I don't know that we
have anybody addressing
graying yet. But where
I'm coming from is, I'm
a boomer. And I thought all
those terms for the
post-boomers, whether calling
them Gen X or slackers or lost
youth, were all media stuff.
And if you ask anybody in that
generation what they want to
be called, "post-boomers" sounds
better to most of them.

What's wrong with "Generation
X"?

Well, I wouldn't want to
be called anything that's two
strokes of a pen. And X is
sort of a void.

What about Malcolm X?
He thought it was OK.

Yeah, I thought Malcolm X
was real cool myself, so you
got me there.

At the other end of
the demographic, you
have people who are only 17
now. Do you get a lot of
Rimbaud-type, "In the bitter
hours I imagine bowls of
sapphire" poems?

I call that age group
Dark Poets. I was
getting a lot of dark poetry
from them: Talking about
sweating through a long night,
thinking about suicide, stuff
like that. I think all that
reflects is that every
generation at that point is
looking for self-esteem,
fishing around for a purpose.

Who's your target readership?

I think if enough people
learn about this, people in
that age group will say,
"Hurrah, it's something that's
written by us, not by media
people or some P. J. O'Rourke
snot rag. It's our own
voices." And there may be some
older people who say, "Wait a
minute, let's take a look.
I've got kids that age; maybe
this will tell me something."
See, I worked in the civil
rights and antiwar movements
in the '60s. And it pissed me
off to read these publications
where they portrayed us all as
a bunch of flower children
smoking pot and making love
all day on some commune. And I
could see the same thing
happening with this current
generation - being belittled
by a previous generation that
wanted to paint them as a
well-meaning bunch of snot
rags who can't figure out what
the real world is about.

Wait, I thought these
Generation X kids were
apolitical and more
conservative than their
parents.

There's some of that
in the poetry. There are some
poems in there that are real
get-right-with-God stuff.

Do any of the poems rhyme?

Some do. Some are very classical,
some are just ranting chaos.
And they're beautiful, because
even if they're chaotic, they
leave you feeling that you
experienced something. It
turned out to be a really
colorful patchwork, because
your generation is very
diverse. As you go through
there, you'll find each poem
is different. And I even tried
to match the fonts I used to
the mood of the poem.

How many fonts did you use?

Oh, God, I think I used every one
on my MS Word.

Even Zapf Dingbats?

Well I didn't use the
ones for footnotes and
stuff like that, of course.
Probably about 25 fonts in
all.

How did you make sure
the poets weren't lying about
their ages?

The contract was pretty
thorough. And it had to
be because we were dealing
with overseas people in some
cases and minors who had to
get a guardian to sign. About
10 percent of the poets we
selected dropped out - I
suspect mostly because either
they weren't the right age or
they had plagiarized what
they'd sent in.

Did anybody plagiarize
Jewel's A Night
Without Armor? She's
Generation X.

Nobody did that I know of.

Did you try to get
Jewel to contribute to the
book?

No. I talked with Tori
Amos. She copped out; her
manager thought it would lower
her in some people's eyes.
Billy Corgan's manager was in
for about a month, but they
just disappeared.

Was Billy himself interested?

Yeah, he had a bunch
of poetry too. He
apparently does all the lyrics
for Smashing Pumpkins.

So who's the most famous poet in
the anthology?

I'm not sure, because I
don't live in some of the
countries. Julius Keleras
from Lithuania is in
there, and in Lithuania I
think he's considered the poet.

Out of the 4,500 responses,
you're printing 214 poems.
What's the worst submission
you received?

I'm not going to tell you any names.
Probably the worst one I got
was from a 23-year-old guy who
was in a mental institution.

He wasn't crazy in a good,
Kit Smart kind of way?

No, he was paranoid
schizophrenic, and
the poetry was basically a
kill the cat and eat the dog
kind of thing - then it will
turn into my father and we'll
shake hands and hug and say we
love each other. I read it and
I said, "This is just fucking
crazy."

He was able to email
you from a mental
institution?

No, he mailed that.
There was another woman
who wrote about how she was
raped three times, and she
described it in such detail
that I had to write to her and
say, "No public library in the
country will take this book if
I print this."

Did she claim that
President Clinton was one
of her attackers?

Ha, ha! I don't think so.

Are you worried
that the encroachment
of Generation Y will steal
some of the thunder from your
demographic?

I don't think so, because I think a
generation lasts 20 years
anyway. And the young people I
talk to haven't even heard of
that Generation Y. So I think
somebody's just trying to drum
something up, and if you read
some of the poetry in this
book, [the poets] believe all
this Generation X stuff is
just a scheme from the
advertising mavens.

They do?

Yeah, the idea is that they're
trying to create a Generation
X so they can market stuff to
them.