Mr. Sterne’s Rocking Chair — An Interview with Author William Michaelian
by Jason Bulger
Recently, I had the opportunity to interview William Michaelian, a respected, prolific writer whose work has been published online and in print in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Armenia, and other countries, as well as on his vast website, www.williammichaelian.com, where I first ran into the author several years ago. It’s a growing repository that contains hundreds of poems, short stories, reviews, journal entries, and the complete text of his novel, A Listening Thing.
Michaelian’s two new books of poetry, Winter Poems and Another Song I Know, were published by Cosmopsis Books this summer. Both titles can be purchased from the publisher here.
The author can be reached at william.michaelian@gmail.com
Jason Bulger: Talk about how you write, physically. Do you give yourself a quota every day or week? Do you stand in your socks or sit in a wicker rocking chair gifted by Laurence Sterne? What are your biggest distractions?
William Michaelian: Well, the chair does squeak a bit. But only when Mr. Sterne is restless. You see, he does visit on occasion—whenever he misses his chair, I suppose. And so goes the repose of the soul—not quite what I’d expected, but inspiring nonetheless. To further answer your question, writing is a physical act, and I take great pleasure in that aspect. Despite my love of paper, and of printed matter in general, I do all of my work at the computer. It doesn’t sound very poetic, but I prefer to type. When I type, I’m not only writing, or composing, I’m working toward a poem’s final appearance on a printed page. I’m not satisfied until there’s a harmony of meaning, sound, and visual arrangement. As for quotas, where poetry is concerned, I have none. But I do write every day, seven days a week, for as many hours as possible—poetry, notes, letters, stories, novels, reviews. And whenever I sit down to work, it is always with an eager feeling. I take joy in my work. I expect to accomplish something. As for distractions or intrusions, I try not to see them as such. Intrusive plants in a garden are thought of as weeds; on a hillside, we call them wildflowers.
JB: Speaking of Mr. Sterne, the author of the infamous comic novel Tristram Shandy, talk a little of your influences if you could. A writer doesn’t really become a writer until he’s a reader. To what extent do other authors help your craft?
WM: At this point in my life, I don’t think they help in any obvious, quantifiable way. Rather, it’s a subtle, cumulative thing. For instance, at the moment, I’m reading Basho’s travel sketches. And recently, I finished Kerouac’s Book of Sketches. I’m also reading The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, by Nikos Kazantzakis. Not to mention Thoreau’s Walden. These are all impressive works, and, with perhaps the exception of the Kerouac book, they are all wonderful places to dwell. And I mean that in almost a physical sense. It’s as if I can feel their wisdom and meaning seeping into my bones. If I’m lucky, maybe a microscopic portion of that will surface later in my writing. As for earlier more easily identified influences, rather than any specific person, I would have to list my birthplace as one of the most important. I grew up on a farm in Central California, and the countless hours I spent working and wandering in our vineyards and orchards left an indelible impression. To a large extent it shaped the way I think, and it definitely taught me how to listen. And if you don’t know how to listen, it doesn’t matter how many books you read, or how many classrooms you sit in. Beyond that, a few authors did inspire me when I was much younger. They are, in no particular order of importance, William Saroyan, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Guy de Maupassant, followed by the nineteenth century Russian and French authors in general. I love Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel, and feel it is one of the great books of the twentieth century. I am deeply touched by the melancholy humor of Richard Brautigan. I believe James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake are literary miracles.
JB: That’s an interesting point about influence: often it’s not so much an attribute of writing—rhythm, for instance—that is transferred when I read a book, but in fact an awareness of some place I’d never thought to see art before. Ulysses might be the embodiment of this idea.
And it’s interesting you mention listening; you’ve written a whole book about the subject, albeit through the lens of fiction. How do you think Stephen Monroe, the protagonist in your novel A Listening Thing, has trouble with that skill? What, briefly, does he try to teach us about listening, seeing, or perceiving that we, especially today, need to know? And did you set out to focus on this, or did this element of the novel begin to take shape as you wrote it?
WM: Ah, my old friend Stephen. He really is a hero, because it takes great courage to see beyond our mental conditioning. It happened like this: one day, I decided it was time to write a novel. Without the slightest idea of what it would be about, I allowed myself three months for its completion. The result was A Listening Thing, which turned out to be part story, part poem, part romance, part anthem, part manifesto, part compendium, and part a hundred other things. Most of all, it was urgent. A man’s life was at stake. All our lives were at stake. Just the other day, I heard from a reader who was inspired by something Stephen said at the end of Chapter 8, and which I think goes to the heart of the novel:
What matters, I think, is this: There are an awful lot of nice, unhappy people in the world who are stuck doing things they really shouldn’t be doing. They’re stuck because their backs are against the wall and they don’t want to starve. They’re stuck because they didn’t know how to stand up for themselves when they were kids. They’re stuck because they were tested and branded and herded into classrooms by frightened adults who, often with the best of intentions, brainwashed them into thinking they were doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, teachers, electricians, customs officers, store clerks, or mechanics. They’re stuck because, once upon a time, long ago, the human race took a wrong turn somewhere, and we’ve been dealing with it ever since. Take it from me. I know. I’m stuck, too.
