Robert Collins Discusses the Inspiration Behind “D.O.A. at Dante’s”

Interviewed by Jason Gordy Walker

Robert Collins is the author of several poetry collections, including Naming the Dead (FutureCycle Press, 2012) and Drinking with the Second Shift (Turning Point Books, 2017). His latest, D.O.A. at Dante’s, was published by 11thour Press in 2023. From March 4th to April 11th, 2025, we corresponded via email about his poems and writing process. 

Jason Gordy Walker: Poem after poem in D.O.A. at Dante’s delights in caustic humor. There’s Volo who earns profit from dropping pennies in the bar’s urinal, “hoping other drunks might submit and follow suit.” Meanwhile, Stretch, a self-declared poet-prophet suffering from schizophrenia, convinces the regulars that his poesy is a gift from the gods. The list of oddly enchanting characters goes on. Can you discuss some of these personalities and what compelled you to versify their stories? 

Robert Collins: All of the characters in DOA at Dante’s are based on my observations of people I encountered during what I like to describe as my roughly twenty-year residency at a campus dive bar upon which Dante’s is based. They represent a selection of patrons whose uniqueness was not only memorable and remarkable but also helped to create the dark, smokey, hellish atmosphere of an establishment with a reputation, whether deserved or not, for attracting intellectuals, gays, and hippies—the disreputable, distressed, and disinherited. My interest in the archetypal psychology of Carl Jung as indicated by the many quotations from The Dream and the Underworld by James Hillman, a Jungian himself, imparts, I hope, depth to the characters, revealing that, though they might be based upon actual people, they are so much more than that. They are archetypes, products of the unconscious and the imagination, who inhabit the Underworld Dante’s represents, which is also a vale of soul-making. Furthermore, they are mythological figures raised briefly into the light from the depths of the unconscious—from Roman who doggedly guards the entrance, to the Proprietor who, like Dis, the Lord of Hades, presides over the depths, to the Three Wyrd Sisters who, like the Three Fates, weave and measure and sever, and all the rest. 

Walker: At times, the poems wink at the reader like in “Intermezzo I”: “It’s up to you to turn the page or flee / the dream as many fledglings do.” Such playfulness sparks distance between the audience and the characters yet ironically brings us closer—we’re “spying on this unsavory sideshow, observing such unholy rites….” It all feels very Dantean. What is one important connection you found between Jung/Hillman and Alighieri’s Inferno during your writing process, and how did it affect the poems? 

Collins: One important connection I found between Jungian psychology and Dante’s Inferno, especially from Hillman whose ideas about the underworld differ from Jung’s, is the notion that “hope is a foreign category irrelevant in the underworld” (Hillman, 108). As often quoted, the banner above the entrance to the underworld in The Inferno reads, “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” That assertion is accompanied by the stricture that few, if any, can escape the underworld. In The Inferno and western mythology in general, one who enters the underworld and wishes to return must have a special dispensation as symbolized by the golden bough. Hillman is even more adamant that escape from the depths is impossible, that the link with the day world must be severed. Hence, the hope abandoned upon entering the depths is “the fantasy of daylife expectations and flesh-and-blood illusions” (Hillman, 43). Finally, Hillman argues that the goal is to learn from the underworld rather than resurrection. 

Walker: “The Scholar” and “The Pianist” stand out as poems in which the titular characters do not so much learn something from the underworld but rather contribute to its hellishness. The scholar is a devotee of Finnegan’s Wake, drilling flashcards at the bar to no avail, while the pianist escapes his tomb of a home for the shame of Dante’s, “…long[ing] to be dubbed Maestro, not buffoon….” Both men come across as failures who have potential to be better, and yet they repeat their letdowns instead of leaving their drunken antics behind. Despite this, they add something special and celebratory to the dive’s environment. Unlike some of the other characters, the scholar and the pianist don’t seem to learn anything, but perhaps—through their longing and failure to become something more—they teach those around them. But what is it that they’re teaching the other drunks and us readers, do you think? 

Collins: Figures like the Scholar and the Pianist in their respective poems reveal to the other drunks inhabiting Dante’s and the reader that change is impossible unless one finds a way to return from the underworld to the day world. As I’ve already mentioned, in ancient mythology, escape from the lower regions was only possible, of course, if one possessed or was granted a talisman like the golden bough or if accompanied by a guide like Virgil. The modern equivalent might be an intervention of some sort. Nevertheless, these two figures enhance the atmosphere at Dante’s if only through the humor of their futility. Other figures similar to them are the Burnout, Bipolar, and Matryoshka, all of whom present a futility imbued with pathos rather than comedy, however dark that humor might be. 

Walker: Thank you for these insights, Robert. What a pleasure to learn more about your poetry! Do you have anything else on the way we ought to know about? A new project in the works? Public readings? 

Collins: I have several projects I’m currently working on. The first is a chapbook entitled The Rapture Alert Bulletin comprised of a dozen poems I’ve written over the years about the Antichrist. The second is a book-length manuscript of poems about growing up Catholic entitled All Things Visible, a phrase from “The Apostle’s Creed.” Finally, I’ve been writing science poems prompted by two impulses. One was my seeming lack of interest in science when I was in high school and college. The fact is, I’m extremely interested in science, especially quantum mechanics. What I’m not interested in, or perhaps it’s better to say what I’m stumped by, is mathematics. The second impulse is Matthew Arnold’s notion that poetry and science are incompatible, perhaps even at war for reality. I want to prove him wrong as other poets already have. Right now, I don’t have any readings scheduled, but I hope to do some more soon. Thanks for inviting me to do this interview. 

Jason Gordy Walker is a poet, writer, and translator who lives in Alabama. His reviews and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Asymptote, Birmingham Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He has received support from the New York State Summer Writers Institute, Newnan Art Rez, and other institutions, and holds an MFA from the University of Florida.