Saeed Tavanaee Marvi : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

To live as a poet.

Kim Fahner : part one

Kim Fahner lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario. Her most recent book of poems is These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019) and her next book is Emptying the Ocean, which will be published by Frontenac House Press in Fall 2022. She was the fourth poet laureate of Sudbury (2016-18) and was the first woman appointed to the role. Kim is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the Ontario Representative for The Writers' Union of Canada, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She may be reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com 

What are you working on?

I’m working on edits and rewrites of the poems that will be in my next collection, Emptying the Ocean, which is being published by Frontenac House in Calgary this fall. Beyond that, I’m finishing my new novel and writing poems for a manuscript that centres on bees. So, it seems I’m drawn to the elements and the natural world in terms of the poems I write. Birds, water, bees. I’m fascinated by the environment, as well as by the ways in which the natural world and its elements influence me as a woman, and as a writer.

Ryan Black : part two

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

I’ve been re-reading Sandra Lim’s The Curious Thing, alongside George Meredith’s Modern Love, for a new manuscript I’m working on. And Vanessa Angélica Villareal, as well. And Anne Carson. And Thomas Hardy. And Donika Kelly. And George Herbert. My desk is a little crowded right now.

Marcus Slease : part five

How important is music to your poetry?

The lyrics of indie music sometimes leaks into my poetry. For example, The Shins. The Shins have leaked into my poetry, lately. Other times it is something ambient slash psychedelic. Music to travel inwards. Deep sea diving or a diversion to bypass the little man who blocks the way for retrievals and discoveries from those undiscovered countries of the mind slash universe. 

David Epstein : part one

David Epstein holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature.  He is on the Board of the Greater Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens, and has taught creative writing at the University of Hartford.  He has three children, and lives in West Hartford, Connecticut. He has reviewed for Harvard Review and Shofar, as well as recent reviews for Tupelo Press appearing in Heavy Feather and elsewhere; his poems have appeared in such venues as The Bellingham Review (where he was a Featured Poet), Authora Australis, Marsh Hawk Review, Arc Magazine, CV2, New Square, and Coastal Shelf. He won three poetry prizes in 2021.

What are you working on?

I’m doing a number of things at the same time: I’m a first-time Grinder, the invitation-only groupings where, along with about eight or nine others, you commit to sharing a new draft, every 24 hours, for a month.  No critiquing, just production.  I happened to have lucked into a terrific and talented group.  It’s very inspiring. Overall, I tend of write in the middle of the night anyway, so the Grind was almost tailor-made for me, although having the in-place group to share with, and who send you theirs, that’s new.   Next, I have an ongoing collaboration with the writer and editor Lee Parpart.  We agree on an opening line or phrase, then go off and write our own poems from it.  We get back together over them and edit and polish them.  The idea is to produce a volume of paired poems from the same starting point.  This too is tremendously energizing. You want to make something good for your writing partner, to give and receive the same kind of quality drafts and feedback.  I am also on the Board of the Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens, so we’re often designing events and other things related to poetry, Stevens, and the City of Hartford, Connecticut. I have a backlog of books to review for Tupelo Press, which I was doing better on earlier in the pandemic, but not so well of late, having gotten back to business lately. 

H.E. Fisher : part five

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

I live in the Hudson River Valley in New York. We have a wonderful library system here. I’m always checking books out. I love reading multiple books at once. I try to mix it up so that I’m reading new work while familiarizing myself with older texts. There’s a growing stack on my floor, which right now includes The Beauty, by Jane Hirshfield; Trilce by César Vallejo; What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems by Ruth Stone; What Happens is Neither by Angela Narciso Torres; and How to Make Pancakes for a Dead Boy by Joan Kwon Glass. Among many others. There are some poets I circle back to often: John Murillo, Diane Seuss, and Cynthia Cruz, to name a few.

One of the beautiful things about following poets on different social media platforms is that they often post poems. Ilya Kaminsky and Chen Chen, for example, often post amazing poems, which then leads me to discovering someone new to read. Or poets will share their own work and that’s another resource. 

Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose : part five

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

A Facebook friend of mine shared a poem from Brad Aaron Modlin’s Everyone at this Party Has Two Names and I immediately ordered the entire collection.  I think it’s a brilliant exercise in extended metaphor. Nickole Brown’s chapbook To Those Who Were Our First Gods was a Rattle Chapbook prize winner; it’s such a smart book about the relationship between humans and animals and our responsibilities to the earth. Very timely.  I also have to mention Willa Carroll, who is doing all of this interesting experimental hybrid stuff with music and video and poetry; it’s a direction I haven’t gone in yet but want to.  I just finished her book, Nerve Chorus. I also love the work of Al Abonado; if you can get your hands on a copy of Jaw you won’t be sorry; I’m so impressed by how he plays with repetition to build tension; there’s such humanity in every poem, so many familiar images that he is able to defamiliarize. More collections sitting on my desk as I type this: Jericho Brown, The Tradition. Maggie Smith, Lamp of the Body. Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem, Brenda Shaughnessy, Our Andromeda, Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds. I’m a pretty voracious reader, so if someone recommends a poet, I buy the collection.  

Speaking of which, everyone should rush to buy How to Love the World, Poems of Gratitude and Hope, edited by James Crews. The poems in this are a powerful antidote to the frustration, fear, and malaise brought about by the current social moment and which admittedly, I sometimes find myself tangled up in. Every single poem in the collection—like Sarah Freligh’s widely anthologized “Wondrous”-- makes me feel more grounded, more optimistic. I keep it by my bedside; I try to read one before I go to bed and one when I wake up.