Charles Coe: People's Poet
Interviewed by Doug Holder
Lucid Moon Interview #8:
Charles
Coe looks like a man comfortable in his own skin. He proved to be a gracious,
focused and engaging host. While sitting in the living room of his Cambridge
apartment, I discussed with this Massachussets Cultural Council Poetry Fellowship
winner his development as an artist, and his first collection of poetry,
PICNIC ON THE MOON, published by Leap Frog Press of Wellfleet, MA.
Coe has worn many hats in his forty
seven years. He was and is a jazz musician, activist, freelance writer, arts
administrator and veteran of all the vagaries and good times life has to
offer. With the deep, wizened voice of a blues singer, he traced his path
as a young black kid in Indiana, to his years at Earlham College, to where
he is now, an accomplished artist of more than one medium.
DH: First off Charles, I always ask folks, how did they
become a poet or writer. Was this a conscious decision, or was it a slow
natural evolution?
CC: I started writing poetry as a teenager. Hopefully, that poetry
won't see the light of day (laughing). Then about 10 or 12 years ago I was
doing music...but I started to move away from that. I was reading a Frost
poem, "ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT", and it blew my mind. It really plugged
into a lot of things that were going on in my life, which was in a state
of transition. That poem was about transition, and things being unsettled.
It hit me, I thought: "This is something I want to do." There was almost
a celluar level of recognition. If a poem could affect me like this, then
this was something I want to try. That's how I got started.
DH: What I like about your poems are their accessibility, the skillful
use of the vernacular, the tongue in cheek, their playfulness, but their
dead seriousness. Is it hard to combine all these elements?
CC: Yes it is hard to make it look easy. When you read a poem that
is conversational, the reader thinks: "Hey, that is like the guy talking;
that's not hard to do." However, it involves a lot of work to perfect your
craft. You have to be able to refine and hone your writing. Every word has
to pull its weight. I read my stuff aloud when I'm writing. My background
is as a musician, so I depend on my ear. There are things I can pick up by
reading aloud, that can't always be picked up by reading a word on the page.
My approach to writing poems is very different than songs. My songs are very
formalistic...metered, and rhyme in a very traditional way. My poems aren't
so formally constructed.
DH: I often come across poetry that is impressionistic, which is
okay, as you say in your poem, YO POETS! one should never be a slave to
rules. Your poems paint a well-defined picture but seem to have a message
as well. Do you make a conscious effort to achieve this? Or does it seem
to play out that way?
CC: I'm trying to reach general ideas about the world by using very
concrete or specific images. I've been very influenced by Haiku. I try to
produce an "ah-a!" response, an epiphany, by examining something very ordinary.
DH: In your poem "News From The Front," so much happens in a very
ordinary day. You find the profound in the banal -- A Madonna in your drawer,
the mail delivery, things like these supply all the material you need for
a poem.
CC: Yes, when I read poems, these are the poems I find most effective.
So, when I write poetry, I try to achieve the same feeling. I remember the
William Carlos Williams poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow." It is a beautiful little
poem. So much depends simply on the image of the red wagon. The poem is
not really about anything, but there is so much communicated by this seemingly
insignificant object. It does take confidence to write simply. You know,
some young musicians when they start out, play a million notes. It takes
confidence for a poet to write simply, or for a musician to play a few
expressive notes. The great blues musicians express the whole universe in
one or two notes. I've studied more formal structures of poetry, but that
is simply not the way I express myself. I don't have any religious fervor
about the way I write... it is the way I write. It is the kind of poetry
that I like to read. There are other people like the language poets, or deconstructionists,
whatever... and that's their thing. I'm not judging it. there are no rules.
DH: You put in your epigraph to your new book, Picnic on the Moon,
" I come from where I've been." Your poems deal with your experiences as
a teenager at a James Brown concert, the day Kennedy was shot, Ella Fitzgerald's
voice slicing through the joyful hysteria of a summer barbecue, and the
testing of your religious faith. Do you believe in the maxim, "Write what
you know.?" Are you able to take a great leap from your own experiences and
history in your poetry?
