Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily ScoopLIVING & TRAVEL
Hal Sirowitz: Mother Poet
interviewed by Emma Taylor on May 8, 1996
"Why do I have to be the one that's got the crazy mother?"
Hal Sirowitz is the author of Mother Said, a book of poems that his mother never saw. "I was afraid she would hit me over the head," Sirowitz explains. He was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and appeared on MTV's "Spoken Word: Unplugged" and PBS's "The United States of Poetry." He talks here with Tripod about crazy mothers, bad lovers and the democracy of poetry.
Listen to Hal Sirowitz in Real Audio! You can listen to the whole interview or cut to the chase and just hear him read his works. If you haven't downloaded the free Real Audio 2.0 player yet, hurry on over to Progressive Networks and hear what you've been missing.
Tripod: This book of poems you've just written, "Mother Said" -- your mother never saw any of the poetry you wrote about her, did she?
HS: That's right, she never did.
Tripod: Why didn't you show it to her?
HS: I was afraid she would hit me over the head! Also, I thought that she would be afraid that I would just quit my job and become this crazy, wild beatnik poet. Also, I could never write a Hallmark card to her, you know. These poems are the truth about the difficulties I have with my mother.
Tripod: When did you start taking her advice and putting it into poems?
HS: I started about fifteen, sixteen years ago.
Tripod: What made you start doing that?
HS: Well, I always wanted to be a writer, but my life wasn't
that interesting. I was a bookworm, I just stayed in my house in all day, and I thought, who would want to hear stories about me? But then I realized, hey, I have this real interesting mother, and then I started writing about her. When I was growing up, I felt like, why do I have to be the one that's got the crazy mother? Because my friends would go to baseball games and go to dances, and I'd have to go shopping with my mother and hang around with her. But now, I realize that I've got all this good material from her.
Tripod: Were you surprised by how popular your mother poems were?
HS: Yeah, I am, I'm still a little shocked by it. You know, I just had this need to write, even if no one bought any of my books, I would still do it.
Tripod: The reason I saw your book was because it was suggested on Random House's website as a Mother's Day gift. Would you really recommend someone giving your book to their mother?
HS: It's a good one because there's a lot of other Mother's Day gifts which are very Hallmarky, which is lies about your mother, about how much you love your mother. And my book is all about the conflicts with my mother, and I opposed that relationship, so I tried to break away from my mother, and break away from the house. So I think it's the truth about mother-son, mother-daughter in the family.
Tripod: When did you start thinking of yourself as a poet, or do you still have trouble with that?
HS: No, I would say that I even when I was little, I wanted to be a writer, because I felt invisible, I felt my parents had no clue to who I was. I didn't quite know who I was, so I thought if I was famous, then they would have to at least recognize me and be proud of me. First I thought I'd be a famous baseball player or famous scientist, but I just didn't have those skills. But I was always good at words, and so then I just kept writing and became better with words.
Tripod: Your mother died a couple of years ago?
HS: Right.
Tripod: So did she ever see you be published?
HS: I started getting published about sixteen years ago, but I was published in the underground poetry scene, and my mother never read poetry magazines. So she just never knew that I was writing all these poems about her. So there was this invisible world going on that she didn't know about.
Tripod: What do you think she'd say if she
were around now and saw your book?
HS: I think she would like it now because I'm making her popular. But I think if she saw it before, she would be very sensitive and think I might be making fun of her. I wasn't quite sure. My father said that he thinks she would like it.
Tripod: You perform your poetry pretty frequently, right?
HS: Right.
Tripod: It really interests me, the way the spoken word is entering mainstream culture these days. You were on MTV as well. When was that?
HS: It was in April 1994; it was the second "Spoken Word: Unplugged" show that they did. I was before Gil Scott-Heron.
Tripod: Do you like having a live an audience for your poetry? Do you like them to laugh? How does that change your poetry?
HS: Well, I write for a crowd, I don't write just to one person alone in a room. My poetry developed in front of people. I'd go to these open readings, where anyone can read for five minutes. I was awful at first, and then I would go back home, and I could see the audience in my head and I wrote to people and I liked making people laugh. I think people are just too sad most of the time, and so it's this power that makes them laugh at things.
Tripod: So does it change the way you write, if you know you'll be performing the poem?
