Contributor Questionnaire: Jamie Winger

Can you remember the first poem you ever wrote? Read?

I think maybe I wrote a poem in junior high about shutting my little brother’s pet guinea pig Carmel into our deep freezer in our basement. But I could be remembering that wrong.


What misconception about poetry bothers you most?

I think there are a lot. I think within the writing community you have a lot of people that think poetry is easy, that banging out a couple of poems should be much easier than writing a short story or an essay. But I think this mindset leads to a lot of bad poems. On the other hand, I think in the general public outside the writing community you have a lot of people who think poetry is this high-falutin, hard, and inaccessible thing, a lot of people who don’t know that contemporary poetry can be funny, use lists, or in a collection have a similar arc and effect as a novel. Maybe this is the academic community’s fault. Maybe we should be giving high school kids Blake Butler instead of Keats or Frost. Maybe then you’d have a lot more people excited about poetry and trying their hand at it, because contemporary poetry is going to resonate more with a young person’s world (this doesn’t mean it’s better, just more immediately resonate to a contemporary reader). Then you could save the Keats and the William Carlos Williams for those who get really jazzed by poetry and want to deepen their knowledge by going back into the canon in an English major, MFA, or PhD program. Maybe this is blasphemy, but I’m just thinking strategically here. How do we get more people excited about reading and writing poetry? Then again, that could lead to a lot of people thinking poetry is this easy, accessible thing, which could lead to a lot of bad poems. So forget everything I just said. 


Favorite word? Least favorite?

Favorite: Cycloptopus. Least favorite: Right now, it’s “well.” Everyone at work responds with “well” when I ask “how are you.” It’s doubly annoying because you can tell these people think they are employing correct grammar and they sound extra snooty about it.
 

Considering the poems you write, what about yourself would surprise readers most?

That I grew up in a funeral home. (joke)


Favorite writing environment (place, lighting, music, etc.)?

Not very glamorous, I’m afraid. With laptop, in bed, in pajamas, lights off (sometimes), messy room (always), music (never).


If every poet in history were forced into a cage-style death match, who would walk out alive?

Probably not Percy Bysshe Shelley. He actually did die in a cage-style death match, right?

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