Two outstanding poets have met across the ocean to discuss literature, life and all the questions of the world exclusively for Fragmented Voices. Isn’t that what poetry and creativity are all about? Europe meets America, East meets West: Romanian poet, translator and editor Mircea Dan Duta interviews Californian wordsmith Dane Ince, Poet Laureate of California.
You are an outstanding poet and renowned activist. Yet you and your work and activities are not known to European readers, for example. Would you introduce yourself to our readers and highlight the most important things about yourself?
I grew up in Texas and it might be easy for folks in your part of the world to realize why an artist may no longer remain in Texas. I’m sure the news has travelled widely about the social problems in that state. To say that people in this part of America are downright hostile to anything different or outside their strict and intolerant worldview is to speak mildly of the everyday tragedy that occurs there. In my teenage years, I worked at a radio station that was bombed off the air twice by members of the Ku Klux Klan, once before I went to work there and once after I had left. Around those days I came to Berkeley, California, a far more socially tolerant place that fit me more comfortably because I was interested in studying Fine Arts, and through a series of events I wound up becoming involved in writing poetry. Currently, my aspiration would be to make a stronger connection with respect to Romanian culture and European culture and to integrate myself more fully into the realm of arts around the world and hope to do the same thing by familiarizing Americans with the works that are happening and being created by their contemporaries from faraway places and across our country. I would say the most important thing I would like to share is my desire to connect to humanity. I am influenced by ancient Eastern thought. This is not to say that I strictly adhere to any organized system of values. Life is a practice and sometimes when you find a way to help others, you wind up helping yourself.
One of the most interesting details in your biography and career is your title as Poet Laureate of California. Can you explain what that means? What does it entail?
I was honoured by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, https://nationalbeatpoetryfoundation.org/. This is different from state or city-sponsored laureates. The founder of the organization has a great interest in lifting up contemporary poets. They honour poets around the world for their poetry, work as artists, and the work of these artists in their community that helps to make the world a better place. It is an honour among peers. It does entail more work beyond the concerns of creating poetry. The details of this work vary by artist depending upon their social commitments.
When did you start writing? Can you describe your journey and development as a poet? How long did it take you to achieve success and under what circumstances did it happen?
My route to writing comes from a background as an actor, and fine arts. I look upon poetry and its writing as an extension of my investigation of the artist’s concerns regarding the elements that an artist employs to investigate thematic elements or subject matter of interest. The brushstrokes are the words. Maybe I would write poetry as a journalist if my journalism was practised as an abstract expressionist painter. None of the writing that I did as a younger person exists any longer. I have written in a non-serious way since my teenage years. The death of my wife and Covid-19 figure prominently in my renewed interest in the craft of writing poetry. To me, the interest in writing was not a healing journey. I was on a healing journey, and I wanted to make art, so I selected the medium of language to create the works. Not all the work during this period focuses on grief and loss, it is just one of many focuses. I do not need a studio and all that comes with that avenue of expression. All that is required is me, a pencil and paper. I could even do it without the pencil and paper by reciting on a street corner.
Covid-19 caused a worldwide renaissance through Zoom poetry readings. I went to Zoom readings nearly every day and on many days several readings in one day. I took note of the brilliant artists I encountered and became friends with from around the world. Not wanting to read the same poems at every reading, it was not long before I had written enough poems for several books. I am not sure I would describe anything as success. I think that tragedy has allowed me to get back to being myself in a fuller way than I have ever been before and at a time when I have a set of skills to employ in the pursuit of this work. When artists find themselves in the right place, then all rewards flow from that and this is the kind of success to be sought after.
What are the sources of inspiration for your poems? Personally, I think I can detect in some of them flavours of the beat poetry of the 60s, traces of Kerouac, Bukowski and Browning, but also influences of contemporary social currents within American poetry. What other authors and currents have influenced your work over time?
The most inspirational experience I have is being in the presence of contemporary artists. The world is filled with great artists all trying to find audiences. I am glad to be part of the audience.