HS: Yeah, I really have the audience inside my head, so I'm writing for a group of people, I'm writing to communicate, to make this connection, so I don't use big words. My form is, I use my mother's voice, and so I have to be true to my mother. Other poets, their form is the sonnet, the villanelle, my form is my mother.
Tripod: Do you think people would be disappointed if you stopped writing about your mother?
HS: Oh, I never will. I just keep hearing her inside my head. All I have to do is go to a playground and I hear these mothers yelling at their kids ...
Tripod: And you hear your mother again.
HS: Yeah, I hear her again. So there's just a lot more material. I like being called the mother poet.
Tripod: Have you ever changed your mind about a poem you've written, after you've read it aloud? Does it ever sound completely different to you?
HS: Well, sometimes I understand it when I read it out loud. I don't quite understand it while I'm writing it, and then some of my mother poems, while I was reading them out loud, I realized I was preparing for her death. I knew that she was going to die, and they were getting me ready for that time. But I don't change my poems, it's just that all of a sudden I understand them while I'm reading them.
"To be a poet all you need is a pen -- which you already have -- and some paper, which you already have."
When I read them, one thing I do to be less nervous is I pretend I'm a little kid again. I go back in time and I pretend I'm the age that this happened, so sometimes I'm nine years old, sometimes I'm eleven, seven. So I never smile at the audience, I just pretend, I'm sort of saying to people, why do I have to be the one with the crazy mother?
Tripod: Another project you took part in was the PBS series "The United States of Poetry." That series raised a lot of questions about the democracy of poetry. In a recent interview with Tripod, Barry Wallenstein said that the notion of somebody being a better poet than someone else is politically incorrect right now. What do you think about that -- do you think it's right that poetry is becoming more democratic?
HS: Yeah, I think it's really good. I think the great thing about the show was that it had a lot of diversity, all these different types of poets. There were famous poets, and there were underground poets. I'm into the democracy of poetry, I try to write very simple. Anyone can write, I think a lot of people are writers and the good thing about poetry is that it's very accessible. To be in a rock and roll band, you have to buy a guitar, which is a lot of money, and you have to spend all this money taking lessons. If you're a painter, you have to buy all this paint and paint-brushes. Whereas to be a poet all you need is a pen -- which you already have -- and some paper, which you already have. Then you can be a writer. So I think a lot of people can do it, and even if you don't read out loud, even if you don't perform like I do, it helps your head to write. You think about things differently when you start writing it down.
"I would tell the women, this is a great relationship, I'm happy, and then I would write a poem about it, and it was just this awful poem about how bad it was."
In my life, I've been in relationships, and I would tell the women, this is a great relationship, I'm happy, and then I would write a poem about it, and it was just this awful poem about how bad it was. I can't lie in my poetry.
Tripod: Did you ever show them the poems you wrote?
HS: No, I was kind of afraid to show them. Because they would say, you know, why don't you write a poem about me? And I did write a poem.
Tripod: How long does it take you to write a poem you're happy with?
HS: It doesn't take very long, sometimes fifteen minutes to half an hour, but I'm always focused, I'm always thinking about my poems. I tend to write around people. When I sit in my room, alone, it's hard for the poems to come. What I do, I walk around people, I take the subway, the train, and then when I'm around people, all of a sudden I can hear my mother. Then these words come to me. Then I just sit down and write, wherever I am. Sometimes I've sat on the sidewalk, I've sat on a car, I've run into a bar and just wrote the poem.
Tripod: You teach in New York -- do you teach the kids poetry?
HS: Yeah, I have a class that I teach second graders poetry. I teach them how to write Mother Said poems. What happened is that all of sudden I got phone calls from mothers, saying they wanted to speak to me.
Tripod: They didn't like the poems?
HS: Well, actually, they did. I thought they wouldn't like it, but then the kids were so excited that the mothers wanted to know if there were any special programs for second graders in writing. But there isn't any summer school program or any program in writing. So it worked out pretty well.
"These second graders said, okay, we won't rap, we'll just do some Mother Said poems."
