The Lightning Room With David Romanda

David Romanda talks from 13 hours in the future about the combo of pickles, gin, and speed in “My Wife & William.”

1. Do a lot of people eat pickles with gin? Is this a common thing?

Pickles with gin? Yes, please.

2. Have you decided whether the wife is cheating or this is some agreeable cuckold situation?

I figure she’s cheating.

3. Are you now or have you ever been married?

Laughs! I’m happily married. And I’m still on my first wife.

4. How do you feel the iambic nature of the poem affects its mood?

I write following intuition. So, you know, I’m probably not the best person to answer this question.

If a poem of mine works, I’m thankful. I don’t ask too many questions.

5. About the abbreviations. You begin with arabic numerals but the ampersand is Latin (French, maybe. et?). Is this a clue?

It’s about speed. I wanted punchy lines.

6. The poem feels dark, and I think it has more to do with your pacing than the subject matter. How hard is it to keep control of a poem like this? How much erasure?

Control is developed over time. I guess it’s about trusting myself. But luck is certainly involved.

What you see is basically how I originally wrote the poem out on paper. I rarely whittle my writing down.