The question is, how can a person even arrive at this point unless he has learned to listen—to himself, to others, and to the world around him? In this case, the word listening might be freely exchanged with observing.
JB: It seems we’re talking about two different types of listening—or observing. There are things in the world that an author can observe—the poetic way you might describe a cherry blossom, for instance; the way you might see something others ignore—and then there are things about one’s own self, about a character and his intentions or about a cause for something. Do you differentiate between these types of listening? Is one easier for you as an author to inject into your writing? Since we all have limitations, but only sometimes are aware of them, what do you feel is the hardest type of listening?
WM: I don’t know, really, that there are types of listening. In simplest terms, either we are aware of ourselves and our surroundings or we aren’t. And you can’t be aware of one without being aware of the other. Should we approach a cherry blossom differently than our dreams, or our tangled thoughts and motives? Aren’t they all part of the same thing? I think part of our basic trouble arises from seeing ourselves as distinct from nature. For me, a poem about a raindrop and a poem about a teardrop are very closely related. The raindrop in one might easily be the teardrop in the other, and vice-versa.
JB: Interesting. And to speak of rain makes me think of your current location: Salem, Oregon. You mentioned that your hometown and farm had a huge influence on your writing, so what kind of influence has Salem had? Browsing through your new collections of poetry, Another Song I Know and Winter Poems, I notice that rain is mentioned more than a couple of times. One of my favorite poems from the former collection actually mentions rain:
The Pond
I see faces floating
on the pond:
which, today,
will be my own?
Rain arrives
before the answer:
the pond grows
and grows.
WM: That it does. And, just for the fun of it, think about what happens if we substitute “Tears arrive” for “Rain arrives.” But yes, definitely, Salem and the climate of Western Oregon have influenced my writing. In effect, I spent the first thirty-odd years of my life waiting for it to rain. We left a place that averages about eleven inches a year. In Salem, the average rainfall is around forty inches. And after twenty years, I still love every drop of it. But there’s a lot more to Salem than rain. I especially love the old brick buildings downtown, the stairways leading up to abandoned apartments, the pigeons holding court on third-story window ledges, and the coffeehouses with kids playing their guitars out front. Salem has a good atmosphere, and for me, at least, it’s a visual source of nourishment and a good place to write.
JB: When you sit down to write poetry do you think of it in terms of a collection or do they just come out one at a time only to be later pulled together? Can you talk about the process of choosing pieces for a collection?
WM: Well, I can certainly try. In the case of Winter Poems and Another Song I Know, the poems pretty much chose themselves—and, to a large degree, established their own order. By that I mean, other than a few exceptions, they were presented in the order they were written. At the same time, there were many more poems that could have been included, which made it necessary to decide which ones to leave out. How did I decide? At the risk of being redundant, I decided by listening. In the process of reading them out loud, I learned which poems belonged together and which didn’t. Then again, I guess that’s just a long way of saying certain poems actually couldn’t have been included in the book. But I had to find that out. To answer the first part of your question, my current work in progress, Songs and Letters, is the first book I’ve approached from the beginning as a collection. While it is a mixture of poetry and prose, each piece plays a vital part. I’ve been working on the book for over two years now, and it contains almost 500 entries, all of which contribute in some way to the whole. And yet I’ve written them in such a way that even specifically sequential, interrelated pieces can stand alone and be read in any order.
JB: Mentioning Songs and Letters can only draw, in my mind, the connection to a few of your other ventures. For instance, No Time to Cut My Hair was a “ninety-day adventure in short story writing”; One Hand Clapping was a daily journal that spanned two years. Currently, as you mentioned, you’re knee deep in Songs and Letters. How do you come up with these exercises, and what, other than possibly your insanity, do they show about you as a writer?
WM: I think they show a number of things. They do prove my insanity—a fact of which I’m proud, although this is hardly of major importance. It’s more entertaining than anything else. They show that I truly love what I do. They show that I fully recognize I could die at any moment, and that I’m trying to get as much of my work done as possible while I’m still able and still here. With any luck I’ll die writing, and perhaps even while I’m in the act of writing. But that isn’t important either. For all I know, I might already be dead, and I just haven’t realized it yet. They show that I like a challenge. They show that I’m willing to try new things and take different approaches. They show that I’m impatient by nature, efficient, organized, and eager to see what comes of the effort. They show my reverence for the written word, and my unshakable belief in the power of language to entertain, to remind, and to awaken intelligence. I like to think they show a measure of creativity and spirit. When I work, I feel whole. When I write, I learn. And although I’m a very private person, it seems they show a certain need on my part to perform. Sometimes I remind myself of the prolific French writer Georges Simenon, the author of the Inspector Maigret series, who for a publicity stunt once proposed writing a book in public while inside a glass cage. I don’t know why, but such ideas appeal to me. I’m a gambler by nature. For me, there’s not much point in rolling the dice if there isn’t a chance that I might lose everything.
