Straight Chatting from the Library: Donovan Hufnagle

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READ THE INTERVIEW

If you could have one paranormal ability, what would it be?

I would like to see into the past. Many of the poems in my current book These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them) travel into the past, poking at intimate moments trying to extract specific emotional responses from specific moments in the past. For instance, the poem “First Loves” travels back to my childhood and is a reflection on some of my childhood friends—just glimpses mined from my memories.

Unfortunately, memories tend to change as we age, and unearthing the truth from our remembrances can pose to be quite difficult. If I had the power to see into the past, I could clear up certain memories. Moreover, I have this investigate sleuth instinct and would love to uncover some of history’s great mysteries. I don’t need to change the past, I just want to know the truths about the past. Who was Jack the Ripper, for instance?

What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to learn about you?

The poem “Refurbished” in my new book uses the symbol of restoring an old office chair to portray connections. The surprise, then, is that I am the one who is restoring the chair. I used the experience of deconstructing the chair, fixing the chair, stripping and sanding the chair, staining the chair, and reupholstering the chair to write a poem that reflects on family and relationships. I think what might surprise people is that a poet can also be handy. I thank my father for teaching me how to woodwork, how to build or rebuild almost anything in my house or yard. One of my most cherished gifts was when my father gifted me my grandfather’s Shopsmith.

When writing descriptions of your hero/ine, what feature do you start with?

The main characters in my writing tend to exploit characteristics I am familiar with, features that a family member or close friend may have. Or personality traits that my children contain could supply my characters. When it comes to the adage of “writing what you know,” I mostly use the people around me for my characters. For example, the poem “The Spirit of Deep Ellum” is about a musician Hank that shadows the steps of the famous blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson. Hank is a combination of my close friend Thomas, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and me.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I would say that I am a bit of both but lean toward letting the poems write themselves. I typically have a general idea for a poem—a concept or an overall theme—but I try to avoid letting my agendas interfere too considerably in my poems. I like to write one line and allow that line to inform the next and so on. The writer’s journey of discovery is just as exciting as the reader’s journey.

Did you learn anything from writing this book? If so, what?

When putting the poems together for my book, I realized that I have never had so many personal and revealing poems. In fact, I tend to reveal things through characters or things distant from myself. Though themes like fatherhood appear in a lot of my writing, I never used personal moments as I did in this book. For instance, the poem “Ritual” uses a childhood fishing memory with my father. “Role Model” questions the influence I have had as a father. The poem questions whether the father taught his son only clichéd masculine qualities that could be damaging.

The poems in this book have allowed me to explore certain emotions that I may have been tucking away. These poems are some of the most revealing poems I have ever written. I have learned to embrace the things that scare me and share those moments.

READ THE BLURB

Echoing Chuck Palahniuk’s statement. “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known,” this collection explores identity. These poems drift down rivers of old, using histories private and public and visit people that I love and loathe. Through heroes and villains, music and cartoons, literature and comics, science and wonder, and shadow and light, each poem canals the various channels of self and invention. As in the poem, “Credentials,” “I am a collage of memories and unicorn stickers…[by] those that have witnessed and been witnessed.”






READ AN EXCERPT

Refurbished

Susan taught me that poetic energy lies
between the lines, white noise scratching
and clawing between images, ideas,
things…

And like a poem,
the chair was molded by my Tio’s hands,
an antique wooden upholstered desk chair.

My Tio moved from Durango, Mexico
to Forth Worth in 1955.

He became a mason and wood worker.

He bricked the stockyards

He built the signs

He died in 2005.

Now,
matted. Worn. Faded floral design. Wood
scarred like healing flesh.

The arms torn, ratted by the heft of his arms
and the stress of the days. The foam peeks
out.

The brass upholstery tacks rusted. I count
1000 of them. With each,
I mallet a fork-tongue driver under its head.
A tap, tap, tapping until it sinks beneath the tack,
until the tack springs from its place.
I couldn’t help but think of a woodpecker.
A tap, tap, tapping into Post Oak,
a rhythm…each scrap of wood falling to the ground
until a home is formed.
Until each piece of wood like the tacks removed
shelter something new.

I remove the staples, the foam, the fabric,
the upholstery straps
until it’s bones.
I sand and stain
until its bones shine.

I layer and wrap its bones with upholstery straps,
foam, fabric, staples and tacks.
New tacks, Brass medallions
adorning the whole, but holding it
all together—
its bones
its memories,
its energy.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Donovan Hufnagle is a husband, a father of three, and a professor of English and Humanities. He moved from Southern California to Prescott, Arizona to Fort Worth, Texas. He has five poetry collections: These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them), Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of, The Sunshine Special, Shoebox, and 30 Days of 19. Other recent writings have appeared in Tempered Runes Press, Solum Literary Press, Poetry Box, Beyond Words, Wingless Dreamer, Subprimal Poetry Art, Americana Popular Culture Magazine, Shufpoetry, Kitty Litter Press, Carbon Culture, Amarillo Bay, Borderlands, Tattoo Highway, The New York Quarterly, Rougarou, and others.

Website: http://www.donovanhufnagle.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donovanhufnagle
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dhufnaglepoetry

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/These-Are-Not-My-Words/dp/B0DBMN46M4/ref=sr_1_1.

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