Kimberly Mathes: I want to begin with the very beginning of Loose Change. You precede your own poems with a quote by Octavio Paz: “To read a poem is tohear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see with our ears.”  Why begin withthis quote?  With this quote, are you, the author and poet, askingsomething of your reader?

James Cherry: Poetry demands that we engage it on the mostvisceral of levels.  It is not to be encountered as strictly anintellectual exercise or explored only for its emotional properties. Instead, it requires an involvement of all of the senses, not only on the partof the reader, but also on the part of the person who wrote the poem. This is what I think Paz was getting at and what attracted me to his quote. When this delicate balance is forged, the poet really becomes secondary and thepoem lives and breathes on its own.  Paz’s quote was motivation for me to sharpenthe imagery in the poems where they will be read and re-read for years to come.

KM: What otherpoets have motivated you, and in what ways?

JC:  Ah . . . the dreadedinfluence question.  It’s not dreaded because it’s a bad question. On the contrary.  But I dread it because my influences are so eclectic andI dread that once I start reeling off names, someone is bound to be left off. But Langston Hughes personifies what a poet should be.  He wrote andtravelled.  He recognized and identified with the beauty and ugly of blackculture and expressed it in all he did.  I’m motivated by the courage ofPablo Neruda to speak truth to power.  I greatly admire Emily Dickinsonand her sense of experimentation.  I love the way Whitman loved anythinghuman.  And contemporarily speaking, I’m still trying to catch my breathfrom Patricia Smith’s choice of verbs and her ability to create metaphor. The list is lengthy.  But that’s a pretty good start.

KM:  That is an incredibly eclectic mix.  Itis, perhaps, a dreaded question, I admit, but yours is an unexpected answer,which is very much like the dedications that you have in your book.  Youhave poems dedicated to or inspired by everyone from James Brown (LittleJunior) and the contemporary artist Betye Saar (“Hell Fighter”) to Troy Davis (“TheWorld”) and Bruce Springsteen (“1975”).  Is this part of your eclecticism? Also, you say in your above answer that Langston Hughes “personifies what apoet should be.”  Does a poet need to be eclectic or have an eclectic viewof the world?

JC:  Very much so. My aesthetics are informed by the music of John Coltrane, Beethoven andBessie Smith as much as they are influenced by the plays of Eugene O’Neill,August Wilson and Tennessee Williams.  Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence andDiego Rivera are equally as important as Picasso, Monet and Degas. Although the genres and mediums of expression may differ from each other, Ibelieve that art is an extension of itself, feeds, nurtures and inspires otherforms of itself.  As far as a poet having an eclectic view of the world, Ithink the poet would be doing him or herself a disservice to read or studyEuropean or Native American or Chicano poets only.  Literature helps us tounderstand what it means to be human and to willfully neglect the art andliterature of other cultures makes us less human in a way.  But it alsoinvites stagnation to the creative process.  Artists are restless by nature,always seeking new avenues to self-expression.  Picasso’s willingness toexplore African art produced Cubism as part of his growth and development. 

KM: So many ofyour poems bring attention to both current and historical events that affectmass numbers of people (like the earthquake in China, slavery in the U.S., andthe impact of the current war).  Often, poems that depict these types of devastations arecalled “poems of witness,” although Carolyn Forché argues for a different term,“the social.”  In her essay, “Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness,” Forchéstates, “The social is a place of resistance and struggle, where books arepublished, poems read, and protest disseminated.”  Do you agree with thisstatement?  Do you consider the poet’s job to be one of witnessing? 

