Interview with the Amomancer, Part II

This is the second of five parts of an interview
I've conducted online with William F. DeVault
over the last several days.
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EJ:
Let's talk about some of your more famous and infamous works?
WFDV:
Okay, I'm game. Any particular pieces or do you just want me to free associate?
EJ:
Let's start with The Panther Cycles. These have been a lot of baggage for you, both in the creation and their part in the changes that have gone on in your life over the last decade or so. Now the book, THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. Aren't you afraid of being caught in a rut?
WFDV:
I am sure Michelangelo was worried about the rut he was in doing religious frescoes, too. (snarfle)
Not in the least, actually. I decided it was time to put them all out there, so many fragments and individual cycles have been read and shared around the world, it sort of became that so many people came to my works like watching a single scene or montage of scenes from a movie. You need to see the whole work to truly get your arms (or legs) around it.
I realize that their inception was not an easy process for many. I've done my share of questionable things, but I think that tossing away these works would not be honoring people in any greater manner. When something good comes out of something bad, you need to hold onto that.
I've had this debate in another form, with my daughter, before. She asked me if I wished I'd never married her mother. I said that if I were to wish that away I'd be wishing away her and her brothers, which were the most wonderful of things. I wouldn't do that. She had some problems getting her conceptualization around that.
We embrace our disgrace to learn from it. You admit your mistakes and move on, taking what you can from your failures to build on your successes. Anything else and you are trapping yourself in a cycle of failure, of ignorance, of arrogance. Life is an experiment. You are supposed to learn from experiments, even if that the experiment proves you wrong in something you once believed.
EJ:
How did the experience of living and writing The Panther Cycles prove you wrong?
WFDV:
In no way. I was a bit emotionally battered, and I may have bet on the wrong horse by throwing my emotional soul into that relationship, but what I did was follow my heart. I think there are too many people in this world who don't do that, and I think that is a tragedy. I have had people who have publicly tarred and feathered me over the works and my divorce come to me in secret and tell me their stories of when they failed to follow their hearts and how much they admired me for having actually tried to do so. Hypocrisy is pandemic in our culture. Most people do, not what they think is right, but what they think will leave the most doors and pathways open to them. I proved in both The Panther Cycles' milieu and my second marriage that I was willing to "march into Hell for a heavenly cause".
If anything, it restored my faith in me, in my core belief system that treasures sacrifice and charity above all other things.
Yes, I am an adulterer. Actually, I gave up adultery not so long after George W. Bush gave up cocaine and public drunkenness. The difference is I admit my sins and take something from them besides a sense of self-righteousness and an addiction to denial.
EJ:
Wow. I do note that recently you've taken more of a turn towards the political. Something in that?
WFDV:
Yes, but after a small comment so it doesn't get swept to the wayside, let's get back to the poetry. I would, at a moment's notice, enter politics. I think we need people who actually have values, real values, values of helping the poor, of ending wars (not starting them) in the political arena. A real Christian Agenda, not this mock one we have been sold like beer and hamburgers. After the financial deprivations of my first divorce and my second marriage, after the public way I have chosen to live my mistakes, rather than in craven silence, it would be short lived. I would need a patron to swoop in and pay off some debts I have from when I was unemployed and working to save Ann's life. I would need a second chance that is unlikely in that part of my life.
EJ:
Back to the poetry?
WFDV:
Yes, please...we can touch on personal issues later.
EJ:
What's the best thing you ever wrote?
WFDV:
I still adore TRIUMPH. "Diogenes" has faded. I see it like Rodin's "Burghers of Calais"...not artistically my best work, but the scale of it is impressive. Some nice romantic works in there. Hard to argue with the cult following "The Patchwork Skirt of My Love" has.
EJ:
Well, romantic works are your trademark.
WFDV:
Yes, and it's funny to see how I am still cranking them out in romantic exile...I guess the desire and the memories sustain me. "I shall live on these crusts stained with jelly. Filling my belly with morsels and mould." Sound familiar?
EJ:
Yet another line from "Horizon", which has sometimes been called the prophecy poem because so many images of it have been fulfilled since you wrote it.
WFDV:
Precisely. I sometimes wonder if it was a prophecy, or some kind of verbal inkblot test, or I am actually trying to fulfill it with my actions. I wish I knew. One more question for the afterlife, I suppose.
EJ:
Let's touch on your muses
WFDV:
Better ask their husbands first.
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