A Magazine of Many Arts

David Kopaska-Merkel has appeared in Polu Texni many times over the years. He has recently been named a Grand Master by the SFPA. We will run poems by him over the next four weeks.

1) Are you primarily a poet, or do you write in other forms as well?

I am primarily a poet, if you go by number of pieces written (close to 2000). However, I wrote fiction first (I still write some), and in terms of total words written, fiction garners first place. Or it would, except I’ve written more than 100 scientific articles, and two science books (a college textbook and a popular-science book, both with co-authors).

2) Tell us about your other writing projects. What are you working on now?

I am working on collaborative poems with a couple of folks I’ve written with before (Ann K. Schwader, Kendall Evans). And I’m working with several poets on a project I can’t say anything about just now. As for solo writing, I am always writing something. And I try to write at least one short poem a day, just to keep my hand in. I post them on my blog: http://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/

Geologically, I’m writing about trace fossils and fossil reefs.

3) Who are your favorite authors? In particular, do you have a favorite who is under appreciated that we should check out?

I have no favorites, cos I like too many, but, Roger Zelazny was a genius. Lord of Light juxtaposed the Hindu pantheon, aliens, and future tech with delicious humor. He was a poet, too. Tim Powers is another genius, and a poet. The Anubis Gates combined time travel with Egyptian gods in an enchanting way (and it’s about a poet!). P. C. Hodgell is, I think, greatly underappreciated. God Stalk is the first of a fantasy series, but it can stand alone. The god-filled world is fascinating, and the young protagonist is both adorable and unexpectedly dangerous. Kim Harrison’s “Hollows” books are paranormal romance, but they are superlative. A similar protagonist, in a way. Hard SF? Jack McDevitt is also underappreciated. Read Chindi, even though it’s part of a series (near-future exploration). You probably meant favorite poets, but I am even less able to answer that question.

4) What are you reading now?

I am rereading Rudy Rucker’s collection The 57^th Franz Kafka. Some of the best SF that was ever written around unfamiliar math and physics concepts. Alternate worlds, the 4^th dimension, what we think we know about time, and so on. 15 more books on my to-read pile, but the topmost is the 2017 Rhysling Anthology.

5) Do you do any other creative work (music, visual arts, etc)?

I have been publishing genre poetry since 1986. I started Dreams and Nightmares because I couldn’t find enough venues for speculative poetry. They existed, but it was hard to find them before the internet. Issue 106 of DN is coming out imminently. Over the years I have bought more than a few “first sales,” which is fun for both parties.

I like drawing, but I’m the only one in my family who utterly lacks talent for it. Even worse at music, though both of my kids are talented there, too.

6) What is your latest big discovery (art, lifestyle, anything really.)

I hoped to raise at least one scientist, but have failed miserably. I am a geologist, and recently discovered a new fossil species. What is it? No one really knows. Many ancient critters have no close living relatives. We know a bit about them, but experts don’t agree whether some fossil species were animal, vegetable, or other. So that’s pretty cool. I have inadvertently specialized in unknown critters, as a matter of fact. The previous project concerned a fat crustacean known only from its burrows.

I was recently named Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Ass’n. I’m still excited about it: I have joined a select group, which includes Ray Bradbury and Jane Yolen.

7) Basic old biographical details? (family, work, why do all writers seem to have two cats, etc?)

Spouse, two grown children (all good artists); 1 dog, two cats (I hate being predictable); live in a 117-year-old house, which once was located out in the countryside. Boards in the closet wall still have bark attached. Have lived in 6 US states plus Canada. I study geology for the people of Alabama.

 1) Are you primarily a poet, or do you write other things?

I am, primarily, a writer. I write fiction and poetry though my first professional sale was in poetry so I have been writing that longer if I disregard the beginnings of a novel I wrote in grade 10. I write mostly speculative fiction but also have published mainstream, erotica and articles as well. I have far more poems than stories written but word wise, the fiction wins.
2) Tell us about your other writing projects. What are you working on now?
I’m working on a first draft of a novel, medieval otherworld fantasy with three races; several short stories, which are actually SF though I write more dark fantasy, and a collection of poems called A Compendium of Witches. These will be about witches, with a Canadian twist but it’s going slow.
3) Who are your favorite authors? In particular, do you have a favorite who is under appreciated that we should check out?
Old time is Theodore Sturgeon and Dylan Thomas, and current faves are Neal Stephenson, Sandra Kasturi for poetry, and the Careys for their book The Steel Seraglio. I adored that book. It’s so lush and full of stories within stories. It’s like the Canterbury Tales, Shaharazad, Arabian Nights and several cautionary tales wrapped up in silk and jewels and sand.
4) What are you reading now?
I’m reading several collections by Canadian authors that I highly recommend. I just finished Over the Darkened Landscape by Derryl Murphy, whose stories are really sticking with me, and Helen Marshall’s Hair Side, Flesh Side is receiving high praise and is right up my alley; stories about skin in one way or the other.
5) Do you do any other creative work (music, visual arts, etc)?
I do Bellydance, make beaded jewellery in necklaces and watchesa and from time to time I create something in the sculptural realm, such as fairy wings, a garden slug out of glass studio castoffs or a six-foot pomegranate.
6) What is the latest big discovery in your life? (art, music, lifestyle, whatever?) I love travelling but sometimes we become complacent. However, I’ve discovered that while I like to be around people in a bar, or at a dance, I don’t like to be around them in the swarms of big cities. I’m going to Europe this fall and hoping to park myself for a few days near Nantes, birthplace of Jules Verne and creative center of the Machines de L’ile where 30-foot divers and mechanical elephants have been seen to roam. This type of elaborate street theatre warms my heart. It takes a bit to save up for European travel but I’ve decided that ever two years I won’t jaunt around N. America but see more of the world and its fantastic, elaborate history.

