What prompts a new poem?

It’s a poem-by-poem proposition. When I finish my next poem you’ll be informed.

What circumstances are ideal for writing poetry?

With music, usually something long and large in the background, let’s say Bruckner, though when it stops you’re so engaged you don’t notice it.

Roughly how many drafts do you produce before ‘finishing’ a poem?

It depends on the poem, but most times it feels unending. All initially in long hand, of course.

Which poet would you most like to talk to – and why?

John Forbes. 1: Since his death in 1998 he still remains the best postwar Australian poet, and indeed the best such writing in English. 2: His Collected Poems has never been out of print, and countless readers from subsequent generations are big fans of his work. His influence is substantial. 3: I’d like to show him work by poets he has missed out on including Jaya Savige, Liam Ferney, the late Benjamin Frater, Michael Aiken, Kate Middleton, Rob Wilson, Lachlan Brown, and Corey Wakeling. 4: Also show my own work he has missed out on, wanting him to enjoy it, sure, but also knowing his ear and eye would spot any claptrap.

What do poets need most: solitude or a coterie?

A poet needs solitude until the solitude becomes unbearable, and then it’s coterie all the way.

What have you learned from reviews of your work?

Once, when my first book was reviewed along with Graham Rowland’s first book and I was accused of ‘esoteric flimflam’ and Graham was compared to Shakespeare, a weird joy came over me. Thirteen years later, reviews of The Nightmarkets (1986) taught me that, no matter how well-intentioned, hyperbole was very much alive. It still is. This book also received very nasty, ignorant reviews from Hal Colebatch and Clive James. They taught me zero.

If Plato allowed you to keep one poem or poetry collection in his Republic, what would it be?

Byron’s Don Juan. Given the rather dour nature of such a republic, I would need entertainment and Don Juan fulfils this task better than any other piece of poetry.

Do you have a favourite line of poetry (or couplet)?

‘Ungrateful, perjured, barbarous Don Alfonso, How dare you think your lady would go on so?’

Is poetry generally appreciated by the reading public?

If the appreciation of poetry shown by the 2017 Melbourne Writers Festival is anything to go by, not at all.

Alan Wearne, after teaching at the University of Wollongong for almost two decades, is once again living in Melbourne. His third book with Giramondo, These Things Are Real, has just been published. His edited collection of group sestinas and group villanelles With the Youngsters is the twelfth and latest book from his own Grand Parade Poets.