Poet Timothy Black: Male Medusas, Beautiful Lies, and Cancer Sex
Contributor
Written by
Tania Pryputniewicz
September 2010
Contributor
Written by
Tania Pryputniewicz
September 2010

The first male poet to publish at The Fertile Source, Timothy Black speaks to us about adoption, racism, and the roots of his poetic inspirations. Missing an Umbilical and Cancer Sex can be read here: http://fertilesource.com/?p=785 I was struck by the underwater world of “Missing an Umbilical” with its male Medusa imagery and haunting sense of potential loss (from father to father, the shared son). Can you talk about the process of writing this poem as well as its background? You bet. My youngest son Titus and I were at the pool in Wakefield, Nebraska, playing around. I’m always very aware of how people look at us even though I’m sure I’m imagining things. You see, I’m black, and Titus is very, very white. So my anxiety about his bio-dad coming to visit out of the blue mixed with that, and I wasn’t enjoying myself very much. I remember Titus wanted me to go under water to watch him jump in, so I did. After the bubbles cleared, he was floating there before me, his hair caught up in the water – so unlike mine, which has never floated like fine hair does. So the poem wrote itself underwater, which is very interesting because that water was shared – his birth water will always be alien to me. And I imagined in that moment his bio-dad’s arm reaching in and pulling him out of that second birth, that birth I could share in. And I knew if that ever happened, my heart would turn to stone, something heavy that would leave me in that second birth without him. Everything is a connection. I haven’t had many of those in my life outside of my wonderful adoptive family (I was adopted as well). And the thought of losing a connection was profoundly disturbing. It was one of those moments, moments I see as DNA strands linking—a moment when I knew I had to make him mine and prevent such a devastating loss from happening. Now that the adoption is final, I can breathe under that water, I can stop the hand, can stop the Medusa, can stop what I feel he would become if he were taken from me and our family. You mentioned in your cover letter to us that you had recently adopted two boys after some failed attempts at pregnancy. What role did writing play for you and your wife throughout that time period? Well, my wonderful wife and I are both writers. For me, I used writing as a way to—let me say I’m being brutally honest here—escape the stress of all the maybes. The boys in question, Jake and Titus, are my wife’s natural kids, so they always had a connection. And I was fresh from rehab where I shook off the addictions I wrote about in my novella, Connecticut Shade. So I was hungry for connections. And when I fell in love with the boys (which happened almost instantly) I knew I had to have them. So writing was a way to escape, a way to cope, and a way to love my family all in one. I’ve written many poems from that time. It was a very rough time. The kids were abandoned by their bio-dads, my wife’s best friend was dying from cancer and about to leave 5 kids without a mother or father, we wanted a child of our own, there was a tubal pregnancy that was almost missed and thus almost fatal and if it would have been I would have lost the boys to God knows who. We were both getting our MFAs in writing (she in fiction, me in poetry) and we both churned out some disturbing, crazy work. It was a year of death and loss, but also amazing love. So those themes flowed from our pens. I think writing kept us both sane. I imagine you—as an adoptee--bring special awareness to your role as the father of two adoptive children; what would you most wish to bring to their lives? Is there any experience of your own past as an adoptee you’d care to speak about, or how that shaped your relationship to words? I want to bring a father to their lives. Sanity, stability, identity. It’s amazing, really, that this idea of justification still persists in our society. But, in a way, I justified them as individuals when I adopted them. I also want them to desperately love me as I desperately love them. Growing up in a small community as the only black person, I’ve had many experiences I want Jake (my eldest and also black) to be able to avoid. My parents told me to always ask a girl’s parents for permission to date their daughters. So, I remember showing up at one house with flowers, knocking on the door, and hearing, “My daughter don’t date no niggers.” Adolescence was a very trying time. It’s tempting to blame my drug and alcohol abuse on my youth, but I don’t. It wouldn’t do any good anyway, and I don’t need anything to blame anymore. But, I do want Jake to not have that experience, and you know what? We live in a smaller town than the one I grew up in, and from what I can tell, the racism isn’t as intense—more like background noise when I sense it at all—but still, I believe our kids would benefit from a more diverse population, so we are considering a move to Oregon or the east coast. As far as writing goes, I have about 500 poems, mostly rubbish, I wrote about what I experienced. I find that re-examining my experience through Jake results in far better poetry. We chose to publish “Cancer Sex” for its honesty and unswerving window into that particular tangent of intimacy. Have you encountered other poets taking on this subject? Who