The Big Book of Ben Zen

Author: Tom Montag

Publisher: MWPH Books (2003)

ABOUT BEN ZEN: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE POET

Q. Who is this Ben Zen?
A. You know as much as I do, I'm afraid. The evidence of the poems is all we have.

Q. He is a teacher?
A. We are all teachers, Ben would say, and we are all students.

Q. Is he a wandering monk?
A. He is a wanderer, yes. He is a wonderer, too. He may be a monk.

Q. Are you as religious or philosophical as these poems make you sound?
A. No. I am not the holy man; Ben is. I am the poet reporting what I hear. Some say poets are radios picking up whatever rides the ether. The gift of these poems was offered; the sin would be refusing them.

Q. You are not Buddhist, then?
A. No. I should be, I suppose, if I'm going to publish a book with "Zen" in the title. However, I do not know enough to say I am a Buddhist. I am a seeker. I listen, I try to learn. I do think the middle western farmer and the Buddhist monk would find much to talk of; and I think each would understand the other's silences.

Q. Why do you call these things poems?
A. I don't know what else you'd call them. I am, after all, a poet; you'd expect that what I produce would be called poems, yes?

Q. Will there be more of them in the future?
A. I don't know. I don't think so. Ben has wandered off to another place, it seems. It's possible he'll come back, but I don't expect it. It is the nature of gift to be given, it cannot be ordered like an appetizer.

Q. If you had to identify one of them as closest to what these poems attempt, which might it be?
A. It might be:

You can't always go
To the cave of a thousand Buddhas,
Ben says, and you can never
Come back the same.