Blog-view: Writer-rocker Dave Morrison

In order to avoid it all being about me, I will be running a new "feature" on this blog--"Blog-view: Blog-sized interviews with writers, artists, and other interesting people." It'll be an opportunity to show off interesting folks that I know, and will be a some-time addition (depending on the reliability of my sources). I'll ask each the same three questions, which they can answer any way they like -- words not required -- or choose to ignore.

First up is Dave Morrison. Rock and roll does more than “inform” Dave Morrison’s poetry; it shakes, rattles, and rolls its rhythms and language. Morrison is a writer of novels, short stories, poetry, and many notes on scraps of paper.  After years of playing guitar in rock and roll bars in Boston (the Trademarks and True Blue) and NYC (the Juke Savages), he currently resides in coastal Maine.  

Dave's poetry and short stories have been published in FRiGG, Thieves Jargon, Rattle, Void, Rumble, Mad Hatters Review, Juked, Laura Hird, Psychopoetica and other fine magazines, and three collections of poetry and two novels have been published by JukeBooks.  Clubland (2011 Fighting Cock Press), a collection of poems about rock bars written in verse, is his seventh book. A new collection, fail is due out in the fall of 2012.

Linda: What is an artifact you have in your studio or writing space, and what does it mean for your work?

Dave: I'm attaching a picture of a small wrench that used to belong to my father.  It's small and surprisingly heavy - it has a walnut handle and small inscriptions that show the mark of the maker, and the maker's union.  It is simple and useful, and oddly lovely, as I'd like my poems to be.

Linda: We're interested in knowing what you've read recently, but we'd love to know what you wish you had read at some point, or sometimes pretend you have read.

Dave: I just finished re-reading Plainsong by Kent Haruf.  I needed a mental palette-cleanser. I had just read a series of 'young man' books--clever and sarcastic and hip and cynical and unsatisfying.  I needed something strong and plain and moving, and I got it.

Linda: What is something you would like to tell the world?

World?  Relax.  We are too tense and fearful and greedy and grabby.  Share some love.

I am Dave Morrison and I approve of this message.  My seventh book of poetry is Clubland, poems about rock bars in verse (http://clublandpoems.wordpress.com/).  My new book is fail, and will be released at a reading on October 5 at the Owl and Turtle Bookstore in Camden, Maine.