Tony Moffeit:

Walking down Bourbon Street I noticed a huge sign: Chickenman’s House of Voodoo. I walked inside. A young woman asked me if she could help me. I told her, “I’m looking for voodoo.” She replied, “You came to the right place. This is the Chickenman’s House of Voodooo.” I asked, “Who is the Chickenman?” She answered, “My God, man, you don’t know who the Chickenman is? He’s only the oldest and the greatest of the Voodoo Kings.” I asked if I could meet the Chickenman. She said “of course” and went to the backroom to get the voodoo king. Chickenman emerged in all his splendor: wearing a big hat of chicken feathers that was covered in magical charms. He looked at me with blazing black eyes and exclaimed, “I’m Chickenman. Prince Keeyama. The Voodoo King of New Orleans. The people of the city gave me that name.” I replied, “Hello, Chickenman. I’m Tony Moffeit. Blues Poet of Pueblo, Colorado. The people of the city gave me that name.” And bang! There was an immediate meeting of minds. Because there’s not much difference between a voodoo king and a blues poet. Both are looking for those secret energies in the universe. Externally, the poet is no different from anyone else. Internally, he is a revolutionary. Internally, he is a creator of new laws, his own laws. Internally, he is an outlaw. . .

The process is this: 1. The artist must tap into the ghost energy. This can be done in a number of ways. You can listen to a moody song. Or a rhythmic song. Or a ballad. You can read poems that touch the phantom language. You can turn off the lights. Sometimes, you don’t have to do anything. Somehow, you need to get in touch with the spirits. 2. You must allow the ghost energy to let you work on many levels, many dimensions. You must see the mystical in the physical, the spiritual in the object, the passionate in detachment. You must reach a point of connecting with everything and being able to turn your poem inside out. You must stretch the language, reach another dimension. And you must do this without pretense. You must do this with the simplicity of language, reaching the most complex ideas with a simple but evocative language. 3. You must reach a point where you sing. Where the language takes over and sings you. The individual becomes universal.

My favorite poets are the outcasts, the outlaws, the supreme individualists, the passionate singers, the loners, the lovers. Ikkyu, the great Japanese Zen poet, Walt Whitman, the solitary singer. Art lives in a ghost world, a phantom world, a world in which the artist is a law onto oneself. Awards and rewards are good. They help with the external. But, really, the true poet is about the internal. It has very little to do with educators and the government. It has to do with the spirit of the individual artist. That spirit can conquer anything. That spirit can overcome anything. The internal world of the poet is superior to the external world. The internal world of the poet is phenomenal. About the only thing you compare it to is love. It is a love affair with life. It is experiencing miracles on a daily basis. It’s not that educators and the government are bad. They serve their purpose. It’s just that they are superfluous in comparison with the individual spirit, the creative will of the artist.

Lummox: What do I think about the current rise of interest in poetry?

Tony Moffeit: I think, as always, the rise of interest in poetry produces less poets. Poets appear when there is an atmosphere of desperation. Poets appear out of the wasteland. Poets appear in outlaw territory.

Tony Moffeit interviewed in The Lummox Journal (“Examining the process of creating”), September 2000.