Stephen Furlong : part two

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book you return to? A particular author?

Without a doubt in my mind it’s “The Journey” by Mary Oliver. My first year of undergraduate studies wasn’t very good from an academically successful year; by the end of the year, I had a 1.63 GPA and was asked not to return in the fall. But, in the midst of an emotional day in March that year, I received a message from my mother that was simple and direct—“Thinking of you! Have a great day! Love you!” and attached in the message was Oliver’s “The Journey”. Even though I had been familiar with Oliver and one of my favorite anthologies of poetry I owned housed the poem, I had never read the poem until that afternoon. I sure went through a lot of tissues that day, but, I also found something I often find in poetry: healing. Mary Oliver is certainly one of those poets I always return to when I think my poetry world is going to hell—and somehow, some way, things don’t seem as dark. I miss her.

Natasha Sanders-Kay : part two

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Letting go of the urge to control everything, capture everything, include everything. When I’m writing a poem I need to remind myself it’s not an essay.

I’m also learning to write the difficult personal stuff I often don’t want to write or think about or share, which is sometimes the most compelling material. I’m finding it’s gut-wrenching to write through anxiety and fragmentation and fear, but so far it’s worth it so long as I protect myself and remember to breathe.

Worrying about offending people is always difficult, too. In life and in writing, I’m trying to break my tendency to explain, because in poems there’s little room for explanation. So I need to detach from my instinct to clutter the text with context.

Lesley Wheeler : part one

Lesley Wheeler’s forthcoming books are the poetry collection The State She’s In; her first novel, Unbecoming; and a suite of hybrid essays, Poetry’s Possible Worlds. Poetry editor of Shenandoah, she lives in Virginia.

Photo credit: Kevin Remington

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
I’m more thoughtful than I used to be about the work a poem might do in the world. I so appreciate poems that feed hope and insight. I hope my writing does that, too, at least sometimes.

Lauren Carter : coda

How do you know when a poem is finished?

When it is as good as I can make it at the time. When it is ready to step out the door and find a place in the world. This doesn't mean I won't lick my thumb and wipe dirt off its chin in the future but it does mean it is now its own thing.

Jennifer Firestone : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

A good poem is not necessarily a “popular” poem. I studied with Myung Mi Kim and she would try to encourage us to push aside our egos away from the poem that was trying to wrangle free. It’s very hard to do this. We are influenced by aesthetics, politics, trends, our daily moods. The poem is misbehaving, subversive. It doesn’t entirely care if I don’t get what it’s saying. I can’t necessarily rush it or perform it. It’s not all about me. It has to radiate outward, linguistically, thematically and formally.

Kimberly Campanello : part four

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

I return to Rimbaud’s Une saison en enfer and Les Illuminations. The strangeness and unpredictability of these poems – not least because I read them in a second language – always gives me something to work with.

Juliette van der Molen : part four

How do you know when a poem is finished? 

Maybe it’s never finished. Does it have to be finished? My poems are dynamic. They live and breathe and the words on the page are guidelines for how they are feeling in the moment. I don’t even feel a poem is finished upon publication. Publication is just a snapshot of the poem in one crystallized moment. Often after publication, I will perform a poem and it still morphs and changes slightly based on how it needs to come out or what the energy feels like in that moment. It’s always a close version of itself but just like people, they continue to evolve.