Episode 1315: Awkward...

So I finally sent an e-mail off to Edwin Thumboo, asking if I could interview him. He replied about five hours later, and it was slightly awkward because he seems to expect me to have really specific ideas of what I'm trying to find out, and how it fits in relation to the scope of my dissertation. (It would be really awkward if after explaining in my eventual reply what exactly my dissertation is proposing, he completely disagrees with my analysis of his poem.) Fair enough, although the thing is that I'm not even sure if any of the interviews will end up being useful for the dissertation. Trying to find out what the poets think was never really my goal in the first place. I've always felt it would be nice to know what they thought they were saying if I could find out, but my dissertation's largely trying to tease out what most of the poets seem not to (want to) say. (Except maybe Aaron Lee, so I should definitely find a way to get in touch with him.) Frankly, part of me now just wishes I'd gone with my gut and eschewed the interviewing thing altogether. Not Thumboo specifically, but the whole idea of trying to get all these poets to talk to me.