Having followed the poetry scene on both sides of the Hudson for years, it was inevitable that I would come to know the poets paired for this interview. In 2010, I met George Wallace at the Bowery Poetry Club where he was host for that Sunday afternoon’s reading. I immediately appreciated the excitement he generated and the encouragement he offered to the features and those, like me, who would participate in open mic. I met Romanian-born poet Claudia Serea at the Williams Center in Rutherford, New Jersey in 2010. There, I was surrounded by poets who would eventually offer to publish her work and mine in the same Red Wheelbarrow anthology that year. When I learned that the two poets knew each other too, they became perfect candidates for the artist-to-artist interview series. Claudia would ask George to decode poetryland and George would oblige, revealing a mindfulness about poetry that straddles high and low culture, emphasizing the roles of plurality, craftsmanship and discovery.
George Wallace is the 2011 Writer-in-Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace. He is currently on tour promoting Walt Whitman and Beyond—Fanfares for the Common Man both stateside and overseas. He is the author of 19 chapbooks of poetry, professor at Pace University in New York, a well-known and highly regarded poetry promoter. Here, he is interviewed by Romanian-born poet Claudia Serea whose work and translations have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Mudfish and 5 a.m. and is the author of two poetry collections.
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