called these my really confessional poems. Some
critics would like to accuse me of somehow
approving the Nazis, but the poems won’t justify
that. I’ve shown those characters as more wicked
than any historian has. But I was careful not to
imply that I am, or we are, or that those critics
are, immune to such wickedness. When I was
young, people still said, ‘‘The only good Indian
is a dead Indian’’; later they said, ‘‘Better dead
than red,’’ and in many places we saw to it that
people became dead instead. Only a month or
two ago, a man in my post office said, ‘‘Hitler
should have killed them all, right?’’ Sadly, we can
understand such persons since we have not
always been above such actions and sentiments.
And I do not believe that to understand is to
forgive. That we did not commit all the same
vicious actions may be more a matter of luck
than of some inherent moral superiority.
INT: There is no easy view of morality inThe
Fu ̈hrer Bunker,no comfortable equation of Us vs.
Them. Rather, the book sees humanity as being
universally capable of such evil. Why do you think
so many readers have insisted on the more simplis-
tic moral view?
SNODGRASS:People find it lots nicer to
abominate others’ evil than to examine their
own. They’d like to believe, for example, that
we fought World War II to free the Jews. We
fought the war to preserve our markets. The
Jews’ salvation was a byproduct which many
here did not welcome—anti-Semitism was wide-
spread (and still is, in places).
My views on evil were stated perfectly by
Simone Weil: ‘‘I suggest that barbarism be consid-
ered a permanent and universal human character-
istic which becomes more or less pronounced
according to the play of circumstances.’’ If we
haven’t all confirmed that since the war, I must
be reading the wrong papers.
INT: One of the most telling of the mono-
logues is ‘‘Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Prop-
aganda—20 April 1945.’’ In the last four stanzas
there you contrast lines from Goebbels’s radio
speech of 19 April celebrating Hitler’s birthday
with Goebbels’s real thoughts about Hitler, which
are cynical and derisive. This contrast is height-
ened by your use of rhyming couplets, each first
line giving the public rhetoric and each second line
Goebbels’s own thoughts. Are such contrapuntal
devices, which occur frequently inThe Fu ̈hrer
Bunker,meant to point out the moral chasm
between the Nazis’ rhetoric and the sometimes
bestial realities underlying that rhetoric?
SNODGRASS: Oh, sure. And there are
other devices that are meant to do that. Bor-
mann’s idealistic letters to his wife and his real
aims and operations, for example. That’s meant
to be happening all the time there.
INT: Blank verse, of course, is the traditional
medium for the dramatic monologue, and I find it
intriguing that you have written the Fu ̈hrer
Bunkermonologues in lyrical forms such as the
triolet, sestina, and villanelle and in the nonce
forms you chose for such speakers as Speer and
Himmler. I’m wondering whether you were con-
sciously trying to rebel against the expectations of
the form or were simply trying to match the form
to the character of each speaker.
SNODGRASS:I don’t believe I consciously
intended to rebel against traditional forms of
dramatic monologue, though I suppose one
always wants to do something different from
what others have done. As you suggest, I was
conscious of trying to match form to personality.
Those fancy French forms I used for Magda
Goebbels were traditionally part of the romantic
love paraphernalia. She had always used such
things for unscrupulous advantage, and I
thought her repetitive lies very similar to those
of her husband. I think I’ve said elsewhere that if
it’s true, you only need say it once.
INT: I’d like to ask some random questions
now. Your poem ‘‘Seasoning Barn’’ employs a very
wide line, carefully controlled and modulated.
How would you describe that line? Is it loose
blank verse, or free verse? Or does it split the
difference between the two?
SNODGRASS:It isn’t one that I often read
...[Studies text of poem for a moment.] Yeah, I
think you’re right: I am splitting the difference
between blank verse and free verse there...I
remember the event. My third wife and I had
been at an early music collegium up in New
England, and we were driving back from there
and saw this sign on a big barn that said, ‘‘Fan-
tastic tables!’’ We were tired of driving and said,
‘‘Let’s go see what’s in there.’’ And here was this
amazing scene that I describe in the poem. This
man, whose name is Roy Sheldon, had been a
painter. He had gone with the expatriates to
Paris and painted there. And he had commis-
sions for four or five big jobs back in the States.
While he was at sea on the way home the market
crashed, and of course the commissions didn’tHeart’s Needle