Monday, October 30, 2006

Drawl

Just came across this interview / discussion with Rodney Jones over at Blackbird. I love it because it's Rodney. Talking. That's pretty much a guarantee for genius or madness or, most likely, both. You can listen to it via Real Audio or read the transcript. Here's an excerpt:

"Okay, how do you know a poem is good? Okay, here’s one of the things that would suggest to you that a poem is good. Let’s say you have a master poet in your mind, say the early works of Hitler that you really like and you think I want to be like Hitler. And you write a poem, and it seems to approach Hitler, and so you, that’s one of the things, it’s like if you’re playing music and you’re able to play a Jim Hall solo that sounds like Jim Hall. It seems very good to me that if I could do that, which I can’t. If you write maybe your own kind of poem, you will not have that marker because you do not know what you smell like."

In about three years, I'll figure that out. :)

6 comments:

poethussy said...

Not sure what all I should take from this. Should we be smelling ourselves?

Do you smell yourself?

Hmmmmm....

Brilliant stuff. Promise I'll listen to the whole thing.

J

Oliver de la Paz said...

OMG. That's CLASSIC Rodney Jones. Brilliant! Madness! What's the difference?!

By the way, dunno if Adrian Matejka told you this, but for years I thought Rodney Jones was a six-foot-six black man . . . and then I met him. :D

Paul said...

Wait--Rodney isn't a six-foot-six black man?

Oliver de la Paz said...

Wait. . . hmmm. Maybe that's all changed since he quit smoking.

Allison J. said...

Sorry, guys, Rodney's smoking again.
But he does have laser vision now, due to off-season cataract surgery.

Marigoldie said...

This Rodney Jones Q & A is wonderful and hilarious. My inspiration has shifted from wanting to write a poem to wanting to impersonate him perfectly. Love it.