Our apologies for bringing Ryan G. Van Cleave to your attention so late in April, which is, as you may have heard, National Poetry Month. (You went to the parade, right?) Because his volume of pop-culture poetry (Red Hen Press, $16.95) is a book you must own, right now.
Why and how do you extract lasting art from something as evanascent as pop culture?
It's certainly a real shot in the dark if anything anyone's writing today is going to prove lasting, but it's definitely something all artists aspire for, right? But I think that too much poetry is written for a very exclusive audience—the same crowd who still believes T.S. Eliot's idea that "poetry ought to be difficult." I think pop culture is one of the most important social forces we have, and we ignore it at our peril. In many ways, I think Britney Spears is the ultimate tragic figure, an artist who has been essentially de-personed by society.
How do you do it? Good question. It's taken me 10 years to figure out how best to marry structure and style to thematic issues in my poetry. It's the real challenge of writing, isn't it? Whether you're writing about navel lint or castles in Europe or how clouds look like toy soldiers or King Kong smashing up buildings, you have to do it in a way that's beautiful and insightful.
What's been the reaction of the poetry establishment?
Anytime you write poetry that doesn't have the usual things in operation—references to Hercules, Eros, night-blooming jasmine, poetry itself—you're going to be viewed with suspicion. The idea that I might sell 30 books after a reading also raises eyebrows. Academics are notorious for believing that commerciality necessitates a lack of quality. But the Billy Collins blurb ("few people of today will be able to resist his supercharged language and unbound satirical exuberance") helps defuse the nay-sayers.
You get a lot of readers who aren't poetry enthusiasts?
Indeed, and that was a large issue that haunted me as I wrote these poems. I wanted to find a mix between accessibility and linguistic/thematic power. I wanted this book to work for a skateboarder lounging outside a NY deli as easily as it does for a class of Intro to Poetry students at USC. This is the first book of mine that my wife seems to dig, too. I like the idea that poetry might break out into the mainstream world and do some literary damage.
You've mentioned that you love Vegas.
I try to visit Vegas at least once a year to recharge my pop culture batteries. Vegas is a huge part of this book in that I got the idea for it while losing a few hundred at the craps tables in Harrah's. I looked up and saw a granny toddling around in a "Britney Fan" T-shirt right there in front of the I Dream of Jeannie slot machines while Michael Jackson music blasted out from somewhere, and every light in my head clicked on. You can't line up a better juxtaposition of poetic inspirations than that.