JC: I agree with Forché’s statement.  Poetry is where the news is to befound today, whether it relates to your community, the nation or theworld.  It should owe no debts to the right wing or liberals orEvangelicals or Atheists.  Last I heard, it should bow only at the altarof Truth and Beauty. This is why poets are so important.  Not only dowe preserve and promulgate, but our words can be very prophetic as well. We have been gifted to provide insight into situations and circumstances thatcan become a catalyst for future action or our words can simply serve as a balmthat helps someone make it through the night.  As far as witnessing goes, that’sa term that I first encountered from reading James Baldwin.  I thinkthe nature of witnessing has changed and that’s mainly due to technology. The world is a lot smaller today thanks to all news networks, Twitter, Facebook,internet, etc.  So, it was easy for me to write a poem about anearthquake in China because I was so familiar with the minute details ofthe horrific event and the grief, even though it was a half world away,was very personal to me.  It amazes me that even though the world isbecoming smaller through technology, we are more alienated each day. Strange how that works. 

KM:  When you set out to write your poems on the earthquakes in China (“Afterlife”and “On Children’s Day”), are you cognizant that you’re setting out to write awitness poem?  Is it that intentional?

JC:  Not at all.  Thepoems that you’re referencing first appeared in Our Common Suffering, ananthology published in China about the disaster.  As I said, I was somoved by the sense of loss that it resonated with me on a very basic level andmoved me to write the poems.  There isn’t anything political about thepoems, but I do think they address and maybe even celebrate how the humanspirit survives and overcomes even in the face of such suffering.  This isuniversal and it wasn’t difficult for me to put myself in the shoes of afather whose son was buried beneath the rubble of a collapsed school house. Poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller asked the same questionabout one of the poems in its relationship to witnessing in a recentspeech.  So, maybe I was operating on a subconscious level, which happensa lot with poetry.  Maybe not.  That doesn’t really concern me. As long as the poem stays with the reader when he or she finishes it, I’m good. 

KM: I would beg to differ and say that there’s a lot atstake politically when a poet writes with compassion about people who live incountries whose political ideals oppose our own country’s.  It’s like thepoem in your book, “To Be an American,” about the Egyptian man who didn’tunderstand the word ‘communism.’  This line, with its gorgeous line breakin the line above says it beautifully as the line stands alone:  “upon hislips. No communism, I say again, slowly.”

Do youwrite your poems, or do they write you?

JC: That’s very insightful commentary, Kimberly. I’ve never been one for worrying about winning the praise or raising the ire ofa government.  Ideology and ethnicity are probably the two most shallowparts of a human being.  Below the surface, no matter what corner of theglobe we find ourselves, we all laugh, cry, hunger, thirst, rejoice and mournand to recognize that fosters compassion and empathy towards one another andultimately the way we interact with one another.  When I think of anycountry, I think of its people first and how they must navigate their dailylives.  So, depending upon the social conditions of those lives, to showcompassion and identify with their struggles, is indeed a political act. And can be construed by some to be subversive.  As far as my own poetrygoes, I’ve had moments where after a first or second draft, the poem was prettymuch done.  In those cases, I was more medium than poet and the words justflowed through me.  That’s the magic of poetry and the writing process. I still don’t know how it happens exactly and I’ve never heard anyone give anadequate explanation.  But I don’t want to lead anyone astray. Poetry is hard work.  It demands time, study, discipline anddedication.  As with most things, the harder you work at it, the betteryou become.  So, my answer would be:  yes.  Some days it’s afacile process; other days, I struggle like everyone else.

KM: When you say, “When Ithink of any country, I think of its people first and how they must navigatetheir daily lives,” I thought, “That’s it!”  That’s very much what yourpoems represent, how people "navigate their daily lives," and thatnavigation, no matter how differently it plays out each day for each person onthis earth, is also what ties us together as humans.  What I’m wonderingnow is about the intersection between the political and the social with thepersonal. Your book has poems about family members:  your nephew,your father, your niece.  Your book has poems about world events.  Isthere a space that divides the personal and the global for you as a poet?

