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George Bilgere in his office. (Gus Chan/The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- I consider
George Bilgere America's Greatest Living Poet. I haven't read the work of every
living American poet. But out of the
ones I have read, I like Bilgere the
most.
So much of the poetry I read in the New Yorker magazine is pretentious, aloof and seems purposely obtuse. Bilgere's poems are kind, big-hearted and full of love for the precarious human condition. Did I mention that the John Carroll University English professor is hysterically funny? He's always wisely self-deprecating, joyfully knocking the pins out from under his own funny, faulty float in the big parade of life.
I'm not the only one who thinks his stuff is top shelf. Former poet laureate Billy Collins and Garrison Keillor count themselves among his admirers. Bilgere is learned and scholarly. He knows his classics. But he's also down to earth and one of the funniest human beings I've ever met.
His sixth book of poetry is out now. It's called "Imperial." (University of Pittsburgh Press) The title poem is pure Bilgere. You go in thinking he's going to dissect some medieval dynasty to show off his history chops. But no. It's a about a yo-yo. The Duncan Imperial yo-yo of his youth.
In another poem he compares the bloody return of Odysseus after a 20-year absence to one of his own days teaching college English and having to deal with the loss of his "choice" parking space to the new provost. He gracefully renders the sublime absurd, artfully comparing this classic tragedy to just another day in the academic salt mine for work-a-day sluggos like you and me. He then hits a final grace note about the power of a good woman and a couple gin and tonics to soothe the troubled soul of the common modern man.
I sent some questions about his poetry to Bilgere in an email.
Do you remember your first encounter with poetry that moved you?
When I was 10 or 12 my father showed me Kipling's "The Coward," about a soldier facing the firing squad for running from a battle: "I could not look on death, which being known, / Men led me to him, blindfold and alone." That stayed with me forever.
Do you remember the first poem you wrote?
Yes. It was to a girl, of course, in junior high. There was something in it about the moon being "a silver goddess in the sable sky." And I think I actually said to the girl, "Thou art more beautiful..." than something or other. If somehow that poem ever went viral I would immediately kill myself.
Do you have a poet hero that inspired you to write poetry?
As an undergraduate I carried around a battered copy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind. Up to that time I thought poetry had to rhyme and be at least two hundred years old. That book blew my mind, as we used to say in those days. I read poems from it to many, many beautiful women, not that it did any good.
Do you deny the fact that you are America's Greatest Living Poet?
If I actually came out and admitted that I am indeed AGLP Billy Collins would get very angry. And you really don't want to get Billy mad.
What prepares an aspiring poet for this kind of career?
Eat a lot of fiber. Work on flexibility and core body strength. Find a rich patron, preferably someone named Medici.
Who outside the world of poetry most affected your writing style?
Kurt Vonnegut. Is there anyone else?
Do you have a favorite poem?
That changes from week to week. But a poem by the best poet ever to come out of Ohio, James Wright, is always hovering in the back of my mind. It's called "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry Ohio." Read that poem and you will never think of high school football, or being young, in quite the same way again.
Do you think that rhyming poems are lame?
Well, look at the Kipling poem above. Some pretty decent poets wrote in rhyme, of course. Chaucer, for instance, isn't bad. Shakespeare. More recently the great Seamus Heaney reminded us that the ancient tools of rhyme and meter will never go away. But if you're not really good at it using rhyme will make you look very silly very quickly.
How are the poems in Imperial different from your other books of poems?
To tell the truth I wouldn't say they're much different from poems in my last few books. In the past 10 or 15 years I've figured what I want to do in poetry, and I haven't moved away from it. I went through the usual period of crazy experimentation when I was much younger, but now I'm pretty comfortable in my role as late-middle-age wise ass. It took a lot of work to become this person, this voice, and I'm sticking with it.
What will you tell your newborn son if he ever says he wants to be a poet?
I will say, son, I love you, but if you become a poet how will daddy ever buy his villa in Tuscany? Why not consider a thrilling career in oral surgery?
What's the greatest misconception about poets?
Probably that they're crazy, unshaven, ill-kempt, irresponsible layabouts. Ask my wife and she'll tell you that I shave regularly.
Did you ever think of writing a novel?
I got tired of people talking about "Someday, when I write my novel..." So one summer about 20 years ago I sat down and actually did write a novel. It was about a blind writer and teacher. I wrote a chapter each week and showed it to my girlfriend at the time. She had to go away for a month at the end of the summer, and when she came home I showed her the final chapter. On the last page my protagonist breaks up with his girlfriend, stomps out of the house, gets in his truck and drives away to a new life. My girlfriend read this and said, "Wasn't he blind?" I slapped my forehead. Halfway through writing the book I'd completely forgotten about that. I realized at that moment I didn't have the attention span to write novels. They're just too long.
You teach college kids. What most disappoints you about "these kids today"?
It disappoints me that they're very smart and continually ask me questions that I can't answer. I'm thinking, hey, show a little respect. At the same time I'm fascinated with the whole texting thing. It's as if they spend their days writing dozens of little poems, microscopic verbal explosions of thought and feeling. As a poet I'm excited to see what will happen to writing, to poetry, to language. The form of poetry has been in a state of constant change since the first caveman used a stick to write the first lousy love poem on the wall of his cave. Now we're doing it on tiny pieces of glowing plastic in our hands. It's a great time to be a poet.