Monica Mody : part three

How does a poem begin?

When a poem wants to begin, it often arrives—as image, clustering words, phrases /marked/ notch of significance, uncanny palm pressing outward against the heart. 

Aaron Kreuter : part one

Aaron Kreuter is the author of the short story collection You and Me, Belonging and the poetry collection Arguments for Lawn Chairs. His writing has appeared in places such as Grain Magazine, The Puritan, The Temz Review, and The Rusty Toque. Kreuter lives in Toronto and is a postdoctoral fellow at Carleton University. His second collection of poetry, Shifting Baseline Syndrome, came out this spring with Oskana Poetry and Poetics.

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

At the moment, I am not in a writer’s group, though I have been in them before and I believe they’re an important part of the writing community. That being said, the work of writing a new poem is similar to being in a writer’s group of one: every time I return to the poem I’m a different person, in a different mood, with different sectors alit, with different levels of chemical and linguistic attention. The goal, in some ways, is to work the poem again and again until all the various members of myself are pleased—or, at least, indifferent—to the poem. After that, I’m a strong proponent of sharing my work before I submit it; I’ll read it to my partner, my family, my friends, the dog, the plants, basically anybody who will listen. (I will also read a poem I’m working on aloud to myself many, many times.) If I can’t get something quite right in a poem, I’ll share a written copy to get feedback. My poetry writing process is one of repetition, of experiment, of play; of, in a word, rewriting. I just go and go and go at a poem until there seems nowhere else to go. Then I wait a bit, come back to it, and go some more. 

Carol Harvey Steski : part four

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

It’s visceral, and efficient. A poem can ignite the body like a livewire. 

Lauren Theresa : part one

Lauren Theresa (she/her) is a queer divergent writer, plant witch, and archetypal therapist living in a NYC-ish corner of NJ with her husband, daughters, and maybe-dingo. She is a poetry editor for Olney Magazine and the author of LOST THINGS (Bullshit Lit ’22.)  Her writing has appeared in HAD, Maudlin House, awkward family gatherings, and more.

What are you working on?

I have a few works in progress at the moment including my chapbook All the Ways I Killed Myself When Killing Myself Didn’t Work and the novels-in-verse/prose essay collections This is Not Medical Advice and the Poetry of Plants. I tend to work on many things at once to give the muses some room to move around.

Jennifer Hasegawa : part four

How do you know when a poem is finished?

My poems are never finished. That’s the beauty and the pain of the practice. Ever-questioning, ever-evolving, even after publication, all of my poems are unfinished.

Benjamin Niespodziany : 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 freewrite like a madman, edit with a chainsaw, and then when I have something I'm excited about or think is worth sharing, I'll share it with some writer friends. Poets (and overall great humans) Evan Nicholls and Evan Williams see a lot of my work in its early stages, and they're always sending me great and inspiring stuff. Same goes for C.T. Salazar (although I'm more selective because with C.T., you have to bring the HEAT) and a handful of other writers in the Twittersphere. I'm grateful to be part of a tiny community of like-minded and kind-hearted absurdists. 

Jean Van Loon : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Metaphor. Several poets I know spill glorious metaphors from their pens, implying worlds. 

When I speak, I often resort to metaphor. But when writing - perhaps because of decades of work in analytical, expository, and advocacy writing - my first instinct is to the direct and simple, with a goal of clarity. That is not what poetry is about! Where metaphor does appear in my work, it often takes the form of a verb or adjective that applies to another domain than the one under contemplation, and so implies a comparison. Metaphor is something I want to work on in future, with its scope for multiple interpretations and opening up the work.