Author's Interview With Wayne Lee
First, before we move forward with our Author's Interview, I would like to start with an introduction.
1. Could you please introduce yourself to us?
Writer, editor and teacher Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) lives in Santa Fe, NM. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, The Lowestoft Chronicle, Writer’s Digest and other journals and anthologies. He was awarded the 2012 Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and three Best of the Net Awards. His collection The Underside of Light was a finalist for the 2014 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award.
His chapbook Buddha’s Cat was published by Whistle Lake Press in May 2024. His memoir Service Husband: A Caregiver’s Journey Through Disability, Suicide and Recovery is forthcoming from Mercury Heartlink in 2024 and his collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2025. Lee is the founder and host of the online Tuesday Poetry Practice community.
2. Congratulations on your book. So what inspired you to write this book?
I've been privileged to share my life with many beloved cats and dogs, and I have been inspired for many years to write poems about them and their wild canine and feline counterparts.
3. What is the book all about?
Homo sapiens have lived with canines and felines for millennia. In Buddha’s Cat, poet Wayne Lee explores our relationship with both domesticated companions and wild species such as wolves, foxes, coyotes and panthers.
Ranging from tender to tragic, funny to ferocious, these poems include paeans to beloved pets, elegies for victims of cruelty and encroachment, and four-legged metaphors for human behavior. You’ll laugh at Beach Dog, George and Caliban, grieve for Rusty, Buster and Morgan, and marvel at Lobo and Dakota. Buddha’s Cat will entertain, instruct and connect you to the “wild heart” beating in your savage breast.
4. Why did you choose this genre for your book?
I've been a journalist, public relations professional, essayist and memoirist, but I find that poetry allows me to express my deepest ideas and emotions in the most concise, evocative form.
5. How much time did it take to complete this book?
Fifty years! I have been writing poems about dog and cats since I first started to write when I was 17. This book originated as a chapbook for my family in the 1980s and I expanded it this year to include poems I've written since then.
6. What makes your Book Special?
There have been a multitude of poetry books written about cats and dogs, but the vast majority of them have been sentimental and often simplistic. Some of the poems in Buddha's Cat tug at the heartstrings, but never in a Hallmark cards kind of way. Some are humorous, but not light verse. All of them comment on the relationship we share with these animals, what we learn from them, what we have in common with them and how they can be a lens through which to view our own animal nature.
7. When is your second book coming?
This is my fifth book of poetry. My next book is very different from Buddha's Cat. It's called "Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets," which is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in April 2025. The poems in that collection deal with loss and recover over a 12-month period during which my late wife Alice took her life and I had to learn to recreate mine. I also have a memoir on the same theme forthcoming later this year from Mercury HeartLink called Service Husband: A Caregiver’s Journey Through Disability, Suicide and Recovery.
8. While writing did you get any writer's block? What is the Tip that you will give others who are facing writer's block?
As a journalist, I learned to write on deadline. As a poet, I have learned to keep writing every day, even when I'm not feeling particularly inspiired or pleased with what shows up on the page. Some first drafts aren't worth pursuing; those that show promise I work on, sometimes through many rewrites over a period of many years, until they are honed to their essence.
9. What are your other hobbies besides being a talented author?
Reading, yoga, meditation, walking, travel, gardening, music.
10. Last but not the least, How did you feel, while giving this interview?
I'm honored to be intereviewed by you, Rakhi. I like to believe that my words speak for themselves on the page, but sometimes it helps to get to know the person behind those words. I hope this interview gives the reader a more complete picture of who I am as a poet and as a person.
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