an interview with Nathan Dueck

This interview was conducted electronically in August, 2004.

Contemporary Verse 2: Political satire and humour in poetry are perhaps the hardest to do well, and king’s(mère) abounds with these qualities, while at the same time maintaining a consistent linguistic rhythm, and stunning artistic control. How did you write king’s(mère); did you write every day? Did you have particular routines in working on this book?

Nathan Dueck: No. I read every day, though. No, that’s not right. [Clears throat.] “No” is such a bad word in an interview. Isn’t it? I feel like I’m always reading, but I’m seldom reading books I want to read—unless I’m writing. Since I have no muse, I look to amuse myself by reading, listening, or watching some kind of artistry or another until I feel the tickle, usually in the back of my throat. Seems that when I write it is late at night—it’s usually when I’m frustrated by my shortened attention span & should just turn off the fluorescents & drift off that I’m tickled. Which is the wrong way to do it, I know, but there must be something about the hum of the lights at these ungodly hours that distracts me from my tinnitus.

But this answer is neither humorous nor satirical. This, then: I read the paper after my evening constitutional & just before an early bedtime & am impassioned by the injustices & must vent.

I mothballed these poems so often. They just would not remain properly closeted.

CV2: Did you come to this project with a vision of what it would be and that was the vision you sought to complete, or did it change as you worked on it?

ND: I would like to answer—“Why yes, I did have a vision. Only the near-sighted would write until they would have something to say”—but I can’t. You see, I am that mole. I came to these poems with little more than a library card & five words in mind that I’m afraid I’ve subconsciously plagiarized. I’ll spare you the pretension of quoting myself—refer to the enclosed sample for the magical quintet—that line is the first I broke & the only ones that remain from the first draft. Without a vision, I was left to ceaselessly revise & rewrite until patterns emerged under my nose. It occurred to me well into the process that the first-person pronoun “I” (“eye”) winked at me. Then I paid attention to “u” (“you”). & “e” (after “w” makes “double you,” or “we”). It was as though I stared at something until I went cross-eyed—like when you repeat a word until it means nothing other than its own odd sound.