Reader Meet Author: Philip Byron Oakes

April is National Poetry Month, and I have spent most of the month trying to figure why poets deserve an entire month. What makes them so special? Well, not only is the poetry one of the more neglected genres, but it is through poetry that we find the most creative and effective ways to relate to each other. It is through metaphor that situations, challenges, struggles, romances, can seem transferable and then tolerable. The poet can translate experiences, attach beauty, and tie is all together in a nice little package. It is discipline and structure, and completely deserving of its own month. Then again, it seems everyone has their own month these days.

I felt I needed to reach out to a poet this month, and instantly I thought of Austin's Philip Byron Oakes. I had seen his name in several different spots Glitter Pony, My Name is Mud, and so on, but he recently self-published his debut collection Catcus Land. It was reading through his collection that really grabbed my attention. Where as I don't fully relate to his subject matter I am still draw in by his writing and language. That is the beauty of poetry.

Recently, Philip was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

OA: You recently released your first collection of poetry. What can you tell us about Cactus Land?
PO: That it's lyrical, experimental, non-narrative (if that's not being redundant), "off the wall", intuitive, imagistically fertile, "a viscerally challenging and visually raucous menage of iffy passports to a middle earth of prickly pear encounters", befuddling to a majority of my friends, written from the diaphragm and adorned with a cover designed by Tammi Sue Powell, my partner in far greater crimes than this.

OA: It was released by 77 Letters, is this your own press? How did you decide to self-release as opposed to continuing to pursue publishers?
PO: I wouldn't call it my own, as Tammi handled that end of it for the most part, though it is an ad hoc venture for the sole purpose of publishing this one book. I never did seek an outside publisher for the book, though the great majority of the poems in the book have been published elsewhere; my motivation being, in part, impatience, but being primarily attributable to the internet search volume for my name in the mid to latter part of 2008 was at over a thousand a day (SEO Book Keyword, Wordtracker, etc.). I felt, at that point, that I had a readymade audience for this volume. Not that I wouldn't seek more traditional publishing venues in the future.

OA: Poetry as a genre seems to be increasingly difficult to promote. How do you plan to promote Cactus Land?
PO: Via the internet and some drunken bar talk. Bio-notes in future publications, a press release probably annoying other poets. Amazon, Libreriauniversitaria, The Book Depository and other major online book retailers have ads up for it in English, Japanese and Italian. It's even available from Target. Being interviewed doesn't hurt.

OA: A few of the poems in this collection have appeared on-line. What are your on on-line vs print? Do on-line journals carry the weight as print journals?
PO: I've preferred submitting to online publishers for the past couple of years, primarily for the greater exposure they provide ( Otoliths, to which I've been a regular contributor, being a bit of an exception, as it is both an online and print publication). Up until mid 2007, all my published work had appeared in print only. As to the relative cache of one medium over the other, I really don't concern myself with that. I still submit to both. I have work slated for publication in both.

OA: As we as a Nation find ourselves in challenging times, do you find it more necessary to document the various stages of despair and difficulty? It is typically out of times of strife and struggle that the arts truly flourish.
PO: It is incumbent upon the artist to reflect the zeitgeist, to both embody and step aside from it, but not necessarily document it in a topical sense. To be leaning forward from the times in which we find ourselves, keeping one's feet in the mud. Poetry born of pain, but distinguishable from polemic.

OA: What's next for Philip Byron Oakes?
PO: Write, publish, let the chips fall wherever.

Bonus Questions:
OA: If you could sit down to coffee with anyone (alive or dead) who would it be?
PO: Shakespeare (hands down).

OA: What type of music do you enjoy and who are a few of your favorites?
PO: I have eclectic tastes in music, jazz/punk/classical...Coltrane, Monk, Ornette Coleman, Bartok, Samuel Barber, David Byrne, Brian Eno, hell, the Sex Pistols, Ramones, Beethoven.

For more information on Philip Bryon Oakes please visit his website.