Interview with Robert Lee Brewer on Solving the World’s Problems

Five Questions (and one bonus question) with Robert Lee Brewer, whose first book of poetry, Solving the World’s Problems, just came out! I’ll be writing a short review of his book for Crab Creek Review later on, but for now, I thought we’d do a short interview…with the title poem from the book included at the end of the interview.

1.       I love the title of the book. Which came first, the title or the poem? (I’ll include the poem at the end of this interview, as it’s also one of my favorites from the book.)Also, I just love the idea that a book of poetry is going to solve all the world’s problems. Wouldn’t that be nice?

RLB: The poem came first, and I love it for several reasons. One silly reason is that this poem was born from a failed sestina. In that sense, it’s kind of like a phoenix. Of course, I have quite a few poems that evolve that way. Beyond that, I think it’s the best representation of what I try to accomplish with my poetry. Also, the MESSAGE of that poem sets a good model for solving the world’s problems.

Maybe if more people read poetry, there’d be fewer problems to solve.

 2.       There’s a lot of surprising innovations in your form – lack of capitalization, interesting spacing – and a lot of what I call “the ghost of form” in your poems. Can you talk a little bit about how the particular style of your poetry in this book developed?

RLB: I’d love to take full credit for the style of this book, but the book would’ve been completely different if it weren’t for my amazing editor in Tom Lombardo. After reading the manuscript a couple times, he noticed that many of my poems were written in tercets even though they weren’t formatted as such. He saw that much of my collection was lyrical and some was narrative. So he challenged me to cut out the narrative and go full throttle on the lyrical. This meant cutting out poems I loved and poems that had impressive “publication credits.” But it was the right thing for the collection.

While I did play around with spacing and capitalization a little, Tom asked if I’d be interested in doing it even more. He never pressured me to do anything, but he gave me gentle nudges and challenges that allowed me to really push the boundaries of what I’d already been doing. I really can’t thank him enough for helping me realize my own strengths.

 3.       I can see the influences in your work of, say, poets Denise Duhamel or Bob Hicok in your humor, wordplay and whimsical jumps in logic – but you also have a surprising amount of sincere love poetry in the book, and instead of “stream-of-consciousness,” a determined lyricism. Where do you feel that romantic, lyric streak is coming from? There’s a shortage of good lyric love poetry out there, these days, don’t you think?

RLB: I love Duhamel and Hicok, so good call. As far as love poetry, my first poems were written to impress a girl in high school. So I think that’s just naturally part of my foundation as a poet.

For the lyric, my favorite poems are those that combine music and meaning. Two that guide me are Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Are any of my poems going to accomplish what these do? Doubtful, but they do act as north stars in my poetic sky.

 4.       So, how do you think editing The Poet’s Market for the last few years has influenced what you write, if at all? Did it affect the way you sent out the book and obtained a publisher? What do you feel was the best, most useful thing you learned as an editor that you could use as a poet?

RLB: While I think the Poet’s Market is an incredible resource that will benefit poets a great deal, my writing has been influenced more by the Poetic Asides blog (http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides). While going through the process of blogging, I’ve been put in a position of reading more poets, learning new poetic forms, creating prompts, examining trends, and more.

That said, working as an editor on Poet’s Market and Writer’s Market has helped me keep perspective on how the business side of writing is handled. So I realize how subjective the business is, how persistence usually pays off if you’re always trying to learn and improve, and how rejections are not personal.

Even with that perspective, my choice to submit to Press 53 was an emotional one. I wanted a small publisher that cares about reaching an audience and that creates beautiful books, because many book buyers do judge books by their covers. Also, I have a thing for the number eight and the five and three in Press 53 equal eight. Hey, it worked.

 5.       And, you know, because I love the “geeky” side of poetry, I’d like to ask you about your algebraic references in “worried about ourselves: “what happens when we have/ / time to think   we transform x into y/ and dismiss the existence of z now/ only a letter that signals the end”
Don’t you know poets are supposed to be afraid of math? Just kidding. (I wrote my own take on those old algebraic questions here, “Introduction to Algebra:” http://atticusreview.org/introduction-to-algebra/)
I love those kinds of twists hiding inside your poems – algebra at the end of the world, God wearing a baseball cap. Do you feel like you were trying to bring in a variety of subjects not usually considered fit for examination by poet – work, algebra, grocery store trips? And, if I’m not wrong, there’s a bit of an apocalyptic tone to some of these poems, an intimation of the end of the world, especially as promised at the end of the last poem “when the money & the food ran out”

RLB: As far as the math, I’m a bit of an outlier with English majors in that I love math, especially statistics. In fact, while it was not intentional, I’m pleased that when you do a book search on Solving the World’s Problems on Amazon that it shows up with a book on math.

I write so many poems, but I don’t try to get them all published. I think the ones that have those twists are the ones that are more interesting to me. If they’re more interesting to me, I figure they have a better chance of being interesting to others. Of course, my stack of rejections often confirms for me that I have a unique sense of what’s interesting.

And you’re absolutely not wrong about the apocalyptic tone. When we settled on the cover image for this book, I thought it was perfect because it seemed to illustrate a troubled optimism, which I think is the tone of the collection as a whole.

 6.       Bonus question: I spent the years between the ages of eleven and twenty-five in Cincinnati, and I think you lived there for some time as well. So, what do you think is the best place to go hear poetry in Cincinnati? And, second –where to go for the best pizza?  I need to strategize my next visit to see my family out there.

RLB: I went to college at the University of Cincinnati and worked in Cincy for years before moving down to the Atlanta area. My favorite place to hear poetry was on campus. That’s where I first heard Robert Bly, Louise Gluck, and others.

Cincinnati has a lot of great pizza places, but my favorite is Dewey’s Pizza, which includes dishes with names like Socrates’ Revenge and Edgar Allan Poe.

solving the world’s problems
by Robert Lee Brewer

i began as eyelashes blocking the sun
and my father was a digital clock
in a dark cave  my father counted

out the minutes as i kept myself
from myself   in this way  i learned to kiss
years later  when i became a horse

i ran the hot blood out of my body
father turned into a dream filled
with fire and a horrible laugh   i

burned into a cloud of smoke
father became a phone call and then
silence   i worried what i might

transform into next   i worried
what i might already be   then
i forgave father