Author Interview

Jon Andersen
A Conversation with Jon Andersen by Amelia South
AS: Are you excited about publishing your first book? How does it feel?
JA: I am thrilled to have my first full-length collection being published, and I am so honored that it will be a Curbstone book—a press that has been inspirational and influential in my development as a writer. The process of putting Stomp and Sing together was a wonderful learning experience. A stack of poems doesn’t make a book. I saw how poems can resonate so very differently depending on where they sit in relation to other poems. Many new poems demanded to be written and many old poems demanded to be rewritten in order to make the whole. I really wanted the collection to have some range in terms of technique and content. It was both difficult and fun to make the whole thing cohere, and to make sure that I wasn’t just hitting the same note all the time. I was fortunate to have the help of talented and wise readers—especially Curbstone editor Sandy Taylor and the members of my writers’ group.
AS: You work as an English teacher at E.O. Smith High School. Are you ever inspired to write by things that happen at your school, or with your students?
JA: I am inspired by my students, period—not just as a writer, but as a person. They always have something to teach me, too. Many of the poems in the third section of the book deal with teaching and school. It’s important to remember that the students, and even to a large extent the school itself, in the poems are fictional, as are many of the other characters who appear in the book. But to borrow a phrase from Tim O’Brien, they are, I hope, “emotionally true.” For example, I wrote the poem “Soldier” in part to help me deal with the complex feelings, including fear, I had about former students joining the military. This year, that fear was realized when a wonderful young man named Robert Hoyt died in Iraq. The fictional student “Michael” in that poem is certainly not Rob or any other student I’ve had, and yet, in a way, Michael is all of these young men.
AS: How have the events in your life impacted your writing career?
JA: I’m not sure about “career,” but there have been many factors in my life that have shaped my writing. First, I owe a lot to my parents. In word and deed they taught my brother and me the value of being critical thinkers and doers, to be antiracist and open. Indirectly, they also shaped my world view early on because they worked so hard and still struggled to make ends meet for so many years that I realized that something wasn’t quite true about the classic Horatio Alger American Dream. In fact, coming of age in The Decade of Greed, I began to feel that almost the reverse of the dream was true—that the honesty, intelligence, and real “family values” of my parents were impediments to financial success, or even to security. So, the concept of justice and the complexity of “ordinary” lives naturally informs what I end up writing. I was also enchanted by the landscape of my childhood—we lived in an old farmhouse where my mother’s father had grown up, and the woods and orchards surrounding the place sang to me, as did the farmland and wilderness of some of the jobs I had during my early 20s. Another big influential time in my life was my education at UConn, where I had great teachers like James Scully and Joan Joffe Hall, who were also great writers. The most significant influcences now are my wife and family, and teaching. I’m actually returning to the classroom this year after being an at-home, full-time father for two years. My wife, who also teaches English at E.O. Smith High, was home for two years, first on sabbatical and then on child rearing leave while I taught, and then she went back to work while I stayed home. Now we’re both back full time, and actually, believe it or not, share a classroom. My stepson thinks we should film this and turn it into a reality TV show called “Double Shift.” We have been very fortunate, and I wish every father and mother could have the experience of being at home with their kids for an extended period of time—especially in those early years.

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