Interview

Maureen Seation, Scene 360: “Almost Dorothy” is your first book, Neil. Congratulations! What have you got to say about all the hoopla around it? Pro or con?

Neil de la Flor: I haven’t seen any hoops or las, but I’m not opposed to pros and cons. I’m not sure anyone cares about literature, which makes me care more. All I know is that I love Almost Dorothy. I’m happy to have traveled this far. (Cliche #1).

"Almost Dorothy," a poetry book by Neil de la Flor. Cover art by Adriana de Barros, cover design by Claudia Carlson, and published by Marsh Hawk Press (March 2010).

You’ve written in a variety of voices and, I assume, in as many cute wigs. Who is the man behind the curtain?

The man behind the curtain is a boy who enjoys tricks, word games, glitter on Sundays, laughter, and all kinds of magical stuff that improves the station of the underprivileged and not-so-cool types like me. I’m sort of an empty vessel, a bore, and a wild boar. I’m alive cause my characters are alive and I’m happy with that. So I’ll keep them alive. Writing is the curtain in front of me.

I noticed there is a dog dressed up as a lion on the cover. Cowardly or Pomeranian?

With all due respect, the dog dressed up as a lion on the cover is me. I am the lion and the dog—the loyal coward and companion of Almost Dorothy.

Nothing has prepared me for your book, Neil, and I know of at least one other ex-suburban housewife who feels the same way. Who do you write for?

I write for Almost Dorothy. To keep her alive and all the little boy and girl dorothys who will one day roam the earth searching for Oz or the Wizard. I don’t want to grow up. I don’t want them to grow unaware that those places exist inside them.

A character named Joey appears throughout your book in various disguises. Is Joey the Scarecrow? If not, who?

Joey is Joey. The disguise is perfect.

Collioure, France—The Secret Life of Neil de la Flor—Documents the day in the life of Neil de la Flor from the point of view of a pair of shoes on the beach.

How tall were you when you wrote “Joey wanted to be Dorothy and I did too.”?

I don’t remember how tall I was but my shape is stick. I figure.

Which of your characters do you love best of all?

The eye of the storm.

Is mixing Oz with sex and/or religion the next inspiration for South Floridian literary theorists? (Please elucidate.)

I’m done with Oz and theorists. I’m not sure how I even got to Oz. It’s weird. I never meant to write about Dorothy and her little friends. Hell, I’m not even a big big fan of Oz. Or Dorothy. Or her little friends. I love the complexity of sex and/or religion.

Your poems “Where” and “When” reappear inside “Memoir of a Barbed Wire Fence.” Other startling things happen throughout the book. Forrest Gander, who chose “Almost Dorothy” as the winner for Marsh Hawk, said you abandoned “genre rules to explore gender roles, religion, domestic relations, science and history.” What would you like to say to poets (or anyone else) just starting out about “rules”?

I suspect the cliche is wrong. Rules are not meant to be broken. They’re meant to exist so that you know what not to do. Without the rules I wouldn’t have had a clue of what I wanted to do. Rules are like hula hoops but not in the way you’re probably thinking. Rules are the space around the hoop. The trick—for writers and idiots like me—is to find your way inside the hoop, inside the slim plastic hula tube, and into that interior space where the rest of the world wants to get in cause it’s so freaking fun going round and round and round. I have no idea what I just wrote. Poetry is dead. Long live poetry. Write, mother fuckers(bad word omitted), write! Leave scars on your Word document files.

Miami, FL—De la Flor's Desk—Where disasters are made.

Mr. Gander also said you were “formally restless.” Plan to sue?

I thought you wrote Ms. Gander—transsexual moment there. I’m more concerned Mr. Gander will sue you for calling him Ms.

I think it was the anti-memoirist, Bernardo Soares, who asked you about your main concern in “Almost Dorothy,” and I believe your answer was: “Love & the Universe inside me. Deal with it.” Is Soares as much of a downer as they say?

Since this interview is for the fabulous Portugual based magazine Scene360, I won’t insult Soares, who is very dear to the Portuguese, but love and the universe are the same thing because they are enormous and unherdable. Yes, I mean unherdable, as in herding sheep. You can’t herd the stars. You can only gaze at them, never touch, like love. Yes, you can ‘be’ in love and ‘fall’ in love, but you can never ‘touch’ love. You can only touch things that represent love, like a lover, or a book, or a lover’s book, or lovers in a book. Yes, Soares is a downer, but only to the extent that we are all downers.

As you’ve asked others so many times: “What is love?” Or, in this case, “Is there such a thing as too much almost love?”

To be honest, I gave up a long long time ago. Whatever I thought was love was a delusional hula hoop. Always latched on to the surface of the damn thing but never ever got inside that thing. True love is spaceflight. True love is love almost. Almost love is what it’s all about because it’s better than a rock. Like Almost Dorothy.

Collioure, France - The Secret Life of Shoes - Documents the day in the life of a pair of shoes on vacation.
(Yes, more sneakers!)

Where do you go from Dorothy, Neil?

Well, some will say I will go to hell. Seriously. I have two new manuscripts in progress, which means they’re actually in progress, and not just concepts. I have a blog where I let Almost Dorothy run wild and write about her imaginary life as the daughter of an insane mother. She causes all kinds of trouble. Smokes cigarettes. I’m also looking forward to the release of my next book, Sinead O’Connor and Her Coat of a Thousand Bluebirds, which I co-authored with this fabulously crazy lady named Maureen Seaton. She’s a seashell. And the answer to “what is love?”.

And what is your favorite girl’s name of the day?

Rachel.

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