Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. If you have seen daffodils peeking up through the ground, you know that spring is here. Hold on, little flowers, during this cold spell. It is the season that poet Vincent Katz has mined for inspiration for his new poetry collection called Daffodil. It's the first poem in his new book. We'll hear him read that in just a moment. On the back of the collection, there's a message.

It says, "Surely there was and is still someone close, and that continues as animals, despite war, despite incursions, continue. New York is a place of return, where we're aware of faces and other things. There are in a field of flowers, in places in the distant past and present, love has some inexorable way of continuing." The poems range from cicadas to city birds, from New York staples like the band The Strokes to trips to the Met. The book is dedicated to his parents, his mother, Ada, and his father, the renowned artist Alex Katz. Poet Vincent Katz is with me now in studio. His new poetry collection is called Daffodil: And Other Poems. Welcome to the studio.

Vincent Katz: Thank you. Pleased to be here.

Alison: We would love to hear the poem Daffodils.

Vincent Katz: Sure. I'll start out with that. Daffodil.

If I imagine all time sequestered in the fold of a daffodil,

Close to the desire of sitting next to someone,

It’s like a trip uptown and then one downtown,

And my door is open to the revenge of snow.

Clasp me as a trumpet seeks release,

I should see daydreams in eyes

All aflutter and simplified down,

The stores and all the other places we settle down to.

Alison: Why did you want that to be the first poem?

Vincent Katz: It's a good question. That's an unusual poem for me in that it is closely modeled on another poet's poem. I don't usually do that. I usually just write off the top of my head. This poem is based on a poem called Music by Frank O'Hara, and it's the first poem in his collection Lunch Poems.

I was reading a lot of the poet James Schuyler, rereading his books in particular, and this book Lunch Poems I read constantly and think about as not only the poems in it, but the collection, the way it's sequenced, and also what's written on the back of the book. This poem, Daffodil, I wanted it to be the first poem in a way in response to his poem Music, and also unusually for me, this poem responds to some of his lines. If you compare them, you'll notice a couple of phrases in common or in reference.

Alison: When you do get an idea for a poem, what is your process for flushing it out? You're walking down the street, you have an idea, what happens next?

Vincent Katz: I often write the whole thing in one, say, half an hour period. I'm a big fan of not editing too much. I was influenced by the idea that this famous quote that William Shakespeare never blotted a word, which is apparently not entirely true, but Frank O'Hara also was famous for writing some poems in the Olivetti showroom. He would go into this showroom and there would be typewriters there and he'd type a poem. I like that idea of just writing it in one sitting, so to speak. I'll have my notebook with me. I'll be on the street or somewhere, and I try to edit it in my head, so to speak. I go a little slowly, think of the exact words I want to use, and then later, I might change a couple of things, but not too much.

Alison: It can happen anywhere. It doesn't have to happen in your writing space.

Vincent Katz: I prefer to be among other people, actually. I prefer to work with noise and chaos around me. If things are too quiet, I can't really concentrate.

[laughter]

Alison: People have gotten used to being, "Hold on a minute, I've got to write something. I'm in the middle of a party." How often are you writing?

Vincent Katz: The latter part of this book, Daffodil, was a period in which I was writing in my notebook almost every day. I wanted to have a process where I was really not editing myself in advance. I wasn't really thinking, "Is this a good moment for a poem?" Because a lot of times I do. I don't ever feel I have to write a poem until there's the moment when I feel I have to write a poem right now. That's usually how I am. In this period, instead, I was thinking, "You know what, I'm going to just try to write every day, whatever is going on around me. If that seems like it's not worthy of a poem, so be it, and I'll see what happens later." The second half of this book was that process, which was a little different.

Alison: The book is divided into a series of, I think it's five sections?

Vincent Katz: Yes.

Alison: A Slight Breeze, Species, Again on the Avenue, Once in a Field, For Love. Why did you have the five sections of the book?

Vincent Katz: These poems were written basically between 2020 and 2023. A number of them were written in the early phase of the pandemic, before there was a vaccine, and my parents are elderly, and they have a place in the country, so we said, "Let's just move out there for a while." I started to write a lot of poems about animals. The title of each poem was the name of an animal. I showed them to my editor, Deborah Garrison, and we were working on it. It was very early stages. We were working on a manuscript. Then later, I thought, "Oh, no, I don't like those poems. They're not like what I write. I write on the street, and this seems too country for me."

Alison: [laughs]

Vincent Katz: We took them out, and then-- Anyway, we had various discussions, and then we brought them back in, but then they just fell into sections. It was like this section of New York City before this lockdown period. There was a lockdown period in the country that was coming back to New York.

Alison: It makes sense.

Vincent Katz: Then For Love just evolved on its own.

Alison: My guest is Vincent Katz. We're speaking about his new poetry collection, Daffodil: And Other Poems. He's reading selections from the book. Let's hear you read The Cicadas. This is on the section Species. This is the one you wrote about snakes and rabbits and snapping turtles.

Vincent Katz: That's right. The Cicadas.

