{"id":448,"date":"2015-02-26T16:33:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T21:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=448"},"modified":"2015-02-26T16:33:43","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T21:33:43","slug":"mar-asks-doug-ramspeck-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/mar-asks-doug-ramspeck-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"MAR Asks, Doug Ramspeck Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Doug<\/a>
Doug Ramspeck<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, we’re pleased to introduce Doug Ramspeck, whose poem, \u201cUnblessing,\u201d appears in MAR<\/em> 35.1. Ramspeck is the author of four poetry books. His most recent collection, Original Bodies<\/em>, was selected for the Michael Waters Poetry Prize and is published by Southern Indiana Review Press. Two earlier books also received awards: Mechanical Fireflies <\/em>(Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize), and Black Tupelo Country <\/em>(John Ciardi Prize). Individual poems have appeared in journals that include The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Southern Review, <\/em>and The Georgia Review<\/em>. He is an associate professor at The Ohio State University at Lima, where he teaches creative writing.<\/p>\n

He also apparently plays tic-tac-toe with chickens. Read on to learn more!<\/p>\n

Quick! Summarize your poem in 10 words or fewer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cut-up-for-pieces poem (this needs explaining).<\/p>\n

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of my favorite methods of producing a poem is to take, at random, four or five poems from my \u201cFailed-Poem Folder,\u201d cut them up for pieces, then combine them into what I hope will be a coherent whole. That is how \u201cUnblessing\u201d was produced. Each time I try this approach, I am amazed by how, when I am done, I am able to convince (delude?) myself into imagining that the pieces longed to be together all along, and my role was as simple matchmaker.<\/p>\n

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My wife likes to claim that my response to acceptance by any journal is akin to the Groucho Marx quotation: \u201cI don\u2019t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.\u201d In other words, she claims that my evaluation of the journal\u2019s prestige is reduced in my mind because I received the acceptance notice. In truth, though, I was delighted to be included.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like to tell the story about when my first book of poems was published, and I told my daughter about the royalty payment I would receive for each copy that was sold. She did some quick calculations in her head, and said, \u201cThat means that if you sell a million copies, you will make _____!\u201d I didn\u2019t have the heart to explain just how many zeroes she was off in that estimate.<\/p>\n

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success? <\/strong><\/p>\n

After I had a poem published in Poetry Salzburg Review, <\/em>I was contacted by a student who was writing a long essay about the poem. She sent me the paper when it was completed, and it was a very nicely-written piece. Of course, it had almost nothing to do with anything I had thought about when writing the poem, which I took to mean that my child was now making its way independently into the world, and didn\u2019t need my guidance any longer. There was something both very gratifying and a little lonely in that. My actual daughter is teaching 9th<\/sup> grade in Micronesia this year, and I feel exactly the same way about her.<\/p>\n

Your biggest writing-related regret?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I suffered from horrible and self-inflicted writer\u2019s block as a fiction writer from about age thirty to age fifty, when I began writing poetry.<\/p>\n

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve<\/strong> writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I tell the story about how my wife once lost at tic-tac-toe to a chicken in San Marcos, Texas, I seem to think that I come off better in the story because I explain that I was able to tie the chicken.<\/p>\n

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does <\/em>involve writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like to imagine that I actually write anything I produce. I simply listen to the voices in my head and write down what they say. I am, in short, an amanuensis. This way, it seems to me, I take neither credit nor blame for the work that my fingers transcribe.<\/p>\n

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a sucker for a beautiful death poem, and \u201cStillborn Lamb,\u201d by Sarah Burke, is about as beautiful as they come.<\/p>\n

Thanks for the interview, Doug!<\/strong>
\nLaura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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