Mikhail Horowitz is a poet, writer, journalist, musician, satirist, performance artist and activist who has written more than 3,000 poems (“maybe 25 are any good,” he says), along with book reviews, spoofs and satires. His work includes “Spoon River Apology,” performed at the Woodstock Community Center last June. Horowitz lived in the Town of Saugerties for 34 years, has been living in Woodstock for the past three years, and also lived there briefly in the 1980s. In his conversation with The Overlook, Horowitz describes his creative process as relying on “a gift from the muse.”
How did you get started with writing and performing?
My first performance was my sixth-grade talent show at Public School 131 in Borough Park, Brooklyn. We were doing scenes from “Macbeth,” and me and two other kids were the three witches. The night of the performance, one guy was so nervous he was catatonic, the other was projectile vomiting, so I did the whole thing myself.
“Casey at the Bat,” the original, might have been my second performance.
Did you always want to be a performer?
After those performances, I said, ‘wow, this is not bad.’ I’m the center of attention, which is good. So I felt, that was it—theater. This might be the way I can navigate through life.
How did your poetry develop over the years?
Very agonizingly. I started to do a lot of reading. What I tell people who want to write poetry and are serious about it: you have to read poetry, or things that relate to poetry. You have to know what’s being done out there. You come up with something and think it’s far out, but you have to realize you’re not the first person to compare the full moon to a golden coin.
The poet Gary Snyder has said that if you want to be a good poet, you have to learn a lot of things outside of poetry: the constellations at night, the names of local flora and fauna, the animals where you live, where you get your water. That’s all part of poetry.
Poetry is a language, and you have to be conversant. Before you can break the rules or make any kind of statement, you have to understand how to use language—what language is about. If you don’t have the language, it’s not really going to make it.
Were there particular poets you admired?
The first poet who turned me on was Vachel Lindsay. He had this whole thing about performing his poems. He was a great reader and a great actor. During the Depression, he’d go from town to town, put up posters for a poetry reading at the community center or wherever, and get donations. That’s how he got his coffee and a sandwich the next day.
He was the first white poet to perform while drawing from a Black perspective, and he incorporated jazz rhythms. This was the 1920s, the Jazz Age. He wrote a poem called “The Congo,” which was a big deal back then. The sound of that poem is what turned me on. From his point of view, it was an appreciation of African and African American culture. Today, it’s often viewed the way “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is viewed.
Are there other poets you admire?
The Beats; that whole crew and that whole era. I love those poets. They came along when ivory-tower academic poetry held sway. And the New York School of poetry—amazing people. They injected a sense of humor back into it.
What’s been your writing process?
Most of my stuff is written by ear, not so much by intellect. You go with the sound of something, you get into the sound, and it does something to you. That’s what it’s all about.
What’s been your writing routine?
I wrote when I had time. I was working full-time jobs, but every once in a while you get a gift. Something comes in—you don’t know where it’s from—but it’s perfect. You just throw a comma in somewhere and it’s complete. That kind of inspiration, you have to build yourself up to getting it. That’s when it starts getting metaphysical. You get a gift from the muse, but it’s only because you’ve done the work leading up to it.
What is “Kessler at the Bat?”
“Kessler” is my Jewish parody of “Casey at the Bat.” Parodies can be an homage. You don’t parody something unless you really dig it on some level.
What is Spoon River Apology?
It’s a spoof of “Spoon River Anthology,” the 1915 poem by Edgar Lee Masters, which itself spoofed small-town America. In Woodstock, while we don’t have a country doctor going around in a horse and carriage, we have, let’s say, a Reiki practitioner driving a Lexus. She’s an aromatherapist. I’d like to think mine was a gentle spoof.
What’s your favorite thing you’ve done?
“An Appreciation of the 17-Year Cicadas” is my favorite. It’s the first cut on my “The Blues of the Birth CD.” Lord Buckley was a 1950s jazz comic who swung with all the great jazz players and invented a fictional language—the real hipster language. I did that piece in his style.
What’s your most recent work?
I realized I had never commented on Orlando Cepeda being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999, though I’d thought about it. So about a year ago I wrote “Phil Whalen, Zenmaster, Meets Orlando Cepeda, First Buddhist Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame.”
Have you had any interaction with anyone you’ve written about?
Only Allen Ginsberg. I wrote a parody called “Howl for Casey” and got to recite it to him. Afterwards, he said, “I’ve heard dozens of parodies of that poem, but yours is the best—the only one that captures my voice and my rhythms. It’s good.” I was totally chuffed. I ate out on that for about a week.
What’s your favorite fiction book?
I don’t have a single favorite, but within the post-apocalyptic genre, my favorite is “Riddley Walker” by Russell Hoban. There are a lot of post-apocalyptic books now, but this one really worked for me. It’s not just that there’s no more culture—it goes all the way to the language. The whole book is written in a broken-down version of English. It’s frightening and amazing. The trick is reading it aloud. If you do, it suddenly coalesces and makes sense. I highly recommend it.
And Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” would be my second favorite.
Are you still an activist?
I’m not doing blatantly political things right now because it’s too depressing, too discouraging. Maybe I’ll return to something that gives me pleasure and gives other people pleasure. Maybe that’s the best way to fight this kind of thing. You can be everything they’re not, everything they don’t want you to be, everything they’re trying to repress—and you just give a big “fuck you” and try to create beauty.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.