Tiny Interview #8 - Daniel A. Rabuzzi
Here we ask authors we admire to share their musings on art and writing, spill their current reading obsessions, and give us a tiny wedge into their creative life. In this Tiny Interview, meet Daniel A. Rabuzzi, author of the Longing for Yount series of novels, as well as poetry, essays, and criticism. His work was most recently published in Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, and his essays have previously appeared at Observations.
(Interviewed by Connor Harrison)
‘The Chariot of the Sun Fantasy,’ Frederic Edwin Church, 1868-69
Q: What book(s) are you reading right now?
A: On the night-table, with bookmarks inserted like pennons marking my progress: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo, In The Dutch Mountains by Cees Nooteboom, and American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes. Dipping into Calvino's Why Read The Classics? and Auden's The Dyer's Hand.
Q: What are your current writing projects?
A: I am working on my third novel, returning to themes I began to explore in the very first story I ever had published (in 2006). The setting is the fifteenth century CE in the northwestern corner of the Holy Roman Empire -- in a world where dragons, saints, and mystics walk together. I continue to shape and refine several poems that are not quite ready for submission to editors. I am interviewing two fellow authors for publication, and reviewing an upcoming volume of poetry from Bloodaxe Books (U.K.). Also, I am mulling a follow-up essay to my "On the Fairy Tale School of English-Language Poetry," published by The Critical Flame in June, 2022.
A: Most excellent question! Music and the visual arts influence my work heavily and in many ways (I have drafted essays delving into the connections and would love to collaborate with others in exploring the cross-influences and ramifications). I cannot begin to do justice in a short response. In brief: rhythm is the connecting tissue, the spiritual pulse beneath the surface that reveals what I find to be most significant in life. A few signposts to give you a sense of my orientation: Klee, Kandinsky, Coltrane, Bach, J Dilla, Herbie Hancock, Robert Rauschenberg, Betye Saar, Janelle Monáe...the list goes on and on.
P.S. I would add "athletics" to your list of art forms. As a lifetime competitive athlete, I am equally influenced by sport. As distance runner and former American record holder Steve Prefontaine said: “My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.”
Q: Do any other art forms influence your writing? If so, how?
Q: Where is your favorite place to write, and do you have any writing rituals?
A: I write at a table that my wife and artistic partner Deborah A. Mills made, looking out at Brooklyn in one direction and at Manhattan in the other. The hum of the traffic and the hustle-bustle from the streets are the perfect backdrops for concentration and imagination. My rituals include the necessary coffee, the presence of our cat, and some go-to songs (for instance, "The Fish" by Yes, "Bring It On" by Seal, "Mummer's Dance" by Loreena McKennitt, "Jiya Jale Dil Se" by A. R. Rahman performed by the Berklee Indian Ensemble).
Q: Who is a writer you wish more people were reading?
A: So many powerful, insightful writers deserve a wider audience! Here are two I recommend: Sonya Taaffe. Harryette Mullen. Each in their own fashion makes me see anew and begin to understand my own mother-tongue better.
