Monday 2 September 2019

Jennifer Firestone : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

A good poem is not necessarily a “popular” poem. I studied with Myung Mi Kim and she would try to encourage us to push aside our egos away from the poem that was trying to wrangle free. It’s very hard to do this. We are influenced by aesthetics, politics, trends, our daily moods. The poem is misbehaving, subversive. It doesn’t entirely care if I don’t get what it’s saying. I can’t necessarily rush it or perform it. It’s not all about me. It has to radiate outward, linguistically, thematically and formally.

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