Leslie McMurtry interviews V B Price. Price has been a columnist with the Albuquerque Tribune since 1985, edited New Mexico Magazine from 1984-5, edited Century from 1978-84, teaches at the University of New Mexico in the Honors Program and School of Architecture, has published eight books of poetry, several books on New Mexico, a novel (The Oddity), and has been published in 54 periodicals including The Manhattan Review, South Dakota Review, Blue Mesa Review, and The New Mexico Independent.

In a review of The Oddity in Bookselling This Week, you are described as “something of an Albuquerque institution” having lived and worked in New Mexico for almost 50 years. Can you explain New Mexico’s pull on you and so many other artists?

New Mexico (and the West) is a place for outsiders to flourish. It’s a creative environment that appeals to all different kinds of outsiders. Albuquerque is a blue-collar creative town. Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Las Cruces—places for creativity, although all different. This is true for all artists, sculptors, painters, architects. The Southwest has long been a bastion of multi-cultural responses, nichos, intellectual micro-climates. It’s completely different from the East, New York, Chicago, Amherst . . . San Francisco, LA. . . New Mexico has a wondrous richness—you can be who you are.

In your wonderful preface to Broken and Reset, you mention that you “dreamed yourself up” in Albuquerque from the “crippling traps” of your childhood in Los Angeles. Do you think writers need to experience adversity in order to write?

As Winfield Scott asked himself after he had settled, married an heiress, and was living in Santa Fe with two delightful children—“how am I going to write anymore?” The reality is that every writer, like everyone else, has problems. Everyone has lots of pain, unnecessary fixations—it’s what we choose to do with it that makes us different.

Can you tell me a bit about the experience of starting up your own magazine, Century?

I’ve always been lucky to have made my living writing across the board, as a journalist who writes poetry. Or actually, a poet who does journalism might be more accurate. There used to be a very powerful tradition of alternative media in New Mexico—in the Spanish-language press, in Northern New Mexico. After the conquest of 1846, there was a decline, dwindling in numbers up until the 1950s. Like Spud Johnson—there’s always been an alternative press, so that we treat ourselves with the same kind of respect that the East coast has for itself. Century, though we never set out to consciously groom ourselves after anything else, was described as a combination of the New Yorker and Nation in the Southwest. It was a neat experience to help authors. Our goals were to create high standards (that we met), to allow events in the world to drive our energies. We developed our skills. If you look at the architecture of magazines, our internal architecture was to struggle against overspecialization. There was no hierarchy of subject matter—quality was to run the boat, not topic. We had the luxury of going with the author, not the piece.

We had 400-some authors, mostly New Mexicans, who wrote on every subject. The copies of the magazines—pre-computers—would fit in 35 boxes. It was totally exhausting. I would write three to four pieces per week, edit, build, solicit about a dozen other pieces. Kathryn Simons, my mentor, would proof, then I’d give it to the typesetter, who was fabulous, then we’d read to copy. We had wars over hyphens! We always got it done on time. It was a very 1930s experience. Business-wise, it was a disaster. We suffered along for three years.

Why has The Oddity been your only novel to date? Are you like Beethoven, who appeared to have only one opera in him?

I write across the board—I’ve had many opportunities as a journalist. I write a poem a day. In editing and writing nonfiction, I’ve been very lucky. Fiction is different.

The big lesson one learns is that though it’s tremendously helpful to write in as many genres as possible, writing well in one genre does not necessarily mean you will write well in all genres. I found writing the novel extremely arduous. The Oddity took 25 years off and on. There were eight or nine drafts. But now I have six or seven more large fictional projects I know I can do. The book I’m working on now is The Orphaned Land: Notes for an Environmental Accounting of New Mexico Since the Manhattan Project. All localities manifest their own version of global environmental concerns—global warming to toxic waste dumping. Journalistically I’ve always been angered by the complete usurpation by national media of local news, localities where the decisions are made. In New Mexico there is a withering amount of devastation that goes on undocumented—as it does in other places.

It says in your CV that you were a dishwasher for Continental Airlines when you were 22. Have you always known you wanted to be a writer or were there ever any other career choices you were tempted to make?

In LA in 1962, my late first wife was pregnant with our first child, so I took basically whatever job I could find. I’ve always written, though I’ve always been dubious about the reality of making a living from writing. So I’ve taught, edited, been a journalist; shared scattered, multi-level income streams. But I’ve always written, because, as an old editor of mine said, the function of a writer is to write.

Many writers say they write best at a certain time of day or in a special place. William Trevor also said, “I write when the spirit moves me, and I make sure it moves me every day.” What, if any, are your conditions for writing?

I get up very, very early in the morning. I meditate for awhile, then I read a lot. I start writing poems, I tidy up, and research things. I have several journals I keep. I try to get three to four pages written, every day. It just about kills me. I think it’s a little easier when you’re younger—you have more raw energy and confidence, which does count for a lot. I can understand why writers drink a lot! High or low, up or down . . . you have to write. And you feel so bad if you don’t do it! In the afternoon, I do research, sometimes get one to two hours more writing done in the evening, then continue tidying up. I have a production span in short bursts. Overall, it’s a wonderful mix—in the evening, conversation, learning from friends, housecleaning. I’ve been lucky in 40 years of married life to have Rini, an ardent, passionate worker herself—a great artist. And the cats don’t seem to mind.

After awhile you understand your capacities and that you must conform to them eventually. You develop a community who will read your stuff and help you to see if you’re an idiot.

What advice would you give to young writers?

The Romans were very interested in social roles. If we extrapolate that to genre—if you look at a newspaper column, it’s made of balsa wood, not mahogany, it’s transient, for a particular context, dealing with fleeting issues. It’s a form that requires certain precision. Learn the genres. Learn the roles. For poetry, the sub-genres are endless; so flexible, able to fit an infinite number of personalities. I think you have to commit to a lifelong process to which you are dutiful and loyal and if you do that, the gods will give you what you can do. If you’re capricious, they’ll spurn you!

Part of the problem with education is that we’re taught to disregard ourselves. This doesn’t work when we only know by doing actual thinking. We become a huge library of Alexandria, each of us. What we collect, ourselves, we see how we’ve put information together, and how other people do it—what we disagree with, how we differ. Every writer is not only part of an aesthetic but a culture.

Can you talk a bit about themes in your poetry? I noticed on your website you had quite a few Christmas Poems dating between 1998—2006.

At some point in my middle years, I wanted to write what the old ones had written about. Why not? The Seven Deadly Sins, for instance. My own rendition of the Homeric Hymns. I became interested in Sappho early on, the love poems necessarily but also in her as the purest lyricist. The Christmas Poems became very important to me. I put tremendous effort into them. There are always some miracles in them.

I write place poems, many about New Mexico, but I don’t think of myself as a regional poet. The Chaco poems were a breakout for me. The most exciting thing—it must be the same feeling that a potter or a weaver has— Like a cloud—poof! There it is! Then you have something to work with. I access myself many different times—I’m a drafter.

I’m very interested in Goya and Neruda and Virgil. There is a heavy bias among critics against political work. My poetry, to a large degree, is political. I’m interested in fairness, respect, kindness. I detest cruelty.

For my column, I know what I’ll write in the morning (because I’ve been sleeping on it all night), I’ll sit down to write it, and in an hour it’ll be done. My poems are so much smarter than me. I’m grateful they are. I thank the muses every morning, passionately. Seriously.

To learn more about V B Price, visit his website at www.vbprice.com