Writers on Writing #54: Alex Gubbins
Oh, God of Poetry
[Editor's note: Poet Alex Gubbins's recent venture into fiction-writing left him feeling a traitor to all poets. In the spoken-word essay below, Alex describes his struggles to include only particular moments for the fiction page and to disregard others, despite feeling connected to all moments. Each moment, he believes, is a critical atom of art's anatomy, and he asks the poetry god for forgiveness.]
Alex Gubbins attends Northern Michigan University's MFA program. To pay for his school, he teaches English to undergraduates. He is certain the best epiphanies materialize during class when answering a student's question. Other than writing poems, helping students, and enjoying Lake Superior, he prefers listening to silence. A few places have published his poetry: The Progressive, Prime Magazine, Warrior Writers, andMetamorphoses.
