorable state of
	much reviewing and of much academic criticism.