How did you first engage with poetry?
I believe I first started to seriously consider poetry through song lyrics. I loved the booklets that came with cassette tapes and CDs I was gifted or purchased. They were beautiful with their small pages and tiny fonts. I always open them up and peruse them as a body of work in themselves and felt terrible disappointment when the books did not feature written lyrics. Reading the songs as individual pieces, observing how the lines were broken, noticing the use or lack of punctuation, seeing how some rhymed and some did not — in whole, the way lyrics existed as written words unveiled a new understanding separate from the performative nature of the song itself. This exploration led me to perusing and picking up books of poetry at the library and discovering many new voices.
Friday, 30 November 2018
Alina Pleskova : part two
How do you know when a poem is finished?
When it's time to do something else. Jack Spicer: "Poetry ends like a rope."
When it's time to do something else. Jack Spicer: "Poetry ends like a rope."
Thursday, 29 November 2018
Nancy Jo Cullen : part four
How did you first engage with poetry?
I first engaged with poetry because I had a broken heart and I suppose they functioned as a diary of sorts, those poems. But then I realized I wanted to actually write something that was at least half way decent and I started reading poetry and thinking about poetry.
I first engaged with poetry because I had a broken heart and I suppose they functioned as a diary of sorts, those poems. But then I realized I wanted to actually write something that was at least half way decent and I started reading poetry and thinking about poetry.
Wednesday, 28 November 2018
Nisa Malli : part five
How does a poem begin?
My poems usually begin with a half line prompt drifting through my head that I discard later once I’m in the thick of it.
My poems usually begin with a half line prompt drifting through my head that I discard later once I’m in the thick of it.
Courtney Bates-Hardy : part two
How do you know when a poem is finished?
When the book is out. I didn't stop tinkering with my first book until it was already out.
When the book is out. I didn't stop tinkering with my first book until it was already out.
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
Dominik Parisien : part five
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
Fighting the narrative impulse. For poems dealing with disability: allowing for emotional vulnerability without letting it overwhelm the piece.
Fighting the narrative impulse. For poems dealing with disability: allowing for emotional vulnerability without letting it overwhelm the piece.
Connie Voisine : part four
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
Once I find the line of a poem, the rest of it all kind of slides into place. But until I do, tone is messy, the images don’t necessary cohere, and the poem floats around like some kind of amoeba with me twisting the focus this way and that, closing one eye to see better, walking away.
Also, I don’t enjoy being done with a poem. I feel as if it’s over, our sweet little troubled relationship, and I won’t have that experience again. I miss the poem when I am done
Once I find the line of a poem, the rest of it all kind of slides into place. But until I do, tone is messy, the images don’t necessary cohere, and the poem floats around like some kind of amoeba with me twisting the focus this way and that, closing one eye to see better, walking away.
Also, I don’t enjoy being done with a poem. I feel as if it’s over, our sweet little troubled relationship, and I won’t have that experience again. I miss the poem when I am done
Monday, 26 November 2018
Catherine Graham : part five
How does a poem begin?
With a glimpse—through image, sound, emotion—that demands your attention having triggered the inner life.
With a glimpse—through image, sound, emotion—that demands your attention having triggered the inner life.
Melissa Eleftherion : part one
What are you working on?
I just finished a 30/30 project called The Poeming where myself and 30 other poets wrote 31 erasures based on the work of Seanan McGuire. Since I enjoy the playfulness and the serendipitous nature of found poems, I decided to keep up the daily praxis by writing more erasures, this time based on James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime, a book that angers me deeply for its subjugation of women. Found poems can have the uncanny ability to strike at the core of the unconscious tenor of what’s happening, whether in the world, the mind, or the body. I like experimenting with the treasures resonant in someone else’s language.
Sunday, 25 November 2018
Stephen Cain : part two
How does a poem begin?
Usually with a pun or alliterative phrase that I can’t get out of my head.
Usually with a pun or alliterative phrase that I can’t get out of my head.
Saturday, 24 November 2018
Jónína Kirton : part five
How does a poem begin?
