How did you first engage with poetry?
Largely through the books on my parents' bookshelves. Both my parents are anti-war, anti-racism, pro-social justice activists who were born in the mid 1940s, and so their shelves were filled with a pretty great array of texts, among them a lot of Beat-era literature. My dad gave me Howl to read when I was probably 11 or 12, and I remember really liking it, at that age probably mostly because there were swear words and sex and so I felt cool reading it, but it's a poem I've come to absolutely love, and I try and read aloud to myself once a year or so. Also: I remember that in my freshman or sophomore year of high school, our teacher asked us to memorize a poem and recite it aloud to the class. I chose "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and still have it memorized. Reciting it in my head for so many years, I feel like I have a relationship with it. It's a comfort.
Thursday, 7 May 2020
Wednesday, 6 May 2020
Alexa Doran : part one
What are you working on?
Currently I am working on tidying up my first full length manuscript, DM Me, Mother Darling. This collection intertwines the descent (some might argue ascent) of Mother Darling, the mother from J.M. Barrie’s classic tale, Peter Pan, with my personal struggles as a mother in twenty-first century America. From casinos, to boxing matches, to Jewel concerts, what it means to mother is constantly challenged by Mother Darling and myself as we try to make sense of modern society’s kaleidoscopic backdrop. The manuscript is meant to work on the reader like a potion, slowly but powerfully transporting them into the Mother Darling-Me galaxy until, like the speakers in the collection, they are released. Even though motherhood is the lens through which these narratives churn, they hold weight for anyone who has ever felt the mire of grief or the desperation of joy.
Tuesday, 5 May 2020
Jay Besemer : part four
How important is music to your poetry?
Initially I would have said that music is unimportant, because its superficial elements aren't easily recognized in my work, even when I write lyrically. But that ignores the truth of music as context for the work--again, in non-obvious ways. My father & husband are both musicians, as was my mother (lots of musicians in my extended family on both sides, too). I am significantly not a musician, though I did sing until transition & illness sort of mangled my voice. I think the real importance of music to my poetry lies in the connection between a bodily-felt awareness/relationship with rhythm, from having family members & friends practicing, learning pieces of music, giving concerts or recitals, all around me. Perhaps that created a sort of subliminal auditory sense I could apply to my own work, because I am very interested in the "mouthfeel" as well as the sounds of words, what one might call their musicality. I don't necessarily feature this in the work, but it's often present. I also find myself using very loose internal rhyme in some poems or batches of poems. I suppose all of this makes sense in terms of that ambient musical vibration.
Another important connection is with ancient Greek drama, which is a large influence on my writing lately. I have a theatre background that probably enters into this mix. The "sung" quality of Greek drama comes through even on the page in contemporary translation, in a way that is fascinating to me, which is why I was engaging with a lot of it a few years ago when I was writing Theories of Performance. I don't know if that's obvious in that book's poems, though--readers will have to tell me!
Initially I would have said that music is unimportant, because its superficial elements aren't easily recognized in my work, even when I write lyrically. But that ignores the truth of music as context for the work--again, in non-obvious ways. My father & husband are both musicians, as was my mother (lots of musicians in my extended family on both sides, too). I am significantly not a musician, though I did sing until transition & illness sort of mangled my voice. I think the real importance of music to my poetry lies in the connection between a bodily-felt awareness/relationship with rhythm, from having family members & friends practicing, learning pieces of music, giving concerts or recitals, all around me. Perhaps that created a sort of subliminal auditory sense I could apply to my own work, because I am very interested in the "mouthfeel" as well as the sounds of words, what one might call their musicality. I don't necessarily feature this in the work, but it's often present. I also find myself using very loose internal rhyme in some poems or batches of poems. I suppose all of this makes sense in terms of that ambient musical vibration.
Another important connection is with ancient Greek drama, which is a large influence on my writing lately. I have a theatre background that probably enters into this mix. The "sung" quality of Greek drama comes through even on the page in contemporary translation, in a way that is fascinating to me, which is why I was engaging with a lot of it a few years ago when I was writing Theories of Performance. I don't know if that's obvious in that book's poems, though--readers will have to tell me!
Monday, 4 May 2020
Alex Manley : part two
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
For a long time — almost the entirety of my 20s — my poetics was around relationships, romantic love, sexual attraction, and the like. I couldn’t really — on a gut level — believe in the importance of poetry about other things: family, politics, disease, place, friendship, in part because my feelings about all those things paled in contrast to the intensity of my feelings around being loved and desired at the time. But in addition to the ways in which my lived experience has changed and, it seems, the world has changed in the past few years (creeping fascism and ecological collapse, anyone?) I’ve also been reading a lot more over the past three or four years, which has helped shift my relationship with poetry, and a year and a half of cognitive behavioural therapy has helped me de-center sex and romance in the constellation of my feelings, which I think has been a really healthy shift and one that I recommend to anyone who has access to therapy.
For a long time — almost the entirety of my 20s — my poetics was around relationships, romantic love, sexual attraction, and the like. I couldn’t really — on a gut level — believe in the importance of poetry about other things: family, politics, disease, place, friendship, in part because my feelings about all those things paled in contrast to the intensity of my feelings around being loved and desired at the time. But in addition to the ways in which my lived experience has changed and, it seems, the world has changed in the past few years (creeping fascism and ecological collapse, anyone?) I’ve also been reading a lot more over the past three or four years, which has helped shift my relationship with poetry, and a year and a half of cognitive behavioural therapy has helped me de-center sex and romance in the constellation of my feelings, which I think has been a really healthy shift and one that I recommend to anyone who has access to therapy.
