RM Vaughan interviewed by Eye Weekly

RM Vaughan (Troubled) was interviewed in Eye Weekly, about the genesis of his poetry collection, and what makes a 'gay' book:<!--newline--><!--newline-->http://www.eyeweekly.com/article/31098<!--newline--><!--newline-->RM Vaughan<!--newline-->By Damian Rogers <!--newline-->June 18, 2008<!--newline--><!--newline-->When I meet poet, playwright, journalist and video artist RM Vaughan at a park in Kensington to talk about his new book, Troubled (Coach House, 80 pages, $16.95), he immediately gives me a present: a white pin with 'PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT RICHARD FLORIDA' printed in microscopic type on it. 'That’s the YA version,' he cracks, digging out another pin with a larger font and handing it to me. 'This one’s the seniors' version.'<!--newline--><!--newline-->Vaughan has also made pins politely requesting that we stop talking about New York and Vancouver; this series, while a footnote in his creative output, nicely illustrates his penchant for playfully challenging cultural consumers to stop chattering about the same damn things and reach for an original thought already. A wry, incisive and sharp-tongued cultural commentator who works prolifically in multiple mediums, Vaughan's latest book is a remarkably brave and nakedly emotional poetic memoir about a disastrous sexual relationship he had with his psychiatrist.<!--newline--><!--newline-->What made you decide to write this book?<!--newline-->The line I've been using -- oh, what the hell, I'll use it on you -- is that this started as an act of vengeance. But then I began to wonder [how this happened]. I'm a pretty smart person -- I can read and stuff; I get by on my wits, let's say -- so how did I do something so fantastically stupid? Answering that became the quest.<!--newline--><!--newline-->The best responses to the book have been from people who have told me, 'I’ve never been in that specific situation, but I've done something incredibly stupid and I could really relate.'<!--newline--><!--newline-->Why did you choose to tell this story through poetry rather than narrative nonfiction?<!--newline-->No. 1, I'm stupid and I don't like money. The deeper answer is that I tried and I couldn't make it work. There were too many ambiguities -- it became a hall of mirrors -- and poetry is the language I found that allows for gaps.<!--newline--><!--newline-->You started your literary career as a poet, but you were also writing plays early on -- do you identify more with one form than another?<!--newline-->I've always done everything simultaneously. It means I have a really fat resume and that I'm taken seriously by no particular camp. I suppose I'll eventually pick one thing, but not until I'm at least 60. Why should I? No one tells Vincent Lam he has to stop being a doctor. It's a problem if I want to write a few poems a year, but it's OK to be a brain surgeon.<!--newline--><!--newline-->Speaking of camps, do you get drawn into the wars between different genres of poetry?<!--newline-->I used to be interested in all that, but I grew out of it. I've experienced some dismissal for being a confessional lyricist and it gives me some satisfaction that this is a 100 per cent confessional text. It's like being called fat and sticking your stomach out and saying, 'Yes, I am fat. Look at it. Touch it.'<!--newline--><!--newline-->What makes something a 'gay' book?<!--newline-->Marketing. Gay is like an ethnicity now. Actually, I was thinking how this book would receive a different reaction if a woman had written about the same experience. We don’t have as developed a language for talking about power imbalances between two men as we do for power imbalances between a man and a woman.<!--newline--><!--newline-->How do you feel about gay writers who write for a mainstream audience, like David Sedaris?<!--newline-->I'm hypnotized by those people. I want to follow them home and figure out how they did it. But this is important -- I don't want it to sound like I think of myself as anything but incredibly lucky. To make a living as a writer -- I don't live like a king, but I feel enormously lucky.<!--newline-->