JB: And how do your readers seem to react to your performances? Do you seem to receive more or less feedback on these projects than on, say, your novel or other short stories? For one, I find it inspiring because you do follow through with these exercises; I feel a little like Mr. Smith staring at the statue of Abe Lincoln thinking, “Well, if he could do it….”
WM: That’s nice to hear. But of course old Abe had it a lot tougher than I do. Following through is the key. When I start a project, I’m really entering into an agreement—with myself, and with readers. If I don’t do what I say I’m going to do—well, I won’t even consider it. I couldn’t live with myself. That’s tough enough as it is. As for feedback, it’s more or less of a random nature, and arises when the right reader finds the right piece and it inspires him in some way. Over the years, there have been quite a few notes of general amazement. Occasionally I’ll wake up and find that a certain poem or story from my website, or even a simple notebook entry, has become a topic of conversation in a forum or blog, resulting in hundreds of new visitors. The same thing happens with my drawings.
JB: Even though you do have several print publications—poetry, fiction, short stories, etc.—it seems that your website is the primary way you present your work to the public. Can you talk a bit about the site, what it accomplishes, and how it has evolved over the years?
WM: If anything, the site is proof of my impatient, restless nature. Early on, I became bored and frustrated with the standard process of submitting work to magazines. I stuck with it through hundreds of rejections and a healthy number of publications, until I realized that I was gaining more readers in a week through my website than I usually gained in a year. Now I rarely submit work, and most of my publications are due to editors requesting the use of material. As much as I enjoy publishing online, though, I still prefer paper and ink, and the illusion of permanency it creates. Books are substantial. I love to look at them and hold them. To this day, when I pick up a new one, I can’t resist examining its construction and typography and inhaling its aroma. But I also have to be practical. Thanks to my website, which has grown from a simple framework of departments in 2001 into a bulging 900-page resource and literary playground, I now have readers from all corners of the world. I’ve received letters from China, India, Pakistan, Australia, England, Finland, Canada, Russia, South America, and many places in between. There is something for everyone—poetry, short stories, a novel, journal and notebook entries, drawings, recipes, book reviews. Recently I started a page where I list interesting and obsolete words from my 1924 Webster’s dictionary, interspersed with literary references taken from an old edition of the Reader’s Encyclopedia. And people have found it, and they read it, and look at it, and say, “Wow—the guy really is nuts.”
JB: Out of curiosity, can you give us one of those words and its meaning?
WM: I’d be delighted. In fact, I’ll give you one of each—a definition and a literary reference. First, the definition: mabble is an obsolete verb that means to wrap up, or to muffle. Darrel of the Blessed Isles is a novel written in 1903 by Irving Bacheller, concerning an old clock-maker who dwells in the “Blessed Isles” of his imagination.
JB: Hey—I still use the word mabble; it’s a hipper version of dabble. I mabble in writing, in publishing, and music.
Despite the fact that you would clean up on an episode of Jeopardy provided it contained a category titled “Obsolete Words,” this shows how much you care about language, about words and the way they sound and their myriad meanings. I feel this love of language comes through in your writing and is one of the reasons you’re such a popular writer.
WM: Bless you. And mabble we must, if there is to be hope for the world. I do love words. I love their flexibility, durability, and music, but I love equally the spaces and silences between them, and the magical way each lends meaning to the other. Silence, I think, is at the heart of all good writing. As is suffering. I have yet to read a great book, or listen to a great symphony, that hasn’t made me aware of the silence and suffering of the person who created it. Yet the result is always joyful. That is the miracle of art—that, and its ability to inspire and awaken others, if not to create their own art, then to live their lives and pursue their true vocations in an artful, creative, original way.
JB: You sound almost like a prophet.
WM: It’s probably just my beard—the outward sign of an inward malady. No, I’m just a lucky human being who loves what he does.
JB: Do you have any advice for writers?
WM: Yes. I have advice for writers, and also for readers. If you’re a writer, don’t continue writing unless you’re willing to die for your art. If you’re a reader, hold up your end of the bargain. Be eager and willing to work. Expand your horizons. Don’t be satisfied. Be discerning. Challenge yourself. But, when you get right down to it, that’s the same advice I’d give anyone. While you’re here, live. There is no shame in failure, only in not trying.This interview originally appeared in Cosmopsis Quarterly 2 - Fall 2007. Click here to order a copy or subscribe.