john compton (b. 1987) is gay poet who lives in kentucky. his poetry resides in his chest like many hearts & they bloom like vigorously infectious wild flowers. he lives in a tiny town, with his husband josh and their dogs and cats. he feels his head is an auditorium filled with the dead poets from the past. poems are written and edited constantly. his poetry is a personal journey. he reaches for things close and far, trying to give them life: growing up gay; having mental health issues; a journey into his childhood; the world that surrounds us. he writes to be alive, to learn and to grow. he loves imagery, metaphor, simile, abstract language, sounds, when one word can drift you into another direction. he loves playing with vocabulary, creating texture and emotions.
my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store by john compton is a poetry collection where familiar enclosures are “zoos,” and the speaker states: “i found devotion / in the margins of my notebooks, / learning each poem /
like a new sibling.” compton thinks through and about devoting a life to poetry, as he collects his solitude and his gasps of “oh god’s” to a shoal of swimming bodies an anti-”community of buildings” for a communion of the beauty innate in our shared shimmering.
Tiffany Troy: How does your opening poem, “high school” set up the poems that are to follow in your collection?
john compton: the first poem opens to the beginning & the end of my first chapter in writing. it’s a double entrance. the beginning of the poem is the first step & the ending is the farewell to the first chapter. one must move forward. i burned all my high-school poems in a ritualistic way to move forward. those poems taught me many things. they showed me my love for poetry & my rebellion. they were beautiful in the sense that these poems were born & they grew new life but as memories instead of actuality. continuing after this poem is the momentum of my journey as a poet & how one grows out of fire: ashes to ashes, we always rise stronger.
TT: Wow! Speaking of writing process and rituals, what was your process in putting together this collection?
JC: unfortunately, my process is not printing out poems and placing them all over the floor or wall! not that that is not a good way, but i would go insane. i have a belief that poetry is like life and the poems come out in the order they are presented. you can’t rearrange your days of the week, so why rearrange the poems—so, my process is that the first poem of the collection is the first poem that i write and the last poem is when i feel the manuscript is completed. i never force myself to write poetry for any particular project. i never sit down to write. i write when i’m inspired. once completed with a manuscript, i go back and read each poem & remove the bad poems to clean the manuscript up. i delete those poems forever because if i didn’t find them good enough to use at that moment, they’re not good enough.
TT: In that vein what inspires you to write?
JC: many things inspire me to write: television, life, reading, talking, listening, nature, current events, and things that i feel shouldn’t be as they are. i tell people i have an auditorium of dead poets in my head. being a poet is the most magnificent thing and truly still wild for me. sometimes i am like two people: the poet and the self. the poet is brilliant, intelligent, creative, a perfection. the self is raised in the country, received his ged and didn’t go to college. he talks too much, mostly incoherently and doesn’t grasp the concept of things. the poet is high strung and social, while the self is an introvert and hates humanity. what inspires me to continue to write is the ability to create something from nothing—to read it & to be surprised that i wrote it.
TT: How does the revision process work for you once you’ve selected the poems that are good?
JC: the editing process is a continuation. i am in an ever consuming editing process. i edit the poem as i write each line and stanza. i edit the poem when completed. i go back and edit the poems as i work on the manuscript. down time for me is the time to edit. if i’m not working on writing, i’m working on editing. once i’m finished with the manuscript i begin rereading the manuscript, and that is when i remove poems. i love all my poems but time lets me let go of them. my process is that if i don’t love them 100% and can’t fix them with an edit, they are to die. i will reread a manuscript until i’ve read it all the way through and not removed any poems. that is when i feel finished.
after i’m finished with my process, i message my brilliant editor Tommy Sheffield and we video chat together. he reads the poems aloud to me and we edit the manuscript together.
TT: That reminds me of the line from your collection, “papers swim through/ ribbons, their fins/ collect ink, collect solitude, // absorb words, address the ends. / the black begins to convolute. / their thin bodies swim // into the lake / full of paperbacks & the shoal / gathers into a book.” It’s such a magical project, isn’t it?
