Tom Beckett Interviews Thomas Fink

Tom Beckett is, hands down, the most productive, provocative interviewer of the last twenty years. Forgive the hyperbole, but seek out the record. From his interviews in his seminal journal The Difficulties, e.g the issues focused on Ron Silliman, David Bromige, and Charles Bernstein, to his latest online interview with Thomas Fink, this man provokes poets into talking about poetry, about how they approach what they do, why they do it, whom they do it for, as no other interviewer. Put the interviews together, he’s not a Seurat or Monet but a Renoir, a sensual wash, of ex-patronizing American poetry. More than any other form of literary criticism, Beckett's interviews get the reader to buy the danged books. (I've just shipped off for Fink's After Taxes on the basis of this interview.)

He brings what good interviewers of poets’ve got to have: extensive knowledge of what his subject has written, a good sense of what basic questions he should ask to bring out a full body of a poet’s work, curiosity to follow a thread he hasn’t anticipated, and a presence of his own, a way of asking questions and responding to answers that is as informative as it is formative.

I think it’s damn time for some publisher to bring out a collection of Beckett’s interviews. Even those done twenty years ago, they've still got relevancy -- buoyancy, a reverberating exchange of values we'd do well to respond to today.

Comments

[Steve Tills]

I think you've succinctly and elegantly remarked a good deal of good truth here, Crag. Tom's own poetry may be equally unique, but you're damn straight accurate pointing out his substantial and always relevant, progressive, ever invigorating work as an interviewer/critic. Good and essential post, Amigo! :)