When the great television journalist Ed Bradley passed last year, I wrote a melancholy somewhat tongue-in-cheek tribute in which I lamented the fact that Bradley had interviewed Tiger Woods but had never gotten around to interviewing me. The tribute ended with the observation that my real regret was I had never had the privilege of interviewing Bradley.

Fellow AuthorsDen writer and Georgia native Randall D. Barfield apparently read my article as a call to literary arms because he offered to interview me long distance from all the way in South America. The interview ended up in the very distinguished online pages of POETRY LIFE AND TIMES . As interviews go, it was lopsided in that it told readers a great about me but very little about Mr. Barfield. Therefore, this installment of Creative Coversatin’ at the Black Skylark Z-Ped Music Player is in the pursuit of balance and to introduce readers to Barfield’s side of our chat:

Aberjhani: First of all, thanks for sharing the first interview with me and for giving me an opportunity to return the favor. To start, what for you is the biggest difference between living, writing, and loving in South America versus living, writing, and loving in North America?

Randall: Here in Bogota we live much cheaper than in the States. We don’t need any heating or air-conditioning. As you know, that can be a big savings. I don’t own or maintain a car. It’s another big savings. The city is large and has the benefits and problems of most big cities.  I became very fond of [it] from the first visit, which was a vacation. 

Aberjhani: That’s a nice way to start a new life.

Randall: Now that my daughter has finished college and is working, I have less ‘work’ pressure; hence, more time to write. I live in a condo, so, don’t cut grass, paint, trim, etc. All non-writing, time-consuming activities. There is no difference in the loving part in many respects. You love people in general or you don’t and that has no geographical boundaries. Latinos are certainly warmer people in general. I used to say they are warmer than we are and we (Americans) are warmer than the British.

Aberjhani: That’s quite a switch from your birthplace of Albany, Georgia, but an understandable progression for someone who studied English at Georgia State University, and education at the University of Alabama. It’s quite a contrast to immigration situation here at home. But what else appeals to you about life abroad?

Randall: I liked the city and its ‘beat’ from the beginning. My wife was born here also, so she’s at home. My undergraduate major is English and this was my chance to teach it as a foreign language. I’ve been doing that for about twenty years. Guy Hogan at AD says Pittsburgh is his ‘Paris. Mine is Bogota.

Aberjhani: I find your comment regarding the British somewhat extraordinary because I lived in Great Britain for four years and had very warm positive relations with the Brits I knew as co-workers, neighbors, and fellow worshippers. Why do you describe them as cold?  

Randall: I was trying to make the point that, after having lived among Latinos for years, I find all Anglos somewhat cold for we are a colder people than they are. So, I was saying Americans were colder than Latins, but that the British were colder than the Americans. Anyway, I take it back. Your statement alone disproves mine. What’s more, we should never generalize. I’m always saying that to people and here I go and cut my own throat. Sorry. 

Aberjhani: You also mentioned the writer Guy Hogan and in fact a lot of your recent short fiction has been heavily influenced by the literary theory of Compressionism as adapted from his writings on AD. Can you tell me something about the principles and aesthetics of Compressionism and why you were so attracted to it?

Randall: In my last two years of high school I wrote some short pieces that got a little schoolmate and teacher ‘acclaim’ I guess you could say. Those pieces were essays and short fiction. So, I felt I had a certain talent for compact writing. Flash fiction and the short story (which has been around for a long time—Maupassant, O. Henry, Poe, Maugham and others) are not easy to produce. The restrictions regarding space and word count are challenging. Then, as Hogan roughly points out, the work, however short, is still a story, hence, something must happen. The reader must be captivated immediately with a setting, one or two characters, and descriptions that employ adjectives and adverbs very sparingly. In the past, readers had time to read short stories of anywhere from twenty to forty pages in length, let’s say. There was no TV or no video games, etc. That seems to be the case no longer. I think readers now want far shorter stories (those who even want stories, that is). They want stories they can read quickly while doing the laundry, while waiting in the doctor’s office or while eating lunch alone. I’m considering making a ‘checklist’ for flash fiction so that writers can write their story, then go down the list and check to see if it 'qualifies.'       

