Grace Cavalieri's Interviews [by Nin Andrews]

NA: I thought of you, Grace, when I attended an interview with Amore Towles, conducted by Jim Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia. The interview was such a disappointment. Ryan’s questions were so generic and uninspired, I wondered if he had even read Towles’ work. I kept thinking, if only Terry Gross or Grace Cavalieri were doing the interview. You are the Terry Gross of poetry.

Afterwards, I began to think about what goes into a good interview. How much research do you do for your interviews?   

GC: I read everything the U.S. POET LAUREATES have ever written before interviews, and for other poets, I know their latest book(s) thoroughly.

NA:  It’s remarkable, this skill you have as an interviewer. What is the secret to conducting a good interview? 

GC: I taught a course on radio once in Foxhall College and the whole course was based on one thing: Only ask questions if you REALLY want to know the answer. Nothing else works.

NA: One thing I love about your interviews: there is often this moment when you are telling the poets something they don’t know about their own poems. You surprise them. In your interview with Lucille Clifton, for example, you tell her that jazz influenced her work. And how. She responds that she loves jazz but has never thought about it. She asks you to explain. And you do, of course, so brilliantly. In that interview and others, I felt the bond you have with the poets/poetry. There is a similar moment in your recent interview with A. B. Spellman, when you correct him about the quality of his early work.

 GC: Thank you. So very much.

NA: What was it like to interview Lucille Clifton?

GC: Lucille, one of the GREATS of our generation, yet, always acted as if she were being noticed for the first time—although she had been an icon early on. Her poetry was very important to her, and its inclusion in “the Canon” was something she was vigilant about. Her life had been one overcoming racial obstacles; so anyone paying attention to her work was always rewarded with her warmth and generosity, and a complete giving of “self.”

NA: Then there’s your interview with Louise Glück. I imagine she was more difficult to interview. I felt as if I understood her better after reading your interview.  I loved this exchange:

 Grace:

I have often said you do something no other poet does as well . . . You can take the emotion, the very fragile feeling, and you build a scenario around it. You build a house around the feeling. Now that sounds like something everyone does, but no one does it exactly as you do. It is misunderstood as autobiography sometime, but it is fiction, except for the feelings. Where did you get your confidence in story?

Louise:

Well, that’s a quite curious question.

Grace:

It’s like fairy tales for adults.

Louise:

It’s actually a rather profound question, and I fear I will not do it justice. It’s immediately starting my thought. But, I think that it’s, in saying to write, you’re going to write that which most concerns you, which most quickens your mind, and then to turn those subjects over with as resourceful and complex a touch as possible.

NA: Can you talk about interviewing Louise Glück?

GC: It is Glück's only radio interview extant (other than the NOBEL) and I know why! The only reason she agreed was because she was one of four Poets Laureate for the Library of Congress Centennial, and the other three agreed. Halfway through the talk she said “I’m tired. I’m stopping.” Knowing this was expected by public radio as a one-hour “Special.” I panicked – but hastily scrambled to ask her a question about Ararat. In that it was early work, she perked up and forgot herself and answered—from there I kept coaxing her up to the hour with questions from early books that got little notice. I love her work.

NA: What is one of your favorite interviews?    

GC: David Keplinger. We just seem to jive some sort of way and it felt like riding on a moonbeam.

NA: I can see that, or rather, hear that. Yes, I love how you aptly defined him as a poet of mercy. During the interview, he reads this beautiful poem from his book, Ice. 

NA: How did The Poet and the Poem come about?  

GC: I was teaching poetry at Antioch College 1970-75 and thought it was fine to have twenty in a class or 200 in a lecture hall, but what if poetry could reach 200,000? Then, I heard a new station going on the air--a JAZZ station--WPFW-FM, perfect for poetry, so I quit Antioch and raised funds for two years as WPFW core staff. Then poetry was prime time every day! After 20 years on-air, I took it to the Library of Congress for national distribution, once again raising the funds for it.  (Do you see a $$ pattern?)

NA: So, you continually raise funds for poetry? You do this on your own?

GC: I am a line-item in no one’s budget, so I write grants every year for THE POET AND THE POEM (47 years so far). Now, I am initiating a new reading series at St John’s College of Annapolis; and I’m raising money to fund that enterprise. No one can really help, because all I have is my passion for the project—and no one else has that.

NA: How many interviews have you done? 

GC: About 3,500. Hard to say but I’ve presented that many for sure. Once a year on WPFW I had
“live” poets and jazz on for 12 hours straight, so lots got presented. And this “Ribbon of Song”
won the CPB silver medal.

NA: You interviewed for 12 hours straight?  

GC: Apologies: I presented for 12 hours straight, producing live poetry and live jazz without interruption. It was a massive preproduction, production and postproduction, organizing all those wild spirits. I think WPFW broadcast it one day a year, for 10 years. Dinner was always late that night.

NA: We poets of the world are so grateful to you. And to Ken. I don’t want to forget to mention your beloved husband, Ken. Did he take part in the interviews when he was alive?

GC: You are making me cry. You, above all, seem to know what Ken was in my life. He was always sitting in the front row; always bankrolling my projects with his Navy salary (he called it ‘government funding for the arts.’) He kept a roof over my head while I played in the sandbox that I loved. Thank you, Nin, for remembering the time you met at the L of C , and now In Memoriam.

NA: Let’s close with a poem for Ken.

Safety by Grace Cavalieri
For Ken Flynn

When you were in the 9th grade and I was in the 7th, you were
a crossing guard keeping order at Junior High School Number 3.
No one
was disobedient when you wore that wide yellow strap across
your chest—
no one bruised another, caused trouble, or so much as threw a
stone—
no one cracked a joke about you, a man in uniform. How did
that yellow vest feed your soul to let you know someday you’d
fly a plane just to feel the power of a strap across your chest.
What
liberation— to know how to be in charge— strong and capable—
flying through gunfire and lightning again and again to come
back to me.
Although we were young, you were 15 and I was 13, since then,
I’ve never
known the world without you. Now I must be 12.

 

Comments

[Janice F. Booth]

Thank you, Nin, for sharing Grace and your insights about her work. Your interview lifts the veil of modesty Grace wears when her own work is in the spotlight. Grace is energy and devotion, forces that carry poetry's lighted torch; she will not allow the light to fade. And with your interview, Grace Cavalieri's light shines brighter and farther.

[Dr. Hiram Larew]

In my mind's ear, I can hear The Grace answering these good questions. Thanks for producing and sharing the interview. Hiram Larew

[Sally Bliumis-Dunn]

What a stunning ending to Grace's poem, "Safety," and I am so grateful to you, Nin, for your portrait of Grace's dedication to poets and poetry. I was always curious about "the whole story."

[Grace Cavalieri]

Thank you dear Nin for all your posts, and this one which is my holiday happiness.