The 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness will be held March 22-25, 2012 here in Washington DC. According to the Split This Rock Web site, "The festival features readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, parties, activism—opportunities to speak out for justice, build connection and community, and celebrate the many ways poetry can act as an agent for social change."
Jose Padua is one of the featured readers on the festival schedule. He grew up in the Dupont Circle and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods in Washington DC. For grade school, he went to Calvert School, which is now gone, and then for high school he went to Gonzaga. He did well in school, but what he most enjoyed was looking out the window during class and getting lost in his own thoughts. He attended Catholic University and graduated with a BA in English. He never went to grad school and says never wanted to. Since early in high school, he knew he wanted to write, but his decision to be a writer was much clearer after reading James Joyce.
Padua tended to stray from the assigned curriculum and Joyce was one of those drifting moments. Joyce’s Dubliners, and especially the story “The Dead,” showed Padua what could be accomplished through writing. He started reading poetry around this time and found his way into the poetry of Ezra Pound, who, Padua says, "despite the more vile aspects of his personality, was a great poet." The first poem that really spoke to him however was Gwendolyn Brooks' “We Real Cool.” Reading it at an early age, it blew him away. All these early influences and getting into music by John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler; films by Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, François Truffaut, helped push Padua away from studying math and science—the subjects he was much better at in high school. Because of his aptitude for math and science, he was actually offered a full scholarship to Cal Tech, but turned it down and never regretted it for a moment.
Padua's chapbook, The Complete Failure of Everything, was published by Apathy Press in Baltimore in 1992. It contains poems about all kinds of failure—failures in romance, career, education, and much more.Padua believes it is also pretty funny. His work has also been published in journals like Bomb, Salon.com, Exquisite Corpse and Another Chicago Magazine as well as in anthologies like Mondo Barbie, Unbearables, Crimes of the Beats, Up is Up, but So Is Down: New York's Downtown Literary Scene, 1974-1992. Padua will also have poems in one of the upcoming issues of Richard Peabody’s renowned DC literary journal Gargoyle.
Padua has several poetry manuscripts he's trying to get published right now. One, The Name of This Book Is Swan Lake, was a finalist for the Brittingham Prize, the Felix Pollak Prize, and the Autumn House Poetry Prize. Another manuscript, Here Comes the Monster, was runner-up for the Many Mountains Moving Poetry Prize. He and his wife (the poet, Heather Davis) have also been working on Shenandoah Breakdown (http://shenandoahbreakdown.wordpress.com/), a blog about our moving away from the big cities where they've lived all their lives and to the small town of Front Royal, Virginia. They’re also attempting to turn it into a book. (Oddly enough, Padua says, after having spent around eight years when he didn’t write any poetry, he found his poetic muse set in motion by moving to this rather backwards, conservative town in 2007.)
Joe Padua will be a featured reader of the festival on Saturday March 24. For more detailed information, including time and place as well as an opportunity to RSVP, visit http://splitthisrock.org/festival2012/program2012mar24.html. The reading is open to the public.
For further information on the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival including an opportunity to register (February 22 is the last day to register with an early bird discount) visit www.splitthisrock.org.
Who is your favorite poet?
Ah, it’s too hard to name just one.
What is your favorite poem?
Well, here are some that have been on my mind the past few years: Tony Hoagland – “Jet” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jet/ What line(s) of poetry do you love (include poem and poet for reference)? from “Poem” by Frank O’Hara: “all week longer we’d get fatter and fatter and then on Sunday morning while everyone’s in church ploop!”
What word do you love?
Pomegranate
What word do you hate?
Colonoscopy
Where do you write?
At the dining room table, and in our home office
If a dead poet visited you in a dream, who would it be and what do you wish the person would say to you?
Emily Dickinson would visit and she’d say, “Where’s the fridge?”
Mountains or beaches?
Beaches (Rehoboth)
Summer/warmer climate or winter/cooler climate?
Warm
Brain/mind or heart/soul?
heart/soul
Why Split This Rock Festival? What draws you to it?
Well, probably the biggest thing for me is that it’s a poetry festival that celebrates poetry that’s closely connected to the real world—poetry that isn’t totally abstract and bloodless.
Talk a bit about what you will be reading as a featured poet.
I’ll probably read at least a few poems about my experience here, in Front Royal, and how I deal with the often ultra-conservative atmosphere/people, and also how I’ve learned from it. It’s not as comfortable a place for me to live as a big, diverse city, but I’ve found that the challenges of living here have inspired me as a poet/writer. Probably also some poems about when I was living in New York City—and about how far away I am now from that life.
What advice would you give a poet who is leaving a big city for a more rural landscape? What about poets who are moving to an area where the culture does not share the same political views?
I would say Do it! Likewise, if a poet comes from a rural area that poet should go to the city. I think it's good for a poet, or any kind of artist, to dive into whatever is the opposite of what he or she is used to. To surround oneself with whatever is totally different from oneself. Of course, you may have to eventually return to where you feel most comfortable, but it's good to get away from what you know. And to get away from anyplace where most people think the way you do. I guess it’s not for everyone, but if you survive, it will make you stronger.
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