Sunday, 3 May 2020
Daniela Naomi Molnar : part five
How does a poem begin?
With sound. I write every morning in my journal. Most of what I write is just about the act of writing. Pen to paper, taking a line for a language-based walk. I often start out with Marie Howe’s excellent writing prompt, which I have been writing from for many years: write 10 observations that do not use any metaphors. (It’s harder than it seems.) I invariably drift away from this constraint into writing with metaphor about stuff going in my life, in the world — more abstract things that benefit from having started with concrete observation.
Some mornings, I find myself inside a poem. I keep writing in my journal, then transcribe whatever I wrote to my computer, editing and adding as I go.
How do I know if I’ve stumbled into a poem?
If the language begins to leave me behind, I am in a poem.
If the language leaves me both slightly disoriented and fully alert in a way that both encompasses and surpasses the senses, I am in a poem.
With sound. I write every morning in my journal. Most of what I write is just about the act of writing. Pen to paper, taking a line for a language-based walk. I often start out with Marie Howe’s excellent writing prompt, which I have been writing from for many years: write 10 observations that do not use any metaphors. (It’s harder than it seems.) I invariably drift away from this constraint into writing with metaphor about stuff going in my life, in the world — more abstract things that benefit from having started with concrete observation.
Some mornings, I find myself inside a poem. I keep writing in my journal, then transcribe whatever I wrote to my computer, editing and adding as I go.
How do I know if I’ve stumbled into a poem?
If the language begins to leave me behind, I am in a poem.
If the language leaves me both slightly disoriented and fully alert in a way that both encompasses and surpasses the senses, I am in a poem.
Saturday, 2 May 2020
Adam W. Burgess : part two
What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
Poetry has the ability to be more viscerally sensory than anything else I know. As someone who teaches all forms of writing, including fiction, non-fiction, and drama, I’ve found that poetry, while often scary because it is so “unusual,” ends up being a favorite unit for my students. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising, considering how much our college-aged students are going through, how they’re quite literally in the act of becoming, which is the very type of truth that poetry reveals, both in the reading and the writing of it. Poetry helps us process emotionally what we might not be able to process logically. It helps us sing when we can’t quite speak.
Poetry has the ability to be more viscerally sensory than anything else I know. As someone who teaches all forms of writing, including fiction, non-fiction, and drama, I’ve found that poetry, while often scary because it is so “unusual,” ends up being a favorite unit for my students. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising, considering how much our college-aged students are going through, how they’re quite literally in the act of becoming, which is the very type of truth that poetry reveals, both in the reading and the writing of it. Poetry helps us process emotionally what we might not be able to process logically. It helps us sing when we can’t quite speak.
Friday, 1 May 2020
Madeleine Barnes : part four
How important is music to your poetry?
It’s vital. I learned to play the piano around the same time that I became interested in poetry, and this timing inspired a dedication to musicality, especially cadence, harmony, and prosody, in writing. I remember reading a book of poetry and realizing that a musical experience was taking place, and it depended on spatial arrangement, similar to sheet music. Even though I was classically trained, I loved playing in jazz bands and preferred to play by ear. When I would do this, my teacher, a nun, would scold me and say, “stop and read what’s there.” She insisted on perfect posture and wouldn’t let me hear a song before I muddled through the sheet music. If I didn’t practice and leaned on my ear during lessons, she put a neon green Mr. Yuk sticker beside my name for everyone else to see. Yikes! She required her students to write papers about dead composers and to describe in detail what we noticed about their music. I owe my obsession with craft and lyricism to her. Above all, she taught me that music, like poetry, has a history, and to before you improvise, you better read what’s there. Doing so will make your flair and style stronger when your moment arrives. Whether I’m engaging with music or poetry, I’m absorbed in the moment, connecting to something otherworldly. I don’t necessarily believe in God, but I believe that poetry and music are connected to divine creation. If we focus too much on interpreting art literally, or completely ignore its historical foundations, we risk losing the magic.
It’s vital. I learned to play the piano around the same time that I became interested in poetry, and this timing inspired a dedication to musicality, especially cadence, harmony, and prosody, in writing. I remember reading a book of poetry and realizing that a musical experience was taking place, and it depended on spatial arrangement, similar to sheet music. Even though I was classically trained, I loved playing in jazz bands and preferred to play by ear. When I would do this, my teacher, a nun, would scold me and say, “stop and read what’s there.” She insisted on perfect posture and wouldn’t let me hear a song before I muddled through the sheet music. If I didn’t practice and leaned on my ear during lessons, she put a neon green Mr. Yuk sticker beside my name for everyone else to see. Yikes! She required her students to write papers about dead composers and to describe in detail what we noticed about their music. I owe my obsession with craft and lyricism to her. Above all, she taught me that music, like poetry, has a history, and to before you improvise, you better read what’s there. Doing so will make your flair and style stronger when your moment arrives. Whether I’m engaging with music or poetry, I’m absorbed in the moment, connecting to something otherworldly. I don’t necessarily believe in God, but I believe that poetry and music are connected to divine creation. If we focus too much on interpreting art literally, or completely ignore its historical foundations, we risk losing the magic.
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