Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada.
You can read Tatuatore in the July 2024 issue.
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context?
I think I started this with a meditation from the perspective of a tattoo artist tasked with doing something he doesn’t really want to do—namely tattoo a woman’s face. It’s kind of an absurd premise, but one rife with metaphoric openings for other ideas.
Why was the poetic form the best fit for this particular piece of work?
I write both prose and poetry and often the subject suggests the form. A more lyrical telling seemed apt for this piece. It swings a little, sings a little, kind of a downbeat thing. But it suggests more than a prose rendering would have I think.
Do you have a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone?
When I wrote this I was reading Timmy Straw, this amazing poet I recently discovered and I wasn’t so much trying to imitate his idiosyncratic style as express myself with both the freedom and lyrical control that make his poems so wonderful.
If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life?
I do write prose, both fiction and journalism, so I would find an avenue there (have found), but if I weren’t writing I would have likely pursued a three-dimensional art form.
How do you revise your work?
By reading and rereading and cutting and clipping and pasting and moving things from here to there and from there to here—frankly I do whatever will make the poem look and sound as beautiful as the subject allows.
As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you?
Success is the completion of a work that satisfies me, my aesthetic. Then of course, validation matters. Getting a poem accepted by a journal or magazine is cool. Getting poems rejected is soul crushing. Getting poems rejected repeatedly by some journals indicates a demarcation from what is possible and what is not. So more modest acceptances mean more.
We love the artistic underdogs, the experimentalists, the lovely weirdos — who or what might you get creative joy or energy from that others might not be aware of yet?
I am a killer poker player. An absolute beast on the green baize. As ludicrous as that may sound, I’ve been playing since I was a kid and have evolved into a formidable player. Of course, I can say that without batting an eye until I start running bad despite my presumed skills and suddenly become a losing player (which, sadly, can happen.)
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a series of 200 word prose-poem-thingies, free form, surreal, funny, tight.
How or where or with what does a poem begin?
Sometimes with a rhythm or an image. An idea. The germ of an idea. Sometimes with an evil gleaming white page demanding it be filled and blackened lest you die.
Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry?
Painting, music for sure.
How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine?
It is my daily routine. Everything else works around it.
What are you reading or watching or listening to lately that intrigues or inspires you?
Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations on a friggin loop. I can’t get enough of them, the early recording that is. Infinitely beautiful, complex, moving, heavenly.
Have you ever received advice (or has there been something you’ve learned on your own) about writing or revising poems that has made you a better poet? What was it?
I have been, for the most part, discouraged from writing poems. Zero pointers.
How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?
I recall reading “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning at a very young age and being drawn to the use of voice, hidden rhyme, and characterization. Not in so many words back then, but looking back, that’s what delighted me and what open the door to it.
In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?
I’m still restless in terms of settling on style and forms. I’m drawn to classical (or “classic”) poetry but also imbued with the modernists and attempting to fit with postmodernists and post-postmodernists even though it seems like an impossible task.