I definitely also feel the sense that you’ve read the poems through and through in the collection. Speaking about collaboration and community, you speak of a “community of buildings” which contrasts with the “small poems” that pay homage to “on earth we’re briefly gorgeous” or “to a young poet,” where you think through and about the meaning of art making in a world where the speaker believes in “‘oh god’ but not ‘dear god’”?
JC: it is very magical and a world i love it live in!
when i first began writing, all my poems were no longer than 12 lines. i love brevity. i love creating a world out of so little. i get excited when 10 people read the poem and they interpret it in 10 different ways. it helps expand my poem to new heights for me.
the poem with the community of buildings is my rebellious side. i’m sick of capitalism. it kills us all. i wanted to make people see the beauty of the world as they trudged through life. in the end we end up back at the beginning though; work until we die. i don’t want to work until i die. i want to live and not be a pawn to these rich hordes. in this poem i felt like i needed to show the reader the beauty of life before i sent them back into the realities of the life we live.
i let the poems write themselves, and lately i’ve been more comfortable letting them continue until they want to stop. in the beginning i was afraid to let my poetry be free to do what it wanted because i was afraid they would ruin themselves. now, i trust them more.
“on earth we’re briefly gorgeous” the poem knew two things. it wanted to be loved and it wanted to show love in a moment of time. our lives are short and we should pause and not take moments for granted. in this poem the person is dying and the other lover holds them; they hold each other. their time is coming to an end. we live our lives too quickly and before we know it the ones we love, in every relationship, are gone.
“to a young poet” makes me smile. and youth is not an age in this title. i want poets to reach for whatever they want and experiment and be boundless. write without walls or contradiction; you own it. it is simply as the poems states. make people jealous!
i want people to react and not live a life where they walk a tiny path: oh god is much better then “dear god”—
TT: Who are poets that you turn to for the magical and/or the experimental?
JC: in the beginning, when i first found poetry it was Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Carl Sandburg, Diane di Prima, E. E. Cummings, Allen Ginsberg and the myth of many other poets.
the pivotal poets in my life were Fanny Howe, William (Bill) Corbett, and Christopher Bursk. when i was in my early 20s, i wrote to about 15 poets and only Fanny responded. we send letters and poems. eventually, Bill (publisher for Pressed Wafer) contacted me and told me he’d like to publish a book. i didn’t know at the time that Fanny had put a packet of my poems together and sent them to Bill. before my book, Bill published a little broadside to promote my poems and that is how i met Chris. he seen the pamphlet and emailed and that was the beginning of a fantastic friendship.
Bill was the greatest publisher. he believed in me 100%. we were a team. he would send me books by poets he loved or thought i’d enjoy. he knew every poet & every poet received my book—he’d have poet house parties. John Ashbery was reading my book when he passed away. this was before i had social media so he took the initiative & promoted and marketed. Chris and him unfortunately have passed away.
today, i am a poet’s poet. i want to be friends with every poet. i love so many poets. my favorite poets are CAConrad, Ruben Quesada, Joe Nasta, Lindsey Royce, Connie Post, Jane Huffman, Onyedikachi Chinedu, Scott Ferry, Daniel Lassell, Sandra Feen, Tommy Sheffield, Aldo Amparán, Richie Hoffman, Chen Chen, Mickie Kennedy, Willie Carver, Janet Lees, Latif Askia Ba, William Webster, Angelique Zobitz, Lori Lasseter Hamilton, Lorcan Black, and way more whose names do not come to me at this particular time. i am grateful for the poetry community i have built.
TT: I am intrigued by the idea of a “poet’s poet.” What do you feel are the qualities of a poet’s poet and how do you feel a poet’s poet contributes to the community?
