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John Stupp

 

John Stupp is the author of the 2007 Main Street Rag chapbook The Blue Pacific and the 2015 full-length collection Advice from the Bed of a Friend (also by Main Street Rag).  Recent poetry has appeared or will be appearing in The New Guard, Slippery Elm, Eye Contact and Uppagus. He has lived and worked in various states as a jazz musician, university instructor, taxi driver, radio news writer, waiter, auto factory laborer and paralegal.

On your nightstand: 

The Double Dream of Spring by John Ashbery, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, and Wall to Wall Speaks by David Mus.

What book made the biggest impression on you as a kid?

Probably the Chip Hilton Sports Books for Boys written by Clair Bee. I loved those books! It was where I was at in the 1950’s.

Besides writing, what’s your passion?

I like music, and for some years I played as a professional jazz guitarist. I met my wife while I was playing in a nightclub near Pittsburgh.  The qualities of a jazz solo that I find important, I also find important in poetry–a good beginning, beautiful lines and an explosion somewhere. I don’t always succeed, but it’s what I’m trying for…and it’s what I’m looking for in the poetry of others.