I got a profile as a poet on Atop the Cliffs, and I figure you people would like to read my profile. It is linked in the previous sentence, but to stroke my own ego, here it is en totale:

How did you end up writing poetry?
Like most people who went to public high school in the USA, I noticed that most of the poetry we had to read was…to put it bluntly, not good (My “My Brown Skin” poem is scarcely an exaggeration). So I always hated poetry until my junior year of high school when I started reading pulp fiction (thanks to an anthology in my high school library), and within said anthology were poems by Robert Howard and HP Lovecraft. While they are not particularly renowned for their poetry, I noticed that their verse more powerful and more moving than any of the rhythmless garbage we were forced to read (I was also in the school orchestra and jazz band, so my sense of rhythm was honed by that point). Once I had discovered good literature my love of reading prose and poetry were simultaneously ignited, and from there I read better literature. Around this same time I read an article on the Art of Manliness which stated that a real man creates and a bugman (the term didn’t exist yet, but the concept was certainly intended) just consumes—and thus I was inspired to not only consume poetry of better men, but to create my own as well (the specific desire to flex my creative muscles are something I go into a bit more detail with in the last question).

Who Are Some Of Your Favorite Poets, and Why?
In addition to Howard and Lovecraft (both of whose poems are vastly underrated in my opinion), I am a big fan of the epics like the Iliad/Odyssey, Beowulf, Song of Roland, etc (although I’m not nearly pretentious enough to try to write an epic anytime soon). In terms of things that we have documented authors for, I am a big fan of poets from many nations—Americans like Poe, Pound, and Longfellow, English poets like Keats, Byron, and (especially) Kipling, continental Europeans like Goethe and Pushkin, poets of the near east like Hafez and Khayyam, and poets of the far east like Li Bo and Buson. Obviously, all those poets are vastly different, but I feel that they each have in common an unpretentiousness to their writing, and a great sense of rhythm (neither of which exist in modern poetry).

What Do you Think About the Public Perception of Poetry in the West today? 
I think we all know that poetry is perceived today as entirely the domain of effeminate men (of hetero or homo leanings, for these guys any sense of sexuality is faint), angry minorities, and stank-faced women with problem glasses. And I’m gonna wager that part of the reason why I and Arthur both do what we do is in an attempt to change this perception—to show that masculine, virile men can be bards once again!

Can You Share Any Advice to Aspiring Poets?
Yeah, just write! Don’t wait for angels to come down and give you divine inspiration—read lots of poetry, and write lots of poetry. Chuck Jones once said to aspiring animators something along the lines of “You have 100,000 bad drawings in you, better get them out now”. I feel similarly about poetry—you have to get your crap over with before you can start writing good stuff. Take inspiration from the greats of the past, but make your own style.

How Would You Describe Yourself Politically? 
US-Wise I am a registered independent. But in the grand scheme of things I would say “right-leaning libertarian/a mild form of Middle American Radical” is probably the closest way to describe me. Some of my political traits would be identified as leftist (or at least pre-2000s leftist) in American discourse—I’m very concerned about the environment and conservation, I’m not a big fan of the justice system, organized religion, or corporations (those being the biggest reasons I can never bring myself to vote Republican), and I generally just want you to get the hell off my lawn and leave me alone (and I will afford you the same courtesy). However, my belief in the right to bear arms, the existence (and indeed necessity) of traditional gender roles, the existence of race (As I have repeatedly made clear on my website I do NOT believe any race is “superior or inferior”, but cultures and races are different and “good fences make for good neighbors” and all that), the necessity of hierarchy for functional human activity, and the outright rejection of notions of historical guilt are what push me into the right.

Or to put it another way: To paraphrase the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, the best government is the one that you don’t even notice exists. In other words, I’d prefer if the government provided just enough service/entitlements to keep society functioning and then backed off.

Anything Else? 
Yeah, buy my book! Speaking of; while I don’t want to be a Professional Ethnic…a quick perusal of my website will show you that, yes I am indeed half white and half Asian. And truth be told, there’s a part of me that wants to be known not just for my own sake, but to show people in general that A) Not every Asian is a stolid, uncreative clod and B) Not every Eurasian is a hysterical Oedipal failure one step away from a mass shooting. And now that we’re on the subject…C) Not every white man is an emasculated pansy stewing in a bath of white guilt.

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So now that you know why I wrote poetry…read my stuff!