Interview with Carlo Danese (WINTER AFTERNOON)

Matthew Toffolo: What is the theme of your poem?

Carlo Danese: How one experience can in a split second flip over into an ‘opposite’ experience

2) What motivated you to write this poem?

Sounds funny, but a remark I overheard from somebody about her brother. Plus a photograph I took of a snowy field in the finger lakes during the winter.

3) How long have you been writing poetry?

30 years approximately

4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

God, but if he/she is not available, the devil … don’t mean to be sarcastic but my real fantasy would be to have sort of a ‘last supper’ with a few dozen or more writers, artists, labor leaders, inventors ….nannies, cooks, carpenters, unemployed and/or unemployable types …

5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

I saw your ad. To be honest, I do not send my work out very much — this poem is one of my first ‘narrative poems’

6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

Yes – poetry, short stories, and I have had a few short plays produced. I have recently completed a screenplay named THE SAVIORS and ‘relocated’ to Los Angeles in order to try to get the script in the hands & brains of people who will see / understand the story and get it produced … It is partially sci fi but also ‘new age’ (for want of better term) as well as just a crazy tale … It is relatively low budget, and any ‘special effects’ simple to produce … The right director will understand that REAL sci fi entails getting the audience to see all that is NOT on the screen … It is called ‘imagination’ which is limitless tho I fear the 24/7 immersion of people into ‘media’ from birth does not give people, especially young people, the space and time to just dream – imagine – see & hear what nobody else sees & hears … connect to that universal consciousness with or without ‘religion’ …

7) What is your passion in life?

Keep going, help people ‘see’ – right now get THE SAVIORS produced. On another level, I am pretty political and along with keeping the present administration from endangering our society I hope our population becomes more aware of how politics works …

Some basic elements need to be radically changed … Real education is the first, most important aspect.

Watch the Poetry Reading: 

Performed by Elizabeth Rose Morriss