Interview - 1999

Sonia Rollins, "RVI, Poet of the Bizarre," New Mountain Culture, Issue 25; Copyright 1999, Mountaintop Press, Chapel Hill, NC

"He wasn't doing well by the time of his divorce in 1995, to say the least. All reports were he was reclusive, pulled up and down by severe mood swings. One of his closest friends reports Ingram only went out of the house after midnight and often sat on the town square, drawing by the glow of the streetlights.

"Drank a bit, too. He once told someone that one had to drink in order to really be an artist – as if drunkenness was the mainline to creativity. In his case, though, it may well have been an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for his deteriorating condition. An hallucinatory effect seems to be contained in all of his poems that are based in memories of this period of his life, possibly due to alcohol abuse as much as emotional instability.

"Of course, he eventually wound up in the hospital..."