Elizabeth Hazen : part five

How does a poem begin? 

Sometimes a poem will begin with an image for me – a scene from a dream or a memory or something I witness while I'm walking around the city or driving in my car. Or it might begin with a phrase that sticks in my head. Place is also important in my work, and I have many poems that begin as meditations on a particular location. Most often, my poems emerge out of my anxiety and my desire to make sense of complicated emotions. I try to write my way out of whatever is particularly troubling or difficult in my life at that moment. Form is a way for me to explore those emotions in a controlled space – within the confines of meter or rhyme, I feel free to go to scary places in my heart and mind. 

Elizabeth Hazen : part four

How important is music to your poetry? 

I think music is an essential part of poetry. I always read my work aloud as I am writing to hear the music -- I have no idea whether a poem is working until I hear it spoken. I frequently use meter, as well – or at least a loose syllabic count – to create music in my verses, and many of my poems employ rhyme or slant rhyme. I think the way form interplays with content is one of the reasons I fell in love with poetry – the way the sound can either reinforce or create tension with the meaning of a poem. I try to take advantage of this relationship in my own work, and I seek it out in the poems I read.

Elizabeth Hazen : part three

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry? 

For me the greatest difficulty has always been taking myself seriously enough to justify the time and effort required to make strong poems. I sometimes feel guilty for spending time writing – it feels like such a privilege – so I need to remind myself that I am doing meaningful work. Then, of course, there is the writing itself, which requires commitment and discipline. Some days it feels impossible, but I keep coming back.

Elizabeth Hazen : part two

How did you first engage with poetry? 

During middle school, I was very emotional and felt alienated from my parents and peers. I was spending a lot of time in the library when I should have been in class, and the kind-hearted librarian gave me a copy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind. I started to draft my own poems, finding it both therapeutic and deeply engaging in a way nothing else really was for me, and I haven’t stopped since. 

Elizabeth Hazen : part one

Elizabeth Hazen is a poet and essayist. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, American Literary Review, Shenandoah, Southwest Review, and other journals. She has published two collections of poetry with Alan Squire Publishing, Chaos Theories (2016) and Girls Like Us (2020). She lives in Baltimore with her family.

What are you working on? 

A few years ago, I began working on a collection of poems that examine stepmothers. I wrote poems in the voices of the stepmothers from fairy tales and movies, as well as poems exploring my own experiences. That project has evolved into a broader examination of parenting and family life with a focus on the challenges of a second marriage and the “blended” family that comes with it. The poems also address issues of addiction and recovery in the context of complicated family dynamics.