Accomplished Free Verse Poet Offers Inspiration

Curtis Dunlap, a well-known haikuist, is also a very successful free verse poet. His web site http://www.tobaccoroadpoet.com is an extremely popular site with poets throughout the world.

Curtis recently made a CD featuring a reading of his entertaining, non-pretentious poetry, rich in description. You can read a few of his poems below. His poetry is inviting, as he has an easy storytelling-style that flows, and an earnest, reflective way of looking at life.

Curtis also offers advice and inspiration to beginning poets with his responses to the three questions I recently queried him with.

love poem

sometimes
I like to imagine
that she’s
googled me;
she’ll read
a few
of my poems
in an online
journal,
remember
the one
I penned for her
decades ago.
she’ll rise from her chair,
retrieve an old shoe box
from a closet,
sit down
at the kitchen table
with a cup of coffee,
tenderly lift
and unfold
a yellowed scrap
of notebook paper,
read that love poem
aloud,
smile,
look wistfully
out the window
into
her rose garden
and say,
“I’m glad
I didn’t marry
that poor bastard.”

The Wild Goose Poetry Review Volume 4, Issue 4 Winter 2009

Dee Dot

Dee Dot died,
drunk
talking to a telephone pole.
He keeled over,
like a felled oak,
6’6″, 270 lbs. of quarter Cherokee
hitting the sidewalk with a thud,
blood trickling out of the back of his skull
into the gutter.

Dee Dot conversing
with the spirits
of inanimate objects,
or so they say,
drinking heavily to quiet the voices
whispering in his brain,
now lying on his back,
lifeless eyes open
reflecting the clouds, the sun,
the wires
abuzz
with all those voices.

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature – March 2009 edition

Why Lester Duncan Drinks

It’s hard to stop drinking
when you find a pint of vodka
under your pillow at night.
That conniving wife of mine
wants to keep me drunk.
Every time I toss out a bottle,
she buys another one and
conveniently places it
where I can find it.

As long as I’m pegged a drunkard
no one will blame her when
she leaves me.

She likes talking to that
fat tax man in town.
I figure she’s got her sights
set on him.
He’s rich, got four cars, a fine house,
and a bad heart.
Well, God Bless ‘em and
good riddance to the both of them.
Hell,
she’ll probably stick fried chicken
under his pillow.

Rusty Truck June 26, 2011

1) What inspires you to write free verse?

The inability to convey everything I want to say in a haiku or tanka inspires me to write free verse. Of course, I will always write haiku. North Carolina poet Lenard D. Moore gave me some splendid advice once. He said, “Always write haiku. Writing haiku will enable you to write free verse poems.” Lenard was right. The conciseness of haiku is instrumental in helping me to eliminate unnecessary words in my free verse poetry.

2) Do you have any pet peeves about the free verse that you often read in publications? (i.e.) Is it really poetry?

Not really. Every poet has a unique voice or style. I enjoy reading and hearing the diversity of poets and their poems. The only thing that tends to…annoy me is reading a poem so convoluted that I don’t understand what the poet is trying to convey. Such poems tend to put me to sleep. Poetry should jolt you! not bore you.

3) What is your advice to someone who has never written a poem, but wants to start by writing free verse?

Read a lot of free verse poems. Learn to write haiku too. Short poems will lead you to longer free verse poems. I’ve been inspired by reading the works of Albert Huffstickler, Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall, Aurora Antonovic, Dave Etter, Felicia Mitchell, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Charles Bukowski, Lenard D. Moore, Helen Losse, Scott Owens, Tim Peeler, Sam Ragan, David Shumate, Ruth Stone, Candace Black, to name a few.

P.S. The photo of Curtis Dunlap is courtesy of Ian Dunlap.

Copyright 2011 by Charlotte Digregorio.