JC: the qualities of such a person is an editor who doesn’t see names when it comes to publishing poems and they’re supportive of all poets: including the indie poets & poets who are just beginning. the poetry community should not be all about the poets who rule the awards, fellowships and hog all the spotlight. a poet’s poet puts every poet equal and promotes all poets the same. they love poems no matter who wrote them. they share books published by everyone. supporting poets is one of the most amazing things any other poet can do. a poet’s poet is a leader in building community and fostering a place for everyone to come together in a safe place.
the mfa programs have caused poetry to become capitalistic. just like with how the rich rule the world, a poet with the right mfa is top dog and everyone else is shunned. the same poets and publishers are in the finalist spots year after year. a poet’s talent isn’t about what piece of paper they were handed by some college or university. a poet is hard work and dedication; practice and perseverance. talent comes from all spectrums of the poetry world. the bandwagon in the poetry community needs to be dismantled.
i rebel quite often against the aristocratic poets and the mfa. that is how i contribute to the poetic community. i try to give voice to the voiceless. that is my beauty! the bigger my stage, the more poets i can invite to come on and shine.
TT: I am curious about your role as an editor. Can you speak about the need to pick out the best poems of the crop versus the desire to showcase as many voices as possible?
JC: it all comes down to the editor and what they deem is too much space. for me it wasn’t to showcase as many voices as possible but to showcase the best poems submitted. it was never to showcase what poets i had accepted but to showcase the best poems i had accepted. names never intrigue me, poems do.
the first time i was an editor i took over at a dead magazine. it had not been active for a while. i took over full operation, reading every poem and accepting/rejecting. i also uploaded the issues to the website. my goal was to publish every poem i loved, and i achieved that. i published around 20 poets every week. by the time i resigned we had over 10,000 unique views a month. i had every poet submitting: famous poets to new poets who never submitted before. i loved to mix the status of poets in each issue.
for ghost city review, the magazine published monthly. i did everything but put the issue on the site. Kevin was the publisher of ghost city press and the magazine was a part of that. the rules were set when i came in. i’d publish around 20 to 25 poets a month, one poem per poet. i again read everything and accepted/rejected. if i accepted more than 20 to 25 poets i’d roll the extra poets to the following month. again, i made ghost city review a safe space for all poets to submit, from pulitzer prize winning poets to poets who had never had a poem published in a magazine. as an editor, that is one thing i cherish.
i have also been a guest judge for two chapbook contests. Blossom Boy, the debut chapbook by Beck Anson, was the first chapbook i selected for the 7th Annual Wavelengths Chapbook Contest, through Thirty West. it is a stunning collection that has many powerful messages. i was proud to choose someone who had never had a book or chapbook previously published. it is available for purchase.
the second contest i did was the Marginalia Prize for Small Harbor Publishing. i selected “Elegy with Clouds &” by Robin Turner. it is not available yet, so people should keep their eye out for that. it is a masterpiece filled with emotionally beautiful poems.
in both contests i wanted to be the only reader since i was going to be the judge. it was exciting to see all the submissions. instead of picking from a list of the top 20, i got to read hundreds of submission and make sure the best chapbook, in my opinion, won.
TT: In closing, do you have any thoughts you’d like to share with your readers of the world?
JC: be unapologetic!
and never read the poems how you believe the poet wrote them, let the poem tell you what it wants to tell you. no interpretation is wrong.
also share every book you read. if you read it, share it! and write a review. even a little review is helpful, plus it is your opportunity to tell everyone your thoughts about what you’ve read. you spent days/weeks reading the book, so take five more minutes to give your thoughts.
lastly, if you can’t afford one of my books/chapbooks—i am my own digital library. dm me and i’ll send you a pdf version for free. i want you to be able to read poetry without the constraints of money. a pay wall shouldn’t stop anyone from having the opportunity to read poems.
Tiffany Troy is the author of Dominus (BlazeVOX [books]). She is Managing Editor at Tupelo Quarterly, Associate Editor of Tupelo Press, Book Review Co-Editor at The Los Angeles Review, Assistant Poetry Editor at Asymptote, and Co-Editor of Matter.