Bruce Beasley
What digital devices do you have access to for writing?
I have a laptop, a Toshiba Satellite laptop computer, and that's mainly it. That and my office computer, which is a desktop.
All answers to this questionWhat are your physical archiving conventions?
... I keep all the physical copies of all the poems that have come back from the people I've shown them to, which I use a lot in revising.
All answers to this questionWhat role does correspondence play in your revision practice?
I keep all the physical copies of all the poems that have come back from the people I've shown them to, which I use a lot in revising. We read all of each other's work. We tend to read each other's work when we reach the point we call "exhausting our resources," which means that you've revised enough that there is nothing in the draft that makes you—that you know you could improve. You've reached the point where you've done everything you can to it, and it's time to get somebody else's feedback. Suzanne will read my work, and she's a really great reader, and give me really honest feedback on what's working well and what needs work. And then I have, I don't know, four or five friends that I tend to share my work with. Usually after Suzanne has read it and I've revised it further, I'll send to them.
All answers to this questionHow do you back up your files?
I have Carbonite on this computer. ... So, you can call up these files there easily, but not vice versa. Things that I put in my office computer, I have to email to myself if I want to work on them here.
All answers to this questionHow long have you been writing professionally?
My first book was published in 1988, so '98, 2008—twenty-five, twenty-six years.
All answers to this questionWhat digital devices do you have access to for writing?
I have a laptop, a Toshiba Satellite laptop computer, and that's mainly it. That and my office computer, which is a desktop.
All answers to this questionWhat physical tools do you use for composition?
What I do a lot is—I've brought some examples of this, if you want to see them—I write a lot when I'm walking. I take long walks and scribble in a notebook like this one. Just usually individual lines—let's see if I can find some examples. And then often I will transcribe them onto note cards.
All answers to this questionHow do you name your files?
I know where, what's what, and I started organizing them by year on my computer. So under "My Documents," I have a file called "Poems." Within it I'll have—I don't know if you can see this—"2011," "2012," "2013," drafts of my book manuscript, All Soul Parts Returned, various other things. Within "2013," I have "Early summer 2013," "Ecclesiastes," "January 2013," "Late Summer 2013," things like that.
All answers to this questionHow did the advent of personal computing and the internet influence your writing practices?
I would say it has influenced the content of my poems more than the composition process. It has influenced the context. Computers and internet have influenced the content of my poems a lot, doing a lot with websites, with that kind of radical interconnectivity of associative thinking that the internet suggests. I think that the dawn of the internet probably has changed the way I compose my poetics in certain way, and that it has given permission for more associative, mimetic thinking process that I associate with internet links.
All answers to this questionWhat role, if any, do other people play in your writing?
I have over here in my file cabinet a file called "Poems-Feedback from Readers," where I keep all the physical copies of all the poems that have come back from the people I've shown them to.
All answers to this question