“I think we ache for a quiet voice, a quiet place to face and find one another. That is the need. I’m not sure I know how to meet that, but I’m resolved to try.”
How do you believe a writer improves? Practice? Mentors?
Reading everything? Attending festivals?
I sometimes think we really only have one idea in this life —if we’re lucky. The work of a writer is to try, try, try getting it expressed, truly expressed. And I think the ‘truly’ part is where a writer or a poet can improve. Making ourselves more open and honest about that idea, giving it true expression. This isn’t a reductive process, but I will say a large part of the task is getting out of our own way. Not hiding or encoding that idea, letting it glow —shine —burn.
What motivated / motivates you to write?
The first impulse for me as a writer is to map my own thought for my own sake: Really face what’s on my mind. Without the quiet of writing and the discipline of putting words into some semblance of order, without the structure writing things down requires of me I’d be mostly awash in noise. If I wanted to get dramatic about it I’d say I write to save my own life.
Do you enjoy writing?
I’m not sure, honestly. It’s work I’m called to do somehow. It’s work.
What are the most important steps an amateur writer can take?
Realize there’s no such thing as an amateur. Some sell work, others don’t. This doesn’t matter.
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
Or, what is the best piece of advice you would offer an aspiring writer?
I don’t know that I am qualified to offer advice. I will say that it is important to find a community to work within —whether that is virtual, visceral, or even imaginary—it is important to have readers in mind as you write. This may seem obvious, but it sure took me a while to realize.
Who would you say are your literary forebears? Who have you learned the most from?
I remember happening upon Gary Snyder’s ‘Rip Rap & The Cold Mountain Poems’ in an off campus indie bookshop in Syracuse, New York in 1980. I came to that book not even looking for poetry. I was trying to find something by another writer named Snyder altogether. But those poems, the consciousness they represented found me. Again, I’ll get all dramatic and say they saved my life. Snyder introduced me to the concept of ‘The Real Work’ that I challenge myself with from time to time. I ask myself if I am doing the real work.
What do you believe is the function of your art?
What is the role of the writer in society?
I’ve been thinking about Auden’s poem ‘September 1, 1939’ lately. I understand he didn’t even like the poem all that much. The poet is sitting in a dive bar. There’s the immediacy of that scene and then there’s the world all around him, all its history leading up to that day, the dawning of a violent catastrophe. The poet resolves to make of himself ‘an affirming flame” in the face of disaster. Like I said, Auden didn’t even like the poem. I think he felt it preached a bit much. He later famously said poetry changes nothing. I wrestle with that as a citizen, as an artist, as a human being. I feel compelled to act, to do something. But I don’t think that thing is speachifying or giving voice to rage: More shouting. I think we ache for a quiet voice, a quiet place to face and find one another. That is the need. I’m not sure I know how to meet that, but I’m resolved to try.
If you were to begin writing today for the first time, would you do anything differently? Which would be your first steps?
Way back when, as a young person I had this vision of the artist as one who shouldn’t be schooled, fettered in any way by the traditions and dogma of society or especially academia. The poet should be wild and free. In retrospect, I wish I’d studied writing and literature more formally. I could have broken the mold eventually, but I’d have had more of a mold to start with.
Which mistakes have you learned the most from?
Even with what I said about offering an ‘affirming flame’ and all I think we have to protect ourselves from the world, what it is showing right now. Protect the flame. I think I’ve fallen into the trap of preaching in the past. Mistaken poetry for priesthood. It wasn’t pretty.
Which successes are you most proud of?
What have been your most meaningful or profound experiences as a writer?
Whenever someone approaches me after a reading and shares their response to my poetry relating some story of their own.
What are the major benefits of being a writer?
As I mentioned before, I use the practice of writing to slow myself down—or maybe it’s the world around me that I am slowing, the flow of thought —firing—misfiring of synapses. Writing allows me the quiet and pace and a means of marking my own experience. When I am fully engaged in my writing I notice the light of my own being.
Are there any downsides to being a writer?
There have been times when I have darkened myself, my outlook, in order to fit myself into a dark fiction I was writing, mistaking desolation for depth. It is hard to shake that off.
Where are the best places to live / visit as a writer?
I’m loosely paraphrasing it here, but Gary Snyder once said something like ‘The Real Work is becoming a native inhabitant of one’s own heart.”
Which question do you wish you were asked more?
‘Where should we send the check?’
Tom Driscoll is a poet, columnist, and essayist who lives and works in Lowell, Massachusetts. “The Champion of Doubt” published summer 2023 from Finishing Line Press. Driscoll’s poetry has appeared in Abraxas Review, Oddball Magazine, Carcosa Review, Scapegoat, Ekphrastic Review, Paterson Literary Review, and The Worcester Review.