Aberjhani: What do you feel are some of your better experiments based on the aesthetics of Compressionism?

Randall: ‘Mom Grad’ is probably the story with the highest readership if we go by ‘hits’. The second is ‘Phone Call from A Loved One’. But they are not my favorites. I think my favorites are more recent and include ‘The Donkey Farm’, ‘Of Whom I Am Proud’, ‘For Haunted Eons’, ‘Beach Story’ and ‘Maybe to Pittsburgh This Time’. It’s funny but I see that three of those stories involve Jesus in some way. 

Aberjhani: Hmmm, that is interesting, with all the political elements attached to religion in the modern world, do you feel literature becomes more effective or less so when heavily employing religious themes?

Randall: This question is difficult for me. Great literature is varied and some of it employs religious themes and some of it doesn’t. As I have inferred, it would be difficult for so-called Southern writers to avoid the theme of religion since it plays such an important role in Southern life. Therefore, the works of Southern writers could be more effective because of the religious theme.  Hemingway, if I remember correctly, wrote far less about religion than any Southern writer yet he gives it a certain degree of respect when he says in a story that a certain character went inside the church or cathedral to pray or to attend mass. Tolstoy, I understand, was very religious. Since I feel religious, I think that the greatest literature in the world is closely allied with religion and religious themes such as Dante’s Inferno and Milton ’s Paradise Lost. I think that the writer who ignores religion or religious themes completely possibly ‘disappears’ from the world literary stage quicker than the writer who does the contrary. Shakespeare might be an exception to that, however. I really don’t know how much religion is present in his works.

Aberjhani: Religion in Shakespeare, I believe, is presented primarily as one thread in the overall fabric of human culture. I had a number of mentors who sometimes drilled me on distinctions between the concept of religion and that of spirituality so I’m more prone to employing representations of individual spirituality in my work than I am to representations of formal dogma or institutions, but I try hard to show respect for all peoples' beliefs and to evolve within my own. You’ll never hear me claim that I always get it right but I do try. But your convictions come across particularly strong in your article, “Billy Graham’s Death,” on the hypothetical transition of the great leader. Given your passion for the subject, is it likely you may one day write a nonfiction book on it?  

Randall: I hope not. I’m not qualified. Besides, I’m kept happy reading Dr. Stanley, Spurgeon, Graham, Lucado, and two or three others. It could go the way of the short stories, however. If I write enough ‘religion’ articles, I could one day try to have them bound into a volume. I won’t lose any sleep over it, however. 

Aberjhani: In your interview with me for POETRY LIFE & TIMES, why did so many of your questions focus on issues of race or spirituality as opposed to my writings?

Randall: The issue of race plays an important role in my life since I grew up in a largely racist environment. I always said it was ‘in the air’ in Georgia . When I do research or read articles that attract my attention, I often find they come under the category of sociology, in which I have a great interest. I considered majoring in sociology once. [I addressed issues of] Spirituality because I consider myself very religious and God-fearing. It is natural for me to inquire as to how others feel about this topic. In the past perhaps more so than today, if you grew up in Georgia or other parts of the South, you spent a great deal of time going to church as I write about in my AD article, ‘We Were Little Angels’.

Aberjhani: Where does poetry fit in the scheme of things most important to or in your life?

Randall: When I was a student, I think I understood very little about poetry. I needed a greater vocabulary than I had and I innocently thought that a poem had to ‘mean’ something and those meanings were vague to me most of the time. Now I feel I can read poetry intelligently and like it due to its compactness. A college prof told me that I’d never be a poet. That wasn’t very nice. Maybe I subconsciously took it on as a challenge of some sort. Who can be sure?  A high school counselor told me that the only legit way to increase my vocabulary was to look up the words I didn’t know in a dictionary as often as necessary, even if I found it onerous or tedious. I took that advice. Also, living in a foreign country and learning a foreign language (I had two years of Spanish in high school in Georgia.) empowers your overall language greatly. Spanish comes from Latin, of course, so knowing it gives you a far greater insight into English which has Latin and Germanic origins.

