Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
Because I have worked with some of the best poets in Canada, as a literary producer for the CBC, I have come to see the difference between the kind of poetry I write which is written to be heard and the kind of poetry that explores and experiments with the way words exist on the page, which are written to be read. I’m thinking about the kind of in-depth experimentation with syntax and semantics that you find in the work of real stunner poets like Sylvia Legris. That is quite simply outside of my skill set. I write speech. I write to be experienced sonically, and because in my mind my work exists solely in the air, I write to communicate, and whatever wit or complexity that I play with has to be accessible in the moment of hearing, and not require study on the page. I have no expectation of being re-read. What I make has to work in the time is has between utterance and reception.
No comments:
Post a Comment