Bruce Whiteman : part two

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

It has, yes, markedly. In a way, that change still reflects those two early poetic compulsions, love and something much larger and less personal. Until I was in my early thirties I wrote personal lyric poems based in my own experience, primarily of love and desire. I’d read The Cantos and Paterson and The Maximus Poems, and loved that poetry; but it did not represent an approach to form and content that I felt compelled to follow or use or imitate. But in the early 1980s I came to a point when I felt that the lyric poem was exhausted, or I was exhausted by it anyway, and I deliberately set out to locate a different and less personal kind of poem, even radically so. I was especially interested in conserving the musical aspect of verse, while finding a way to reduce my own controlling consciousness as a necessary presence in my work. So I started to write a long poem—that seemed then almost inevitable—but I chose to write it in prose poetry. No fussy decisions about line endings or indents. Just sentences. And in choosing that approach to poetic form, I was sure that I would discover a broader content as well. Which I think I did. The title of that long poem, The Invisible World Is in Decline, has, in the almost forty years I have been writing it, sometimes felt constrictive. Its theological implication never seemed very important to me, at least at the start. In any case, the lyric poem came to seem quaint and surannée, to use Baudelaire’s word, though I did eventually return to it and wrote both kinds of poem simultaneously. My long poem is now done. The final book, Book IX, will be published in the spring of 2022. 

Deborah Rosch Eifert : part five

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

Brigit Pegeen Kelly, “Song,” one of the most amazing poems of the 20th century. Rainer Maria Rilke, everything, ever. Jane Kenyon, “Let Evening Come” - so spare, but so powerful. Kenneth Koch, “Fresh Air,’” for when I am frustrated with Big Poetry Industry. Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty” and its contemporary mirror, Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish” – another of the 20th century’s best poems, in my opinion.

Monty Reid : coda

How important is music to your poetry?

Crucial.  All poems have their music, sometimes subtle, sometimes brash, and the cadence, tonal shifts, line breaks, etc all contribute to the propulsion of the poem.  And you do want it to move. 

Arden Hunter : part one

Arden Hunter is an aroace agender writer, artist and performer. With an eclectic range of interests from the horrific to the whimsical, the theme tying all of their work together is an inexplicable and unconditional love of the ridiculous beast that is called 'human'. Arden has words and art hosted by Farther from the Trees, The Bear Creek Gazette and Beir Bua, among other places. Find them on Twitter @hunterarden.

What are you working on?

I always have multiple projects on the go, but right now I’m writing a poem called, ‘Kitchen-scissor pixie’ about gender dysphoria, and another one called, ‘Sometimes I shake in the mornings,’ which looks at how our fears are embodied and entwined within us. I’m also cleaning up a few pieces that I wrote a couple weeks ago, as I tend to do the first draft then leave them alone for a while. I find it hard to edit them when they are just written as they feel a bit raw and I think I’ll mess them up with the pressure. Aside from poetry, I’m working on some speculative flash for various submission calls and an eventual collection, and the first draft of my novel; an exploration of how the objects we leave behind when we die continue to affect our loved ones. 

Perry Gasteiger : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

My mom used to read me poetry when I was a baby! She “gave” my sister and I each our own e.e cummings poem to “describe” us. Mine was “May my heart always be open to little birds”, #53 from his 100 collected poems -- I remember memorizing it by fourth grade. My mom would keep us home from school to study Brontë, Wordsworth, Eliot, and others. Poetry was always in my life, I’ve never known a time without poetry in my life.

Trish Bennett : coda

How do you know when a poem is finished?

In my eyes, a poem is never finished. I even tinker after a poem has done well in a competition. I suppose a poem is complete when there is no other way to put the point across on the page. In other words, when I give up.

Michelle Penn : part five

How does a poem begin?

It might begin with an image, an experience, something overheard, a phrase or line that suddenly comes to me. Then the writing starts, where I follow the initial idea wherever it leads. This is often quite a messy process, although every now and then, a poem arrives nearly whole. I don’t worry if it doesn’t though — I love tinkering with language and watching what develops.