CC: I think so. " Write what you know," is sometimes misinterperted.
When I think about that maxim, I'm thinking of emotions, the range of feeling.
No matter what their circumstances, people know joy, pain, lust, hunger,etc...Anyone
sensitive to the human condition can put themselves in someone else's shoes.
There is a poem in, PICNIC ON THE MOON, " She Awakens," about a homeless
woman in a shelter. I'm not that woman, nor have I ever lived in a shelter.
I read that poem to women who were in that situation and they were emotionally
effected by it. They said," How the hell did you know these things." I think
if you have a creative imagination and do a little legwork, you can move
outside your direct experience. Of course, you have to do your homework.
My editor at Leapfrog Press, Marge Piercy, does loads of historical research
for her books. To be a good writer, you must go outside your own way of
looking at the world.
DH: PICNIC ON THE MOON is your first published book. You tell me
that you are 47. What took you so long?
CC: A lot of procrastination. I never really had a careeist attitude
about it. I'm starting to get a sense of urgency as I approach 50. Time
isn't limitless. I was writing for awhile, but not always submitting. I was
writing for my own, and a few friends pleasure. It became clear that it was
necessary to focus, and take my writing seriously. I mean "seriously" in
regard to getting it published.
DH: You also contributed to that CD, " One Side of the River," with
such poets as Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky and others. How was that? C.C.:
That was a gas. it had some wonderful stuff in it.
DH: What do you think of Robert Pinsky?
CC: I really have a lot of respect for him. He tries to inspire non-academics,
non-professionals to get involved. Pinsky is just not glad handling on the
banquet and cocktail party circuit.
DH: You seem to wear many hats. You work as a coordinator for the
Mass. Cultural Council Organizational Support Program, you are an accomplished
jazz vocalist and performer and a long time activist in the National Writer's
Union. Can you talk about these roles, and how they fit in with your life
as a poet?
CC: Big question. I like to keep myself occupied with a lot of things.
Sometimes it's a bit of a strain. All these things reinforce each other.
My work as an activist gives me credibility as an arts administrator, and
that work helps me as an artist. As a feelance writer I'm totally committed
to writer's rights, the control of our words. This is why I've been involved
in the Writer's Union for a number of years. The music has taken a back seat,
but it's never far from my mind. I'm always writing and sneaking some music
in my spoken word performances. It all gets a little tricky.
DH: Who are your favorite contemporary poets?
CC: I love Pinsky, Phil Levine is incredible. Robert Frost (if you
can call him contemporary). There is a young local poet by the name of Danielle
Georges who I admire.
DH: Anything you want to add?
CC: I just think that the poetry scene is so diverse and in some
ways territorial. People are passionate about poetry and people become ideologues.
I just do my thing. I say to the slam poets,"Peace." I say to the academic
poets,"Peace." They both don't have anything I want, and I don't have anything
they want. I think that in many cases younger artists have a lot of energy
and think they have all the answers. Maybe when they grow, they will realize
there is room for everybody. Years back ordinary people wrote poetry. Then
you got this proliferation of MFA programs. I'm not saying a lot of good
writing doesn't come out of these schools. These programs teach people how
to teach in these programs. If you are making 50 to 60 thousand a year,
you have to justify yourself. You say, " You have come to us to learn, to
get a stamp of approval, for us to write book jacket copy,etc..."
DH: Do you have another book in the works?
CC: My next book is going to be about my parents. I don't have a
title. Leapfrog has the first option. I'm hoping they will use it. I hope
to have it out by the end of the year.
Charles Coe's Picnic On The Moon is available through http://www.Amazon.com, and
retails at $12.95.
This interview originally appeared in Ibbetson St. Press poetry magazine,
33 Ibbetson St. Somerville, Ma. 02143, ibbetsonstreet@go.com, 4 dollars
a copy, $7 dollars a subscription, editors Doug Holder, Linda Conte, Marc
Widershien, Dianne Robitaille.
This interview also appeared in a local zine in Boston, COMMUNITY GLUE.