There is very little academic about Dave Morrison's approach to poetry, and he is a rule-breaker. Don't talk to him about sonnets or sentence structure. His poetry is uncontrived, and it is like breathing, sometimes long and steady; other times, choppy and quick about the lungs. But always, there is rhythm, and uncompromising honesty.

You might bump into Dave on the street, strolling around town with his wife, Susan; or at work at the Camden Opera House, lighting the stage and wiring for sound. If you are at some far-flung poetry gathering, Dave might be there, too, because he will travel to read and hear poetry.

Always, he is listening, playing, writing, recording, storing away in his mind those scraps of conversation and impressions that he will weave into a poem. On a rainy day at the end of September, he talked a little bit about the art of writing poetry — how he does it — in a short conversation in the attic of the Opera House, just before it filled with hundreds of visitors there for the Camden International Film Festival. And, Dave read one of his new poems, "Pursuit."

You're a musician. Is music part of writing poetry?

I am, or I was. Rhythm is a big part of it, how it sounds in your head, how it sounds when you say or read it. That is is one of the tools in the toolbox.

Been there always?

Yes.

Since you were a kid?

I think so. As a kid I was always drumming on things. I always liked words. I liked to read, I liked to write, I liked to play with them.

Who inspired you when you were young, in your teens, early 20s?

Lyricists. Dylan, Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend. That was where putting the words together, stringing them together, had a certain effect. That led me to want to write songs, and that led to stripping away the music, just to see how much you can do with words. I think the first poem I ever read, besides the stuff they tried to make you memorize in school, like "The Midnight Ride" (of Paul Revere) was Bukowski.

Rolling Stone did an interview with him and had a little snippet of a poem of his [see below to read the poem "The Shoelace"]. It said something like, it's not the big things that send you to the madhouse, and then he lists things like the death of a loved one. But it is the shoelace that breaks with no time left. I heard a bell ring when I read it.

How old were you?

Pursuit

So many poems are like birds
that fly in one
open window and out

another, glimpsed but
not grasped. If I catch
any at all it is usually the

slow, the dull, the lame,
and that is what keeps
me writing; the possibility

of capturing the
brilliant, the beautiful,
the swift.

 Fourteen, maybe. Then I got really deep into music and I wasn't really thinking of books. I was thinking of writing songs and writing lyrics. It was kind of a long, circular route back to written poetry.

Who are you reading now?

I like Stephen Dobyns, Tony Hoagland, Wes McNair, Betsy Scholl and Billy Collins. I read collections because I like to sample them and try to find new people. I still like Bukowski, bless his heart.

There's no one genre, no one generation?

They are pretty contemporary poets. I was not really drawn to the classics. I respect them but that is not where my pleasure lies. I just read and want to write music for people. I write for Americans and I write for now. I like the voices of now.

Do you sense that there's more appreciation for poetry now?

The short answer is yes. The long answer: I am not a scholar or expert. There's a ton of literary magazines and online venues, and still a vibrant slam culture. I don't think poetry is ever doing that great in America but it is doing as well as it can. It is a pretty small slice pf the pie as far as where people go to get entertained or inspired, but those that are into it are pretty powerfully into it.

Did poetry finds its place in music, such as rap?

I think lyrics at some point in late 60s became a little more adventurous. Popular music before then was moon june spoon, more about being memorable and accessible. Then, I think, people began to experiment more with it. You even had that point with Patti Smith and Jim Carroll when the line got blurred. Was it poetry, was it music? Yes, Then there was rap, even moreso the spoken word. It seems like from afar that rap has become homogenized and commercial. At one point it was dangerous, vital and shocking. Maybe that happens with every sort of movement. It starts off with a few innovators, then it grows, and then at some point it becomes sort of cookie-cutter. I may be way off base, but that is my sense.

Who are you listening to now?

The same stuff I have always listened to. A real eclectic mix. I like the Stones, I like Hendrix, I Like the Who, I like Tom Waits a lot.

Where do you write?

Largely, it comes out of journal writing, but there is certain amount that pops into your head, that you write on scraps of paper. Mostly, I write with an intent to write. Sometimes it is off something that scrolls through your head, some snatch from a conversation that you have to grab before it disappears. Then you can come back to it to see if it reminds you of what you were thinking when you hear it.

Where do you write?

In a room, at home. With a desk and a lamp and a chair.

Dave Morrison at Owl & Turtle, Oct. 5

Is an unexpected result a failure, or a crucial step to a sweeter success?

Morrison explores this theme in his eighth poetry collection fail. He will introduce his new poetry collection fail at a reading at the Owl & Turtle Bookshop, 33 Bay View Street, in Camden, Oct. 5 at 6:30 pm.

Whether it’s the crooked path followed by the narrator in Born For It, the lonely escapism of Fly, the dark sacrifice of Judas Outside The Garden or the folksy humor of Poetry Rocks, these poems show snapshots of human endeavor with Morrison’s trademark imagination and heart.

