Richard Higley Legacy Collection

An Interview With Richard Higley

Hello Richard, congratulations on winning the 2016 Pubber of the Year contest.  Thank you for agreeing to speak with us.

PP - Would you tell us a little about yourself?

Richard –

I am nearing my 65th birthday as I answer these questions. We are six months beyond my 42nd wedding anniversary, though my wife, Jackie and I have been together for 44 years.

I am the father of 7 children and as of this moment, more than 25 grandchildren. I have supported my family by working in a manufacturing facility for the past 28 years.

I am a blue collar worker who has a love of words and the ideas and images they can convey.

I grew up a Southern Baptist kid and through many morphings, have become a practicing pagan. Both ends of my spirituality can be mined from various of my more than 500 poems. Nearly half of those works are available here on Wattpad.

PP - How long have you been on Wattpad?

Richard –

I've been a member of the Wattpad family for about 5 years, almost the full span of my poetic journey thus far.

PP - What do you enjoy most about the PoetsPub?

Richard –

I like, more than anything else, that this is a constructive, collaborative community. There is a diversity of age, culture, style and opinion. There is worldwide exposure and nearly instant feedback.

PP - How long have you been writing poetry?

Richard –

I posted my first poem to Facebook February 3, 2011. I started late in life. With few exceptions, I hated poetry until I was challenged to write a poem by a dear friend who showed me one of her pieces in progress. I was so bold as to suggest a single letter change in one word that changed the dynamic of the poem. She thought the suggestion worthwhile and challenged me to write my own. I wrote a 16 line poem and haven't been able to quiet the itch ever since.

PP - Where do you find inspiration for your poetry?

Richard –

EVERYWHERE!! I cannot emphasis this enough. I have mined my life; I have caught phrases in books I read. I have been challenged with words, pictures, and situations. I have written poems as birthday gifts, as wedding gifts, and eulogies. I carry a moleskin notebook in my back pocket just to write ideas if they spring up while it is inopportune for me to do more than catch them.  Whole poems have come from a single word, and with rare exceptions, I have no idea where a poem will go until it is complete.

PP - Is poetry your main genre or do you write other things? If so what else do you enjoy writing?

Richard –

I have tried my hand at prose; as a matter of fact I have two books started, though each of those was an extension of the poem that inspired it. I find that if I don't restrict myself of the strictures of a metered poem, my ideas get lost in a jumble of words. I am a story teller and a creator of stories but I have learned to limit the words I use to those that are necessary. The few words I write to create the mental images I see, allow those who read the words to see the pictures and not the pixels.

PP - What advice would you give to poets who are just starting out?

Richard –

Get a dictionary and a thesaurus. Know the words that are your building blocks, know the structure of a sentence, the proper grammar for whatever language that you write in. Have a go to style but don't be afraid to move outside your comfort zone to find new forms of expression. Use the proper word for the specific meaning, don't use there when speaking of something that belongs to those people. Use their.

Work on the flow of your material; don't create a tripping point unless it is to effect. Don't be a one trick pony whether it be style or subject. Show range, read, learn, be willing to erase the whole thing to start over again.

And the best thing that I have learned is to get out of the way. I have fought some poems for weeks, trying to get them to go where I wanted them. I found that they wouldn't budge until I let them have their head. Once I let go of control, they would nearly write themselves. All I had to do was clean up their lines when they were finished. All of my best works were allowed to run free. All of those that were not so good are due to my desire to control the outcome.

PP - Do you have a favorite author on Wattpad? What about outside of Wattpad?

Richard –

I don't have a favorite but I have several that I look to, some of long standing, some brand new; books1, strongheart, orkneyman, AmbergrisJane, AmuseBouche, theGeekestGirl, just to name a few. I have very few that I look to outside, saving only, Ogden Nash, E A Poe, Carl Sandburg, Maya Angelou and Robert Frost.

PP - You are throwing a dinner party and you can invite any 10 authors, living, dead or fictional. Who do you invite?

Richard –

William Shakespear,(he invented 1800 words, many of which we still use today), Robert Hienlien, Isaac Asimov, Socrates( see my wattpad intro), My sister Rebecca Longster, Robert Patterson, Jean M Auel, Anne McCaffery, Diana Gabaldon, James Herriot.

PP - Thank you so much for speaking with us. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Richard –

Just a couple of things. I have never felt more exposed than when I started writing poetry. I find that, though I can create new stories, I cannot lie in verse. That is to say, my blood, my emotions; my life is in the work. I can get inside the head of a character, but only as far as I can conceptualize the situations. If I cannot imagine it, I cannot write it.

And I found out a few years ago that I am related to a person who wrote a poem that became a song that nearly every American has sung at one time or another. Dr. Brewster Higley wrote a poem that he titled My Prairie Home. The song that came from that poem is Home On The Range.

Thank you for the opportunity.

PP – Thank you for your time and words of wisdom.  It has been an honor to get to know you better.  I speak for the entirety of the Pub when I say
we are truly blessed to have you as a member and representing us as 2016's Pubber of the Year.  We look forward to reading many more of your poetic creations and gleaning wisdom from your work.