Aberjhani: Let’s talk about your poem “Adieu Extracker Q.R.” which is short enough to include here:

Adieu extracker quite revered
I see you're off to please many others
Although I never gave you as much as the time
I did try to reach you with silliness and rhyme.

Au revoir my esteemed, kind extracker
The least I can offer you is luck
And let me state not only here but now
Being tracked by you was a gee plus a wow!

© by Randall D. Barfield

Aberjhani: This poem to me seemed to examine a phenomenon unique to Internet culture in that it addresses the loss of a subscriber to your AD pages. It also actually reminded me of several poems by Erin Elizabeth Kelly Moen in which she looks at the issue of popularity based on accumulated hits versus the quality of literary productivity or even one’s actual life. That having been said, do you think the need for greater popularity demonstrated by some writers, whether that need is for marketing purposes or emotional ones, poses a threat to the quality of their work? 

Randall: This question is very interesting. First, some people misinterpreted the poem in that they thought the poem reflected only how bad I felt that the reader had abandoned me. That isn’t true . While I don’t like to be abandoned just as anyone else doesn’t, the poem is more about saying ‘good luck and it was nice while it lasted’ to the one doing the abandoning. A more realistic feeling. About quality of work, where does it really come from? I think it comes from trying to adopt writing standards that are as high as possible while taking into account one’s abilities. This adoption entails a history of having read high quality writing as well as a consideration of one’s own educational level. It is probably accurate that every writing site on the Net has both very serious and not-so-serious writers/authors. We all have the choice of whom we want to read and review. 

Aberjhani: That’s true enough, in fact I’ve seen quite a few articles, short stories, and poems by you on various sites. About how many would you guestimate you have written so far?  

Randall: Not enough, apparently [laughs]. Always room for more. I read recently that Erskine Caldwell wrote 150 short stories. I imagine some or many of them were published in the quality magazines of his time. But who can name one of the stories? I can’t. I can name, however, “The Necklace,” “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Monkeys Paw,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “The Worn Path,” “That Evening Sun Go Down,” “Indian Camp,” “The Lake,” "The Open Window," and “The Killers” without thinking twice. That should tell us something. Caldwell though, as we know, is remembered for Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre. The former is a classic, isn’t it? 

Aberjhani: It is indeed. What are your primary goals as a writer and how close would you say you are to reaching them?

Randall: Right now my goal is to write more poetry and short stories, especially children’s poetry and flash fiction. That seems to be where most of my talent lies.  At present I am working on short stories with a Southern and/or Georgia theme in order to become a legit ‘ Georgia ’ writer. I was born there so I am a Georgia writer for better or worse. I think I can achieve that in a year or two. If by that time I have, say, a hundred-plus short stories completed, I would like to see the publication of a book compiled of X number of the ‘best’ stories. I used to own the complete short stories of Flannery O’Connor. One of Eudora Welty’s short story books was A Curtain of Green. And Hemingway’s Nick Adams short stories are hard to beat, of course. I used to own all three of those great short story books.

Aberjhani: To end this conversation somewhere close to where we started: how strong a role would you say Latino culture has played in your writings up to this point? For example, have you published any works in Spanish?  

Randall: I have not published any works in Spanish nor have I tried to, but I have thought of it several times and it is a future option, I think. One idea could be to translate my short stories into Spanish and seek publication for them. When and if I have enough ‘quality’ stories for a book collection in English, I’d like to see that book translated into Spanish and/or other languages. 

For more on the works and world of Randall Barfield, please visit his Den at this url: http://www.authorsden.com/visit/author.asp?AuthorID=5315

By Aberjhani
and Randall D. Barfield
© 5/19/2007