Washington Square. On air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review. Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing. Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Luckin. I'm here today with Rich Glinnen, whose poem Neptune is in our Summer 24 issue. Hey, Rich, how are you doing?

Hey, Melissa. Thanks for having me.

Sure thing. Tell us about your poem. How did you come to write it?

Well, not really too sure, really. When I think of the poems that I write, I often go back to thinking about what I was reading at the time. I feel like. I feel like I'm sort of like a pretty impressionable person. So whatever I'm, like, reading at the time, that will really, like, inform my writing at the time. Like, when I was younger, like in my 20s and my late teens and 20s, I was really into Bukowski. I was reading everything Bukowski. And so my writing was like, very much like Bukowski. And then, you know, I got older and I'd read more like Billy Collins and George, Bill Garrett and K. Ryan. As of late Am I, I felt like my rhymes were kind of like, I would still hold on to, like, my previous Bukowski in phase and then just kind of like pepper into whatever I'm reading at the moment. So I guess I hear people talk about that sort of thing, and I think that's sort of like how you develop your own voice. It's just kind of like an. It could be like an amalgamation of things you read and what inspires you and everything. So at that time, I think I might have been reading Jericho Brown. And although I wouldn't say it was like, kind of like in his style, I think, because I think I read. I finished reading his book. I forgot the name of it. It's the one he won the Pulitzer for, but I think it was slightly inspired by that. But some time had passed in between, so it doesn't come off. So Jericho Brownie. It was more. More me, you know. Not to say all the poems aren't me, but yeah, I. That's sort of like, I guess, like, how it came with, like, the structure and just like, kind of like maybe like what was inspiring me at the time, but I'm not exactly too sure. I remember the first line. Just like, if I was a planet, I would be Neptune. When I wrote it, to me, it felt like almost like a writing exercise thing. Like something you would read in like a how to read poetry book. Like, pretend you are a planet and then go from There, you know, you.

Just invented that writing exercise. You just invented that writing exercise.

Yeah, yeah. I guess at the time I was like, oh, this kind of sounds, you know, preschooly or something like that. I don't think I really had much to write about at the time. So I just kind of like just rolled with it. And then for whatever reason, it just brought me back to just sort of feeling like, you know, a bit like ostracized or like lonely during my, my grade school era.

Yeah. One of the things I was thinking about when you were talking about the influences is it reminded me of how little kids learn to talk. Right. So it makes sense that as writers, we learn to write by surrounding ourselves with voices and then pulling from those voices and being inspired from them. Because that's the same way that kids learn to talk. They're surrounded by voices and they pull inspiration from that.

No, yeah, you're exactly right. Because I try to read every day. I feel like as someone who wants to be like a writer, like a full time writer, I have to eat, I have to have something that I'm always like digesting. It's like if I go like a few days without reading anything, sometimes I'll sit down to write a poem and I'm like, oh my God, what's. What. How do you write a poem? What does a poem look like? I need someone to like, I need to like, look at a poem. Like, look at either one of my own poems or just look at like other, other poems like K. Ryan or Collins or something, and just remind myself, like, how to, to put it in your terms, like, to remember how to speak, like, like a poet.

What is it about poems in particular that appeals to you?

Well, I write poems and also write short stories. And sometimes when I sit down to write, I'll think, because I give myself like an hour to write every day. I would like to dedicate more time, but life is such that I can't really fit more than that. And as it is, I had to. I don't, I don't why I don't write on the weekends anymore because that's more set aside for kids and stuff. So. So Monday through Friday, I write an hour a day. And sometimes I'll just sit down to write and I'll think, oh, well, this is, this is a good short story idea. Or it could be a story idea, but I'm like, just the idea of writing an entire story, even though it's a short story, it just seems so daunting. My short stories don't go like, they're. Don't go past 2,000 words. They're very short, you know? And when I write poems, it's more like. It's kind of like playing. It's kind of like just like, sort of like goofing off, you know? Even though, like, people say, like, it's. It's harder to write a poem because you got to pick just the right word, just the right order, you know, this is so few. It's so concise that you have to be, like, exact with everything. But I like doing that, and it just. It doesn't feel like work. So I guess to answer your question, it's because I'm lazy.

