Bloggasm

You can find Daphne Gottlieb’s journal over here.

San Francisco-based poet Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the author of three books of poetry: Final Girl (2003), Why Things Burn (2001) and Pelt (1999). She is also the editor of Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader (2005) and the author of Jokes and the Unconscious, a graphic novel with illustrator Diane DiMassa. She was the winner of the 2003 Audre Lorde Award for Poetry and a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award. She is the poetry editor for Other magazine and Lodestar Quarterly and her work frequently appears in journals and anthologies. You can find her online at www.daphnegottlieb.com.

Recent press has praised her work as “fierce,” “unapologetic,” “scorching” and “deliriously gutsy.” She has been widely published in journals and anthologies including nerve.com, Exquisite Corpse and Short Fuse: A Contemporary Anthology of Global Performance Poetry.

Besides anchoring three national performance poetry tours, recently featuring with Maggie Estep, Hal Sirowitz and Lydia Lunch, Gottlieb has also appeared across the country with the Slam America bus tour and with notorious all-girl wordsters Sister Spit. She has performed at festivals coast-to-coast, including South by Southwest, Bumbershoot, and Ladyfest Bay Area.

She is the poetry editor of the online queer literary magazine Lodestar Quarterly, as well as Other Magazine and was a co-organizer of ForWord Girls, the first spoken word festival for anyone who is, has been or will be a girl, which was held in September 2002.

Gottlieb has also performed and taught creative writing workshops around the country, from high schools and colleges to community centers. She received her MFA from Mills College.

Simon Owens: In a world where contemporary poetry collections aren’t widely purchased, do you think Final Girl’s critical acclaim was able to help you reach a much wider audience?

Daphne Gottlieb: You know, I think the answer to that one is in the question to some extent — given that there’s not much of a market for it, praise isn’t going to necessarily help — just because something is acclaimed doesn’t make it more desired. I think what helped was the placement of some of the acclaim — in magazines like Bust and Bitch — word was getting out to people who might not be into poetry but might like mine. And even more than critical praise, I think word of mouth was key to reaching people. I’ve been told repeatedly by people that they don’t like poetry, but they like my work — so I think that I’ve been lucky in being able to reach people who aren’t necessarily poetry fans.

SO: How successful have you been using your blog to promote your work and gather feedback? Does it have a significant impact on sales and readership?

DG: You know, I don’t know. I know that visits to my website tend to spike around book releases and tours, but that makes sense — it’s more likely that people will come across my name somewhere if I’m out in the world. I also know that people come to readings because they’ve seen my posting about it in my journal, but chances are, I already know them, which is why they’re reading my journal. So I think that my live journal serves as invitation, but not really an impetus, to come to a reading. And I think far more people find my LJ because they’ve read my book than the other way around — they read my book because they follow my LJ. But I’m happy to have any readers in any form. So it’s all good by me.

SO: Since you’ve become a poetry editor, has your poetry changed at all?

DG: I don’t really think it has, in and of itself. Maybe the most notable difference is that time I would have used writing, I’m using for editing, but in that respect, it’s no different, really, than, say, my love life, or choosing to read a book. Once in a while I’ll come across a piece that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, that excites me and inspires me to work in a certain way, and I think that’s the reward of reading a slush pile.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

DG: I really enjoy boingboing and metafilter — they tend to point to politics, trends and memes that I want to know about. I peek in on those sites daily. Beyond that, I read my friends’ journals, and also some that I won’t name here — I have an unflattering fascination with car crashes and some of the blogs I follow are by folks who are borderline delusional — there’s a disconnect between their life and what they believe their life to be. These enthrall me, but likely for all the wrong reasons.