A longtime professor at Sarah Lawrence College and the author of 11 books of poetry, Thomas Lux has been called “one of this generation’s most gifted poets” by the Washington Post. A highly sought-after instructor at MFA programs throughout the country, Lux has received a trio of NEA grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the 1995 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award ($50,000) for his work. The son of a milkman and a Sears & Roebuck switchboard operator, Lux takes a workman-like approach to his craft, which has been called “surreal” (though Lux shuns the arbitrary nature of surrealism). His timeless poetry, at times macabre and at times humorous, imagines strange new “what-if” worlds, celebrates the infinite quirks of humanity, and honors the grace of nature. Lux shared some insights and opinions in an emailed interview with Smoky Mountain News’ contributing writer Michael Beadle.

SMN: You’re certainly no stranger to Western North Carolina. You’ve been a core faculty member at Warren Wilson College for more than 20 years. What have you enjoyed most about teaching? How have the students changed over the years? What sorts of challenges do you face now in helping nurture poets?

TLux: The best thing I like about teaching: the students. I don’t think students have changed that much — they are still at the same point in their lives, going through the same things — discovery, excitement, heartbreak, etc. — that every generation goes through. The times change. Or do they?

SMN: Who were your early inspirations when you started writing poetry?

TLux: Poets like Hart Crane, Theodore Roethke, Charles Baudelaire, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, John Berryman, and dozens more, including many other poets (besides Baudelaire) in translation: Cesar Vallejo, Osip Mandlestam, Attilla Jozsef, Dino Campana, etc.

SMN: What’s on your reading table these days?

TLux: I read huge amounts of history, natural history, general nonfiction. Right now I’m reading The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby. I just finished a book by David Quamman, one of my favorite natural history writers. I’ve read about a dozen books about Abraham Lincoln in the past year. And, of course, tons of poetry.

SMN: Tell me about your writing process. Do you try to write every day and at a certain time to keep a structure to your craft? I understand you have an editing process that can take a poem through 15 to 40 or so drafts. How has your editing changed over the years?

TLux: My writing process is slow, dogged. I do go through many drafts usually over at least a few months. What can I tell you? — I’m a lunch pail writer, I go to work. I’m trying to discover something.

SMN: Why should people read poetry?

TLux: To remember the reasons we are alive.

SMN: Being a Boston Red Sox fan and finally getting to see your team win the World Series — twice — did you feel the urge to pen some poems in praise of a franchise that seemed cursed for so long?

TLux: Well, I am a life-long fan (55-plus years of CONSCIOUS devotion) and we of The Nation paid a lot of dues, waited a long time, so winning two World Series, has filled me (us) with joy. Want to do it again, though, want to hurt the Yankees.