FD: Okay, I want to talk a little more about your work now. Tell me about the poem "Tapping My Own Phone".

Ron: (laughing) Well, you're gonna get some insight. . . . I published about 500 titles and I decided early on I wanted to call them "Published in Heaven", because in William Carlos Williams' foreword or the introduction to "Howl". . . he said all these books are published in heaven. I loved that. I loved it. So I talked with him one time - I worked with Ginsberg the last five years of this life - and we had a real dynamic working relationship . . . but I published about 500 titles: books, posters, chapbooks, CDs, and I produced two posters of poems by and photos of President Jimmy Carter. After Lincoln, Carter is my next favorite president . . . And so I knew he was a poet, and I wanted to publish him. I wanted to include him in the [poster] series. The only two people that I haven't included that I want to include in the series are Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali. But I got the Dalai Lama, and I thought, I want to include Jimmy Carter. So I met Doug Brinkley. . . So Doug got the assignment to write the new biography of President Jimmy Carter. Now, I'm getting to "Tapping My Own Phone". I had to tell you that about Doug, it's important. . . so Doug liked my idea, and he had opened the doors for me to get these two poems and photos for two posters by President Jimmy Carter. So I produce, and believe me, and when I move on something, I move! . . . Most of the people I publish I deal directly with the people, but not all of 'em. So I sometimes need an intermediary and in this case I have one. Now, I'm teaching at U[niversity] of L[ouisville] . . . in 1995. One more morning, I'm cleaning up getting ready to head out the door to go teach, and the phone rings. And it's Doug Brinkley. . . He says, Ron . . . you have got to call this number RIGHT NOW! There are going to be the Secret Service, there are going to be helicopters landing on your house in a matter of minutes if you don't get this cleared up RIGHT NOW! The posters have arrived at Carter's- presidents have this public office and people working there, and they got a private office and people working there- Doug had given me the address and the name of the private secretary and office, and that's where I shipped President Carter's posters to. The posters have arrived . . . they didn't know me from anybody. They didn't know these packages were comin'. . . They just went right to this secret, magical destination. Well, Secret Service agents are on the phone immediately. They got the bomb team out. They're circling, holding all the equipment over the boxes. They finally, with their gloves on and everything, open the boxes, slice the end open - everybody's got all the equipment on . . . and they slide out one of the posters, and thank God they see Doug's name on there with my name! They know Doug and they call him first. And Doug says, you wouldn't believe what I've had to go through, and he tell me the whole story FAST! . . . And I said okay, and while Doug's on the phone I hear helicopters. And not just one, there are three or four helicopters flying over my house! . . . And so I called this number, and I told them who I was, and I explained the situation, and I apologized. And she said, I don't have ANY record of this! Who gave you authorization to do this? . . . Finally, months later . . . the secretary told me, you're gonna go to court, and you're gonna have problems, and you got a lot of explaining to do! . . . the word that I finally got was that he absolutely loves the posters. So, out of that was born the poem, "Tapping My Own Phone". It was a horrifying experience. (And with that, he begins to laugh, again.) I thought it was all over . . .

FD: Alright, another of your signature works is "I will Not Bow Down". Tell me about that one.

Ron: Well, I consider myself to be on a spiritual journey. I'm here. I believe in reincarnation. I believe that I'm here to grow my soul. And I have chosen the bodhisattva path. In other words, I've taken a vow to myself. I'm not a member of any religion. My only religion is love. That's it. And I'm a spiritual person, not a religious person. The bodhisattva path is one that you make the choice to reincarnate until all beings have achieved enlightenment, are awake, are happy, and so that's the path I'm on. I want to uplift and inspire through my life and my work, anybody and everybody I can. One thing my parents taught me was never to look up to or down at anybody. Look everybody eyeball to eyeball, shoulder to shoulder, we're all in this together. And I've studied all the world religions in my life, and I feel most drawn to Native American and Tibetan Buddhist spiritualities. In my studies of the Bible, I have been most deeply inspired in the Old Testament the book of Daniel and in the New Testament the book of John. I taught the book of Daniel and it was after many close readings of that book, and in my politics, that "I Will Not Bow Down" was born. It's one of those poems that was a long time comin' . . . But "I Will Not Bow Down" by the book of Daniel and my deep anti-authoritarian sentiments and my deep yearning to heal the Earth - and I consider that all of us are part of Mother Earth . . . I think, if you live that way, that's love, that's the path of love. And honor all beings. That's what that poem's about. It's about resistance, dissent against injustice. The poem is all about America. America was born out of dissent. America is based on the principle that all beings have equal rights. That poem is about healing. That's it.

FD: Alright, then, what's your favorite poem that you've written?

Ron: I have so many favorite writers and poets. I have- I can't name a favorite.

FD: A couple of favorites?

Ron: I have so many favorites, and, you know, the whole Zen prayer-meditation series of poems that I did, like "Shape of Water" and "Listen" and "Plowed Earth", those are so meaningful to me. My poems- I believe in the power of going beyond, keep going beyond 'til you break through to the other side, and sometimes sensory deprivation helps in that process. In the Beaver Dam Rocking Chair Marathon where I stayed up and rocked in rocking chair for eighty-nine hours and fifty-five minutes, Wednesday morning was one of those breakthrough periods. I've discovered there are different times in my life when I have reached about when I'm near breakdown that the veil between worlds disappears. Things come to me. Like when I met the Dalai Lama, and I've met him several times, in both waking moments and in lucid waking dreams. When I received the poem, "Never Give Up," when the Dalai Lama was giving me the message . . . If I don't do anything but share that poem, "Never Give Up", with people the rest of my life it would have been worth it . . . But "I Will Not Bow Down", "Tapping My Own Phone", "Mama", "Sex Education", "Gimme Back My Wig: The Hound Dog Taylor Blues", those are important poems to me. Some of my most requested, and some of my most often published poems.

FD: We've talked about religion a fair bit. We've talked about the path of the bodhisattva and that you don't subscribe to any particular religion. On your website, you have several pictures of yourself at Thomas Merton's grave, who is a particularly religious poet. Tell me about that.