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​East Fork:

A Journal of the Arts​​


Alumni Interview - Allen Haughton
By: Chelsea Broderick

Please describe your writing style?

It’s kind of all over the place. Mostly minimal, because I feel like one of the main things withpoetry that I try to do (differentiating writing poetry from writing prose), is to say more stuff with less.You’re trying to whittle it down and convey a whole lot of information, sensations, knowledge and experiencesin a frame work with words.As opposed to prose, I try to write as little as possible and say as much as I can. I like to applystructure as I go and improvise a free form. It’s still a lot of work, though. It’s a lot of agonizing overindividual words, like “this word just doesn’t sound right. What is any other possible way of combining thesephrases?”

What kind of process do you go through for editing a piece?

I think editing is fun. If you actually want to be a good writer and want to stick with it and makesomething out of your writing, editing is totally essential. It seems like a lot of kids that I know that getinto poetry want to write free form and simply feel their way through [the editing process], but when it comesdown to writing good stuff, it takes a lot of work and you have to be considerate of your audience. You can’tjust be like “if you don’t get it, that’s your problem.” It’s your bad as the author for not expressing itproperly, and editing is where that happens.Editing is where you can step back for a minute and think, if I was the audience, how would I look atthis? Even just thinking if I was one of my friends, how would they read this? Then changing words, allusions,and metaphors to better suit it for other people. My editing process is negative in that I try to trim awayeverything that I don’t think is necessary.

Do you keep a file of deleted lines and phrases to go back to?

No, but I have books and books where I’ve crossed out everything.

Do you ever go back and rework those?

Most of my writing is not done on the computer. If I feel like writing, I want a pen and paper so Ican just cross things out and make little additions. It can get really confusing, but I like to go back andsee what I’ve written in the past.

From where do you draw your inspirations?

My inspiration comes from a lot of different things. If I wanted to consciously go out and getinspiration, I go to concerts and art museums, but reading the most. When I was in a writing class at UCClermont, at the beginning of the year we were asked why we signed up, and this girl said that she needed anEnglish credit and didn’t like reading. I was really baffled by that because I feel that reading is reallyessential for writing. Every time I read, I get a lot of new ideas and different perspectives.I was saying earlier about how when I edit, I try to think about my poems from different perspectives.I’ve gained a lot of perspectives from my friends and growing up, and anyone in my life that I feel like I’vegotten into their head to any extent or we share some sort of bond. I feel like reading can do the same thing.If an author is good and capable of expressing how they see and feel about something, you get a sense ofwhat’s going on in their internal and external world. That’s another way for me to look at things, another wayfor me to be inspired, and for me to edit and write better for more people.

Does your writing style emulate any specific authors?

I was really into early 19th century Romantics when I was in high school and that was when I reallystarted writing. At that time, my influences were among Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, not so much Thoreauor Emerson. Of course, William Blake and Byron and Shelley. It’s formal, yet anti-formal and uses Romantic andphysical imagery, pastoral and idyllic.That changed pretty dramatically after high school. I got really into Shamus Heaney and Pablo Neruda.Neruda has these kind of free form, minimal, abstract and almost silly at times poems. I’m really into shakingup rationality and logic, and planning how you can mess with people’s heads but in a constructive way. I alsoenjoy Adrienne Rich despite generally being considered an academic, heavy feminist poet. I never understandthat perspective when I read her stuff because I feel like it’s all really evocative- she’s making up form asshe goes instead of vomiting on a page and expecting everyone else to put it together.

Who do you let see your work before sending it in for publishing?

Sometimes, if I’m sending stuff in I wouldn’t show it to anyone. For me, publication is very personal.I’m not sure why I’m hung up on it, but I just don’t show my poetry to a lot of people. It’s interesting thatI showed my poetry to a lot less people when I was living in this city than when I went to Beloit this pastyear. I showed my stuff to a lot more people there because they were capable of analyzing a poem. A lot ofpeople who aren’t pursuing literature in the post secondary education realm don’t really pay attention topoetry. It’s fallen out of mainstream media almost entirely, and that’s a problem when it comes to showing mywork to my friends because some of them just aren’t literature people. They’re working full time and takingcare of their own and they’re too busy to really stop and dissect a poem.I do show them to people I respect and I show them to people who are also interested in literature.The fault of the demise of poetry falls on both sides. I feel a little pretentious when I say, “I’m notshowing you this poem because you’re not going to understand it,” but poetry is really personal and sometimesfriends won’t be able to provide constructive criticism as far as structure or vocabulary because they mighteven know what situation spawned it- what breakup or death in the family or even the good things you writeabout so you just get “oh, that’s nice” and a pat on the head. People tend to just move on because they canhave an issue with intimacy, and poetry is a very intimate art form. It’s sometimes difficult for people totalk about it because we’re losing the vocabulary, which is being systematically eradicated.

What are your best and worst experiences with publishing?

I remember one time my parents found a book of my poetry. That was a bad experience. We were talkingabout intimacy with poetry, well that was definitely an open wound just lying around in my room that theydecided to pry open and pour salt into. That can be a problem with just living with people and writing aboutyourself. People can attempt to write outside of themselves, but you’re always writing from your perspective.I feel like an awareness, acknowledgement, and acceptance of that is helpful for good writing. It’s still achallenge though when you write things that you’re not ready to talk about with other people- things thatyou’re not ready to put into regular dialogue.As far as good experiences go, publishing is always a plus. I got published in a student literaryjournal last semester, and that’s not such a big deal, bit’s really encouraging that people care about yourwork ethic and trying to learn to express yourself. I’ve had a lot of good experiences with sharing my poetry.

What is the most valuable thing you took from your education at UC Clermont?

I have nothing but good things to say about the English staff at that campus. The student body can behit or miss, it’s all over the place and there are some students who don’t give a shit about what happened toSpenserian verse. The faculty really has to struggle to maintain their own interest in it when every daythey’re bombarded with, “Why should I care about this? What does it matter? I want to go watch this reality TVshow.” I learned from watching them deal with people who didn’t care at all and were actually antagonistictowards passions that my professors have. Watching them deal helped teach me a little about how to deal myselfwhen I was not in school out in the work force, working full time, holding an apartment and still trying towrite and keep that fire of creativity and art going.

“Year 39” by Allen Houghton

Coffee- induced sweat
Stains my morning
Thermal
As I shake off
Last night’s whiskey
Dandruff
And stare down
The length of a cigarette-
To an angry red cherry
Channeling a swollen sunrise
That could not be seen
Through the April clouds
Slouching overhead
Toward the end
Of their forty year
Wildness wandering--
 
Buckle up, Jericho,
I can taste the air of Canaan.

Summer reading list:

The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
Oxy and Crake by Margret Atwoods
100 Love Sonnets and 20 Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda