This is Tracy Rybacki, and I’m a writer at Oblivioni, and I also interviewed David Groff for the magazine. David Groff is a poet, an editor and an author of a book called Live in Suspense. He has a husband, and he has a family that the poems are based on. Also he has poems based on animals. [Editor’s Note: Tracy discussed David Groff’s poems “Small Peony” and “Birthday Wish”, which you can read here.]

I met David at Cafe Flor in Manhattan. David is extremely bright and intellectually smart and influential.

I wanted to meet David because I love writing. It’s my gift and talent. I also wrote a book of poems. I also love to impress people with my vocabulary, and I would like to inspire people’s lives.

Tracy: What makes you do poetry?

David: Well, I make a joke that I did poetry because I never wanted to make any money. Poetry isn’t big like movies. But I think I like doing things that are short and concentrated, where you can do a lot in a page or two. It’s like dropping a tiny stone in the water, and it ripples out and has some effect. I mean, I never wanted to write a long story. Maybe someday. 

Tracy: Did you want to do it when you were young? 

David: Well, when I was in school, I wanted to be president of the United States. 

Tracy: Really? 

David: Yeah, yeah. Well, someone had to be. But I decided that it was more valuable, for me, personally, to do art. It was what felt right for me, compared to giving speeches or shaking hands, like a president. Sometimes I still want to be president, but not very often, mostly when I want people to applaud. 

Tracy: You said you’re interested in pets. What made you do poetry about animals, like in “Birthday Wish”?

David: I like animals in poetry because they are totally there. They’re totally in the scene. A dog is not busy thinking about other things. And it’s true for a bird. It’s true for bugs. They’re just being a bird or a bug. And I think when you look at them, you can get a clear picture of what your actions are, and you can connect with them. I can say, “Hmm, how am I like a dog?” I have a poem in here about a bird that flies into a window and falls. It thought it saw itself in the glass. And that was a way for me to talk about being sad, through the bird. 

Tracy: I kind of relate that to “Birthday Wish”, the poem about the dog and the tree. 

David: Yes, that dog is just being a dog. And we humans can be all over the place, and animals can be, too. But to look at a tree or an animal and just have it be there—that moment is direct and present. 

Tracy: What did you mean— having them discover themselves? Like the dog and the tree? The dog doesn’t know he’s a dog. And the tree doesn’t know it is a tree, but it is a tree. 

David: One of the things I love about dogs is how doggy they are. And part of being a dog or being a tree is having all the things you need to be good at it. I mean, a dog knows how to feed itself, how to sniff, how to take care of puppies. It’s all just in their system. And a tree knows when to get water, when to grow leaves, when to drop leaves. So they’re kind of —

Tracy: Discovering themselves? 

David: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And because it’s a birthday poem….. When I’m busy thinking about getting older or what I want to do in the new year, to look at an animal that’s just being an animal was a reminder. And it made me look at animals with more love, actually. And to think that they’re complete. Just through their own being. Does that make sense?

Tracy: Yeah. The tree is going to get cut. So I was wondering, are you saying it knows it’s going to be cut?

David: A tree doesn’t know when it’s going to get cut down. And that’s kind of nice, you know? You have to worry less if you’re a tree. And humans, we humans tend to worry about what’s going to happen…. That’s kind of a wish on a birthday, I think, is not to be worrying so much. 

Tracy: About the end of life. 

Groff: Yeah, right, exactly. You’ve got it. It seemed to me that if you were going to talk about a tree, you had to talk about the end of the tree, which in this case would mean getting cut down at the end. So birthdays make me think about how we have only so many days, about the end of things. 

Tracy: Right, right. When you say, “may I, like the dog, the tree … know only what I need to be,” I think you are saying you want to close your eyes to everything other than yourself. Is that what you were trying to say?

Groff: Well, I guess we aren’t a tree, and we aren’t a dog. I’m still a human. You’re still a human. Maybe we can wish for ourselves something that is doggier that is more like a tree. But we’re still being Tracy and David. I mean, it would be nice not to know, not to be aware all the time. But part of being human is being aware of choices—like, what shirt do I put on today? Or what song do I sing? And those are all things we have to pick. And maybe sometimes we get all tied up those choices.

Tracy: The dog could go to the bathroom on the tree. That’s where dogs usually go. Is that why you put them together? 

David: Dogs pee on trees–I never thought of that! I’m glad you found it. I should say, Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course.: I didn’t choose a lion and a telephone pole, you know. But not until this minute did I ever think of that. I just put the dog here and the tree here. I put them next to each other in words, but I didn’t have the dog trot over. Maybe that’s just there for readers like you to discover. You should have been in my poetry group with my other poets, when I showed them the poem, because you could have brought that up. 

Tracy: You would like to be a dog. I guess I would want to be a cat, maybe. They can cuddle. A dog, you can’t. A cat is easier to pet than a dog.

