Chris George in the Spotlight at Triplopia

I am pleased to announce that there is a spotlight interview with me in the new "Fear" Issue of Triplopia magazine. Go to the link through the title above.

The interview is wide-ranging, covering, in addition to my creative writing interests, my thoughts on Jack the Ripper, the War of 1812, the Internet, and the writing art in general. I answered questions posed to me my e-mail over a number of months by Triplopia editors Gene Justice and Tara Elliott, and during part of the time Gene happened to be in South Korea so it was really an international conversation.

Included in the poetry section of the issue are my poems, "The Ghosts of Cambodia," "Morecambe Bay Cocklers Tragedy," "Apple Blossom and Roses at Auschwitz," and also two poems in the interview, "A Pack of Lies" and "My Book Is Eaten By Termites" and an excerpt from "Jack: The Musical" by Erik Sitbon and myself.

In the interview, I was able to share some of my ideas of what I believe makes for important and interesting poetry. I do think that modern poetry can speak to our world so it is a tragedy really that poetry is not better understood and appreciated by the masses. It behooves we poets to reach out and touch the people who say they do not "understand" poetry and bring them to a better or fuller appreciation of what poetry can say about modern life or life in general.

Basically, I am not the type of poet who writes only for myself and just puts my poems in a drawer, although I have heard a large number of poet say exactly that. In other words, in taking part in Internet workshops I am doing so to help become a better poet myself in order to write for publication and (perhaps) fame if that is possible, or at least to become more widely known. Thus, I do remark in the interview that poems should attempt major themes and that I don't think, in the main, poets are going to write important poems by just contemplating themselves and their own problems.

My fellow Loch Raven Review editor, Jim Doss, and I held a successful first reading for the magazine at the Load of Fun Galley on North Avenue in Baltimore on Friday, October 6. It was the first of a number of readings we are planning for the coming months. You can see some video excerpts from the October 6 reading by going to http://www.youtube.com/v/zPYUwksCBRI -- check it out! Also have a look at Jim Doss's blog where we both have poems about the reading. Go to http://jimdoss.blogspot.com/. Enjoy!