Pitymilk was overjoyed to finally publish work by our long time friend and Madison, WI based poet Greg Zorko in DUETDUET 7. We’ve always found Greg’s work funny and austere in a charmingly Midwestern way — we wanted to know a little more about where that comes from —
PITYMILK: Here at Pitymilk — we are really interested in place and where people are coming from. How does locale and regionality influence your work? Are you originally from the Midwest? Either way would you say that it shapes who you are/how you see things/how you write? How do you feel about that?
GREG ZORKO: I’m not originally from the Midwest, but I can say it’s shaped my writing a lot. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the Midwest, in Indiana and Wisconsin, and I really enjoy the landscapes and the spaces, and the people too. I think Madison and southern Wisconsin especially influence my work. I love nature and the outdoors and that’s a big part of living in a more rural state. Lakes, rivers, prairie, streams, hills, all sorts of animals. The ease with which you can pass from an urban city environment to a very rural one in a short time out here, I think that shows up a lot in my poetry.
PM: Your poems often have a characteristic sort of humor to them, a little austere but with an ebullience and levity running throughout. What is the role of humor in your work? Are you trying to solicit laughter? Is it the sugar that makes the medicine go down or is there no ulterior motive? How do you feel about stand-up?
GZ: I think I’m a failed stand up. Humor is a big part of my life and it shows in almost everything I write. I think I do try to make things fun and funny for the reader, but it’s more about my personality and how I see the world. There’s a lot to laugh at, even at times where you shouldn’t be laughing. And I think of poetry as fantasy, so there’s room there for a lot of wacky humor and taking things in unexpected directions. It’s a major part of all of my writing and performing. I think it helps a lot when you’re reading in front of people to draw them in with some humor now and then.
PM: This last set of poems in DUETDUET are clearly grounded in home and the domestic space in contrast to some of your earlier work… what would you contribute this shift to? Do you feel at odds with this in any way? Is there a tension there? Do you anticipate some in the future?
GZ: No, I don’t feel at odds with it. I think I’ve been exploring it more since I got engaged, and also during Covid isolation and all that. Just spending a lot of time with another person that I love. Exploring what that feels like in all those tiny ways is probably the thing that is coming up most in my new work. But I’ve always been interested in bringing out the more mundane and prosaic side of things in poetry, with lots of small granular details. And I think the home is the perfect space for that. I think most of my poems involve the great outdoors or the great indoors. And the great indoors has been interesting me a lot recently.
PM: Who are you reading lately? Who is making exciting music? What do you keep coming back to for inspiration and grounding? Who deserves credit for your style and approach to creative endeavors? Give us a little insight into your creative lineage.
GZ: There are so many things that feed in. I really got into poetry through modernist poetry in Spanish and I recently re-read Cesar Vallejo’s collected works, which inspired me to take my poems in whatever direction feels right. I listen to a lot of folk music from the British isles and America. I really like Marilynne Robinson and have been working my way through all of her books. Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics, especially Sweeney Todd. For contemporary stuff I’ve been reading a lot of books from After Hrs. press, they are probably my favorite press right now, just putting out consistently excellent books. I just recently ordered their subscription for 2023 and I’m excited about the new books they’re releasing. I’ve been reading a lot of history and non-fiction. I’m going back and reading a lot of older scholarship in Russian history. I’ve been reading Moshe Lewin and Marc Raeff and others, I think that probably feeds in too, somehow.
PM: How are you feeling about your blind date with Peter Burzynski For DUETDUET 7? Things that stuck out? Uneasy spots? Happy Accidents? Do you feel like ya’ll are a good match?
GZ: I was really happy to see Peter perform and to read his poems. I just loved his performance and approach to writing. I think there is a lot of humor in his work as well and he takes his poetry in a lot of unexpected places. Peter’s poems are very well edited and crafted but they don’t lose that playfulness and surprise that is in all of my favorite poetry. I really like “She’s a Good Cat” and “Raising Cain” especially. I think we’re a great match!
PM: Who is your celebrity crush? If you could watch them eat anything in the world… what are we serving them?
GZ: I’m not big into celebrities, but I just rewatched Phantom Thread and I think I could watch Daniel Day-Lewis order and eat a big hungry boy breakfast. Scones, eggs, bacon and a Welsh rarebit.
PM: Do you consider yourself to be a social or political poet in any respect? Does your work reflect some sort of care or concern for the world around you? If so, is it acute or sort of diffused? What is your relationship to audience? What sort of reactions or inductions or seductions are you trying to manage?
GZ: Politically I’m on the Left. I’m a socialist so I try to make capitalism look bad when I can, which luckily is not difficult. But I try to be political in a kind of mundane way. Politics is all around us, it shapes the way I experience my world. So I think I’m interested in being political in poems where it collides with the normal, everyday parts of my life, and expressing my politics in those kinds of situations. I like a lot of the political poetry of the 1920s Soviet Union, even some of the more straightforwardly propagandistic work, so I think there is some influence there too. And exploring fantasy like I mentioned earlier, in a political way, that’s important to me. Fantasizing about a future world, one that’s a lot better and more just than the one we currently live in. That’s something I like to do a lot.
PM: What are you excited about lately? Tell us about upcoming projects or happenings? Things you want to do but haven’t started yet? How can people keep up with what you’ve got going on? Where can people find you?
GZ: During the last few I’ve had a few opportunities to read in front of people for the first time in a long time and that has been great. It’s my favorite thing in the world to do and something that I missed a lot. Other than that I have a full length poetry manuscript that I’ve been trying to publish, and I have a “works in progress” Google doc with a ton of work on there. I have some short fiction I’ve been working on, a novel idea, and some ideas and works in progress that are more in a hybrid history/fiction kind of style, maybe I would call it “autohistory” or something like that. So I’m just excited about the future and feeling really relaxed and loose with everything I’m working on. People can find me on Twitter @zorknogg and Tumblr @zorknogg where I post more writing related stuff. Also Goodreads, which is the top social media platform in my opinion.
FIND GREG’S WORK ALONGSIDE PETER BURZYNSKI’S IN DUETDUET VOL 7
