Sharon Berg Interviews John Oughton

(Ekstasis Editions, 2023)

John Oughton

Sharon Berg:  First, I’d like to thank you for finding time to do this interview with me.

Writers are asked about influences upon their work all the time, and I can’t resist. As someone who spent much of his life teaching language-related courses, and as someone who is part of a dedicated workshop presently, how much have those experiences affected the poetry in The Universe and All That? In other words, how much do you think the outer framework for your writing experience affects your inside experience of language and form?

John Oughton:  Hmm, this question might need a book to answer fully. The reason is that I think everything we read (and certainly, teach) has some effect or influence on what we later write. That might take the form of an overt homage, like a glosa, cento, or epigraph, or it may be more subtle, in the rhythm of words and style of imagery. I've sometimes re-read a line of my own and realized it was closely patterned on someone else's work; then, I might have revised it to make the echo less obvious.

Teaching writing has encouraged me to make my own work clearer, unless I'm aiming for surrealism or randomness, to (as I used to advise writing students) find the "through line" of thought or feeling in a piece, and remove anything cluttering that up. In the Long Dash workshop, which I've been part of for almost a quarter-century, other poets have helped me to tighten my work up, removing extraneous words, unnecessary articles, and prepositions, so that I can now do this myself. Also, our members share an interest in visual art, which led to a decade-long collaboration with the studio artists of the Women's Art Association of Canada.  The Ekphrastic section of my book recalls this work.
 
The last thing I'll add is that, although I'm aware of many of the "schools" within poetry—modernism, surrealism, minimalism, New Formalism, Beat, L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E, concrete, etc., I've never felt the need to situate my work only within one of them, but rather borrow techniques and forms that suit what I'm trying to express.

SB:  How do you think this book fits in the stream of all of your literary works? Is there some fundamental difference between this book and your prior books?
 
JO:  I'd say that it explores a broader range of topics or themes, and draws on a larger set of inspirations than my other collections.  Likely these developments are results of how my own perspective and interests have evolved over the more-than-a-decade period since my last poetry book. For example, my earlier work Mata Hari's Lost Words was a biography in poetic form that focused on issues of seduction, power, and the silencing of a notorious woman by male authority. By contrast The Universe and All That includes poems about current news, visual art, scientific discoveries and theories, and strangers on the street as well as the usual personal meditations on relationships, family, mortality—and all that.
 
SB:  Your poetry expresses a keen wisdom that is rooted in knowing something about human- kind and our social patterns. I think you’d likely deflect a compliment, but you’re an astute observer, drawing word portraits of a carpenter, or a scientist sharing their skills, or the scene surrounding a body washed up on the beach. You deal with trauma, but you also write off-the-cuff humour about everyday life. How important to you is it to mix the serious and the funny in your approach to poetry?

JO:  It's quite important to me.  I feel poetry, like any art, should draw on, and evoke, the full range of human emotions. Life offers us a full serving of comedy, tragedy, and everything in between, and our work should mirror that. I enjoy reading and writing poetry that is humorous, playful, elegiac, angry, speculative, and so on. It seems to me those who declare they can't stand poetry often associate it only with a romantic, precious, trite and sentimental quality. The best way to counter that is to share a poem that is direct and brutal, funny, or (as you note in your question) simply an observation of someone or something without an overt judgment. I'd also note that poets who, like me, started writing in their teens, often focus at first on their own concerns, joys, pains, and identity. When you mature, though, you realize that others are just as deserving of literary consideration as you are. Also, poems don't have to concern only love and death. Can one be inspired by science, technology, math, politics or philosophy? You bet. Just don't lecture your readers or tell them what to think.

SB:  Every book takes a stance in the midst of the social and political concerns of its day. How do you describe the position of this book and its area of concern in today’s world?

JO:  I'm an old leftie, pro-union, anti-oppression, and very concerned about human effects on the environment in the Anthropocene era. I also feel compassion for the many people who are shunted aside or ignored in the mass adulation and special treatment of the rich, powerful and famous-for-being-famous (the Kardashians come to mind). My age also plays a factor in my viewpoint. Although they may be small compared to the ongoing evolution of the universe, I've experienced many changes over my life: many good, some bad, in society, culture, technology, and our knowledge of the world. Although I try to avoid mindless nostalgia in my writing, I do sometimes miss those simpler times, when one didn't feel guilt for simply being another human consuming resources.

SB:  Titles are often difficult to come up with, though some authors seem to begin there. What was your experience in developing a title for this book?

JO:  My original title for this collection was taken from one of the poems, “If Birds Invented Music.” I liked it for its quirkiness and sense of posing a question rather than making a statement.  However, in discussing this issue with my editor (Antonio d'Alfonso), I agreed that it might not appeal to all potential readers.  Instead, considering the many poems that draw on scientific discoveries and theories about space, cosmology, and the history of the earth, I came up with The Universe and All That, which most people seem to like. "I wanted to be inclusive," I said as a joke, but it's true.

SB:  Authors speak of multiple drafts when they are working on a book. Can you share your experience? Did the length of the book change dramatically at any point in time after you completed the first draft? Please explain.

JO:  Because it's a poetry collection, it changed several times, not so much in length, but in which poems were added, which taken out, and which soldiered on from the previous iteration. I initially had four thematic sections, but my editor preferred the sections be removed, except for the final one, Ekphrastic. Just as a note that may comfort others trying to get their first book published, I'll add that, although I had five previous collections published and generally good reviews (when I got any), this collection was turned down by two publishers before it found a home.  The first time was a little strange; the publisher was a well-known one. It had a two-reader system, which produced what I'd call a "rave rejection." My manuscript was returned with the note that the first reader thought it ambitious, well-written and deserving publication; the second rejected it for unknown reasons. Of course, I had the usual writer's self-confidence issue, wondering if I should give up altogether.  But I threw out a few of what seemed weaker poems, added some new ones, tried another established press which promised an answer within three months. After six, I reminded them and finally got a rejection with no comments attached. However, third time lucky.

