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Typewriter interview with Matthew Zapruder

By Austin Kleon · Austin Kleon · · 1 min read

Deep Dives

Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:

  • Typewriter 16 min read

    Central to the interview format itself - understanding the history and mechanics of typewriters adds depth to why conducting an interview via typewritten correspondence through postal mail is a deliberate artistic choice

  • Confessional poetry 15 min read

    Zapruder's work, particularly a book titled 'I Love Hearing Your Dreams' and 'Story of a Poem: A Memoir,' suggests engagement with personal, intimate poetry traditions that confessional poetry pioneered

  • Chapbook 12 min read

    The article mentions Zapruder's 'limited edition chapbook' - understanding this historical publication format and its role in poetry distribution provides valuable context for how poets share work outside traditional publishing

Typewriter interview with Matthew Zapruder

By Austin Kleon

Hey y’all,

Matthew Zapruder is the author of many books of poetry and books about poetry, including Why Poetry and Story of a Poem: A Memoir. This year he released the paperback edition of his latest book of poetry, I Love Hearing Your Dreams, and a limited edition chapbook called How To Continue.

This typewriter interview was conducted via the magic of the United States Postal Service. (For a plain-text version with links, see the P.S. below.)

Describe a perfect day in your neighborhood! I walk to the park with my dog Sugar and let him off the leash and have a few short exchanges with nice people whose names I can never seem to remember probably because we don't need names there under the trees.
Do you have any tools you can't live without? Do you still have your Royal Quiet Deluxe typewriter? Yes, I still have it though right now I'm typing this on a black Olivetti Studio 44 which is one of the coolest looking machines humans ever made. I think I could live without any tool though the thing I'd save first after my family or any human is my Gibson Blues King reissue which is not a fancy guitar but seems to be an extension of my being.
David Berman sang, "songs build little rooms in time," and John Berger said, "songs... construct a shelter from the flow of linear time." Could you say a little about your idea that poems create a space？ to me poems feel like rooms you enter again and again maybe it's the line breaks or the fact that you are reading them in what could be called an intentional space songs feel to me more like a substance that fills up time with awareness
Do you see yourself as part of an artistic lineage? Who would you place in your creative family tree? I think all the time about artistic ancestors. Their voices are in my head all the time. Lonnie Athens has a term for this: phantom community. Like spirit guides I guess. Mostly I think of them when I look at my books or pick up my guitar. In no order: Vasko Popa, Keats, Dickinson, Lorca, Vic Chesnutt, Dylan, Neil Young, James Tate, Tu Fu, Wei Ying-wu, Frank 0’Hara, Larry Levis, James Schuyler, Alain Fournier, Robert Desnos, Joan Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Malkmus, Howlin' Wolf, I could go on. The Beatles. Elvis. Public Enemy. I'm starting to feel genuinely ridiculous making this list but these are all artists who had a very specific impact on me at a time or times in my life. Fugazi. R.E.M. The Kinks. I would never be myself without them and they are actively present all the time for me. Elizabeth Cotten. My current friends and compatriots too.
I 'smoke' a cigarette pencil when I'm writing. Do you have any silly rituals for when youre working? this reminds me of when they asked James Tate if he had a dog and he answered, "I don't know."

What's your relationship to music? Do you sing or play an instrument? Is there a song you can't stop listening to? yes I sing and play guitar and write songs my relationship to music is that I would not survive without it poetry causes me to perceive the world anew or and with love music fills any moment with concordant and amplifying emotional content lately I have not been able to stop listening to Fortunate Son by John Fogerty at times I have not been able to stop listening to Church On White by Malkmus
What do you do for exercise? Do you detect any emotional, spiritual, or creative benefits? I used to be a religious exerciser but a few years ago my back got bad so I don't do it so much anymore all of the above are benefits, though honestly the main benefit is that I become slightly less monstrously irritable. I was pretty good at sports when I was a lad and have an undeserved facility with any racquet. this question gets to the heart of my main struggles as an artist/being which is a lack of ability to adhere to my wondrous plans. maybe someday I will do the reading before class and be prepared!
Can you name some poetry collections that you think hold together really well as a complete book? (I'm thinking of something like Frank 0' Hara's LUNCH POEMS.) (The kids online would say, "No skips.") Some Trees by John Ashbery With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang You mention Lunch Poems in your question, I probably would have said that. There is something so satisfying about a book that can fit on your pockets. I love short books like The Year of My Life by Issa or Porch Light by Joshua Beckman or Leroi Jones's Preface to a X (can't remember the number!) Volume Suicide Note or Mary Ruefle's Little White Shadow. I read them again and again and again.
Do you have any hobbies? (The dumber or more trivial the better, IMO.) Do you collect anything? I wish I had a hobby but it seems all my hobbies either fall away or turn into ENDEAVORS for a while I collected typewriters when no one wanted them and you could get beautiful ones for $5 really this is making me think I do need a hobby or to collect something besides minor resentments
What do you think people can do to develop what Keats called "negative capability," or, the ability to hold more than one idea in your head at once? I guess I'd like to think if you read poetry every day and go to a lot of museums and go on walks with or without a dog and listen to Vic Chesnutt and don't give your opinion on social media every time the urge comes to do so and just listen and ask questions that have no answers and scribble notes to inanimate objects in a notebook and just walk around like a loser who forgot the plan maybe a little seed will start to grow, I don't know, the only reason my advice is worth anything on this matter is that I was born and bred to have the opposite of negative capability and the only damn thing I did that wasn't a waste of time when I was young was fall in love with with poetry.

Big thanks to Matthew for being the 13th participant in this series of typewriter interviews!

Go out today and get a copy of I Love Hearing Your Dreams and subscribe to his Substack.

xoxo,

Austin

P.S. Here’s a full transcription of the interview with links:

Read full article on Austin Kleon →

This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.