10 Questions for Robert Thomas (poetry, ’02)

An excerpt from “10 Questions with Robert Thomas” (poetry, ’02) published at the Massachusetts Review:

10 Questions with Robert Thomas

Who is that angel in Bernini’s white
marble of St. Teresa? He’s so strange:
her ecstatic communion is with God,
not him, the winged sous chef who’ll tenderize
her flesh for the Master to come . . .
—from “Sonnet with Ghost Writer and Syringe,” Winter 2017 (Vol. 58, Issue 4)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
One of the first pieces I wrote in high school was a rather embarrassing haiku inspired by a scene in the wonderful 1960s British spy series Secret Agent starring Patrick McGoohan. “Dark glasses, shading eyes from a shady world, seeing me, are removed.” It was only the first in a long obsessive line of failed love poems.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
I think of myself as the love child of Emily Dickinson and James Joyce. I’m still not sure why as an adolescent I found Ulyssescompelling while The Great Gatsby seemed utterly impenetrable, but I’m sure it had something to do with seeing the 1960s film ofUlysses by Joseph Strick. I don’t know why more people haven’t seen that film!

What other professions have you worked in?
Years ago I worked as a barista in North Beach in San Francisco, but for many years I’ve worked as a legal secretary. One skill—and maybe the only skill—a poet has in common with a legal secretary is obsessive attention to detail.  I do sometimes think of the different perspectives of trial attorneys depending on whom they represent. Sometimes they need to present a case that will persuade all twelve jurors. Sometimes they need to persuade only one juror. If you need to convince all twelve, you need to present what might be called an “accessible” case. If you need to reach only one person, your argument can be more “esoteric.” I suppose as a writer I only want to persuade one person, but that one person is very skeptical—myself.

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