1. Can you talk about the inspiration for these poems? What was on your mind while you were writing them?

I wish I were inspired!  “Spring in the Fallen City” began with the title.  I tried to play off various notes/definition of spring & fall, from noun to verb. “Because They Have No Mouths” was in a manuscript of happy death poems.  I was trying to write pieces whose subject was demise in all its constellations but whose flavor might make the reader smile or dance.  Like reading Gorey or Beckett or listening to The Cure or The Smiths.

2. The first of these poems, “Because They Have No Mouths,” is about an alien invasion, which makes it the second work in this issue that deals at least in part with aliens (the other being Sarah Norek’s story “Jockey”). In your poem, the aliens seem surprisingly benevolent—”The aliens cured cancer! / The aliens got to the bottom / Of global warming!  The aliens Baby-sit on Saturday nights!“—while the humans seem self-destructive. To me, there seems to be a political parallel to this particular kind of xenophobia, but I imagine it could be applied to a number of different situations. Was there a specific political or social mindset that you were trying to comment on, or is it a more general statement? Or am I reading too much into it? Could it be just a cool poem about aliens and missiles?

I hope it’s cool—there should be more missiles and aliens in poems!—but yes, I was hoping to parallel our scapegoat-state w/ that voice of Unreason we know  from sci-fi films.  When Bush was president some liberals took pleasure in his policy failures, even when those caused death.  Now, some conservatives openly root for our recession to continue, so President Obama can be blamed.

All the rage is all the rage all the time.

3. On your website, you’ve reprinted Judith Halls’ introduction to your poem “Daphnis and Chloe,” in which she says your poem “represents a minimalism that is not shorn of strangeness.” This seems an apt way to describe your second Collagist poem, “Spring in the Fallen City,” with its very short lines and spare images (“the white sheets / the white curtains”) and its light actions (the twice repeated “Take the Weight / Off your feet”). To you, what are the intended effects of this kind of minimalist poetry?

I careen forth & back between the shorn & the hairy.  “D&C” and “Spring” are faux-Zen, threshed from reading American translations (Pound, Weinberger, Hass) of Japanese poetry.  Also, they were influenced by artists like Cy Twombly & Motherwell’s open series.  Plus—the minimal poems began when my twins were born.  Concentration is limited resource in my happy, hypnagogic house.  But, I also continue to write these other poems, these feral beasts that babble and drool—some ridiculous strain of ultra-talk poetry (http://www.valpo.edu/vpr/grahamultra.html), I guess.

4. Your most recent book, How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic, is a novella-in-verse. In fiction, there’s often a steep learning curve in moving from the short story to the novel. What about the novella-in-verse? Were there unexpected challenges in going from writing individual poems to one longer project like this?

That book began as an honest-to-goodness prose novel.  I had an agent and a few nibbles and then nada.  As one publishing house type put it: “Yours is the kind of book I keep on nightstand, not on my resume.”  She meant that as a compliment.  But, I was partial to the material—I thought it contained some of my best writing.  So I did what poets do— snip, cut, sew, rip—except this time I was ripping from myself.  Eventually I saw a way (the triadic stepline (thanks Dr. Williams)) to rescue my ghost.  I was very lucky and graced, really, to find Abigail Beckel and Kathleen Rooney, AKA: Rose Metal Press.  The long poem is like the prose novella—tough to place—literally and figuratively.

5. What other writing projects are you currently working on?

Well, speaking of prose novellas—I have one of those making the rounds.  And—like all poets—I have a manuscript looking for a home.

6. What great books have you read recently? Are there any upcoming releases you’re excited about?

I’m like many writers who teach, it’s difficult stretch beyond our syllabi.  This semester I’m teaching a class called the Mutant Novella—so we’re reading George Saunders, Sarah Manguso, Will Eno, Paul Fattaruso, Anne Carson, Kelly Link and listening to Charlie Kaufman, among others.  Mutant?  Plays—poems—essays—memoirs in Shippy clothing.  Over the summer I taught a prose poem class, so that was a great chance to revisit many of my faves and deep influences—James Tate, Russell Edson, Gertrude Stein, and Charles Simic, to name a few.  I did find time to sneak in the new Denis Johnson and Thomas Pynchon books.  2666 stares at me from my shelf, mocking.  Upcoming releases?  I see that Don DeLillo has a novella popping in 2010—this thrills me.