Interview with San Diego Poet Laureate Ron Salisbury by Tania Pryputniewicz
1) Congratulations on serving as San Diego’s first Poet Laureate. What did you find the most challenging and rewarding about being San Diego’s Poet Laureate?
There is no instruction book for being a poet laureate. I think of the experience as being similar to the way Frank O’Hara, the famous poet from the New Your School of poets, described “Free Verse.” He said “You just go on your nerve. If someone’s chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don’t turn around and shout, ‘Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.’”
This applies doubly so when your term as poet laureate coincides with the COVID 19 shut down in San Diego. As well as being the poetry ambassador for San Diego, you are expected to appear at many public events to promote both poetry and represent San Diego. During the second year of your appointment, you have to design, develop a “Public Project” for the city. Obviously, this project features poetry. The challenge was how to achieve these goals while being sequestered in your home for the two years of your appointment.
In the late spring of 2020, after the COVID shut-down, with the City’s help and idea, I created “Poetry Together Challenge.” This was a city sponsored website where San Diego poets could submit their poems to be viewed by the public. I provided a writing prompt each month for the two months this ran. Poets were encouraged to write about their experiences during the initial stage of our shut down.
In April of 2021, while still locked down, I created my “Public Project” which was six monthly demonstrations of “tools” for writing poems. For the last five months, I also interviewed five different San Diego Poets about their writing experiences during the pandemic. With guidance from the San Diego Arts and Culture Commission and the San Diego Department of Technology, Geographic Information, these interview and craft demonstrations, each over an hour long, were posted on a city web site. They are still available at the city’s site for the Poet Laureate. The project also included a zip code oriented “map” of the locations of the poets who submitted poems in response to each craft presentation. The poet’s names and their poems could also be viewed on the website. I was able to select a representative sample of the poems submitted and have them published in the 2021-2022 San Diego Poetry Annual.
To be selected as San Diego’s first Poet Laureate was such a tremendous and humbling event. The chance to represent poetry and the poets of San Diego is a once in a life-time opportunity. The fact of being isolated from COVID 19 and not able to bring my poetry to the public arena does not lessen the honor. San Diego is my adopted city, the same with over 50% of those who live here, and I am also honored to have represented my city to the poets of San Diego, California and elsewhere.
2) What advice would you give an incoming Poet Laureate?
Jason Magabo Perez will be a great Poet Laureate. He is already responding to requests for his appearance in various area venues. My advice is to do as many of these as you can. Reach out to as many San Diego poets and especially to San Diego citizens who might not be familiar with the poetry community today. This is a once in a life chance to represent the city of San Diego and Poetry in San Diego.
3) We hear you have a new poetry book coming out this year; can you tell us a bit about the book? What are some ways the community can support a poet with a new book?
My newest book, Please Write And Tell Me What I Looked Like When You Met Me, was published by Wholon in November, 2022. I usually have books for sale at my readings or you can find the buy link at ronsalisbury.com. The poems in this book continue my journey of growing older; they make ironic fun of how senior citizens are supposed to act and feel in our youth-oriented culture. To support our area poets, take a chance and attend one of our readings, check with San Diego Writers Ink for their presentations. And if the opportunity and desire should arise, buy one of our books.
4) What are you excited about turning your attention to next?
As well as creating poems, my love for this art also includes a love to teach the craft of poetry, the tools that have been used by poets to craft their poems. I have led poetry workshops and taught craft classes for more than forty years. I continue to annually teach, for San Diego Writers Ink, their Certificate in Poetry, run poetry workshops and have private students. Writing, publishing and teaching will continue into the foreseeable future. I am in the process of compiling a chapbook of my “Reggie” poems.