“These poems embrace a truth that includes success and screw-ups, love and loss, laughter and life. Poems such as 'Fly' and 'For the 9-Year-Old Victim' make us think about what preciously short lives we have, those like 'Keith Moon' and 'The Old Depression” lead to reflections on dreams and purpose and chances and self-destruction, while poems like “Marathon Man” and “My Jump Rope Song” and “Poetry Rocks” remind us how vital it is to laugh (and laugh at ourselves).”
— Donna Marie Merritt, poet

Morrison’s poems and short stories have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, and have been read on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.

For information, call the Owl and Turtle, (207) 230-7335 or visit www.dave--morrison.com.

Do you have to go to that space to write or could you write at Zoot?

I don't think I could write at Zoot. I think I need to be alone. I am a little too easily distracted. I am not good at blocking people out. I know people like Richard Russo, who has written most of his books in the Camden Deli and I salute him. I don't think I could be that focused. I need to be away from other stimuli.

Do you have music playing when you write?

Usually, no.

Coffee?

No.

Vodka?

When I'm done. There is a reward.

You keep a clear head when you write?

Mostly. Particularly as time goes on. There was a time when it seemed like it was helpful, to loosen the inhibitions. To grease the wheels. Less so now. It is more about your imagination and it works when it works. When it works it's great. When it doesn't work, I've sort of learned to leave it alone as opposed to, I must write something. When it comes, it comes. So have your bucket ready. When it doesn't come, don't stand there for too long.

You may wake up and say it's not happening today, but when it does, you may go to your room with its desk and lamp and chair, and computer?

I write long hand, everything long hand. Then at some point I type it in. That is sort of the first editorial step. Sometimes its the last editorial step, too. I am not a big rewriter. It is interesting, depending on whom you ask. There are some who say it is a crucial part of the thing, you have to rewrite and and that's how you refine it and boil it down. For me, I write like sort of a newspaper photographer. There's a moment I want to grab. I don't want to go back and tinker with it. I don't want to go back and say, 'could you stand over there like you were just a minute ago', I really want to recreate that moment. It is more like like reporting on a moment.

Do you have anything you want to impart to a young poet?

What I would impart to anybody, but particulary a younger poet, is this: Toss out the idea of wrongness, that there is a right way to do this and there's a wrong way to do this. I thinki if you are being true to yourself and expressing yourself, there is no wrong way to do it. There is tradition, there's guidelines, there's deciding who it is you want to please. But I am not a big rule guy. What I like about poetry, what it offers, is that you can kind of do anything you want. You can be structured or unstructured, you can be long or short, subtle or bang somebody over the head. As long as you do it as well as you can, as long as you're being honest, I think you're OK. That would be my two cents.

Don't worry about whether it has the right number of syllables or if it rhymes. I know there are folks who work in that area, and I'm not knocking it. But I think to get started, it is like a siphon. You have to get the flow going first. Then you can go from there.

The Shoelace

by Charles Bukowski

a woman, a
tire that’s flat, a
disease, a
desire: fears in front of you,
fears that hold so still
you can study them
like pieces on a
chessboard…
it’s not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse. death he’s ready for, or
murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…
no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies
that send a man to the
madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left …
The dread of life
is that swarm of trivialities
that can kill quicker than cancer
and which are always there -
license plates or taxes
or expired driver’s license,
or hiring or firing,
doing it or having it done to you, or
roaches or flies or a
broken hook on a
screen, or out of gas
or too much gas,
the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,
the president doesn’t care and the governor’s
crazy.
light switch broken, mattress like a
porcupine;
$105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at
sears roebuck;
and the phone bill’s up and the market’s
down
and the toilet chain is
broken,
and the light has burned out -
the hall light, the front light, the back light,
the inner light; it’s
darker than hell
and twice as
expensive.
then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails
and people who insist they’re
your friends;
there’s always that and worse;
leaky faucet, christ and christmas;
blue salami, 9 day rains,
50 cent avocados
and purple
liverwurst.

or making it
as a waitress at norm’s on the split shift,
or as an emptier of
bedpans,
or as a carwash or a busboy
or a stealer of old lady’s purses
leaving them screaming on the sidewalks
with broken arms at the age of 80.

suddenly
2 red lights in your rear view mirror
and blood in your
underwear;
toothache, and $979 for a bridge
$300 for a gold
tooth,
and china and russia and america, and
long hair and short hair and no
hair, and beards and no
faces, and plenty of zigzag but no
pot, except maybe one to piss in
and the other one around your
gut.

with each broken shoelace
out of one hundred broken shoelaces,
one man, one woman, one
thing
enters a
madhouse.

so be careful
when you
bend over. 

 Reach Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 706-6657.