“The Second Opinion,” “Leaves of Absence,” and “Segue” by Heikki Huotari appeared in Issue 20 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about “The Second Opinion.”
“The Second Opinion” was born when one morning in the coffee shop I wondered about the poor stars that are not “deep in the heart of Texas.” Such an exercise usually only ends up amusing me for a time and then life goes on, but in this case my muse wanted in on the action, and to play with me on the unlevel playing field of negation and contradiction.
What was the most difficult part of writing that poem?
I have no specific memory, but probably, as is usual, it was difficult to delete the hundreds of hangers-on that turned out to be not stars but floating motes.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
I’m a social phobic, so it would be painful for me to have a drink with a living author and probably more so for the living author.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I just noticed that the titles of the poems I sent out yesterday include “Ex Nihilo 2” and “Except Thou Bless Me 5,” so I must be working on some abiding concerns — there may be an agenda, but I’m pretty sure that an attempt to construe it would bring bad luck — my free-to-write place is about three inches wide.
Our thanks to Heikki for taking the time to answer a few questions. Read Heikki’s poems”The Second Opinion,” “Leaves of Absence,” and “Segue” here: https://www.sequestrum.org/poetry-by-heikki-huotari.
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In a past century Heikki Huotari attended a one-room school and spent summers on a forest-fire lookout tower, is now a retired math professor, and has published three chapbooks, one of which won the Gambling The Aisle prize, and one collection, Fractal Idyll (A..P Press). Another collection is in press.