Barbara Leonhard : part three

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

The greatest challenge with poetry for me is writing it. I get distracted by my daily life. Cooking, cleaning, interacting with people, keeping up with the news, and all that we do to manage our lives. I need nuggets of inspiration and quiet time to spark poems. The pandemic has helped keep me inside and in touch with my deep self. I think my monastic existence enabled me to write my poetry book, Three Penny-Memories: A Poetic Memoir, which is forth-coming from IEF (Experiments in Fiction) this fall. 

Moreover, once I write a poem, I do a great deal of revising, wordsmithing, and refining of format. You might say that I communicate with the poem. I don’t consider myself prolific as I need time to remaster first drafts. I go for quality, not quantity. 

Another challenge I face is digging in deep for the truth. Sometimes I feel blocked by my topic as I can’t face the truth or fear offending someone. When I was writing Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir, I grappled with the taboo notion that I might not love the woman my mother was becoming due to Alzheimer’s. I was her caregiver. I realized she couldn’t live with me as I had a full-time job. My husband was at home teaching music lessons daily and it would have been unfair to him to make him responsible for her. And we had stairs she couldn’t manage. All through out my care and oversight, I felt incompetent. Maybe this is how she felt raising seven children. Maybe she had to love me regardless. I wanted to share my heartfelt journey with her into her end of days. This required examining our relationship honestly. I tend to be codependent, so my fears of displeasing people blocked me. Once I let go of those fears, I realized how powerful poetry based on authentic truth is. 

Katerina Canyon : part one

Katerina Canyon grew up in Los Angeles and much of her writing reflects that experience. 

She is a 2021, 2020, and 2019 Pushcart Prize Nominee. Her stories have been published in The New York Times and The Huffington Post. 

Her first book, Changing the Lines, was released in August 2017. This work is a conversation between mother and daughter as they examine what it means to operate within the world as black women.

From 2000 to 2003, she served as the Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga. During that time, she started a poetry festival and ran several poetry readings. She has a B.A. in English, International Studies and Creative Writing from Saint Louis University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. 

Katerina Canyon currently lives in Seattle. She now works to improve the lives of children. She also helps others by promoting and teaching poetry. 

Readers can connect with Katerina Canyon on Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and Facebook. To learn more, go to https://www.poetickat.com/   

What are you working on?

I am working on two things. I am currently revising a novel I wrote. I am also working on a new collection of poetry focused on the history of Black people in this country. 

Heather Haley : part one

Heather Haley pushes boundaries by creatively integrating disciplines, genres and media. Her writing has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, she was Poetry Editor for the LA Weekly and publisher of The Edgewise Café, one of Canada’s first electronic literary magazines. Haley has directed numerous videopoems, official selections at dozens of international film festivals. Renowned as an engaging performer, she’s toured Canada, the U.S and Europe in support of two critically acclaimed AURAL Heather CDs of spoken word song, Princess Nut and Surfing Season. She is the author of debut novel, The Town Slut's Daughter, with a stage adaptation in the works, plus poetry collections Sideways, Three Blocks West of Wonderland and Skookum Raven.

What are you working on?

Despite myriad distractions and obligations, a new collection of poems, working title, Ask Alexa. I hope to have the manuscript completed by spring of 2023 and as usual, I’m likely being wildly optimistic.

Jared Povanda : part one

Jared Povanda is a writer, poet, and freelance editor from upstate New York. He has been nominated multiple times for Best of the Net and Best Microfiction, and his work has been published or is forthcoming in literary journals including Wigleaf, The Citron Review, and Milk Candy Review. You can find him online @JaredPovanda, jaredpovandawriting.wordpress.com, and in the Poets & Writers Directory

What are you working on?

Currently, single poems. I find myself getting drawn to a few images I can’t get out of my head: mainly, people alone in nature. People reckoning with nature. This reckoning can result in rebirth or in destruction of some sort, but regardless of where the speakers of my poems end up, I’ve been having a lot of fun writing poems that require people to confront their own smallness within a much bigger world. Sometimes the isolation nature provides is a curse, and sometimes it is a gift, and it’s great to explore both sides of that dichotomy. 

Rachel Mallalieu : part three

How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you work ideas and poems with?

I’ve always been a solitary writer. I do run things by my husband and dad. When I need a more objective view point, I run them by my mentor and friend Matthew Lippman.

Andrew Williams : part two

How did you first engage with poetry?

I began reading and writing poetry when I was nearing the completion of my PhD at Bangor University (Wales) in theology. But as soon as I became interested in it, I began reading voraciously. I read William Shakespeare to William Blake to William Wordsworth all the way to reading the contemporary William (Billy) Collins. If I remember correctly, I believe it was Collins’ popular anthology Poetry 180 that introduced me to contemporary poetry. 

Jennifer Bartlett : part twelve

Why is poetry important? 

I don't mean to be grumpy, but in the USA poetry is NOT important. It is important in the since of giving the reader an outlet, but David Lehman is in charge (and others) and they are never going to highlight queer/disabled/experimental poets in the New Yorker. Actually no disability poet has ever been in the New Yorker. the gate keepers keep the gates. After spending time in Iceland, I always say "in the USA" because we are not the world.