JC:  Your question toucheson the concept of poet as witness again.  If a poet is a witness and not aby-stander or spectator, which I believe, then there is no space that dividesthe personal and the global.  Poets don’t live or create in a vacuum. In addition to writing about love and death and other matters of personalangst, it’s just as natural for me to address issues of race, politics, sexism,war, etc.  I’m in the tradition of Langston, Claude McKay, GwendolynBrooks, Sterling Brown, Margaret Walker to name a few.  The introductionof these poets led me to read other black poets such as Etheridge Knight,Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Gil-Scot Heron.  Without such exposure as afoundation, I wouldn’t be writing today and these writers created a hunger inme to explore other writers from diverse ethnic backgrounds.  But I don’twant to duplicate what the poets before me have done or write in the style theyperfected.  It’s incumbent upon me to expand the tradition and the way Ido that is to study the craft and to lift my own unique voice onhow living in these times are affecting me personally, culturally andhopefully in a global sense. Art is a great barometer of what was and ishappening during a particular epoch of history.  As with most things,it’s time that will judge how successful I’ve been.  

KM: Many of your poems in this book take on voices ofpeople other than yourself, other than the poet.  Some of these voices arewell known, like Louis Armstrong’s.  Many of these voices are verydifferent than your own.  Take, for example, the poem “The Hijab,” inwhich the speaker is a Muslim woman.  I am most interested in this poembecause the poem itself is about voice:

               I hear file drawers shutting,

               fingernails on keyboards

               and the sound of my own voice

               after the phone rings.

Themetaphor of these final four lines is striking–a person surprised to hear herown voice within a poem that has been written by a man from a different culturewho lives half way across the world, who, in your own words, has such adifferent daily life experience than you do.  How do you find access tothese disparate voices in your poems, and how did you find access to this onevoice in particular?

JC: I’ve always identified with anyone or any peoplestruggling for common decency, the right to determine their own destiny and tobe respected as a human being.  I love freedom and support anyone else wholoves it.  That’s the most basic of God given rights.  For me,there’s no such thing as women rights, or gay rights or civil rights. They’re all human rights.  I guess this sensibility has been shaped andnurtured in me throughout the years because my history and culture is one ofsurviving oppression and overcoming it.  I’ve never seen Black folk as thevictim of anything.  It wasn’t a stretch for me to write a poem in thevoice of an Arab woman.  Far from it.  Oppression is the sameeverywhere; just different variations here and there.  So, it came quitenaturally to write the poem.  As an artist, it’s doubtful that I’ll packmy bags and head out for the nearest revolution taking place somewhere aroundthe world.  Hell, if Hemingway did it, I guess I could too.  But it’sprobable that I’ll do what I know to do:  raise my voice forthose not in a position to speak for themselves, remind them that they arenot alone.  As Ismael Reed would say:  “Writin’ is Fightin’.”

KM: I love that quote byIshmael Reed!  I heard him read once at the Northern Arizona BookFestival, and his presence and that memory have stayed with me more stronglythan many other poets I’ve been able to hear since then. 

So at the end of many poems that address suchdisparate topics, you have ten poems on the same subject:  Meditations onmiddle age (which, in my head, I refer to as the MOMA poems).  How did thisshort series of ten poems find their way into this book?

JC: The poems wereinspired by Benjamin Saenz’s wonderful book, The Book of What Remains.  In that book he has a sectiontitled, "Meditation on Living in the Desert," and addresses memory,heritage, politics.  Last year, I turned the big 5-0 and thought I’duse the same approach to reflect on where I’ve been and the things I’veexperienced in the first 49 years.  I saw it as a way ofclimbing a mountain, looking over my shoulder at what lies beneath me tobring those things into sharper definition and detail.  So, the tenpoems are held together by a cohesive theme, but the subject matter ofeach poem is as disparate as loose change itself.

KM: Speaking of the title,for a book entitled Loose Change, where the title itself permits abreadth of topics, how did you decide the order of the poems?