Do you ever start working on a poem and then find that it really does need to be a short story instead?

Yeah. Yeah.

And then are you disappointed because you're like, oh, now I have to?

Well, the antidote to that is to just say, no, it's a narrative poem, okay? And it's gonna have lines that stretch halfway across the page and. And be okay with it not being great because it should have been a story. No. But, yeah, there are times where I will catch myself and I'll be like, no, this. There's. There's more to this. I can't fit it inside of, like, a poem form, you know? And I don't really like to write, like, epic poems, like long poems or even, like, narrative poems, even though I have written them before. Like, if they stay poems, it's because I was too lazy change them into short stories. But, yeah, there are times. Yeah, there will. And there are times where I was writing a short story, and that kind of made me think of a poem again. It's. And that's usually if I'm just describing something or a scene or something. And a lot of times in my stories, I feel like there is some poetry in there. The way I do it. At least I try how I describe things and everything.

Cool. I wanted to back up to Charles Bukowski because I know you wrote on him in college. Tell us a little bit about that and why did he click with you?

So, yeah, so I said I was very impressionable. And I first discovered Bukowski because my freshman year English teacher, Professor Robert Beauvais, I guess I'll have to send this to him since I mentioned it to him. He introduced me to it. He introduced us to the Shoelace, which I absolutely loved. And I thought that it was so simple, you know. At the same time, I think I was taking, like, a Victoria Victorian era poetry class. And I mean, that was just like, that was painful. Like, I really don't like reading anything. I tried and I really just don't like reading like anything that's like, you know, okay, I get it. You're a genius. Okay. You're smart. All right. You know, I feel like if you're more of a genius, maybe you could say in a simpler way so everyone could understand it. Like, I don't like reading basically anything before like the 1900s, like 1920s. And I just got so sick of like reading like, you know, Wordsworth and all these guys. And to hear Bukowski, I was like, oh, that's great. And then you start going to like his personality, which we all know, you know, like just basically like alcoholic. And he's always has like many varying relationships with women. And you know, he could just be outrageous and he would just be on stage and just downing bottles of wine and fighting with the audience. And at the time I was 19, and even though it was, it is illegal, I was drinking at that point and I thought, wow, this guy is, is fantastic. Oh, not to mention he was also found success later in life. And I didn't have a father growing up. My grandfather was like my father figure. So I feel like I kind of was more attached to him because he was like an older guy and he dressed like my grandfather. He always wore like slacks and a button down shirt and a bunch of crap in his, in his shirt pocket. And I was like, I want to be like this guy. So I started, I was like, he's saying he seems easy enough to emulate. So I just became, I just became like this Bukowski. It's sort of like I was like just, I was drinking at night and I was saying it's okay to drink every night.

Yeah, that part's the easy part. Just.

Yeah, no, yeah. So I was writing though. I, I, that's the hard part. Yeah. I don't know if I was writing anything good, but I was writing, I was getting published. And I was like, this is, this is great. This is working. I'm going to be like Bukowski.

Was there a point when you realized that maybe you weren't actually going to be like that?

Oh, yeah, yeah. But it took a lot of self abuse to realize that. I got sober when I was 28, so it took more or less than a decade to figure it out. But yeah, but yeah. So anyway, you know, so I was writing, I was reading everything that he, that he, that he wrote. And as an English major, you have to write a Thesis your senior year, and I asked Professor Beauvais if he would help me with that. And I was reading him anyway. I loved reading him. It was. It was like a labor of love. And I wrote. I forgot how many pages it was. I think. Was he at 20 or 30 or 40? I really don't remember. But it came out, like, just, like, so easily because it was. I just held it so near and dear to my heart. In fact, I also. You. You had the option to come up with, like, a independent course, I think they called it, where you would go to your professor and say, I want to read this type of. This author or study this certain topic, and if they approved it, then you could do it. And so I took a course on Bukowski with that same professor.