Like crickets,

Cicadas will always be part of

My inner mind

Their sound so ancient

Drawing our psyches

Back down centuries' paths

Birds too, but they

Always seem to have an individual song.

Cicadas join in collective hum

Rising in power as the day

Nearing its end

Seems to rise

They push and turn it

Chorus of lasting effect.

Crickets provide oral carpet

Cicadas another

Crickets blanket the earth

Cicadas cry from trees.

Alison: What was the origin of that poem?

Vincent Katz: Kind of as it says in the poem. I've always loved cicadas. I associate them in my mind with certain places I've been, Italy, for example. They just typify to me a long summer afternoon. It's that sound. I'm also very interested in things that we can hear and see that are not on our phones. It's a natural vibratory sound, like a musical instrument. They make it in a way that musical instruments make vibrations also by rubbing this kind of drum in their body, the cicadas. Also, I was interested in, I don't talk about it in this poem, but I wrote another poem about a species of cicada that stays underground for 17 years and then comes up and is born. That was on my mind also. It was around the same time.

Alison: My guest is Vincent Katz. We're speaking about his new poetry collection called Daffodil: And Other Poems. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[MUSIC - The Ophelias: Cumulonimbus]

Alison: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Poet Vincent Katz. We're speaking about his new poetry collection, Daffodil: And Other Poems. April is National Poetry Month. We've been-

Vincent Katz: It is.

Alison: -celebrating it on the show. What do you remember about why you got into poetry?

Vincent Katz: I was surrounded by poetry as a child. As you mentioned, my father is a painter, and my parents knew a number of poets, including Frank O'Hara, whom I mentioned earlier, who made a big impact on me even as a kid. He was just very vibrant. These poets were very accessible. They weren't like these lofty figures who went into their rooms to write. They were around and about. One of them, Kenward Elmslie, actually, he saw that I was bored at a party once, and he said, "Come with me to my room." He put a piece of paper in his typewriter, and he said, "I'm going to type whatever you say." I said, "What do you want me to say?" He typed, what do you want me to say?

I realized it was kind of a game, and it was really fun. Then when we were done, he pulled it out and just gave me the paper and walked away. I realized that poetry could be something really social, for one thing, among people, and also enjoyable. Another thing was reading these books and magazines, poetry journals that my parents had around the house, a lot of the language was very accessible to me even as a kid, and I liked that. I thought, "Oh, that seems fun. Why don't I just write something like that?" I wrote these very minimalist things as a kid, like November 26, 1967, I got up and watched TV.

[laughter]

Alison: I also love that, for you, poets were real people, walking around, visiting your house, being your parents' friends. That's got to be a huge difference.

Vincent Katz: It was nice, and a lot of them were quite young. I remember how kids often think numerically, and I remember thinking, "I'm 5 and Joe Brainard is 25," which was just a thought of a kid. When I think of it now, I think, "Oh, my God, Joe Brainard was so young.

Alison: When did it become a vocation for you?

Vincent Katz: I got serious about it in high school, because then I started to actually go to poetry readings at the Poetry Project, mainly in the East Village and other places around town. I'd hear people like John Ashbery read at NYU or at the Donnell Library. Then I had this little group of friends who were also interested in poetry. We were looking to the generation or two above us, and they were doing something that got known as the Mimeo Revolution because they could publish these journals. They called them magazines very cheaply on a Mimeograph machine and get it out in two weeks. We called it a book of poetry in two weeks.

We thought, "We could do that, technically." We started to try to emulate them, and we got pretty serious. We were writing poetry, showing each other our poems, initial poems. Then after that, I think the next thing that happened to me was I went to college, and I majored in classics, basically ancient Greek and Latin literature. I got hooked on that also. By then, it all fit together, ancient poetry and very contemporary poetry, and it was something I wanted to do.

Alison: Let's have you read another poem.

Vincent Katz: Sure.

Alison: This is called Spring Opening Near Bethesda Fountain. We'll have to think a little bit warmer-

[laughter]

Alison: -but it's good to think about.

Vincent Katz: Yes, right around.

Alison: Let's hear Vincent Ketz.

Vincent Katz: This time. Spring Opening Near Bethesda Fountain.

I've arrived at this spot

A rocky outcrop with two cherries in bloom nearby

And the entire park is blooming, finally

With that pent-up energy that says life can begin again

Even that life from so long ago

Other springs with other adorations

The desire to move up

And through whatever is happening

To some higher state of mind

Shared possibly with one or a group

That would be determined later

A glowing desire filling the heart

And other bodies nearby

Similarly involved in books

With kids or each other the telephone

Peeling off layers and turning

The pressure taken off the squatting ankles

One sits facing the sun now,

Birds making music

Little dog yaps occasionally

People sit in sun or shade

I try to feel the smell of earth that is eternal

Or the breeze that blows again in this day

Even with so much suffering going on.