SB:  Something that often interests readers is knowing how much of a certain work is invented and how much is autobiographical. Would you care to share your approach/thoughts on this aspect of your readers’ curiosity?

JO:  As I mentioned in an earlier answer, I do write poems about other people, imagining their lives and experiences, as well as detailing my own.  It might be fair to say that the feelings are my own, but like a playwright or novelist, I'm assigning them to strangers who seem to fit. Their realities, of course, may be difficult. An example of this is "When Normal Life Becomes Heaven," in which I hypothesized from news stories the emotions of Chilean miners who were trapped underground for two months. Some of the poems draw on a variety of experiences, my own and other people's. The rather cynical "Uncouplets" recounts break-up reasons from various others' relationships. Other poems like "Down I Dug," "Summer Camp" and "22 Forest Hill Drive" are inspired entirely by my own life.

SB: Many people say that an author is never really finished with their work and would always wish to adjust and tweak their writing. Do you feel that way about this book, wishing you could change something? 

JO:  I suspect the saying is true for most writers, including me. There are so many synonyms for most concepts in English, so many different ways of expressing similar emotions or thoughts, that one ends up second-guessing.  With poetry, unlike prose, many of these choices are more aesthetic than logical, and the sound of words and use of line breaks, stanza breaks and other techniques are all partners in building a successful poem.  So it's hard not to read a published work and think, "I should have changed/eliminated/moved that line elsewhere." Recently, as a result of constantly evolving computer systems and data storage devices, I found myself retyping some earlier poems for a new collection. Yes, Your Honour, I was guilty of changing a few line breaks and words in the process. This is one reason why it's so important for any writer to have a good editor, who knows when to say, "Stop. That's as good as you're going to get this now. Cease tinkering, and start submitting."

SB:  Please describe the central idea that links all of the parts in this collection and why you felt it was important to address this in contemporary times.
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JO:  It's a common perception that in this age, with a blizzard of information and opinion thrown at us 24/7, one advantage of a book is that the reader gets to experience the relatively coherent and private reactions of another individual trying to process such challenging times. In this collection, for example, one might observe that I'm working on such questions as "What meaning do these increasingly strange discoveries and theories of modern physics have for everyday people who aren't math geniuses? How can visual art speak to us, not merely as a representation of some person or place, but a stimulus for our own explorations? If you actually look at strangers on the street instead of your phone, what feelings do they inspire in you?" Exploring these issues, with (I hope) some creativity in the way they're expressed, is a break from the daily onslaught of bad news and celebrity scandals. I'd like it to resemble the difference between trying to make your way through rush hour on a crowded subway, and sitting under a tree, feeling its quiet presence and all the gifts it brings: shade, oxygen, soil retention, and somewhere to rest your back.
 
SB:  The poetry of The Universe and All That points out how the anger in some men, and the boardroom deals of various CEOs have caused us to face a highly troublesome future. In this age of climate change we’re dealing with the disappearance of the bees as well as the classic issue of the harm done to women or our neighbours’ children. Many of your poems hint at despair, though your work is positive overall. Can you speak to how poetry about those issues might make a difference in how humanity proceeds?

JO:  W.H. Auden famously wrote that "poetry makes nothing happen."  On its own, it's just another voice shouting in the informational storm, less likely to create positive change than a protest or donation to an effective organization. All it can do, in my opinion, is add some emotional complexity to how others view big topics like economic inequity, violence in families, climate change, species extinction, and habitat destruction, not to mention our habit of waging wars and invasions. If a poem of mine made some decision-maker a bit less likely to look at nature as simply the provider of raw resources to be gobbled up for profit, and more likely to see it as a complex network of life that we all need for survival, I'd be happy.
 
SB:  Thank you, once again, for joining me in this interview process, John.
 
JO:  Thanks for your interest in my work, and for asking questions that made me think.

​John Oughton first lived in Guelph, a block away from the birthplace of "In Flanders Fields" poet John McCrae. After sojourns in Iraq, Egypt, and Japan, he now resides in Toronto's Beaches area. He studied literature at York U. with Irving Layton, Eli Mandel, Frank Davey, and Miriam Waddington, and later completed two non-credit summer sessions at Naropa U.'s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Col., where he was research assistant to Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. He has published close to 500 articles, reviews, blogs, and interviews, as well as six poetry collections, the most recent being The Universe and All That (Ekstasis Editions). He has also written a mystery novel, Death by Triangulation; and Higher Teaching: A Handbook for New Postsecondary Faculty. He retired as Professor of Learning and Teaching from Centennial College, where he first taught English and then led faculty development. His current pursuits include guitar, photography, and kayaking.

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Sharon Berg is a poet, a fiction author, and an historian of First Nations education in Canada. She's published her poetry in periodicals across Canada, as well as in the USA, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, India, and Australia. Her first two books were poetry published by Borealis Press (To a Young Horse, 1979) and Coach House Press (The Body Labyrinth, 1984). This was followed by two audio cassette tapes from Gallery 101 (Tape 5, 1985) and Public Energies (Black Moths 1986). She also published three chapbooks with Big Pond Rumours Press in 2006, 2016 & 2017. Her fiction appeared in journals in Canada and the USA. Porcupine's Quill released her debut fiction collection Naming the Shadows in the Fall of 2019. Her cross-genre history The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School was published in 2019 by Big Pond Rumours Press and received a Bronze 2020 IPPY Award for Best Regional Nonfiction in Canada East. She lives in Charlottetown, Newfoundland, Canada.