Twenty Questions With Charles Clifford Brooks III

I’m starting a new feature here on The Crab Chronicles, interviewing people I’ve met who have really interesting lives and/or careers. I’m calling it Twenty Questions for ______. I’m delighted with my first interviewee, writer/poet Charles Clifford Brooks III.

Last Friday night I did something I haven’t done in many years: I went to an open mic poetry reading, at Phoenix and Dragon bookstore. Clifford Brooks is a regular there for poetry readings.

Before things got started, I sat down with Clifford for an informal interview. I already knew we had a lot in common, because after we became friends on Facebook, through Vox Poetica’s Annmarie Lockhart, he told me “I really do write because I love it.....and the fact that boredom stalks me every minute.”

It’s odd, knowing someone on Facebook but not ever meeting in person, but I sensed Clifford was a kindred spirit.  When we met, there was automatically a feeling of ease. Clifford came up and started the interview with a hug. I knew right away things would go well, despite the fact that we were sitting outside in the August heat.

It’s been a strange journey for Clifford. His first book of poetry, The Draw of Broken Eyes and Whirling Metaphysics [John Gosslee Press, 2012] was published last year and has already garnered major attention. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Georgia Author of the Year, and a Pulitzer. That’s heady stuff for a guy who, until recently, was known more as a prose writer.

Clifford reminds me of my dad, and it’s not just the very curly brown hair and intense eyes. He’s got a powerful voice, and it’s a southern voice, and I love that. When he walks into a room, the air becomes energized. Although he was soft-spoken when we were chatting, during the poetry reading, he was more boisterous, like a rock star among his faithful followers. Funny, surprising, candid – I wish I had captured the entire reading on video.

I don’t read a lot of poetry. Just sitting and reading it reminds me too much of grad school. I could read Clifford’s book all day, though. His poem “The Fifth Movement” has my favorite line of the entire book: 

Art is a divine life. It is to dance. It is to hear God.

His website is a good place to start, if you want to learn more about Clifford. You can read some of his poems here. His page on Goodreads has a number of reviews, and he’s described as “haunted” and “like peach cobbler after Sunday dinner.”  (I love the food analogy!)

If you want to learn more about Clifford, there is plenty of material online, like this excellent interview. He’s a Georgia-born poet, and has lived here his entire life. He attended Shorter College in Rome and was a double major in Political Science and History. He has been, among other things, a bookstore employee, juvenile probation officer, and an employee of the Department of Family and Children’s Services. In addition to being a freelance writer, he’s currently teaching at Chattahoochee Technical College. Education has always been an underlying passion of his.

I wanted to learn more about Clifford in a way most don’t expect in a standard interview, so I decided to play Twenty Questions with him. The results are below.

 

1. What is your full name? Charles Clifford Brooks III
2. Where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world? New Orleans, LA0 
3. What is your favorite movie and why? Immortal Beloved. Beethoven is one of my all-time heroes.
4. What was your least-favorite subject in school when you were a kid? Math
5. What was your nickname when you were a kid? Charles Clifford. [most folks call him Cliff]
6. Do you believe in God? Yes. I’ve got more of a Buddhist ease in my walk, though.
7. What sound or noise do you love? The cello.
8. If you could do anything other than what you do, as a profession, what would it be? Musician. I try to play the guitar, and I played piano as a kid. I’m in a new kind of band right now that’s very exciting.
9. If heaven exists, what do you think it is like? Springtime in Lexington, Georgia.
10. Do you have siblings? I have a younger brother, Justin
11. What is your favorite memory of childhood [something specific]? My nanny, Gin Gin [Virginia], who taught me how to dance, and how to love.
    
12. If you had to choose between one week traveling around the USA by car, or one week traveling around Europe on a train, which would you choose and why?  Europe on a train. I’ve never been, and I’d love to experience that history. I’d like to go to France. Some of my ancestors are from France.
13. What inspires you? Watching people, society clamoring over itself.  I am fascinated with people, with observing, trying to learn.   I find it hard to connect with most folks.  Nature plays a big roll with inspiration too because of its removal from all that noise.
14. Which holiday do you prefer, Christmas or July 4th? Christmas. It’s a time for putting aside grudges, all of it is such a family-oriented time. We roll around and love on each other like puppies on my momma’s side, then sip a stiff drink on daddy’s.  It’s as if I go from Little House on the Prairie to a cordial, but slightly saucy Faulkner novel in one day.
15. What project or idea are you most passionate about, right now? I am excited about a group of musicians, prose writers, philosophers, painters, photographers, and poets called The Southern Collective Experience, which consists of artists from all over the South, ranging in age from 28 to mid 70’s.   Its goal is to redefine and breathe life back into the sensual, gritty sound found below The Mason-Dixon Line.
16. Do you know how to cook? No.
17. What is your favorite thing to cook/eat? Sushi.
18. If you could go on vacation anywhere in the world, for 2-4 weeks, all expenses paid, where would you go and why?  England.
19. Who do you love the most in the world? My mamma.
20. What question has nobody ever asked you, but you wanted to answer? Why I’m single. I have a mile of intensity coiled around my heart.  I grow distant fast.  I am always restless.  I tend to be mercurial.

 

Photo credit: Aisha Cleapor