When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
Yes, absolutely. There’s always one collection that I have to take with me when I travel. That touchstone shifts over time. For years it was Lucille Clifton. For a while it was either Seamus Heaney or James Wright, but my husband has taken to carrying them with him everywhere. Elizabeth Bishop is someone I return to again and again. And lately, I go to Ada Lemon’s Bright Dead Things or Vievee Francis’s Forest Primeval.
Thursday, 28 February 2019
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
hiromi suzuki : part three
How important is music to your poetry?
I love music. I don't think "music is important for poetry", but aim for "poetry that music sounds like". Lines of words like melodies. Poetry partakes of the nature of music.
I love music. I don't think "music is important for poetry", but aim for "poetry that music sounds like". Lines of words like melodies. Poetry partakes of the nature of music.
Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Hana Shafi : part one
Photo credit: Dylan van den Berge
How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?
Usually it's shyly sending it to a friend with about fifty disclaimers that it might really really suck. I'll generally send it to friends who are also writers or artists, and see how they feel about it. It's always very nerve-wracking, and I obsessively reiterate that it's OK if they don't like it for fear that they might only say nice things to spare my feelings.
Shazia Hafiz Ramji : part four
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
It's scary and it hurts; my poems don't allow me to lie to myself.
It's scary and it hurts; my poems don't allow me to lie to myself.
Monday, 25 February 2019
Metta Sáma : part three
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
This morning I was talking with one of the cooks at my child’s daycare, Wanda. We have a lot of conversations about writing, and, for a long time I’d been very intrigued by her. She was never able to tell me what she did, creatively, but she kept asking me for help to do the thing she does. One night, she came to my home to get a lawnmower; as a thank you gift, she gave me a CD of her reading “stuff” and a book of her “stuff”. It was a published book and CD set of her POETRY. She kept calling it “stuff” and “just little things that I think about” and it reminded me of my mom, who also calls the poems she writes “little thoughts” or “little sayings”. But they’re not aphorisms or anecdotes; they’re poems. So, this morning, as I was chatting with Wanda, who was once again talking to me about “things” she “makes”, I was left baffled as to why she wouldn’t call her work poetry. We were speaking about plays, specifically, writing plays, and I was telling her that plays feel more natural to me, since I’m a visual person, so I can see the play in my head. The tough part is getting the words out, to transform the visual to the written. She works in an opposite way: she sees the words in her head, writes them out and at the end of it, people read what she’s written and can see the images. We had a great conversation and it was one of the times that I recalled Paul Guest saying that he had a facility for language and I thought well golly what must that be like! It occurs to me that, for my mom and for Wanda, they don’t think of their poems as poems because writing them is effortless. Writing is difficult for me. As I said to Wanda, I’m not a word person. I’m a visual person. So, the translation of the visual to the word is quite tedious and I never believe I’ve gotten it down right. Because, of course, I haven’t.
This morning I was talking with one of the cooks at my child’s daycare, Wanda. We have a lot of conversations about writing, and, for a long time I’d been very intrigued by her. She was never able to tell me what she did, creatively, but she kept asking me for help to do the thing she does. One night, she came to my home to get a lawnmower; as a thank you gift, she gave me a CD of her reading “stuff” and a book of her “stuff”. It was a published book and CD set of her POETRY. She kept calling it “stuff” and “just little things that I think about” and it reminded me of my mom, who also calls the poems she writes “little thoughts” or “little sayings”. But they’re not aphorisms or anecdotes; they’re poems. So, this morning, as I was chatting with Wanda, who was once again talking to me about “things” she “makes”, I was left baffled as to why she wouldn’t call her work poetry. We were speaking about plays, specifically, writing plays, and I was telling her that plays feel more natural to me, since I’m a visual person, so I can see the play in my head. The tough part is getting the words out, to transform the visual to the written. She works in an opposite way: she sees the words in her head, writes them out and at the end of it, people read what she’s written and can see the images. We had a great conversation and it was one of the times that I recalled Paul Guest saying that he had a facility for language and I thought well golly what must that be like! It occurs to me that, for my mom and for Wanda, they don’t think of their poems as poems because writing them is effortless. Writing is difficult for me. As I said to Wanda, I’m not a word person. I’m a visual person. So, the translation of the visual to the word is quite tedious and I never believe I’ve gotten it down right. Because, of course, I haven’t.
Brad Casey : part two
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
I used to be very against readings. I never wanted to take part. I’ve been very lucky in the last few years to find a community of writers, all fairly disparate, who appreciate taking big risks and cherishing experience and who channel that energy into their performances. A lot of those people do readings and they make it something interesting, performative, compelling to an audience. They turned me on to readings. There’s an art to reading, I think, and it’s important, for me, to take into consideration. Even just to look up now and then while you’re reading, to speak from a self-assured place, to keep an audience engaged. It’s fine if you want to eyes down read and get out, it’s just not for me. So I’ve warmed up to readings, I like doing them now and am still exploring my own voice in that realm. Maybe I am a boring reader, I don’t know. I’m trying to connect with an audience in different ways, to be more performative. It’s an exploration. I still, often, don’t bring non-writer friends to “reading” readings, though. I think if you’re not invested in the art form it can be a weird experience.
I used to be very against readings. I never wanted to take part. I’ve been very lucky in the last few years to find a community of writers, all fairly disparate, who appreciate taking big risks and cherishing experience and who channel that energy into their performances. A lot of those people do readings and they make it something interesting, performative, compelling to an audience. They turned me on to readings. There’s an art to reading, I think, and it’s important, for me, to take into consideration. Even just to look up now and then while you’re reading, to speak from a self-assured place, to keep an audience engaged. It’s fine if you want to eyes down read and get out, it’s just not for me. So I’ve warmed up to readings, I like doing them now and am still exploring my own voice in that realm. Maybe I am a boring reader, I don’t know. I’m trying to connect with an audience in different ways, to be more performative. It’s an exploration. I still, often, don’t bring non-writer friends to “reading” readings, though. I think if you’re not invested in the art form it can be a weird experience.
Sunday, 24 February 2019
Billy Mavreas : part two
How did you first engage with poetry?
Browsing through Cheap Thrills (a second hand book and record shop in Montreal) when I was 15 or so, this was in 1983 approx. I marvelled at beautiful little forgotten books. At the time they were priced at forty cents for some slim volume so I always brought something home. The game changer was finding a battered paperback copy of JF Bory’s Once Again.
Browsing through Cheap Thrills (a second hand book and record shop in Montreal) when I was 15 or so, this was in 1983 approx. I marvelled at beautiful little forgotten books. At the time they were priced at forty cents for some slim volume so I always brought something home. The game changer was finding a battered paperback copy of JF Bory’s Once Again.
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