JC:  This is something that I always struggle with.  I agree that abook of poems should have an arc and that’s something that I’ll perfect asI grow and develop as a poet.  Matter of fact, my next collection willdeal with Biblical characters and the structure of the book will have tobe a lot tighter.  But for this one, the title itself determinedthe sequence of the poems.  I knew I wanted to start with family andwanted to end with myself.  Everything else in between was closely relatedto each other.  I was aiming for a book of collected or selected poemswithout having it being called as such.  That being said, several poems inthe book do reference one another.  So while there’s not a formalstructure per se, the title plays on two thematic levels:  disparate poemsand the various changes of our lives. 

KM: The poem, “When Poetry Is Not Enough,” really stayswith me.  The title asserts itself even beyond the content of the poem,which recounts a compelling narrative in and of itself.  Certainly, thepoem and title beg the question, When is poetry not enough, andwhen is it not enough even for the poet?

JC:  Well, the poem you’re alluding to deals with my time as Artist inResidence at a high school for troubled teens.  I think the program wassuccessful in getting the kids to express themselves through poetry.  Butthere was one kid with a lot of potential that I just couldn’t seem to reach. Poetry, without doubt, is a great medium to gather perspective, definition andunderstanding into life’s circumstances and situation, whether personally orcollectively.  But sometimes life can be so beautiful or painful that itbecomes ineffable and in those instances, words actually do an injustice to thesituation.  I wanted those kids to walk away from that poetry programunderstanding that reading and writing poetry can not only change a life, itcan save a life.  Some of the kids got the message and have gone on to becomeproductive in their various walks of life.  But in the case of Paul, thesubject of the poem, the call of the streets, was a lot stronger than what Icould offer.

KM: Tell me about “ThroughThese Doors” and “A Brief History of Field Trips.”  Both poems seem tocontain layers of significance created by the subject matter and theunpredictable line breaks.  Forexample, the last two stanzas from “Through These Doors” allow the reader toboth scrutinize (the poem’s word) the alternative education system at work (andthus our education system as whole) while also feel compassion for those whodwell within it:

            whothey can become, is bigger

            thanthe walls erected around them.

            At3 p.m., they run

            outof our lives

            passthe scrutinizing eye of the security guard

            witha semi-automatic strapped to his hip

            andI wonder

            asI move into the distance, headed home,

            willsundown bring enough food and mercy

            todeliver them upon the dawn.

JC: Bothpoems are part of a trilogy which includes, “When Poetry is Not Enough.” In “Through These Doors,” I tried to capture the whole Alternative Schoolexperience and provide a sense of how others view teenagers who have often beenlabeled “bad” when in essence they are no diffierent from any other American kid. I found out that they simply want someone to take the time to listen.  Letme add that there were other high schools that I could have taught poetry in,but I made a conscious decision to be involved with this particularschool.  So they wrote and I listened.  And then we talked aboutelements that go into a poem, read a variety of poets and they wrote somemore.  In fact, they wrote enough for me to comprise their work into abook.  There aren’t too many feelings better than seeing your work inprint and that did wonders to elevate self-esteem.  Another aspect of theprogram was a trip to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. This was the genesis for “A Brief History of Field Trips.”  A lot of thekids, which were predominantly Black, had never been out of the city’s limitsand walking through those museum doors was an eye opener historically, sociallyand culturally.  I believe it was a life changing experience forsome.  It changed me.  And so did the entire program.  Theprogram, sponsored by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission, ended in 2010and was called the “Young Elderz” (the kids possess wisdom beyond their years). Perry Burrows was the Language Arts instructor during that time andremains a good friend today.

KM: How didyou decide on a trilogy of poems for writing about these experiences? 

JC: There are other poems about theAlternative School years and I may develop into a chapbook or a collectionof poems even.  But I thought these three [were] representative ofthe overall experience.  One deals with a kid individually, another withthe kids collectively and the final one a road trip, which was anothercomponent of the program.  But your question goes beyond why I decidedupon a trilogy of poems and gets at the heart of why we write poetry ingeneral.  Poetry is about the moment, lives in the moment, captures andcelebrates the moment.  And by doing so becomes eternal.  No matterhow many times we read a poem or no matter how long ago it was written, it’salways new. 

