Crippled, Writing, and Loving It:Robert Masterson Interviews Poet Morris EidelbergRM: Morris, how would you describe what you do? ME: I write simple, blunt poems. I try to get naked in my poems and show the ugliest parts of me, the parts that I myself don't even want to see, the parts that no one in their right mind would show anyone else. I make people stare at them. RM: How do you get to the mental place where you find this deeper interior and write? ME: Often times, it happens on the toilet when I'm pushing to make kaki. Or else I'm sitting in the café, and I'm checking out people, and a line will come to me. Or, sometimes, when I wake up at 3:00 a.m., I'll have two or three lines in my head like a gift from G-d. I can never just will a poem. Sometimes I'm dying to write something about something, but I don't have a word or a hook, and I can't do it. Even if it's the most beautiful fucking rainbow or pair of boobs in the world. RM: What is the most challenging about what you do? ME: Actually, since I have very bad cerebral palsy and my hands are getting more fucked up, the actual typing is the hardest thing now. Kind of funny because the poems themselves come easily to me. The other thing is, I don't send them out very often even though I'm dying to get published because, of course, I write in order to be read. RM: What are you trying to achieve with your work? ME: My goal is to make poetry accessible to dumb-ass people like me. I'm not a stupid idiot, but I find most poems hard to understand, even if I read them more than once. I think a lot of poets try to be deliberately obscure; they think that obscurity equals poetry, but I always try to do the opposite—to be as clear and simple as I can be. Actually, I want to put out a book called Poems for Stupid People. So, when people see the cover, they won't feel intimidated at all. I want to write about things that no one else write about: kaki, jerking off, being an undesirable, unsexy, unwanted person. I want to write about wanting to fuck your mother (even though I really did not want to fuck my mother). In every poem I write, I try to make people both laugh and cry. It's very important that my poems be funny but, at the same time, kick the readers in their groins. That includes writing about CP. I try to make the palsy as un-special as possible, to make it funny and human. RM: What does it mean for you to be a poet? How does a poem begin for you…with an idea, a form or an image? ME: Those are two different questions, you motherfucker. I'll be like the president at a press conference and say, "I'll take the first question first." To be a poet, like I said before, means to be willing and actually want to take off all your clothes in front of as many people as possible no matter how tiny your penis is. Somehow, by the process, you make that into something beautiful, something people will remember. A poet says what no one else would say and says it in his own voice. How does a poem come to me? I'll give you an example: I was sitting in my café one night and there was this woman with huge breasts, tight tight jeans, and high-heeled work boots. She was sitting with an old guy who was dressed like a schulmp. There were a lot of phone calls. First, I thought she was a whore, and they were about to go to a hotel and fuck. But, the constant phone calls they were making shot that idea down. So, then, I came up with the idea that she was a whore and the old guy is her father and her pimp. Then, I threw in the black-out cake and the dollop of whipped cream, and I had myself a poem. But other times, it could just be a phrase that comes into my head. Like the other day, I asked myself, "What if roses smelled like shit and shit smelled like roses?" I have no idea where that came from, but it gave me a poem. RM: Are there forms you haven't tried but would like to try? ME: Yes. Practically all of them from sonnets to haiku. I think the discipline of writing in a form is ironically freeing and makes you write things you would never have written. But, of course, I'm such a lazy motherfucker, that I doubt I'll ever do it. Maybe if a girl would give me a blow job and say, "I'm only going to continue sucking if you give me the next line of the sonnet." Maybe under those conditions, I would do it. I would also like to try prose poems. A lot of times when I'm taking a shower, I like to tell my caretaker, a really ridiculous story that I make up. I would like to write them down. RM: What conditions help with your writing process? ME: Having a lot of gas and having a big load to drop. I find that very stimulating to my artistic process. Also, just being outside, on the bus, in synagogue, or just being in my wheelchair going down the street gives me ideas. But just sitting alone in my room facing the computer will generally yield nothing. So, I never do that. There are periods when absolutely nothing will stimulate…not even one word…and there's nothing I can do about it. Then there are other times when practically everything seems like a poem; the guy taking his shirt out of his pants to clean his glasses is a poem. Sometimes, I tell myself that I would like to keep track of these creative or uncreative cycles and try to match them with the ups and downs of the stock market. I'm sure there's some correlation. I think when I haven't jerked off for a couple of weeks, it makes me more prolific. But I'm not sure about that. Maybe I just wanted to say that. RM: What is the relationship between your speaking voice and your written voice? ME: Shit, Robert. That's a good question. Is that yours or did you steal it from someone? First of all, my speaking voice is completely unintelligible because of the palsy, which is I'm sure is a big reason why I write. Actually, I feel my like my talking voice is similar to my written voice in that I speak in short and simple sentences trying to cram the most meaning into as few words as possible, so people won't have to break their heads trying to understand my fucked up speech. I'm angry in speech and on the page—cursing, joking, and talking about fucking. In fact, sometime I'll say something to someone, and I'll stop to think, "Shit. That's a poem." Or the beginning of a poem. RM: What else would you like people to know about Morris Eidlesberg as a writer? ME: That I write in order to get laid. In reality, though, after 20 years of writing, a beautiful, smart, and funny woman in Singapore found my poems online and wrote to me. We emailed, fell in love, and we were taking bubble baths together four months later. I live in Israel. I love my Jewish people, and so I'm happy every day we have our home country. We're spitting in Hitler's face. I love my palsy and wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't want be a regular, upright person. Also, I am a compulsive gambler completely addicted to the stock market for 30 years. I've lost over $600,00US. At the age of 58, I'm blessed to have a beautiful, 10-month old baby girl with two beautiful human beings as her mommies. Finally, I want to thank you Robert, for saving my ass 16 years ago when I was so depressed and you schlepped me to your Russian psychiatrist in the middle of a workday and she got me on the right anti-depressants. I'll never forget your kindness. RM: I love you, Morris. ME: I love you, too, Robert.
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