This article is part of a weekly feature, highlighting one of our contributors here at Troubadour 21. It is our hope that we may give you a peek inside the lives of the artists who create the art and the poets who create the poetry you see here on the site.

This week we bring you the very talented Lane Robbins. Lane was one of the first poets we published here at T21, and we’re very happy to bring you his interview.

T21: How long have you been practicing your art? Was there a moment or moments you remember helping you become a writer?
 
Lane: My writing has emerged very slowly since I was a teenager, learning to write essays and reports in school, and jotting down poems in journals and in sketchbooks next to drawings. I didn’t fully cognize that I was writing poetry at the time, or that I would come to enjoy writing so much in the years to come. There were a few pivotal moments: when I was in ninth grade i could not, for the life of me, figure out how to write a decent essay for english class. At some point, with lots of help from my mom, aunt, and my english teacher, it finally “clicked.” Another time was when I self-published my first zine, in the summer of ‘01. I made about twenty or thirty copies and gave most of them away. My senior year in college I had to write a thesis, which was “one continuous mistake,” as they say in zen. I rewrote that thing so many times I became much more erudite for all my effort. Most recently, one of the reasons I decided to leave formal zen temple life was to pursue my writing more wholeheartedly. I didn’t really have the time or resources living and working in a remote mountain temple full time.

T21: How would you describe your style?
 
Lane: If someone asks me what I write, sometimes I reply that I write everything but fiction. I have written a few short fiction stories here and there, but I much prefer memoir, free verse poetry and prose, political essay, and the news article.

T21: What do you want your poems to say about your viewpoint on the world? What do you want your reader to come away with when he or she reads one of your poems?
 
Lane: I think having a viewpoint of the world places one in quite a sufferable predicament, because the world does not conform to our ideas about her. I actually see my poetry as a way away from “ideas.” Of course, my poems are about something, but I hope they don’t appear pedantic. (Also, I am as guilty of my opinions as the next bloke.)  Like a piece of art, let the consumer have her own unhindered ideas about my writing.

T21: Who is your favorite poet?
 
Lane: Some of my favorite poets are actually musicians: Steven Malkmus, David Berman, Jeff Tweedy, Leonard Cohen, Blake Schwarzenbach, Brian Catharsis, and Dennis Lyxzén. I actually decided I was a poet after reading the Zen poetry of Ryokan and Santoka. Maybe something awoke within me. I had also just started meditating. This was six or seven years ago. I don’t write much haiku, however. Maybe I should. It’s really a beautiful form. Among the traditional poets, I enjoy T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Walt Whitman.

T21: What is it that attracts you to his/her work?

Lane: I really enjoy poetry that is sentimental and nostalgic, romantic and idealistic, spiritual and mystical, post-modern, absurdist, nonsensical, humorous, stream of consciousness, melancholly and cutting… it has to be smart. That is essential.

T21: Whose poetry have you studied recently that inspired you, caused you to think in new and different ways?
 
Lane: I have been reading through T.S. Eliot’s tome. And also a  prosaic zine of short memoir called Dream Whip, with beautiful metaphor.  I hope some of the talent of these men rubs off on me.

T21: Tell us something quirky about yourself. Is there anything about you that people might not suspect? How does that come out in your work?
 
Lane: I laugh at things people don’t really find funny, especially in movies. People ask me what I’m laughing about. They don’t understand or get annoyed. Most things are funny to me, unless I’m feeling depressed. I used to like labeling myself and others, politically, spiritually, astrologically, ethnically, tempermentally, etc. but no one fits into a box or even multiple boxes. Of course, I still try to put everything into boxes. Maybe I’m looking for themes.

T21: Who is your favorite band and what is it you like about their music?

Lane: My favorite band right now is the Long Winters. The first couple times I heard them I didn’t like them. But they grew on me. They’re smart indy rock – almost pop music, but they have an edge. There’s a subtlety about them that makes them stand out, like a plain pair of pants that fit really well.

T21: Do you find yourself emulating lyrics, rhythms, musical beats in your poetry? Whose music do you listen to when you’re writing, after you’ve finished a piece you’ve stuggled with, when you feel you are blocked?

Lane: Like I said, music has had a huge influence on my poetry. I used to listen to a lot of punk and hardcore. Now I mostly listen to a broad spectrum of indy rock (i.e., not much radio rock) and folk. When I do listen to music and write simultaneously, it tends to be more stream of consciousness, because I have trouble multi-tasking.

T21: What are the major themes you deal with in  your writing?

Lane: I haven’t submitted any of my photos to this site yet, so I’ll just give the themes of my poetry: love and loss, innocence, idealism, depression and despair, loneliness, spirituality, betrayal, disillusion, fantasy, and freedom.

T21: When you are gone, what would you like the world to remember about you?
 
Lane: The world doesn’t need to remember me, because I am the world, just like you.

T21: Where, other than Troubadour 21, can our readers find your work?
 
Lane: I self-publish a zine called Fringe which I often trade with other writers and send free to prisoners.

T21: What do you think of the answer to the great question, as expressed by Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

Lane: I read that in elementary school and I missed the movie, so I don’t know. A Zen teacher once told me, “If someone tells you they have an answer, run in the opposite direction.”

Thank you very much, Lane, for taking the time to answer our questions and let our readers get to know you a little better.