Is Steven Cordova a Borg?

That’s one of the questions Neil de la Flor tries to answer as he gently interrogates Steven Cordova about his first collection of poems, Long Distance. The interview is included in “the potty mouth interviews” on his “Almost Dorothy” blog, and the dialogue meanders from nudey pics to remaining positive about being HIV positive to the essence of beauty and truth. Enjoy:

AD: You’ve spoken in the past about the disadvantages of having a political agenda that “may overwhelm the poetry, and poetry, for [you], is more concerned with universal experiences.” But, isn’t the universal political and vice versa? Talk to me about this. Come on, please?

SC: Yes, my ideas about that have changed a bit since then. I now think a piece of writing can be specific—specific about the political, specific about the personal—and that, at the very same time, that same piece writing can be universal. Nothing, after all, encompasses everything. But each of us necessarily experiences a lot and therefore each of us has something in that experience others can relate to.

I remain, however, weary of political agendas and how those agendas can and do overwhelm writing, my own and others’. Why? Because while I think it may be possible for an author or a reader to use a piece of writing for political change, I also think that writing and the writing process are primarily concerned with beauty. Beauty in and of itself is radical, and beauty which manages to realize itself in a workaday, political world is especially radical.

AD: Beautiful. But ugly can be beautiful too! If you could be a fruit, besides being a homosexual, or vegetable, what fruit or vegetable would you be and why?

SC: I would be a lychee nut because I like to say lychee nut. Lychee nut, lychee nut, lychee nut …