And was this at Hofstra?

No, no, Hofstra is my. Was my grad school. This is at St. Francis College.

Oh, okay.

In Brooklyn Heights.

Okay.

Yeah.

So thinking back, did you have a. And you might not remember the answer to this, but your thesis, like, your main point, like, what were you talking about?

I don't think it was anything specifically. I think it was just like, the. Just like, the. The metaphors he used, you know, different motifs that always came up. I think I might have spoken about how his poetry had more like a form, like, more structure or was a little more, like. I guess more akin to, like, how the beats were at that time. Yeah, more like maybe hidden meanings and a little more cryptic. And then how it just kind of, like, lost, like, a lot of that form and a lot of that, like, mysticism. It was, like, much more straightforward and. And blunt over time. Yeah, I think I focused on that. It's been a while.

Did you have any thoughts about why that happened? Why the change?

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe he just got older and was like, I'm just gonna speak the truth, man. I'm just gonna. This is. I'm done with just, you know, sugarcoating it. Maybe it was the booze that was affecting his writing. You know, maybe some muscles in his brain got a little soft, and he just didn't have the. The flowery language to wrap up his words into. I'm not really too sure. I wish I could ask him.

Yeah. Thinking about what we were talking about earlier as the influences makes me wonder if his own influences changed. You know, like, we were talking about how, as a writer, you surround yourself with different kinds of work and you pull inspiration from that. And if his own pool of inspiration changed over time, his writing perhaps would have Also changed partly as a consequence of that.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I will say though that he. Yeah, he did mention a lot of different writers. John. John Fonte comes to mind. Dostoyevsky comes to mind. Some other guys. Most of the riders he mentioned he hated.

Well, it's always good to know what you don't like as well as what you do like.

Yeah.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about was an internship you did with some musician interviews. And maybe you could tell us a little bit about that.

Sure, yeah. So I got that internship at St. Francis College. The two author. These two authors, journalists, they came in and they were basically looking for an intern to help them transcribe musician interviews so they could compile an oral history of heavy metal, which became Louder than Hell. And yeah, I applied. I remember I interviewed in some coffee shop in Brooklyn and it was. It was great. I mean, basically my job was listening to. Listening to these, these artists. It was kind of challenging, I'm not going to lie. Because a lot of times they were either currently inebriated or they had been inebriated for most of their life and now they were older and it was like really. I had to listen to like the interview on like two times slower speed. I don't know how you would say that, but it was like the slowest speed possible. And still I would get like a bunch of like words wrong, you know. And I remember just like having all these transcriptions peppered with unintelligible in parentheses, you know, with a time stamp next to. Was rough, but it was, it was great. It was great. It was Katherine Terman and John Wern. I don't know if you heard of them, but they, they have a lot of like different articles and stuff. And Katherine Terman actually used to do a. A radio show with Alice Cooper. I don't know if that's still going on or not. It was great. I actually, I was working at that job at the same time I was working at Pizzeria while I was going to school. So it was a lot going on and I really didn't have any take time. It was really. It was a stressful period of life, of my life. But so I wound up like, I was like, well, this is a unpaid internship. And although it was like cool and it was. Felt like it was good on my resume and was meeting a lot of cool people about. Yeah, yeah, I met like Rob Halford and my mind's going blank. A bunch of other people. I was like, well, that's. It's unpaid though. And I'm getting paid at the pizzeria. So I was like, I told him like, you know, it was like, I think they asked me for six months and was going on like nine months or so, and I was like, I. I don't know if I could dedicate time to it, but, you know, I kind of. I kind of regret that decision. I feel like I should have since I wanted to be a writer. Maybe just like, staying in a job under the realm of writing might have been the wiser decision and just, you.

Know, practical issues do, though, you know, have an impact on our lives. Bill paying, It's a thing.

Yeah. At the same time, I did live at home. I. I didn't have, like, you know, crazy bills. I wasn't married yet. I have kids yet. You know, like, looking back, I was like, oh, yeah. I could have just, like, you know, done stuff around the house and, you know, did chores and to make a living, you know, just scrounge off my parents, get a little chore charge.

