Ask The Author: Matthew Gilbert
[admin / April 2nd, 2012 / Interviews ]In January, these Two Poems from Matthew Gilbert. Now, this interview. Read both today.
1. How does one feign virginity?
In the same way you fence: in the suburbs where I was raised (a cow-town parents brought us to as an offering) we were trained in morals and expected to be proficient. ‘There were no drugs’ was a common feint. ‘Sleepover’ was a misstep that resulted in our parents not loving us the same.
2. Would you elope? If so, where?
Despite the presents a wedding requires of people, I would prefer to elope in order to avoid church ceremonies. I’m not particularly affiliated (with a certain religion or a certain person, which hinders marriage in general). I would love to do it somewhere I haven’t been, but I’ll be honest: if I fall enough for a woman to marry her, I’ll go anywhere she wants to go.
3. What kind of clouds are your muscles?
Muscles intrigue me because they’re contractile tissue, but they’re meant to cause motion. Every muscle is provoking some sort of movement, so I guess (or I hope) that they’re cumulus clouds. I’d like to be associated with severe weather. A hailstorm of some sort. I believe in muscles associating with action instead of being just for show.
4. Who would you burn?
Being raised in New England, I associate burning with witches, or at least the act of burning people at a stake. There isn’t anyone I hate enough to feel they should endure that (the sun burning away the fog of their muscles), although a lot of buildings could use it. Burn leaves for the sake of that fall scent, burn hornets’ nests drunk on gasoline to protect your children, but give your enemies a clean break.
5. How has your childhood influenced your poems?
What childhood? All pictures of me were lost in a basement flood, all memories erased after I busted my head open while young and left unattended in a living room (I had to get stitches, but they never could find out what I had injured myself on). This was the best thing that could have happened for me, because besides the brain damage, I also gained the ability to make up my own childhood. Or so I think.
6. Which action figure best resembles you?
The collectible you don’t play with. My older sister and my grandmother worked together to collect Cabbage Patch Kids, Garbage Pail Kids sticker cards, sealed McDonald’s Happy Meal toys (both genders), Barbies, My Little Pony figures, and everything else you could imagine, maintaining their original packaging and hiding them away in the attic to make millions in the future. They have not, as far as I know, made millions.