I did discover that after taking photos in the cemeteries of Cuba, Ireland and Montreal that there is a rich sense of evolution, history and reverence to be found there and I think this fall when I travel to Europe I’ll try to see what tales I can learn there as well.

7) Basic old biographical details? (family, work, why do all writers seem to have two cats, etc?)
I actually have only one cat though I used to have two. I think it’s because writers are selfish with our time and dogs need to be walked, taking us away from our computers. Whereas cats can sit in our laps or be draped across our wrists while we’re writing. But I know writers with dogs so there are always exceptions. My two BFAs are in Creative Writing and Design (Photography). I do freelance copyediting and actually enjoy it. I live in Vancouver, BC and enjoy the weather except when the gills start to grow.

I’ve published more than a hundred poems and short fiction and have other pieces coming out this year in Chilling Tales 2, Irony of Survival, Bull Spec, Cemetery Dance, ReadShortFiction.com, Artifacts & Relics and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Check out Bibliotheca Fantastica and Demonologia Biblica (two different books about books) for current fiction out this year.

After all the poems I have bought from Polu Texni favorite Alexa Seidel, I wanted to learn more about her. You can read more about her at her blog, http://tigerinthematchstickbox.blogspot.com/ or follow her on Twitter at @Alexa_Seidel

1) Do you consider yourself primarily a fantasist or a poet?
If by fantasist you mean someone who spends way too much time daydreaming, then yes, that’s me. Of course, without all that rampant imagination, I wouldn’t be worth much as a poet. If by fantasist you mean a writer of fantasy, then I’d say I’m both. I started writing stories before I ever wrote poetry because poetry
seemed like something difficult and involved to me, something that I didn’t have the skill to accomplish. At some point, I just gave it a shot, and my first poems were really, totally, devastatingly awful. I decided to see it as a challenge rather than a failure though and just kept on trying. I got better. I got published. I came to love writing poems and the more I did it, the more it became natural and even necessary like breath or sleep. By the way, without inspiration from other poets, I could not have done any of this! A few of my most loved poets, alive and dead, include Yeats, Blake (The Tiger is very possibly one of my all-time favorites), El-Mohtar, Valente. So, to wrap this up, I consider myself a writer of fiction who has become
seriously sidetracked by her lyrical exploits.

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Michael A. Burstein, photo by Nomi S. Burstein

Michael A. Burstein, winner of the 1997 Campbell Award for Best New Writer, has earned ten Hugo nominations and three Nebula nominations for his short fiction, which appears mostly in Analog. Burstein lives with his wife Nomi in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is an elected Town Meeting Member and Library Trustee. When not writing, he edits middle and high school Science textbooks. He has two degrees in Physics and attended the Clarion Workshop. The story that appears here is quite unlike the hard SF that he’s known for, although in my opinion, it is also hard SF in its own way.

1) I know that you went to Clarion. We also were in a writer’s workshop together years ago, and you were involved in online writer’s workshops. Can you say something about the time when you were getting started? Did you write much before you became active in the writer’s community? What kinds of things did you find helpful or unhelpful?

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I first “met” Jack while working on my previous publishing project. We wanted to buy this story, “Double Occupancy”, for that project, but in the end that project never happened. It would have been Jack’s first published story. When I started this site, I thought of it again and wondered what Jack was up to. I was thrilled to discover how well his career had gone in the last ten years. He’s had stories published in Asimovs and stories chosen for the Year’s Best Anthology. It made me feel smart to have recognized his talent ten years ago.

1) Tell me about your first published story, since I missed that opportunity.

I wrote “Dead Worlds” in late 2001 and Gardner Dozois bought it for Asimov’s in August of 2002. It appeared in the June 2003 issue, made the Sturgeon Award short list and was reprinted in Dozois’ “Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-First Edition.” Certainly not what I expected when I sat down to rehash an idea I’d originally tried out many years earlier and presented to a college writing class, to less than enthusiastic response from my instructor, a minor poet and occasional short story writer whose claim to fame at that point had been the sale of an erotic poem to Playboy Magazine. The truth is, by the year 2000 I’d given up hope of ever seeing my work published. After years of trying, and easily more than a million words written, I was out of gas. This would have been a good time to pack it in and get on with more mundane matters. But to my dismay I discovered that I couldn’t surrender my obsession. So after a suitable period of head-banging despair and heavy drinking, I resumed my usual routine of short story writing. Giving up on “success” turned out to be a great career move. Liberated from the annoying distraction of tying to please remote editors and satisfy baffling markets, I wrote whatever the hell I felt like writing and almost immediately made acquaintance with the approval I’d courted fruitlessly for years. Actually, I’d always written pretty much what I felt like writing. It’s just that no one was interested in it. About the time I sold you “Double Occupancy” I thought I was on a roll, that I’d made a major breakthrough and was writing the first decent stories of my life. But though I came close with a number of them at markets such as Weird Tales and Deathrealm and MZB’s Fantasy Magazine, I just could NOT crack the bubble. And of course, even “Double Occupancy”– technically my first sale –never made it into print until now. There’s probably a lesson in all this about perseverance and dogged determination, but really I’m just a prisoner of my obsessions.
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