Paul B. Roth BY Judith S. Buck PAUL B. ROTH published his first poetry chapbook, After the Grape (University of Tampa Press) in 1969, which was followed by Basement of Tears in 1973. After graduating from Goddard College in Vermont in 1974, he went on to complete his graduate degree in contemporary French poetry, while working in a business he eventually co-owned. During this time of work and studies, he founded The Bitter Oleander Press, with the vision of publishing a magazine as well as books of imaginative poetry. The small press survived for a little over four years with critical success until economic, family, and time constraints led to a hiatus. Upon his retirement in 1995, Roth revived The Bitter Oleander. To this day, it has published over thirty issues of its biannual journal of contemporary international poetry and short fiction. Roth’s work is widely anthologized and published in literary venues, both local and abroad. He now lives and gardens in Fayetteville, Upstate New York with his wife, the Hungarian artist Georgina Heksch Roth. They have three sons.

How have you evolved as a publisher and editor? I’d have to say, slowly. Right from the beginning my sole purpose was to create a forum: an imaginative poetry from all over the contemporary world that could be brought together between two covers. It was the only direction in poetry that inspired me. It generated energy behind passion that grows and deepens. Although I knew I was in for a long journey, my intent was to only publish what I thought to be both engaging and imaginative. There were always flavors of Surrealism, Imagism, The Deep Image, Leaping and Immanentist poetry. The issues were small back then. But as the reputation of the press grew, so did the volume’s size and scope. Nothing seems more important than bringing together so many writers . Not to mention, my own unending gratitude for having been welcomed so graciously into so many lives, hearts and homes all over the world. Creating a culture behind the press itself was another deep concern of mine. I also insisted on personalizing every aspect of the editorial work. If anything is accomplished one person at a time, then being an attentive and dedicated editor is exactly that. It’s tremendously important to me that I make some kind of connection with everyone who is generous enough to share their work with me. This is also the case with those who relate to me from the business side of the press. I respond to every inquiry, every acceptance, every rejection. I do not share this responsibility with anyone else. It’s my hand that writes every note, or types every electronic message. It’s been that way from the start, and in spite of technology taking away — little by little — this personalization. I’m always finding ways to work around it so that all who are interested continue to feel embraced and important. This is because they are. A fourteen-year-old poet from Mississippi should feel just as welcome as those whose work I’ve read for over forty years, along with French poets Joyce Mansour, Benjamin Péret and Jacques Dupin; Mexican poet Alberto Blanco; and Bolivian writer Nicomedes Suaréz-Araúz, to name a few published by the press. Nothing seems more important than bringing together so many writers . Not to mention, my own unending gratitude for having been welcomed so graciously into so many lives, hearts and homes all over the world.

Cadenzas by Needlelight BY Paul B. Roth (Cypress Books, 2009) From the Publisher: “These poems cover three winters of work out of the sixty Roth has spent making his observations of the natural world in upstate New York. Combined with a passion for the hidden, the unseen and the undiscovered in the life of a singular person, these poems move past simple dimensions and on into the depth, beauty and complexity of a natural world that our own brains have only just begun to dream as if they were reality.”

And in your own writing? It’s impossible to qualify my writing in this way. Along with my love of exploring the natural world — in the hills and gulleys near my childhood home — writing became the most important thing to me. Although I had no mentors, family members or particular teachers who inspired me to write, it was all I wanted to do; all I thought about when I wasn’t doing it. My parents were not involved with the arts in any way. Nor were they tuned into what I was doing. So they never thought of helping me as they might have were I to have shown high mathematical or scientific propensities. In short, they thought it a good hobby. I never wanted to lose the magic I’d always associated with writing, with creating and mastering a kind of world in which anything and everything could happen. I started writing before I knew how to write, making believe I was actually copying words that were spewed from the old Philco radio in my parents’ family room. I don’t know why it seemed important to me at the time. My first year in school learning to write letters was magical for me. Drawing those large-scaled lower and upper case versions of all twenty-six letters with a jumbo red pencil, while holding it the well-instructed way, was for me the creation of an entirely new universe through which I could create any world I wanted. I had even won a few contests for poetry. I also loved telling a story. One of my first was called “My Lonely Home is Near,” after which I wrote about anything: jungle adventures, space exploration, westerns, mysteries, and detective stories. When I was eight, someone handed down to me a pretty old Royal typewriter with a black and red ribbon. I knew then what I wanted to be. I never wanted to lose the magic I’d always associated with writing, with creating and mastering a kind of world in which anything and everything could happen. If my poetry can in some small way continue to point in that direction, it will have been enough. You publish short fiction, and from time to time, prose work of different genres. What is your definition of a prose poem? Baudelaire wrote his “poetic prose” in Paris Spleen (Le Spleen de Paris) in the mid-1800’s out of a need to express through what — at that time — was too rigid a verse form. Plus, he needed a “vehicle” that rendered him access to “untouchable subjects” without being inhibited by the prevalent meter or rhyming patterns. Those subjects were shunned by most French contemporaries. Baudelaire saw a different way to open the door: he found that he could pull it to observe what was behind it or push it and enter into what was there.