I am flattered when people see connections in my work with the Beats. It is unintentional on my part but only to the extent that I am not trying to emulate any of the past greats. The strong connection does exist and may be owing to a natural affinity to the Beats in terms of aesthetics. From Kerouac’s-30-rules-writing, “In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you.” This is a process that I learned about and practiced as a visual artist and an actor. It is a deep study of the subject of interest.
“Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind.” This is very influential on me and it is what I do and why I write poetry. Part of the journey is the awareness of self on the journey of life and to allow and accept the truth of that self and let it be free and completely itself in the creative process.
“No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language & knowledge.” This admonition is very important to me because there are so many ways artists will stop themselves or they may be stopped by social constraints. At one point, people spoke of art for art’s sake and that stopped me from growing and producing as an artist. I now frame the issue as art for humanity’s sake. Oh, to be sure, the former has produced wonderful works of art that have profoundly shaped our lives. The more powerful driver for me is finding the connection between my deep self and what others experience in their lives. The most accessible of these for me are grief, loss, love, food, humour, intolerance, injustice and the painfully beautiful agony of the life we love and the people we are fortunate to share it with.
In this context, could you please also mention contemporary poetry?
I am seeking out new work on a daily basis, online via social media platforms, author’s pages, publisher’s pages where they publish clips of the poets reading their work and from open mics around the world. I host a weekly open mic and I attend many events weekly so I am exposed to hundreds of poems weekly in addition to catching up on my various reading interests. I think of the process as feeding the body, mind, and soul. I am an omnivore and look for inspiration outside of a diet of strictly poetry. The world is filled with wonderful and talented artists everywhere. So, I am a little reluctant to call out a limited set of authors as this list would be comprised of just artists I have come to know and that list would be very small. I am not able to speak as an academic on the matter. Academics have their place in the world, and they are responsible for criticism and education that produces great works of art. All paths lead to Nirvana. I do not subscribe to the notion that one must do this or that particular exercise in order to write poetry or create any other form of art. One must live first, feed their souls richly and practice as they themselves see fit. I may decide to never paint a watercolour. I may arrive at the conclusion that all the ideas I am interested in are best discussed via sculpture and in that case, I may wish to fill my head with Rodin.
The three of us (Natálie Nera, you and I) met as part of a programme that you and I had organised together, dedicated to the drama of the Ukraine war. This programme gave us the opportunity to meet many poets from Central and Eastern Europe and from all over the world. Are there any names that particularly caught your eye, whose works you consider remarkable?
I will always be grateful for our collaboration on this project. I believe we were one of the first groups of artists to speak out on this tragedy. The event we produced, “Women Children Ukraine War- Artists Speak: Poets from around the world join to share solidarity with the people of Ukraine,” is still available on Facebook for viewing at https://www.facebook.com/dane.ince/videos/494939372298264. I thought all the artists from Central and Eastern Europe were remarkable and I would like to mention their names here in thanks for their sharing, not in any order, Lucilla Trapazzo, Dumitru Crudu, Alessandra Psaropoulo, Jana Orlová, Iryna Zahladko, Ilona Witkowska, Antje Stehn, Georgiana Marculescu, Natálie Nera, Iva Damjanovski, Marilyne Bertoncini, and Valarie Barbas.
Do you think there´ is something that unites poetry all over the world? If so, what do you think are these possible unifying elements? Do you see any patterns here?
We are united in fact by our beating hearts and the human experience of our lives and deaths. We are united by air and water and this one earth, our one universal mother. Poets everywhere see this and make it part of their lives work. I see this pattern expressed globally every day by artists speaking out about what it means to them to be alive. I celebrate them in their singular experience that illuminates for me what the journey is about.
Do you think there is such a thing as a personal responsibility of poets/writers (or, more generally, artists) towards the world we live in? If so, what does this kind of responsibility consist of?
