Interview with...poet Paul Siegell

"(I) woke up, had a thing going in my head and reached for a piece of paper." Paul Siegell describes writing his first poem after attending a pair of Phish shows his sophomore year in college. "(The poem) wasn’t very good - at all - but I liked the way it felt to me, to write like that, to make something up, feel like an artist."

Twelve years later, Siegell published his first collection of poetry, Poemergency Room, which illustrates the emotions and challenges of the poet's "realworldolescent."

"It's those in-between years when you're out of college and thrown head first into the working world," he explains, "It's a transitional stage, a sometimes grueling maturing process that's chockfull of growing pains…I know I'm not the only one who feels this."

How did he get from a really bad teenage poem to a 64-poem published collection?

Once bitten, Siegell kept writing for a year on his own, "mostly awful yet kinda (sic) quirky poems." Then during his junior year at the University of Pittsburgh, he enrolled in Introduction to Poetry Writing with Jeff Oaks, an award-winning poet and professor in the University's English department. Siegell went on to publish in the school's literary magazine, Three Rivers Review, then published professionally at the age of 22 in 5AM, the Magazine of Contemporary Poetry. His work has appeared in nearly two dozen online and print publications.

He wrote the poems in Poemergency Room at different times throughout the last 10 years. He credits his girlfriend with helping him define the eight sections and with plotting the development and progress of "the story" within the poems.

He found his publisher, the Australian-based Otoliths, through Coconut, an online poetry magazine. He has published with the magazine and also uses the links page to research markets when he has a new poem ready.

His first submissions to Otoliths, the journal was in October 2006. After publishing a handful of poems in the journal, Siegell asked the editor if he'd like to see a manuscript. The editor accepted, and earlier this year, the book was published.

Where does he get his ideas?

Music holds a great influence over his poetry. His first poetic venture and many poems since have been written about rock concerts.

"Music teaches me how to listen, and one who writes must listen. Not to just other people and events or even yourself…but also to the words themselves." He quotes a line from one of his poems: "all I want is for my page to play the piano."

"I mean it kinda (sic) kick-started my writing," he adds. "Without my ear, I'd have no sense for all these crazy words."

When asked if there are any other muses, Siegell lists nearly every other aspect of his life: love, the city, friends…"Things I can wrap my brain around and articulate." He admits he doesn't necessarily write every day, but he comes close.

"I don't get up at 5:00 a.m. every day and force expression. I take it as it comes," he says. "At times, I can go two or three weeks straight where I write…a complete poem every day. It's an incredible feeling to be that productive, to be that tapped in."

If he isn't writing, he's revising, a process he takes very seriously. "I reread and reread my work until I don't resist a single word. If I feel any amount of unwanted tension…then the piece isn't finished and I can't move on."


That includes how the poem looks on the page. His poem "Antibiotics" was already with his publisher when he decided it wasn't finished. "I just knew the piece could be, and do, more," he says, "I felt the narrative was about as solid as I could make it, so the only thing left to change was the layout."

"The runner was pretty much always there, in the poem. It just took a few years and a little nagging feeling from my better angels to get it out." At the left is a picture of "Antibiotics" from the book.

Can he make a living writing poetry?

Siegell writes ad copy for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. He tries to sneak an idea or some poetics into the print ads or radio commercials he writes for the newspaper, but most of the time they get shot down. He admits his day job and his art don't mesh.

"They push up against one another," he continues. "I've found that when I'm asked to write some pretty dry stuff at work, the next piece I write for myself is as out there as the work stuff was dry. But without my passion for poetry, I'd never have been able to land any of the writing jobs that are on my résumé. Poetry does pay after all!"

He has another completed poetry manuscript, jambandbootleg, the first of a trilogy of sorts, he says, a portion of which has been published online by BlazeVOX. Poemergency Room is the second part. The third, Trombone Bubble Bath, "continues with the maturing process." In addition, he has started a fourth.


"And ya don't stop."

Poemergency Room is available from lulu.com or from Siegell. You can learn more about Siegell and read his poetry at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL.