Tonight at 8 p.m. the mtcup will host poet Gabriel Gudding for a reading. Gudding teaches at Illinois State University. He has been called the Clarence Darrow of poetry. Don't miss this event if you can help it.
Q: First, the basics. Age, occupation and place of residence?
A: I'm in my 30s, am an Assistant Professor of English at Illinois State University, where I was hired to be a poet on the faculty, and I live in Normal, Ill.
Q: What made you want to be a poet?
A: I have no clear idea.
Q: What are some normal themes from your poetry?
A: Butts, mayhem, ignorance, what could loosely be called "God" and the constancy of the present moment. But fundamentally I write about the elasticity of Being. The "product description" on the jacket of my first book says, "Gabriel Gudding's poems not only defend against the pretense and vanity of war, violence, and religion, but against the vanity of poetry itself. Sometimes nestling in the lowest regions of the body, his poems depict invective, donnybrooks, and chase scenes, as well as the indignities and bumblings of the besotted, the lustful, the annoyed, and the stupid. In short, Gudding seeks to reclaim the tasteless. Innovative, edgy, and dark, here is a writer unafraid to attack the unremitting self-seriousness of so much poetry, laughing with his readers as he twists the elegiac, lyric 'I' into a pompous little clown."
Q: Who inspires you?
A: I notice you ask who not what. I'm more inspired by whats then whos. But okay, who: I am inspired by fellow vipassana meditators who've managed to get happy and stay happy through grief and heartache. Here is a poem by the historical Buddha -- perhaps THE greatest vipassana meditator -- and this poem inspires me:
"Let us live in joy,
in love among those who hate:
Among those who hate,
let us live in love.
Let us live in joy
in peace among those who struggle:
among those who struggle,
let us live in peace.
Let us live in joy
although we have nothing:
let us live in joy
like spirits of light."
--Siddhatta Gotama, the historical Buddha, from "The Dhammapada," translated by Juan Mascaro
Q: There's a fire in your building and you have five minutes to get out. What do you take with you?
A: I take my equanimity with me. And if there's time I take my notebooks and photographs of my family.
Q: Tell us a good 3 a.m. story.
A: Consider that a creature is, when defecating, very vulnerable to attack. To many idiots, then, dung is what one produces when one is weak, it is a product of weakness. But some, I think, feel that a dung is an expelled wound. That in surviving the act of defecation without being clubbed, the dung represents a wound one had avoided altogether. It is a wound at once avoided and voided. Thus, given his druthers, mankind will choose to dung inside a fortified structure. You might argue that the fact that we chose to situate our dunging machines inside houses is indicative only of a preference to dung in a warm room, outhouses being cold more than half the year in those climes where the flushing dung bowl was devised. I concede this is a strong argument: it does seem axiomatic that one is more likely to freeze to death in an outhouse than be clubbed to death in it. But I refute this theory.
Q: Do you have any heroes?
A: Beyond the above mentioned vipassana meditators, most especially the big cheese, I admire many many people. As a matter of fact, there are few people whom I don't admire. That said, I admire those people who selflessly help others find the path to happiness.
Q: Name someone in politics that you trust.
A: Dennis Kucinich.
Q: What is the most expensive thing in your wardrobe?
A: A Patagonia high-pile "Fusion" snow jacket. Which I don't wear much anymore because I have grown sensitive to the noise of its nylon shell rubbing on itself.
Q: It's 9 p.m. Wednesday. What are you doing?
A: I'm just finished teaching my mixed grad/undergrad writing seminar called "Advanced Poetry Writing" and I'm in my office at Illinois State sitting in the corner in an overstuffed chair that I bought at the Salvation Army and I'm reading the Science section of the New York Times.
Q: What was your first job ever?
A: Dishwasher at my grandma's diner, "Fran's Foods," in Moorhead, Minn. Later on in my mid-20s I became a deckhand on a tugboat in Puget Sound and then a deckhand on a cargo freighter called "The Coastal Nomad."
Q: What's your poison?
A: Cafix, a Swiss coffee substitute made out of roots. Used to love coffee (having lived in Seattle and Olympia for many years), but it gives me headaches now.
Q: What are three things that piss you off the most?
A: There is only one thing that can cause me to be angry: Myself. I get angry whenever I'm being selfish, self-centered or afraid. That's the only reason anyone gets angry. To paraphrase the great Greek Stoic pragmatist philosopher, Epictetus, "No one can piss me off unless I first give them permission to piss me off."
Q: What do you hope to find in Muncie?
A: I hope to make some friends. And maybe find a vintage fountain pen or two.
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