I see the responsibility as being deeply personal and unique to the individual artist. Being truly yourself and speaking your truth about the matters you believe are important to communicate to the rest of the world, this is what the responsibility entails. In due course, we will get around to commentary on the issues of the day, the environment, justice, and free people living freely in a tolerant world where diversity is cherished. Is there only one music? I think not and all music is wonderful and valuable and not all of it needs to be enjoyed by everyone all the time. People need to make music as they please and to enjoy the music of others and that is my view on poetry.
Not only in this context – how important do you think poetry and more generally art and creativity are today?
Poetry is as necessary as air. Like water, we cannot live without poetry. No one needs to know this except poets because someone must do the work. Like it or not the work will be done as long as people walk this earth there will be song. We need sonnets, Ae Freslighe, and haiku like we need food.
A very interesting aspect of your activity is that you decided to also take up a parallel activity in publishing. Why did you make this – for many surprising – decision? Especially since it is an activity that involves very high financial risks.
I am old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway. I have been in meditation on this subject for about three years now. I have more questions than when I started. I approach this activity as an artist. I have no interest in green eye shades or world domination of the entertainment market. Poets and poetry are in the entertainment business, like it or not we compete with the makers of movies and amusement parks. I have come to know many great artists who are not able to get published because they are not a Stephen King or JK Rowling. I am not convinced the world needs another publishing company but we sure as hell need to break the hold of the gatekeepers.
And you have started with four very interesting authors. Would you like to introduce them – and the respective titles – to us?
I have the great honour to work with Lesley Constable on her second volume of poetry “A house without walls: Existential journeys and love poems to Mexico.” Lesley is a visionary artist and poet with a deep connection to Huichol culture that she has been influenced by because she resides in Sayulita, Mexico as well as the UK with her husband Martín Del Toro Gutierrez. I will be publishing Martín’s first book “La Naturaleza Del Amor” in Spanish and English. Martín is a visual artist and a spoken word artist. “The Green Notebook” is John Angell Grant’s first book of poetry. He is a longtime San Francisco Bay Area theatre critic, playwright, filmmaker and scholarly author of “Women And Religion In The Modern Drawing Room: Plays Of T.S. Eliot.” I am grateful that Mimi German has placed her second volume of poetry, “Where Grasses Bend: Poems from Portland to Steens Mountain in the time of plagues,” with me for publication. Mimi is an activist in Portland working on houselessness. She is Beat Poet Laureate for Oregon. John’s book and Mimi’s book are available in the U.S. now, and will be available in Romania and Poland soon.
Which other authors do you plan to publish in the future?
I have plans to work with Oakland, California poet Dee Allen on his eighth book, “Crimson Stain: Poems inspired by King’s letter from jail, real life & A Facet of Blood Diamond Culture.” It has a forward by Lantern Carrier, an eminently known spiritual poet from the United Kingdom, and it will be available in February 2024.
Why do you think there are numerous poets who dare to take this – more or less risky – step of taking up a parallel activity as a publisher?
Poets have an independent streak and perhaps are a little more radical than other artists and they wish to seize the means of production for themselves so that they can speak freely. They wish to help others and in so doing reap the benefits for themselves as well.
And what about your own plans for the future? What titles is the poet Dane Ince preparing?
The plans for the future include a book of tanka titled “Morning Tanka” with Mercedes Dugger and with Japanese translations by Yuuri Miki, and a book of pulp poems I define as beat noir called “Destiny Murder!” I wrote a poem and it left me with the distinct impression that I had written a poem by accident that was very easily something to be included in the genre of film noir. I then proceeded to write several more with that specific goal in mind. I am working on a book with photos called “Texas Poems.” The artist never escapes place and so I come back to embrace a gossamer filtration of the quality of the place where I grew.
Dane Ince is a publisher, filmmaker, artist, and an international poet, currently Beat Poet Laureate for California. Mircea Dan Duta, is a Romanian poet who chooses to write in his second language – Czech. He is also a translator, literary event organiser and an academic.