Featured Poet: James Strazza
We recently had the opportunity to interview poet James Strazza about his approach to writing.
Congratulations on writing your debut book, Lyrical: Poems that will blow you a kiss or punch you in the stomach! Can you describe your creative process?
Because I have such severe symptoms my creative process is kind of ridiculous. Most of my work is free written/improvised.
I am compelled to write, I don’t sit down to write for the purpose of writing. I’ll be trying to sleep or just sitting in bed dying from boredom and have a rhyme in my head that I would like to take advantage of, or I just have some thing I feel like I need to say, or something clever I want to flesh out, and then I try to get it on the first to go. Usually it’ll need one more pass for typos but that’s it.
Sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn’t, but I rarely dwell on a piece because I just simply don’t have the brainpower to do so. I think and hope it gives a rawness and honesty to my work that my readers find refreshing.
What does your workspace look like?
In my bed, on my iphone, in a very messy room, haha. I’ve lived in bed now for a year and a half due to severe ME.
What is your motivation for writing?
This may sound pretentious but it’s the absolute truth— to find meaning in my life.
I’ve been very suicidal since I lost my ability to be an independent human, especially since I lost my ability to create music, which was my life’s passion. I’ve spent decades working towards my music career goals. Now I can’t even listen to music, watch TV, or have a conversation with a friend without having severe brain symptoms that are worse than pain and last for hours or days or months. It’s an impossible absurd way to live life that no one deserves.
But if I can create something beautiful I see so much value in that. Others that are as sick as I am, or worse, don’t have that opportunity, or they’re not artists themselves. My heart really hurts for them because it’s so difficult to find meaning in such a life full of suffering.
Severe ME patients are basically forgotten by the medical community, yet we are some of the sickest people on earth and have the worst quality of life, worse than dying AIDS patients and cancer patients, and the like. I can say from personal experience that when I did chemotherapy as a 16-year-old for kidney disease it was a walk in the park compared to a week of severe ME.
How did you become a poet?
Basically I lost everything in my life that I loved. Having expressed myself freely through art since I was two years old, I was now trapped in a bed too weak to pick up a pencil, too weak to speak, too weak to feed myself. All I had were words in my head, poetry was the natural evolution of that. My first poem, “Half a Man,” was actually written during a very severe crash. I used Siri to dictate the lines, one by one, to my iPhone notepad. It took about a month or two of healing and resting before I was able to go back and read what I wrote. To help it make sense, I had to put the pieces together like a puzzle.
I’ve been writing songs since I was 16, so I think in a way, I’ve been a poet for a long time and just didn’t recognize it. Before I started writing strictly poetry, I actually kind of disliked poetry, not to offend any of the readers but I thought it was kind of stupid. I didn’t understand it.
My mother is a poet so I was always around it, but her and her friends always kind of weirded me out. I was obsessed with music. But the day I became a poet was the day I had my horrible ME crash, about three or four months ago.
Has the coronavirus pandemic changed how you approach your craft?
Not at all, lol. I’ve been stuck in bed for over a year, before the coronavirus came to be. Oh, but I do have to say it was a little irritating watching people complain about needing to stay in their house for a week or two.
What does literary success look like to you?
That’s a difficult question for me because I’ve only been a poet for a few months, I’m still getting used to my new identity as a writer and I still long for my identity as a musician. I love the article titled 1000 true fans. It is a must-read for any independent artist. I think I would consider something like that success. If I enough people were able to support me and let me do what I want to do, and what I like to do, what better can you ask for?
If my brain heals enough to write a “real” book, I would love to write a book on the philosophy of meaning and what I’ve learned through this experience living with this terrible disease. I’ve always been a philosopher at heart and an explorer of truth and meaning, and I think I’d have a lot of interesting things to say on the matter. I would also love to write a fiction book, maybe for teenagers, and a book to help those dealing with agoraphobia. For those types of books my idea of success might be a little larger than what I have in mind for my poetry.
Where can readers read more of your work?
My Instagram handle is @j.s.lyrical
And for now that is the only place you can find me. My book is coming out October 29th and should be available while you’re reading this. I really hope your readers check it out. Me not really being a real poet I think makes this book very interesting and dynamic: I have chapters about love and heat ache, a chapter about heresy, A chapter about dealing with chronic illness and suicide and anxiety, a chapter of song lyrics. It’s quite a diverse collection that I’m very proud of, especially considering the circumstances that I’ve written it under.
Thank you for having me, Train River Publishing