KM: In this collection, LooseChange, were there poems that were more difficult to write than others?  

JC: Thiscollection represents the most personal poems I’ve written thus far.  So,naturally the poems dealing with the death of family members were the mostdifficult to write.  In the book there are poems that deal with the lossof a nephew, a mother and father.  Writing about the death of loved onesor those close to you is an interesting proposition.  In some cases, apoem can be penned in days or weeks; in other instances it takes months or evenyears to even get a couple of lines down.  Anyway, I felt that the writingof the poems were necessary and anytime something is necessary it’s generallynot an easy process.

KM: You say, “anytime somethingis necessary it’s generally not an easy process;” can you talk a little aboutyour process?  How often do you write poetry?  You’re also a prosewriter and have a novel (Shadow of Light, Serpent’s Tail Press,2008) and a book of short stories published (Still a Man and OtherStories, Aquarius Press, 2011).  How do you decide when towork in different genre?  Is it a matter of discipline?  A matter ofthe muse?  

JC: Well, my process of writing bothprose and poetry has evolved as I have evolved as a writer.  Years ago, I’dscribble poems on the back of napkins, carry out menus, post-its etc.  Andoccasionally today, I still do that.  But mostly, when it comes to poetry,if something catches my eye or ear as I move through the world, I’ll jotdown a few ideas about it in a notepad and flesh it out a few days later. For example, I have several notes on the recent George Zimmerman acquittaland those poems are smoldering in my bones right now and if I don’t write themsoon, I’ll explode from anger, fear and sadness.  As far as my fictiongoes, I’m a licensed health care professional by day and the prose worksbetter in the evening hours and the later the better.  It’s either that orearly morning weekend hours, which makes for productive writing as well. My fiction starts with an image and I develop a loose outline from there. This, I think, is what allows me to be comfortable in both genres becauseimagery is very important to me in the writing poetry.  As faras how I decide which genre to work in, I don’t know if I’d credit eitherdiscipline or muse.  I think it’s a very intuitive thing.  As anartist, you just know what you know.  And I also know that it’s a never-endingprocess.  I have more ideas for poems, short stories, novels, screenplaysand non-fiction projects than I’ll ever have the time to write. 

KM: Poetry and jazz.  So often thisrelationship is framed looking backward with Langston Hughes as the primaryexample.  What is poetry and jazz today?

JC:  Not only jazz, but Hughes was also greatlyinfluenced by the blues as well.  At the time Hughes was finding his voiceduring the period of the Harlem Renaissance, Louis Armstrong wasrevolutionizing jazz by introducing the solo during a jazz ensembleperformance.  And I think improvisation is the common denominator for bothpoetry and jazz.  There is freedom in jazz and poetry, but that alsomeans responsibility.  Jazz musicians are free to express themselvesanyway they want as long as they stay within the context of the song and arewilling to listen to their band mates and afford them the same courtesy;it’s a great exercise in democracy.  With poets, every poem is asolo, but we must be cognizant of tradition while reaching for somethingnew.  And the only way to do that is to know the tools of the trade: enjambment, caesura, anaphora, sonnet, sestina, white space, etc., even ifwe don’t use them.  I believe content is important, but form equally so. A lot of jazz musicians, Mingus and Miles come readily to mind, were Julliardtrained musicians.  Not only did they know how to play, they knew how tocompose as well.  So for me, whenever I writing prose or poetry,‘Trane, Bird, Billie Holliday, Max Roach, Diz, Ella are always in the room.   

KM: That’s a beautifulresponse, and I think to end our interview there — on what is openand possible because of those who’ve come before and also because of what liesahead.  

JC:  It was a pleasure.  Thanks, Kimberly.