One time I took the bus with these second graders, and there was a mother on the bus. My students started rapping, and the mother was upset, she said, you shouldn't rap, that language is disrespectful. So they said, okay, we won't rap, we'll just do some Mother Said poems. And they started doing improv Mother Said poems about "don't play with the knife because you could cut off your finger." And the mother didn't know what to do -- she didn't quite like it either, but she knew that it was things she'd said.
Tripod: I've often heard you described as being big in the New York downtown poetry scene. What does that mean -- do you feel that you are writing in a community -- where do you fit in this scene?
HS: Well, I'm supportive of a lot of people on the scene. I think that there is this community, there are a lot of writers out there, and I'm just very accessible. I'm always reading, and I've being doing it for about sixteen, seventeen years, so a lot of people know me. Sometimes people come up to me on the street, and say hello to me, and I have no idea who they are, but they heard me read a poem. I just stand there and try to find a clue and figure out how I know them, and usually I know them from them hearing me read.
Tripod: Who would you say -- in terms of other poets, other writers -- who are your main influences?
HS: Well, you know I'm also influenced by rap music, I'm influenced by blues, I'm influenced by early Bob Dylan, I'm influenced by early Joni Mitchell. I'm influenced by a lot of musicians who have this love for words. You know, some Neil Young songs.
"I think that a lot of rock musicians want to be poets, and a lot of poets want to be rock musicians."
I think that what's happening, it's almost like, you know that song "Lola" by the Kinks -- "it's a mixed up, shook up world, boys will be girls and girls will be boys." It's like that, where I think that a lot of rock musicians want to be poets, and a lot of poets want to be rock musicians. So I think that there's a coming together of rock musicians and poetry. Henry Rollins is doing spoken word shows, where he doesn't use any music. He just gets up there and does these monologues, these spoken word shows.
Tripod: Do you ever do any of your readings to music?
HS: I've done it occasionally, and it goes well. I just prefer to use silence, and to use the audience participation and work on people's laughter. I've done it occasionally with bands, and I'm probably going to read for the Greenwich Village jazz festival, but I just prefer not hiding behind the music, just being naked with words.
Tripod: Do you improvise at all during poetry readings?
HS: I know a lot of my poems by heart, and some poems, I don't want to know by heart, I want to hide behind the paper. I get nervous sometimes with a lot of people -- sometimes there's about two hundred people in the audience, and so sometimes I just won't even look at people.
Tripod: Would you mind reading a couple of your poems?
HS: Sure.
This is called "Deformed Finger"
Don't stick your finger in the ketchup bottle,
Mother said. It might get stuck, &
then you'll have to wait for your father
to get home to pull it out. He
won't be happy to find a dirty fingernail
squirming in the ketchup that he's going to use
on his hamburger. He'll yank it out so hard
that for the rest of your life you won't
be able to wear a ring on that finger.
And if you ever get a girlfriend, &
you hold hands, she's bound to ask you
why one of your fingers is deformed,
& you'll be obligated to tell her how
you didn't listen to your mother, &
insisted on playing with a ketchup bottle,
& she'll get to thinking, he probably won't
listen to me either, & she'll push your hand away.
And this is called "Moving Train"
You should never walk around while the train
is moving, Mother said. You could fall,
& crack your kneecaps. You'll have to stay
in a hospital, & have surgery. And your father
may decide not to put a TV in your room,
so you'll have nothing to look at. Because
if we make it too pleasant for you,
you might decide to break something else.
This is called "My Dead Goldfish"
I wanted an alligator for a pet,
but my parents got me a goldfish.
When he died my mother flushed him down the toilet.
She said if we bury him in the yard
a cat might dig him up & eat him.
I was mad at my father for using the bathroom
ten minutes after the burial.
He had no respect for the dead.You want me to read some more?
Tripod: Yeah, I'm enjoying this.
HS: Okay, this is called "Finding Your Way Back Home"
Don't lean on the display window,
Mother said. It might shatter,
& if by some lucky miracle
you don't get hurt, the manager
of the store will make me pay for it.
At first I'll try to pretend that I'm not
your mother, but the urge to smack you
will probably be greater then the act
of disownment. And how would you
get back home if I sneaked away?
I keep imploring you to look at
street signs once in a while,
it might even improve your reading score.Tripod: Thank you very much.
The above poems are all from Hal Sirowitz's "Mother Said," released this month by Crown.
Map | Search | Help | Send Us Comments