Yeah. Cut the lawn, get paid.

Yeah.

When you were listening to the transcripts with. Was there anything that you pulled from that that influenced your own creativity or your creative process? Like, when you were listening to the transcripts, aside from writing down these unintelligible words, what. What did you pull from it? What. What kind of clicked with you?

I don't know if anything clicked for me, per se, from what the musicians were saying. Yeah. At that time, like I said, I was, you know, I was in my. My early 20s. I was, you know, drinking and, and stuff. And so I was like, oh, well, these guys, they did it too, you know, so no reason to stray from the path. I guess I'll be okay, you know, that there's their successes, you know, just keep, just keep. As long as you keep on with your craft, you'll be all right. But what did stick with me was seeing Catherine and John work. They really, they worked so hard on it. And that's sort of just like when you see someone working hard on something that they love to do, it's like, it's, it's, it's infectious, you know, sort of like, you know, if you ever watched, like, you know, Apollo 13 and you see, like, these, like, crazy, like, intelligent people doing, like, things like, you know, in the space station, in the shuttle, and they're just like these, like, geniuses doing what they love. It's like, it's, it's motivating to apply that to what you like to do.

For sure. So it sounds like that's probably something that stuck with you. Understanding, you know, hard work and doing what you love and the combination of the two things.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Because you were saying that you write for an hour a day, and that's. That may not seem like a lot, but consistently an hour a day, even five days a week. That's. That's kind of a lot, actually, you know.

Yeah. Sometimes it feels like it.

On those days when it does feel like it, what. How do you just keep at it?

Oh, just brute force. Yeah. I don't know. I just.

I think that's it. I think that's the only answer.

Yeah. Yeah. I just. I just keep doing it. Sometimes what I'll do is when I first sit down, I'll journal a little bit. I don't save my journal entries or anything, but I just open up a fresh page and I just type about what I'm thinking, what's bothering me, what I'm happy about, what I have to do. Sometimes I'll just be talking about what I have to do later on the day. Because I always write. That's my first thing in the morning. What I do while my brain is still working, I can't write later on, which is. Reminds me of, like, what Toni Morrison said. Like, she always wrote she got up early before the kids woke up, and she would write like, you know, five to seven or whatever, and while her brain still worked. And not to compare myself to Toni Morrison, but exactly what I do, I wake up before the kids get up, and so I have the house to myself. Furlough for a little while. But, yeah, a lot of times, like, I'll write these journal. I'll write these journal entries, and sometimes something will come out of there. Because when I'm writing, sometimes I just can't help to use, like, a turn of phrase or something. Or it sounds. Come out and be like, oh, okay, that's. Maybe that could be something, you know, and then I'll move that paragraph down to the bottom of the page and. And start writing something. Or I'll just. Hopefully I'll. I have a poem that's in progress. I didn't finish the day. The day before. And then I'll just. I'll work on that a little bit.

Sounds great. Do you usually have coffee, tea, water, a beverage? What do you got?

Oh, yeah, coffee. Yeah. Yeah. I don't do the Bukowski thing anymore. I have a cup. Cup of black coffee. My nicotine pouches. I got my. My vitamins.

All right, that's a. That's a good assortment.

That's a good assortment.

Yeah.

For the most part. Clean living.

Nice. All right. If people want to follow you online, where can they find you?

It's Rich Glinnen. R I C H G G L I N N E N on Instagram and on Tumblr.

And do you post the same thing on both of them?

I do, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. And I don't know if anybody attends the Nuyorican Open Mic. I also attend that. Most, most Thursdays depends.

And where.

That's like a poetry cafe in Manhattan.

Okay, awesome. Well, thanks a lot for stopping by and chatting with us.

My pleasure. I'm surprised how fast this went.

Thanks for stopping by the audio town square of of the Washington Square Review. Until next time, this has been Washington Square on air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about a writer's community and literary journal, visit lcc. Edu wsl Writing is messy, but do it anyway.