Chicago Poet Writes Book in Response to 9-11 Attacks
[This is the interview that went out with my book Against Holy War upon its release on March 11, 2002.]
“I was in Japan at the time the US bombing campaign started,” he says. “Restless in my hotel room one night, the first poem came to me, and I knew I had to write the book.”
David Novak was born in 1962 in Elmhurst, Illinois. After a stint living in Asia (where he helped sell bicycles for a Taiwanese trading company), he moved to Chicago, where he has resided for the past 17 years, working for temp agencies and taking odd jobs—“I’ve done everything from messengering to substitute teaching in grammar schools,” he says—all in an effort to buy the time to write.
His efforts have paid off, and now he is the author of several books of poetry: Embodiment & Release, Sonnets, and The Requiem, an epic poem, in addition to nine verse plays. He writes in a traditional style, “rhyme, meter, all that. I think I’m the first person to have tried the Spenserian stanza in as long as I can remember,” he says, referring to his epic.
“I thought I had given up writing [after The Requiem],” he states, “but then the World Trade Center and the other events of 9-11 occurred, and I realized, for a poet, thoughts of retirement are foolish if not selfish. When the Muse beckons, you have to answer.” He says that even though many poets have responded to the crisis with silence: for example, even current Poet Laureate Billy Collins avowed that he will not—not ever—address the tragedy in poetry.
Why are the poems in Against Holy War so short?
I felt that the event was obviously momentous in the history of our nation, and so needed to be dealt with—even marked—with a book of its own. I had already dealt with many of the surrounding issues, most pertinently the relationship of Christianity to the Muslim world, in previous books. Against Holy War represents a distillation of that, and focuses on the event and its implications.
I notice there are several references to the Buddha in the book. Is that intentional?
Well, remember, I had been traveling in Japan in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. There was a lot of anxiety in the air, particularly at airports. And I visited these temple grounds that were so incredibly serene, despite the influx of tourists they receive. In Japanese museums I was exposed to the ancient artifacts of Afghan Buddhism, which probably would have been destroyed had they remained in the country, just like the standing Buddhas that were blown up by the Taliban. And then I went to Kamakura. All of these thoughts were playing in my mind when I came to write the book.
Some of the things in the book don’t seem to have anything to do with 9-11.
I think that you must be referring to the poems about love, and making love. That’s because I really think the situation may be no more complex than “making love instead of war.” I know it’s a cliche, but sitting down to do some meditation, instead of lashing out at others.
How have the responses been to the book?
Very favorable. I’ve had one or two people who feel that my “faith-based response” (as they see it) doesn’t work for them. But I am a Christian not to mention a product of a Christian culture, so my response is necessarily going to come through that filter. I think the blurb from Bishop Spong on the back cover sets the right tone, however. This isn’t meant as a book exclusively for Christians, or even for Theists, but for all of humanity, and most particularly of course my own countrymen.
I notice there are very few angry poems in the book.
That’s really the point. The point is, it’s rage and unexamined anger that’s behind all this, that’s behind all the hatred in the Mideast and everywhere in the world. Anger is a natural response, but it is not always the best response, and it bothers me when our leaders encourage people to stir up their anger, to engage in name calling—“cowards” and all that. What was it Gandhi said, if everybody follows the philosophy of an eye for an eye, you wind up with a world of one-eyed people. Or worse.
Are there any other things you’d like our readers to know?
No, just, if they like this book, maybe to look for my others and try them, too.
“I was in Japan at the time the US bombing campaign started,” he says. “Restless in my hotel room one night, the first poem came to me, and I knew I had to write the book.”
David Novak was born in 1962 in Elmhurst, Illinois. After a stint living in Asia (where he helped sell bicycles for a Taiwanese trading company), he moved to Chicago, where he has resided for the past 17 years, working for temp agencies and taking odd jobs—“I’ve done everything from messengering to substitute teaching in grammar schools,” he says—all in an effort to buy the time to write.
His efforts have paid off, and now he is the author of several books of poetry: Embodiment & Release, Sonnets, and The Requiem, an epic poem, in addition to nine verse plays. He writes in a traditional style, “rhyme, meter, all that. I think I’m the first person to have tried the Spenserian stanza in as long as I can remember,” he says, referring to his epic.
“I thought I had given up writing [after The Requiem],” he states, “but then the World Trade Center and the other events of 9-11 occurred, and I realized, for a poet, thoughts of retirement are foolish if not selfish. When the Muse beckons, you have to answer.” He says that even though many poets have responded to the crisis with silence: for example, even current Poet Laureate Billy Collins avowed that he will not—not ever—address the tragedy in poetry.
Why are the poems in Against Holy War so short?
I felt that the event was obviously momentous in the history of our nation, and so needed to be dealt with—even marked—with a book of its own. I had already dealt with many of the surrounding issues, most pertinently the relationship of Christianity to the Muslim world, in previous books. Against Holy War represents a distillation of that, and focuses on the event and its implications.
I notice there are several references to the Buddha in the book. Is that intentional?
Well, remember, I had been traveling in Japan in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. There was a lot of anxiety in the air, particularly at airports. And I visited these temple grounds that were so incredibly serene, despite the influx of tourists they receive. In Japanese museums I was exposed to the ancient artifacts of Afghan Buddhism, which probably would have been destroyed had they remained in the country, just like the standing Buddhas that were blown up by the Taliban. And then I went to Kamakura. All of these thoughts were playing in my mind when I came to write the book.
Some of the things in the book don’t seem to have anything to do with 9-11.
I think that you must be referring to the poems about love, and making love. That’s because I really think the situation may be no more complex than “making love instead of war.” I know it’s a cliche, but sitting down to do some meditation, instead of lashing out at others.
How have the responses been to the book?
Very favorable. I’ve had one or two people who feel that my “faith-based response” (as they see it) doesn’t work for them. But I am a Christian not to mention a product of a Christian culture, so my response is necessarily going to come through that filter. I think the blurb from Bishop Spong on the back cover sets the right tone, however. This isn’t meant as a book exclusively for Christians, or even for Theists, but for all of humanity, and most particularly of course my own countrymen.
I notice there are very few angry poems in the book.
That’s really the point. The point is, it’s rage and unexamined anger that’s behind all this, that’s behind all the hatred in the Mideast and everywhere in the world. Anger is a natural response, but it is not always the best response, and it bothers me when our leaders encourage people to stir up their anger, to engage in name calling—“cowards” and all that. What was it Gandhi said, if everybody follows the philosophy of an eye for an eye, you wind up with a world of one-eyed people. Or worse.
Are there any other things you’d like our readers to know?
No, just, if they like this book, maybe to look for my others and try them, too.