Questions
1.     During the zombie apocalypse, what’s one book, poem, movie, play, or short story we would be surprised you’re taking with you?

This is tough to narrow down, so I'll go with what I think would surprise most people who know me. For a book it would be something by Samuel R. Delany, probably Dhalgren, which blew my mind in the late 70s and still does so today. For a poem, I'd have to go with Anna Akhmatova's "Requiem." The play would be Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, and the short story, Norman Spinrad's "Carcinoma Angels."


2.     Hero, Anti-hero, or Villain? Because...

Anti-hero, because we live our lives in the middle between the impossible purity of the hero and the unthinkable depravity of the villain.


3.     If you could have dinner and a drink with any author, thinker, or critic, what are you having for dinner? What are you drinking? And why this person?

I was going to list some old professors here, but I'll go with a semi-famous poet. David Citino was from Ohio, and the Ohio State Poet Laureate. We had a lot in common: growing up in lower middle-class families in the rust belt, being Catholic Italian-Americans, and our amazement at our good fortune to be doing what we do for a living. He died in 2005 from complications from Multiple Sclerosis. With a disease like that, he could see his death always before, him decades before he actually passed away. He worked through all that in his poetry.
Before dinner, we'd start drinking . . . hard. Shots of bourbon with beer chasers. Loyal to our homes, he'd have Schmidt's, and I'd have Iron City. Dinner itself would have to be the Sunday dinners from our childhoods: pasta with a red sauce, meatballs, bread to sop up the sauce, then a salad dressed with oil and vinegar (because salad always came after the meal). We'd have a nice big Italian red wine with the pasta, then retire to polish off the liquor. When we got drunk enough, I'd have the courage to ask him what it was like to watch yourself diminish physically a little bit more every day, and to thank him for the kindness and generosity he consistently showed in the midst of all that he was suffering.


4.     What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

I was a musician once, and would like to try that again. Either that, or make heirloom furniture.


5.     What is the most surprising thing that has happened to you while teaching?

The lights in a large auditorium here caused a student to have a seizure in the middle of class. It was a full-on grand mal: contractions, convulsions, losing consciousness. I was surprised at the reactions of the other students, who were completely at a loss as to what to do. Fortunately, one student was an EMT, and she and I got him disentangled from the seats and to the floor. And I was (sadly) surprised that we waited for almost 25 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Postscript: the student checked out fine at the hospital, and was back in class the next week.


6.     What is your favorite word?

serenity

7.     What is your least favorite word?

Of those that can be spoken in public, fracture


8.     What's your superpower: invisibility, flying, or reading people's minds? Why?

Reading minds, for the same reason that we read literature: to know that we're not alone.