When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
My work can get dark and brooding or too filled with imagery (my go-to poetic technique) and I find that I return to Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Ross Gay (a dynamic duo: if you’ve ever seen them together, you know what I mean) to find joy. They both handle images and allow the speaker to turn those images into meaningful connections, genuine emotions. They make it seem effortless. There aren’t any seams in their work, so reading them helps me think about language and goals and the purpose of images in my own work, otherwise I might be happy to just keep describing a scene as specifically and beautifully as I can. Oceanic and Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude are required reading.
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