Ask the Author: Gary Mesick
Answered Questions (4)
Gary Mesick
My next book, of course! That means looking through poems, trying to find themes, seeing if a coherent whole emerges. In the meantime, I continue to write new poems, and I continue to submit them to literary journals. I have been a bit distracted by getting my digital house in order in advance of the release of "General Discharge." But I know it takes a long time to put a book together, so there is no time like the present to begin thinking about the next one.
Gary Mesick
Stop waiting for inspiration. It doesn't work like that. Start writing. Keep writing. Finish something. Start again.
Gary Mesick
I didn’t, really. I have a lot of poems that have nothing to do with my military experience. But once I had published quite a few poems in literary journals, I felt it was time to collect some of them in a book. I organized them in a few ways before I realized I had such a large number of military poems.
Those poems came about in part because the military is, as we used to say, a “target-rich environment” for the kind of paradox I’m drawn to. Here’s a war protester who grows up to become a soldier. There’s a coward who joins the infantry. Here’s a guy who captures the enemy while sleeping on duty. There’s a boxer who doesn’t want to throw a punch.
But also, I think, I saw that this perspective on things was a bit unusual. Soldiers have been writing poetry forever, but people still need to be reminded that soldiers, veterans, are intelligent, sensitive, articulate people—who just happen to know five ways to kill you with their bare hands (I couldn’t resist—another paradox, you know?)
Those poems came about in part because the military is, as we used to say, a “target-rich environment” for the kind of paradox I’m drawn to. Here’s a war protester who grows up to become a soldier. There’s a coward who joins the infantry. Here’s a guy who captures the enemy while sleeping on duty. There’s a boxer who doesn’t want to throw a punch.
But also, I think, I saw that this perspective on things was a bit unusual. Soldiers have been writing poetry forever, but people still need to be reminded that soldiers, veterans, are intelligent, sensitive, articulate people—who just happen to know five ways to kill you with their bare hands (I couldn’t resist—another paradox, you know?)
Gary Mesick
By looking closely at the world for something remarkable. Anything that seems out of the ordinary, a little off-kilter, might give birth to a poem.
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