poetry mini interviews

How important is music to your poetry? If I accidentally overhear even a sliver of a tune in the morning, I often lose those dream shreds th...

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author? Tranströmer’s Baltics . For its meshwo...

What other poetry books have you been reading lately? I’m always nosing around in multiple collections at a time. Here’re the ones slung ove...

What poets changed the way you thought about writing? The list will expand till I die. A taster:  Michael Hofmann, for sourness. How sournes...

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry? Shelving a sense of purpose, a specific idea to say. If I go in wanting to do or say a...

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t? My hunch is that poems are often suggestive (some poets would say “associativ...

Neil Surkan is the author of the poetry collections Unbecoming (forthcoming Fall 2021) and On High (2018), both from McGill-Queen’s Unive...