David: That could be a great thing to write about. Just look at a cat and start describing it, and you may come to a place of freedom and being able to bat at things.

Tracy: Can we talk about “Small Peony,” the poem about the mother? Why did you decide to write a poem about a flower instead of just about your mother?

David: My mother loved peonies. We had a peony bush near our house, and we would wait for the peonies to bloom, and she would cut them and put them in a vase. So when I think of my mother, I think of these big, smelly flowers, you know — another poet called their blooms a tissue box filled with flowers. I think when you’re trying to write about something that’s very emotional to you, you can pick an object or a situation as a way in. So I can write about a flower and then write about my mother. Or I could write about a boat — and that would be a way into the big, big topic of loving my father and missing him. So often if you choose the object, it’s easier than saying, you know, “I love you, mom, and I miss you, every time the sun goes down.” Because you can discover more sometimes through connecting with an object. For example, if you were to write about a mailbox, there might be things about that mailbox, what was in it, or what you’d like to put in it, that would be a way to talk about something that’s close to your heart.

Tracy: When you wrote “Small Peony,” did you think it was going to be about your mother?

David: I kind of knew because I knew she loved peonies, but I mostly wanted to see what a peony reminded me of. And here it was: a little fist waiting to uncurl. You know, the way a peony blooms.

Tracy: That poem means a lot to me, because my mother passed away. 

David: Oh, I’m so sorry. Have you been able to write about her yet? 

Tracy: Not yet. 

DAVID: That’s so hard. But you have a lot of time to do it. You know, my mother died twenty-three years ago, and I’m still writing about her. And my father died eight years ago, and he’s still edging into my poems. But maybe one way you’ll find is to write about your mother’s jewelry box. 

Tracy: Right. 

David: That’s something I tell my students. I say, don’t write about your mother, write about your mother’s hairbrush. And that object can be just kind of a doorway into something richer. 

Tracy: When I read “Small Peony,” it made me think about my mom as a person before she had her family. It makes me wonder who she was when she was younger.

David: My mother, as a little girl, I’m told, was very tough. When I knew her, she was much gentler. But I was interested in thinking seeing her as a little girl who wouldn’t get bullied. The princess leading the pack, you know, with a fist that could hit somebody. And then the poem moves to her being a grown woman. I don’t know about your mother, but my mother, she had a lot of style. And the peonies, they really smell— they kind of ask a lot of you, you know? They’re not like daisies. And my mother connected with a big, smelly showy flower, and I wanted to talk about that. And then the poem ends with tissues, like the tissue of the flower — I wanted to be able to touch that. The poem is sad, but it also made me feel how alive she was. And maybe with your mother, as you write about her, there’ll be ways to show her in all of her color.

Tracy: What makes you do a kind of topic? 

David: Do you mean, the flower or the actual idea of….

Tracy: Yes, the actual idea. 

David: Sometimes I think the object comes first and then you figure out why you’re doing it. Like, with the flower in that poem. Every year, you can get peonies only in May and June for some reason. And that’s when my mother’s birthday is. So as soon as I see them in the store, I go out and buy them. And maybe I’m not thinking about my mother, but there’s something about the object that gets me close to her. I did the same with desert stink beetles. I thought, desert stink beetles are interesting because they smell and nobody wants to be around them because we’re afraid of them. 

Tracy: How would you write about them?

David: I would start by just describing them. I would say, stink beetle, you look like a big black car. I learned the fact that they gave up wings. Years and years ago when they were first around, they had wings, but instead they became land insects. So they’re totally in the desert. I would kind of just write these things, and then I would start to realize why it was on my mind. You know, a bug that nobody wants to be around—well, that can feel like me sometimes.

Tracy: Well, it could be for anyone. Do you have any brothers or sisters? 

David: My brother writes TV comedy.

Tracy: Oh, really?

David: Yeah, he’s in Hollywood. He’s very successful. Well, one show he worked on you might have heard of is black-ish.

Tracy: I’ve heard of that.

David: He’s in Hollywood, and I’m here just writing my tiny little poems. 

Tracy: You ever think of doing that? 

David: That’s a good question. Years ago, I tried to write a movie. But I wasn’t very good at it. I’m an editor of books, so I know how stories are made, but writing stories has just never been something I wanted to do, so far. And poems, even though not as many people read them as watch a TV show, still seemed what I was called to do. Writing poetry is more private, more individual. You know, it’s all up to us poets, you and me, and our readers. 

^^^

Tracy Rybacki is a writer with Down syndrome who writes periodically for Oblivioni Magazine. Read more of her work here.

David Groff is a poet, editor and teacher whose collections include Clay (Trio House Press, 2013), winner of the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence, Theory of Devolution (University of Illinois Press, 2002), which was chosen by Mark Doty for the National Poetry Series, and Live in Suspense (Trio House Press, 2023). He lives in New York City.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity; some portions have been reordered.