Spotlight On Writers
David L O’Nan
- Where do you originate from?
Thank you Spillwords for the interview. My poetry and writing began at a young age. Early on it was often writing silly or weird pieces with an imagination and character, nothing too serious. I started listening to The Beatles around 12 and tried my hand at writing love songs and anti-war songs/poems. I didn’t take writing seriously until I moved from a small town in Kentucky (Sebree) to New Orleans in 1999, at the age of 19. I was able to take in the surroundings and the need to survive a city with very little practice beforehand. I needed that stab of culture and diversity which began shaping my writings more. I wrote kind of agitated pieces early on, and that evolved over the years as I studied other types of poetry and writing. I read a lot from Anne Sexton, W.B. Yeats and Jack Kerouac in my early twenties. I’ve always been a song lyrics guy as well. I felt songs are just poetry even when musicians won’t admit it sometimes themselves. I fell in love with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, Joni Mitchell, Phil Ochs, and more. I enjoy having a variety of influences and my freewriting style to draw upon. I also learned and read my brother’s poetry growing up. He would read me something he’d write and I would often go back and read them over and over even when they weren’t around.
- What do you cherish most about the place you call home?
Well, what I call home right now isn’t necessarily where I’m living currently. I am living in Kentucky and some in Indiana. I am going through a recent divorce, and everything old is now new again. I’m now able to move forward with strength and bravery, reclaiming my voice and producing more creative works, now that I’m no longer under the control of a person who hindered my progress over the years. What I call home is just anywhere I go. When I meet like-minded, creative, or empathic people. I like to say my home is just the blood of poetry, music, art & writing fleshed together and pulsing in a brittle heart that has to keep pushing through. Broken bones lay scattered but I’m able to keep moving through if that heart still knows empathy is the way and creativity is the way. I recently wrote a brief description of the elements that have shaped me. I recently created a poetry poster on my Instagram while I was taking a walk that describes what has shaped me. “I am David. I am Dave. I am not Who You Wanted Me to Be! A Puppet, No I am Not! I am a Survivor, A rebel, a Voice, A quiet boy staring at the cosmos. I am a thinker, a Poet, a Creator, A Dad that you didn’t want me to fully be. I am Country and I am the City. I am Silence, Weird and Silly. I am Folk, I am Punk, I am Soul, I am of Love. I am Deep. I have absorbed the Cuts. I still am empathic although the wolves have ripped at my guts. I am a Rock and a Country Sunset. I am a New Orleans man grown from the seed of a small-town boy. I have continued to grow through all my challenges. I am David, I am Dave, I am Davey if you’re nasty!” (a hint at humor at the end) I have also had a follow-up poem that was part of this series, “I have lived the city. I became cultured and diverse fully. I have been the prey of predators and pretenders. I have grown up with my toes calloused in the bluegrass. I am pale-skinned, the Irish, English, and Scottish that crossed the seas. Yet, what you don’t see until soul deep is that Native American blood still howling out my bravery!”
- What ignites your creativity?
My creativity is soul-deep and flesh-wounds as well. I could be fueled by music I could be listening to at the time whether it’s a full album by someone or just a really good song by someone. Music always seems to be what begins a spark of creativity, especially if I’m a little dull-headed. I am often drawn to creative endeavors also when I find myself looking at another’s poetry or art. I can convey words through ekphrastic-style poems based on photography or art. I constantly challenge myself to try to just be half as good at something in multiple styles as those I am influenced by. I have written through wonderful energies and great depressions within me. My work is so scattered due to the many lightning bolts that come from the thunder. Some of that lightning is scary and you have to stay away, while some of that lightning is the changes that you need just to jolt you aware when you see yourself slipping further into silence.
- Do you have a favorite word, and could you incorporate it into a poetic phrase?
A favorite word. Not so much. I tend to just love metaphors as you have probably picked up from answers on this interview and if you follow any of my work. I feel I can paint pictures with words (comparison) I can’t always do that when just talking to someone out in the real world, but when writing I can paint the world and watch the interactions of the people trying to figure out which dance they’d like to dance with my poem. Some will dance the wrong dance but it is their dance, cryptic in code only to them. While others will not put so much meaning into everything and just slow dance until the moon is lit and you wake up with love or regret.
- What is your pet peeve?
Well, with writing, I don’t have many pet peeves, except when people become grammar warriors instead of feeling out the impact of the words. I write quickly, and I write when the words come out the exact way I want. As an editor, I even miss many obvious grammar errors. I have been the editor at Fevers of the Mind for approximately six years and have published anthologies, as well as self-published my books. I will look at something a million times and then notice a subtle miss. Sometimes I can fix the obvious. Other times I can’t. I don’t let that burn me to the core. I also don’t enjoy it when someone writes something just for a shock value and a quick notice. Someone writing something overly sexual or overly political to show an obvious hey, look at me. Write with passion and with a feel to cause a stir and movement. I don’t enjoy when people are just wanting their pieces to be like, hey, look how raunchy this is, or hey, look how much I can write about politics. But then you don’t see them looking for a change. They are watching Netflix or scrolling through TikTok or whatever social media platform, and just thinking, well, someone else will handle the changes that I pretended to care about.
- How would you describe the essence of David L O’Nan?
David L. O’Nan is someone who writes through his scars. I want to write pieces that are both positive and hopeful to those who see that love is out there beyond the tornado, and that it is a cute little sunset. A crow can be protective and not always a scavenger. I am someone who has always been true to myself at my core, even when others wanted to shape me, I didn’t fully give in. I’ve always been one that wants to help other writers, artists as well and work communally online and off to bring a new poetic and artistic revolution in this world and stop relying on the lazy ideal of rage and the dismissal of the written freedoms, the artistic freedoms, the empathic build in and purge out the narcissism ruins that permeate through the muds currently in the world. We need complete poetry, art, and photography in this world, and that is also the essence of my writing. It isn’t about me. It’s about the movement I want to build together with others with the same goal. Don’t dismiss the arts!
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