A quick interview with the poet

I got the boss to answer a few questions that I submitted, half jokingly...I didn't expect answers, but after he did answer them he did give me permission to publish them, so...here goes.

E.J.: Okay, what's the thing you're proudest of?
WFDV: Wow. Tough one. Probably my children. There are days I wouldn't bother taking my first breath if they weren't in the world.

E.J.: Your greatest disappointment?
WFDV: More of a disillusionment - that the success of a relationship rarely has anything to do with the sacrifices you make for it. A hot and bitter drink that is to swallow.

E.J.: Living author you admire most?
WFDV: Aside from myself? Hmmm...you had to make it living? Cecil Adams, who does the "Straight Dope" columns. I learn from him and he amuses me. "Behold the snow. It fornicates" Still cracks me up every time I think of it.

E.J.: One thing you've read and said "I wish I'd written that?"
WFDV: "The Gitanjali" by Rabindranath Tagore. Yeats wrote a foreword. It won the Nobel for Literature. It is amazing.

E.J.: One thing you've written you wish you could unwrite?
WFDV: Ha! I knew this was a trap! Trying to get me in trouble again, hm? Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, let me tell you...I may not like the poem "Weaver"...I may find it lame, amateurish and insipid. But...it has got me laid. So, I can't count it anymore. Hmmmmm....er..."The Strings of Pearl" as it turned out that muse was a ruse. I hate wasting intellectual and emotional energy on a con.

E.J.: If you could control who or what your next muse would be like, what would you build?
WFDV: Wow, dangerous question. I guess I would love to fall in love with a woman who comes from a different culture than I, perhaps China or Japan, maybe Eastern Europe. Even Russian. It would add to the breadth of the relationship, it would make it more of a learning experience. I'd also like to see someone tackle translating some of my works into other languages. I know it is only a matter of time, but I'd love to see it now, so I can see how it goes.

E.J.: The three people you miss most, every day?
WFDV: Too easy. My daughter, Peri. Then Brigit. Then Alisha. I never learned the knack for making close friends with men, so my daughter, then my lovers, have always been my closest friends.

E.J.: If I gave you one wish, what would you wish for?
WFDV: A means to an end. For one of my books to take off like a rocket and be sold for a movie adaptation. The money from that could fix a lot of mistakes I've made.

E.J.: Which book?
WFDV: Well, at this time it would have to be THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES, as it tells a story...but give me a few months. I was actually working on a children's book a few months ago, but it got so depressing, owing to my estrangement from my daughter...I just couldn't do it. I was becoming suicidal just editing it.

E.J.: Whjo would you want to play you in the movie?
WFDV: William L. Petersen, been a huge admirer of his work since Manhunter and To Live and Die in LA. He's got the gravitas, although he is better looking than me. Don't ask about the other roles.

E.J.: Regrets?
WFDV: Not making things right with certain people in my life. Getting blindsided by duplicitous people...not for the pride, but because it then kept and keeps me from doing more than I can.

E.J.: Epitaph?
WFDV: He cared. He dared. He did.

There ya go, people...his next two books of poetry, to my knowledge, also do not have a story line...so I have little idea what he is intimating about another "concept" book. We shall see.

My guess is he is storing up a lot of emotional energy for his next muse and plans to make her the "breakwater" muse...the one that pushes the past back to where it belongs. He's ragged, but raging.