Contributor Spotlight: Ace Boggess
Ace Boggess’ poem “What Feelings Did You Try to Manage?” is part of Issue 78 of Bellingham Review. Subscribe or purchase a single issue through our Submittable page here.
What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?
I’ve been writing poems with questions for titles for probably 15 years now. Questions, especially the strange or accidental, inspire me more than anything else (my most recent book, I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, is a collection of nothing but question poems, and this piece will be in another manuscript of those). The good questions often take me to places I didn’t expect or conjure memories I’d lost (as this one did). I found this rehab notebook from 2006 buried in a box, skimmed through it, and found a dozen questions, some of which turned into poems, but all of which left me thinking about my life in ways they didn’t at the time (for obvious reasons).
Tell us about your writing life.
I’ve been writing in one form or another since high school in the 80s. Maybe longer. Looking back, I think the same thing led me to writing that led me to drug addiction: paralyzing anxiety. I spent a lot of time observing others while trying to understand myself. I needed an outlet for all this, and wrote mostly novels then, with poetry as something to do while waiting for the novels to sell. Instead, I started getting acceptances for poems. Everyone I knew referred to me as a poet. So, somewhere along the way, I accepted that. I’m okay with it. Really (he says, seething a little).
Which non-writing aspects of your life most influence your writing?
Rehab and prison are major themes in my work these days. It can’t be helped. I’ve also spent a lot of time with existentialism–especially some of the more obscure writers such as Berdyaev, Unamuno, and Tillich. I read whatever I can get my hands on, though, and each book or journal leads me down different paths in the labyrinth of my brain.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
Not so much advice as overheard criticism. When I was much younger I read a poem at an open mic. It was about an incense store, and it used the cliched and tacky phrase “French whorehouse.” While ordering a coffee, I heard two people talking at the counter. They weren’t criticizing the cliche or the tackiness, both of which seemed fair game. Instead, one said, “How does HE know what a French whorehouse smells like?” That’s always stuck with me. Do I really know this? Have I experienced it? Is it something I can honestly imagine and, if so, am I depicting it as my imagination, or does it imply experience that isn’t real? It’s something I see in the work of a lot of novice poets. A college student, say, will compare something real to something also real but not likely experienced, and I’ll catch myself thinking “How does HE know what a French whorehouse smells like?” It’s a good lesson. Learning that, however embarrassing and accidental it was, helped my writing a lot.
What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)? Favorite writers?
My favorite book of poems is and, for a long time, has been David Lehman’s The Evening Sun. That book still blows me away. Favorite novel: Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha. Favorite poems? There are two: “Uprising” by Stephen Dobyns and “Litany” by Billy Collins. Favorite writers generally? Now that’s a tough one. I read too much. The things I love one day are forgotten the next. So, I’ll just mention the ones that have moved me lately. Recent books from Ada Limon, Kaveh Akbar, David Rigsbee, Matthew Lippman, Jenn Givhan, and Tracy K. Smith have floored me. Also, Zagajewski. Everything from Zagajewski. He’s the one writer who, while I’m reading one of his books, forces me to feel the tone of my own voice changing. His poems have a powerful effect on the unconscious.
What are you reading right now?
Brain Fever by Kimiko Hahn, the new issue of American Poetry Review, and O. Henry Prize Stories 2007.
What project(s) are you working on now, or next?
I’m working on another manuscript of question poems and writing stories for a themed manuscript about a fictional prison. I’m also trying to find homes for two other collections of poetry, an unthemed collection of stories, and several old novels that I’m constantly revisiting.
Anything else our readers might want to know about you?
Not really relevant, but something that’s been on my mind lately. The world changes in strange ways while you’re incarcerated. When I went away, all the folks I knew were cat people. When I got out a few years ago, I learned that almost all of those same people are now dog people. How does one cope with that information? I’m still processing.
Where can our readers connect with you online?
I’m easy to find. Ace Boggess on Facebook, and @AceBoggess on Twitter.
ACE BOGGESS is author of four books of poetry, most recently I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So (Unsolicited Press, 2018) and Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017). His poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Notre Dame Review, Rhino, North Dakota Quarterly, and many other journals. He received a fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and spent five years in a West Virginia prison. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
Featured Image: “Green Star” by Walimai.photo