Sara Moore Wagner : part five

How does a poem begin?

A poem begins with time. I am a mother of three. For me it’s always time. I have so many ideas that never reach the page. I try very hard to make space for my writing life, but the day gets away a lot of times. If I have time I can force a poem to begin. 

I used to say I needed a spark, but now a poem begins when I tell it to. I try to collect images in my mind and when I sit down to write (when I have a small space to write), I will start with one of those. If I hit a wall, I will read until it generates a unique thought or image.  This is true especially for my work on Annie Oakley. I will listen to “Annie Get Your Gun” or read about her or look at pictures of her until an idea forms. 

Sara Moore Wagner : part four

Why is poetry important? 

This is a hard one to explain, and there was a recent Twitter discourse about this very subject (whether it is or is not important)—for me, poetry is important. It speaks past a silence and allows others to inhabit and experience something.  Poetry is better at exploring the intricacies of a single moment, and at explaining the unexplainable, as Carl Sandburg said. Only can poetry can speak through those times you can’t speak what’s happening. It breaks the walls other forms have. It also does this sonically, and with interconnected images.

This is particularly important when it comes from marginalized or underrepresented individuals. Poetry shaped the whole world, it connects us to the past, to the present, to voices we might never experience otherwise. It’s also such a solitary and individual art form. It’s one voice crying across a void—and I think it’s natural and instinctive for us, to desire and to create poetry. For me, poetry has always been instinct, but it’s so important to my sense of identity and connection to the world. As a stay-at-home mom in Ohio, poetry gives me my solitary purpose and helps me to stay in conversation with the universe.

Sara Moore Wagner : part three

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

Definitely HD, who I talked about earlier, Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Nickole Brown, Harryette Mullen, there are for sure too many to list—every time I read a poet it changes something about the way I see poetry. Right now I am reading The Four-Legged Girl by Diane Suess, and after that will be W. Todd Kaneko’s This is How the Bone Sings, then Angelique Zobitz’s new chapbook Burn Down Your House. It takes me a while lately to get through books, though—because of the pandemic and mothering. I miss being able to just read EVERYTHING.

I love books that make me think “I wish I could do that,” and I also want to be doing something different from everyone else, which is a lofty goal, I know. 

Sara Moore Wagner : part two

How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?

I always send every poem I write to my husband first and have for almost a decade. He is my first reader and reader of everything. Of course, he always just praises, so I then will send things to my closest circle of poet friends—Christen Kauffman, Rae Hoffman Jager, and Caroline Plaskett. We’re not really workshopping friends, more encouraging and questioning, but that’s what works for us. We love to talk through our ideas and passions! 

Sara Moore Wagner : part one

Sara Moore Wagner is the winner of the 2021 Cider Press Review Editor's Prize for her book Swan Wife (2022), and the 2020 Driftwood Press Manuscript Prize for Hillbilly Madonna (2022). She is also 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Sixth Finch, Waxwing, Nimrod, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. Find her at www.saramoorewagner.com

What are you working on?

I am working on a full-length manuscript focused on the life of Annie Oakley. Poems I’ve written so far explore the nature of gun worship in America, how guns shaped America, along with America’s deeply embedded patriarchal values—what we expect from our female superstars. I’ve really gone all in with my research of her. I have read pretty much every book with her in it, I’ve visited her museum and her grave, and I even attended the Annie Oakley festival!