Facing the future

Feeling what could be given there or found

To partake of this opening of feeling

This spring

Alison: That's Vincent Ketz reading his poem. We've had other poets on the show, especially this month, and we hear from listeners who say they love hearing poems, and hearing you read poems, but they want to get more out of it. They love hearing the words, they love hearing the poetry, but it can be challenging when they think, "I'm supposed to be getting something more out of it." What advice would you have for listeners as they are listening to poetry and reading poetry?

Vincent Katz: I think a big part of it is actually hearing poetry read aloud. For example, there have been poets whose work I haven't really gotten just reading it in the book. It seems okay, but then I go to hear them read, and all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, I get it." That getting it continues. It's like, once I've gotten it, then I can go back to read their books, and I hear their voice again. I think it's really important, and we have such an opportunity now, just not only in person, if you're in a place like New York, which has a lot of readings, but also just in recordings. There are many available online, and I feel that to me is a big part of the meaning of a poem, is just the sound of it.

In terms of what you're getting out of it, I think of poetry a lot like music. You can read the same poem multiple times, where you wouldn't necessarily do that with a novel. You might read it twice or something like that, but a poem you can read many times. I feel like it's a little different each time. What you're supposed to get out of it, I wouldn't worry about that. I would just try to enjoy it, really, enjoy the feelings that it brings up, and enjoy or just experience. They're not always enjoyable, but I think they're important because they're part of the poet's experience that they're sharing with the listener or reader.

Alison: I read a lot of bad poetry, I will say.

[laughter]

Alison: What advice would you give to someone like me who wants to write it, who's trying to write it, knows it's not great, [laughs] but would like it to be better?

Vincent Katz: Again, living in New York City or even online these days, there are a lot of poetry writing workshops.

Alison: You like them.

Vincent Katz: The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, I recommend. They have workshops going on all the time, and they just do very surprising things. They'll say, write something and then change every word to the next word in the dictionary or something like that. I don't know.

Alison: Oh, that's interesting.

Vincent Katz: They give you operations and tricks to get you out of your accustomed patterns, because I think we all feel like, oh, a poem is supposed to be such and such, whatever that is in our mind. If it's rhyming or even not rhyming, but something. I feel like a workshop can be really good because the workshop leader usually has these ways of unlocking you to write differently. Then also you're with a group of people, too, and they're all doing it. I think it can be enjoyable to hear other people's work and share your own.

Alison: You have to leave your ego at the door, though, in a workshop.

Vincent Katz: You do. Yes, it's true.

Alison: My guest is poet Vincent Katz. His new book is called Daffodil: And Other Poems. Let's hear you read Pandemic Park Poem. You mentioned this earlier, and we can talk about it on the other side.

Vincent Katz: Here we go. Pandemic Park Poem.

I’ve always wanted to sit on this bench

Now is the perfect temperature and time

Hardly anyone in the park this Thursday evening

The scent of marijuana being smoked

By two gentle souls on a nearby bench

Wafts over, creating a congenial vibe

Two young women huddle together on the grass

Their dinner in a paper bag nearby

They must be sharing something

That can’t be shared by anyone else

Two squirrels chase each other down a slender trunk

In a burst of speed

Are they in love or fighting over food?

There’s a guy shirtless in shorts on his phone

And someone crashed out on the bench next to him

A trio has spread out a blanket, taken off masks

And is beginning to share their dinner

More people coming in, drizzle starting to fall lightly

Two buildings stand out in the distance

Alison: This poem puts us in such a place in such a moment in time. Everybody, you can read it 10 years, but you can remember when this poem would be written. The pandemic, not sure if you take off the mask, even outside. This may sound odd, but what did the pandemic offer you creatively?

Vincent Katz: Part of it was to spend all that time in the country, which is different, and to write differently, to write about animals. The other part in the city, in a way, I feel like I'm a-- I don't know what you'd say, like a cameraman or something.

Alison: Oh, yes.

Vincent Katz: I'm just observing what is around me in some sense, but I'm also processing it and filtering it through myself. A lot of it is what I'm seeing. It turns out to be about the pandemic, but I'm still seeing the squirrels. There's this nature element in it. Just reading it now, what occurred to me is the repetition of the word bench and the significance of what that brings to mind, like benchmark or a setting, a time setting, or a limit also. In the Bethesda Park poem, I like that the last word is spring, which is the season, but it's also like a spring of water or a spring of emotion. I'm trying to hopefully subtly put those words in that have multiple meanings while seeming very casual at the same time.

Alison: At poets.org, a lot of the poems are about uncertain times or poetry for uncertain times. Why is poetry good during uncertain times?

Vincent Katz: I feel like people go to poetry in difficult times and uncertain times for a sense of solace because I feel like the best poems are not really trying to change reality. They know that they can't, but they're accepting it. They're taking note of it. I feel like this feeling of acceptance but also observation is important for people, and we all get that from poems. I feel like in difficult times-- Also, in a good poem, there's something that seems eternal to it, the way it's structured, the rhythms, even the lines, the way it looks on the page, and I feel like that can be comforting.

Alison: My guest has been Vincent Katz. We are speaking about his poetry collection, Daffodil: And Other Poems. Thank you so much for joining us.

Vincent Katz: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.