I tend to return to Emily Dickinson (I love her slippery, off-kilter intensity), Tomas Transtromer (the depth of images and aura, the otherworldliness emerging from the ordinary world), and Nelson Ball (the vitality of his micro-linguistic play with words and ordinary things. He shows me how my backyard or kitchen is filled with lively, overlooked worlds.). All of them make the ordinary appear surreal/intense and make me want to find a way to do the same.
Friday, 31 July 2020
Lance La Rocque : part three
When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
I tend to return to Emily Dickinson (I love her slippery, off-kilter intensity), Tomas Transtromer (the depth of images and aura, the otherworldliness emerging from the ordinary world), and Nelson Ball (the vitality of his micro-linguistic play with words and ordinary things. He shows me how my backyard or kitchen is filled with lively, overlooked worlds.). All of them make the ordinary appear surreal/intense and make me want to find a way to do the same.
I tend to return to Emily Dickinson (I love her slippery, off-kilter intensity), Tomas Transtromer (the depth of images and aura, the otherworldliness emerging from the ordinary world), and Nelson Ball (the vitality of his micro-linguistic play with words and ordinary things. He shows me how my backyard or kitchen is filled with lively, overlooked worlds.). All of them make the ordinary appear surreal/intense and make me want to find a way to do the same.
Thursday, 30 July 2020
Stella Hayes : coda
How does a poem begin?
Typically a poem begins as I hear it—in a fury, somewhere between clear thinking and the subconscious. Many take years. All take time in the editing process. Something I am working out in my life or a quarrel with myself triggers the poem(s). Like a ghost of an idea but more like an obsession. In his book on poetics, The Triggering Town (1979), Richard Hugo, makes a persuasive argument that “[y]our triggering subjects are those that ignite your need for words. When you are honest to your feel¬ings, that triggering town chooses you.” So if I’m lucky, I write passed the “triggering town” to the essence of the poem which is always a surprise. The poem takes on its own life as I stand out of the way.
Typically a poem begins as I hear it—in a fury, somewhere between clear thinking and the subconscious. Many take years. All take time in the editing process. Something I am working out in my life or a quarrel with myself triggers the poem(s). Like a ghost of an idea but more like an obsession. In his book on poetics, The Triggering Town (1979), Richard Hugo, makes a persuasive argument that “[y]our triggering subjects are those that ignite your need for words. When you are honest to your feel¬ings, that triggering town chooses you.” So if I’m lucky, I write passed the “triggering town” to the essence of the poem which is always a surprise. The poem takes on its own life as I stand out of the way.
Michael Chang : part one
What are you working on?
I have a lot going on! I am doing a fiction workshop with Bryan Washington as part of the Miami Writers Institute. I am this year’s Kundiman Scholar, so I am very grateful to Kundiman and the Miami Book Fair for inviting me to participate.
I am also taking a terrific course with Cooper Lee Bombardier called “Queer Bodies/Queer Forms.” This was again made possible thanks to a full-tuition scholarship. I am eternally grateful.
I am refining and will be teaching a course called Politics, Desire, and the Politics of Desire. It’s going to be an exciting ride, so stay tuned for that. I cover coming-of-age, gender & sexuality, family, food, the political, sex & shame, myth-making . . . it will be great fun to share my passions with folks.
I am moreover working on a full-length poetry manuscript that serves both as a love letter to America and an attempt to hold America to account. It really challenges impressions of what a queer, gender non-conforming, Azn writer should and can write about. It is a reckoning with America, boldly standing for the proposition that if you love something, it is your obligation and imperative to critique it.
Looking ahead, I will continue to riff on core themes of Americana, rebuilding our country in a post-Trump era, and—most importantly—unabashed self-love. In calling forth a new America, we won’t apologize.
Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Dale Tracy : part two
What are you working on?
I’m organizing a manuscript focused on the feeling of being a broken-down machine tethered to a fence that is, however, also broken-down.
I’m organizing a manuscript focused on the feeling of being a broken-down machine tethered to a fence that is, however, also broken-down.
Tuesday, 28 July 2020
Calibna J. Kerr : part four
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Every writer, author, poet has inspiration, one of my poems is entitled ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ and this forms a key part of the construction of ‘Grenade Rain Dance.’ Inspiration is key to developing ideas, and of course this then shapes how you approach your content or subject matter. A key poet that has always played a role in my development is Charles Bukowski, there is simply a rawness to his verse that other poets seem to lack. The Beats as well of course, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs, have been really instrumental in how I create specific images, and approach form. More local to me, Benjamin Zephaniah, played a key role in my development, as he taught me that words are the best form of communication, and change can be achieved through the written word. But most recently, I think the best poet writing today by a country mile, is Kate Tempest. She has what the others don’t. ‘Let them eat Chaos’ for example, is raw and cuts to the point quickly, exploring a plethora of images that her audience are able to relate to, and that is something that I often return to.
Every writer, author, poet has inspiration, one of my poems is entitled ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ and this forms a key part of the construction of ‘Grenade Rain Dance.’ Inspiration is key to developing ideas, and of course this then shapes how you approach your content or subject matter. A key poet that has always played a role in my development is Charles Bukowski, there is simply a rawness to his verse that other poets seem to lack. The Beats as well of course, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs, have been really instrumental in how I create specific images, and approach form. More local to me, Benjamin Zephaniah, played a key role in my development, as he taught me that words are the best form of communication, and change can be achieved through the written word. But most recently, I think the best poet writing today by a country mile, is Kate Tempest. She has what the others don’t. ‘Let them eat Chaos’ for example, is raw and cuts to the point quickly, exploring a plethora of images that her audience are able to relate to, and that is something that I often return to.
Monday, 27 July 2020
Jacqueline Valencia : coda
How do you know when a poem is finished?
Good question! I feel like it's like the construction of a sentence. I have to have certain parts for the overall work to satisfy what I'm trying to say. It's hit or miss if I accomplish it sometimes. But I know it's the end when I can walk away from it.
Good question! I feel like it's like the construction of a sentence. I have to have certain parts for the overall work to satisfy what I'm trying to say. It's hit or miss if I accomplish it sometimes. But I know it's the end when I can walk away from it.
Sunday, 26 July 2020
Jonathan Andrew Pérez : part three
What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
Status is an artificial construct of society legislating difference, legislating meaning and discovering binaries. But poetry simultaneously creates worlds through process, like synchronicity, or dreaming, and in that world, the details emerge, and the poem feels real but is in reality actually strange.
Status is an artificial construct of society legislating difference, legislating meaning and discovering binaries. But poetry simultaneously creates worlds through process, like synchronicity, or dreaming, and in that world, the details emerge, and the poem feels real but is in reality actually strange.
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