Looking at today’s version of the “prose poem,” it has taken on a wide variety of interpretations. The undercurrent, however, remains the same. Freedom of inward thought. As an editor, I see most prose poems as “non-conversational.” A reader takes delight in them as quiet soliloquys, or a highly personal meditation. I also see it as an expression of a startling and often embellished experience; fiction becomes secondary. In the U.S., some argue the difference between “flash fiction” and “prose poems.” I don’t see “flash fiction” as an extension of a “prose poem.” But I do see it as an abridged version of short fiction.

How do you feel about political poetry?

Paul B. Roth
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

I know it’s been said before, but isn’t everything political? No matter what one reads, writes, or says, no one escapes the gravitational pull of one political direction or another. Even without political intent, poets are labeled when they join the protest of some wrongdoing.

Beginning with Plato and his idea that poets be put out of the city at nightfall for fear of their subversive influence on the people, poets have endured incarceration, torture and murder in nations where the freedoms most democracies truly enjoy are not given a second thought.

What are some of your favorite political poems or poets?

I immediately think of William Blake: he is not so much a political poet, but a great poet who, by way of a long lineage of philosophical skepticism, challenged the prevailing and often ruthless religious and political attitudes of his times. And the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda — who wrote many political type poems for good reason at particular times in Chile’s tumultuous and frightening past. I think of his “United Fruit Company” poem and the influence it had on me at a very young age. It “opened” my eyes to the world.

Another favorite poet of mine is the contemporary North American poet, the nanogenerian, Duane Locke, who writes meaningful political poems but is, in no way, considered a political poet in the strictest definition. However, when I think of his “Samson at Gaza the Day Before the Atomic Destruction” or “For Someone Who Has Known the Despair of Hope,” both come as close, in my opinion, to anarchy poetry as is possible.

Also, the Bolivian writer/poet, Nicomedes Suaréz-Araúz’s book Edible Amazonia is as political as one can get when dealing with a very specific issue: the decimation of the Amazon region that touches so many Latin American nations. How it’s been dissolved and carved up like so many rhomboids of pig thighs. Speaking of those in America who have been incarcerated for various offenses, those who have had to pay their debt with their life’s time, and those who champion the causes or rights of someone else for many years, I can’t forget to mention the recently deceased poet Leonard J. Cirino. His immersion within the prison system — to spread the benefits of writing creatively and educating those who were willing to listen, through his poems and essays — have truly rewarded so many for a good many years.

As an editor and a reader, how do you engage yourself in translation directly when there may be cultural and/or linguistic barriers?

I do think Neruda, when it came to translation, had it right when he expressed that he “lived on the other side of the page.” Although this is true, it hasn’t stopped me — or anyone interested in poetry, I imagine — from seeking out any and every scrap of translated material on a particular poet’s work.

As an editor, I always work closely with the translator, especially when executing a booklength project. Because I need to get a real feel for what makes the work so compelling, I also make it my priority to understand the culture and landscapes that the poet and the translator invite into their work, as well as the historical, political, and social perspectives that influence their linguistic sense…

It’s also my responsibility to offer suggestions that may enhance the text. Prior to publication, there’s always a lot of back-and-forth between the poet, the translator and me, making sure that everything is as close as it can be. It all makes for good learning.

Several writers and artists are now exploring the Internet as a venue for their work. What are your thoughts?

There are hundreds — probably thousands — of places to publish these days. It is interesting how so many folks still want to be published in a print magazine. The print endeavor remains one of great meaning and pursuit.

I find it difficult to know which journal to read; there are so many. You can take them on one at a time. After a while, some of them become more appealing and you bookmark them for future issues. There are also some excellent sources for a poet, in terms of surveying both print and online journals. One in particular that I always return to is NewPages.com.

Perhaps poetry will be a creative passion that will resist the “paperless world.” Attempts are made all the time, of course, with the likes of Kindle, for example. For me, there’s nothing like sitting down in that favorite chair, clicking on a soft reading light, and wafting the benzene aroma from the pages of a new poetry book. It is another world.