Paul Willis Strikes ‘Losing Streak’ with New Collection

Paul Willis, an emeritus professor of English at Westmont College, served as Santa Barbara’s fourth Poet Laureate, from 2011 to 2013. He is the author of a number of poetry collections, most recently Losing Streak, which he’ll sign at Chaucer’s Books on Wednesday, May 15, at 6 p.m. Fellow former Santa Barbara Poet Laureate David Starkey spoke to Willis about his newest collection of poetry, which was primarily written during the COVID pandemic “to cheer himself.”

Christianity is central to your life and identity, but those who attend your secular readings are likely to get just a hint of that. Can you talk about writing poetry as a Christian who hopes to reach a wide variety of readers? I suspect, for example, that for you the natural world is a manifestation of God’s glory.  I am very much a Christian, yes, but while the call of a preacher is to proclaim, the call of an artist is to embody. This spring, some of us had the privilege of meeting Noel Paul Stookey (of the ’60s folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary), who is himself a professing Christian. As an artist, however, he told us he feels a responsibility to communicate through metaphor. I guess I feel the same way. Like Gerard Manley Hopkins and Flannery O’Connor, I have a fairly sacramental sense of the world. Anything and anyone — not just the pretty parts of nature — can be a vessel of God’s grace.

Though you’ve written many profound and serious poems, you’ve always had a partiality for light verse, as evidenced in your new book. What role does humor and comedy play in your poetry?  I have never sat down and said to myself, “I will now write a funny poem.” But more often than not, as a poem evolves, incongruities arise — the sort of incongruities that sometimes evoke laughter. I’ve always thought of poetry as a form of play, whether the result is something quite solemn or truly silly. Of course, humor can be profound in its own right — one of the divine mysteries of this world. 

Along those same lines, the difference between being truly funny and merely silly is a question that all writers of light verse face. How do you assess a comic poem that you’ve written?  My guess is that a merely silly poem lacks the kind of hidden profundity that makes a poem valuable. If I am inserting a line just to get a cheap laugh, that says to me that the line may not be good enough for the poem.

You are one of the most prolific poets I know. What keeps you writing? And I’m sure lots of poets wonder how you manage to identify so many worthwhile places to publish. What’s your secret in that regard?  Well, I’ve always wanted to ask you these questions, David! But, for myself, I often remember something Wallace Stevens said: “Poetry is a response to the daily necessity of getting the world right.” In other words, poetry is a way to adjust to an always-shifting environment — a movement toward equilibrium. I would feel off-kilter without it. 

I find places to send my work by seeing where poets I admire have sent theirs. Pretty simple, actually. But it requires being an active reader of my contemporaries — which in itself is part of being in community. And I am very grateful for my fellow poets here in Santa Barbara, a talented and generous group!

Paul Willis will be at Chaucer’s Books (3321 State St.) on Wednesday, May 15, at 6 p.m. See pauljwillis.com.