are your mentors? I think Sharon Olds wrote poems like “Cancer Sex,” although I can’t remember if she did exactly. Olds taught me, through reading her work, that I can write about anything I want. That was very liberating. Nowadays, if I read poetry and it doesn’t take risks, I’m a little let down. I mean, since a poet can do literally anything she wants, why would she swim near the surface? There’s no threat of drowning when you’re writing like that. Also, Amy Plettner, a poet your publication should seek out. I’m editing a book of hers for WSC Press through Wayne State College (Nebraska), and she is sensual, she risks everything with every poem, and she’s good—very good. My mentors include Jim Peterson, Steve Langan, Bill Trowbridge and William Kloefkorn, Nebraska’s State Poet. I’m actually working on a book of interviews with William, and finding out exactly why he’s such a treasure. My favorite poet is Yusef Komunyakaa. No one—no one—is writing better than he is right now. He simply is a master of sound, a master of the individual word. He is a craftsman of the highest caliber. I met him at AWP in Denver last year, and was so nervous I shook while talking to him. I met Obama about a year before his run. I was far more honored to meet Komunyakaa. Poets use lies to expose beauty. Most politicians use lies—let’s face it—for other, stranger ends. A poem on the page, unless so full of hate to nullify itself as a poem, can not really lie. Beauty is truth, right? And who is to say a beautiful lie in a poem isn’t a beautiful truth to someone else? In “Cancer Sex,” I was not filling my wife with cancer exactly, but a different kind of cancer. I am an addict, it’s in my genes. So is my wife, we’re both in recovery. But I use cancer as a reference to what I have that could hurt both my wife and the child we were trying for. And, “Cancer Sex” was a way to exercise the demons of the friend we lost to cancer, the friends we lost, the family. Sex is such a powerful act, almost Godlike. It’s terrifying when you think of the power sex has. Ask anyone who has been raped. What would you consider your goals as poet, in terms of terrain you’d like to cover? What have you mapped so far and what subjects do you see yourself looking back on in ten years? My goal as a poet is to recreate poetry every time I write. A lofty goal, one Billy Collins says is impossible, but one which Ed Roberson says has to be possible. I disagree with Collins. At Cave Canem, there are 50 beautiful black poets who invent poetry at will. I’ve covered quite a bit about identity, nature, love, sex. I see myself writing about those things in ten years. Only I hope my work is better than it is now. I feel I’m just beginning to write decent poetry, and I’ve been writing poetry for 30 years. All I really want is to do something beautiful. Shockingly, disturbingly beautiful. What are you currently working on? Currently, I’m working on a book of interviews with Bill Kloefkorn, a book of poetry from a first year Cave Canem Fellow, and the Plettner book. For myself, I’m trying to compile my own manuscript while furthering the goals of Cave Canem. I owe so much to “The Cave.” That organization has transformed my work, myself and my family into something beautiful. I guess you could say Cave Canem justified me as a poet. Pseudo Poseur Productions is working on a New and Selected book of poems from me, which is a hoot, because I’ve never really even published what most would call a volume of poetry. Connecticut Shade is more like a play, prose poems and confessional. What would you say to a young writer starting out? I would say take risks or take yourself out of the game. Kid, you can do anything—why not take the opportunity? Go to as many poetry readings as possible. Read poems until you find a poet who makes you freak out and cry. Read 100 poems for every one you write. Meet with a writer’s group, and if one doesn’t exist, make it exist. Take risks. Don’t hide pain or joy behind a simple poem. Expose your joy and pain as brutally as you can. Write until you can feel love. Don’t listen when people say you can’t do “X”. Prove everyone wrong through your words. Prove everyone right through your words. Be an outlaw poet who commits random acts of poetry. Study poetry you don’t like and find out exactly what you don’t like about it. Be brutally honest, and cut readers to the quick with your verse. Make a sonnet out of every other free verse poem you write. Realize you can do that because every form can exist in every poem. That about sums up my intro to poetry workshop lecture! Thanks for the wonderful questions. It was an honor. To read more of Timothy Black's work: Novella: http://www.amazon.com/Connecticut-Shade-Timothy-Black/dp/0976651386/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285776350&sr=1-1 Cave Canem's Fellow's site: http://cavecanempoets.org/profiles?page=B Father's Day Guest Blog http://www.momsinbabeland.com/parenting/a-dads-advice-to-his-son-on-masturbation/ Horror Poery: http://bloodtouch.webs.com/darkgothicmagazine.htm Adult Poetry and Prose site: http://www.cleansheets.com/poetry/black_09.08.10.shtml Water Conservany site: http://poetsgulfcoast.wordpress.com/open-mic-a-d/

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Comments
  • Marjorie Tesser

    Interesting interview!

  • Jessica Powers

    Wow, fabulous interview, Tania and Timothy. Brings up so many critical issues....