Often, they introduce themselves with an opening line that will present itself over and over. Heard as a call to engage with pen and paper it takes me into writing. Some poems are more difficult to enter. When writing to a theme it can take some time to find that first line. I must first do research on the subject and spend time contemplating what I am learning and/or feeling as I explore the theme. This is a potent time that must be honoured. It may look like I am doing nothing, but I am in reality floating with what some might call the muse. It is not unlike tender lovemaking. It cannot be rushed.
Often, they introduce themselves with an opening line that will present itself over and over. Heard as a call to engage with pen and paper it takes me into writing. Some poems are more difficult to enter. When writing to a theme it can take some time to find that first line. I must first do research on the subject and spend time contemplating what I am learning and/or feeling as I explore the theme. This is a potent time that must be honoured. It may look like I am doing nothing, but I am in reality floating with what some might call the muse. It is not unlike tender lovemaking. It cannot be rushed.
Erin Bedford : part two
How did you first engage with poetry?
My first serious engagement with poetry happened during my early twenties when the man who would turn out to be my writing muse for fifteen years quoted Yeats’ Easter, 1916 in a letter he wrote to me. I still wonder, if a person I was not in unrequited love with had done so, would I have fallen for poetry the same?
Friday, 23 November 2018
Andrea Blythe : part three
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Oh, so many — I could almost say that just about every poet I read does this for me, although a few immediately jump to mind.
Pablo Neruda provided me entry into lush language, the kind that expresses a passion for life and the details of the world at large, from a love of socks to the beauty of beasts in the wild. He makes me want to infuse my own words with the same level of passion.
Erasure poetry is a significant part of my practice, and I credit Mary Ruefle with revealing the technique to me. Her book A Little White Shadow presents a beautiful erasure of a nineteenth century books, which pretty much made my head explode when I first read it. It allowed me to re-examine what poetry is defined as.
Ron Padget introduced me to humor in poetry. He often plays with language in his poems, just delighting in the sound and texture of the language.
And then, there’s Laura Madeline Wiseman. As collaborators, we simultaneously write and edit pieces, and so I’ve been able to witness her process and how she approaches language. I find myself continually learning and expanding how I work with words through these interactions. I feel as though I’ve grown significantly as a poet since we’ve started working together.
Oh, so many — I could almost say that just about every poet I read does this for me, although a few immediately jump to mind.
Pablo Neruda provided me entry into lush language, the kind that expresses a passion for life and the details of the world at large, from a love of socks to the beauty of beasts in the wild. He makes me want to infuse my own words with the same level of passion.
Erasure poetry is a significant part of my practice, and I credit Mary Ruefle with revealing the technique to me. Her book A Little White Shadow presents a beautiful erasure of a nineteenth century books, which pretty much made my head explode when I first read it. It allowed me to re-examine what poetry is defined as.
Ron Padget introduced me to humor in poetry. He often plays with language in his poems, just delighting in the sound and texture of the language.
And then, there’s Laura Madeline Wiseman. As collaborators, we simultaneously write and edit pieces, and so I’ve been able to witness her process and how she approaches language. I find myself continually learning and expanding how I work with words through these interactions. I feel as though I’ve grown significantly as a poet since we’ve started working together.
Alina Pleskova : part one
What are you working on?
I was working on a sort of ethnography of desire. I sent a short survey to a couple dozen people-- internet strangers, friends, former lovers, current lovers, etc.-- & asked them (among other things) what they desired, how & when & if desire ends. I've been thinking about desire's mutability, duality, voraciousness, what it looks like in the current cultural climate & in late capitalism & in a body/mind in the aftermath of traumas, how it fractures, how it can become hierarchical, etc. I wanted to write into that & include many other voices, a sort of riff on A Lover's Discourse, as part of a suite of poems I've been working on about fraught intimacies. But it's sort of on hold while I get my bearings. Desire in any form, even a messy one, is a difficult head space to access in light of the news recently. One thing I noticed, in the survey results I've gotten so far, is how often people want to leave their bodies entirely.
Thursday, 22 November 2018
Nancy Jo Cullen : 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?
When I am ready to share a poem the first person who reads the poem is my partner. She has an excellent eye and is a great help. I’ve recently joined a small group of poets here in Kingston and we read each other’s work and I’m so not a joiner but it is the best thing ever. I’m so grateful they invited me to join them and I’m patting myself on the back for having the wisdom to say yes.
When I am ready to share a poem the first person who reads the poem is my partner. She has an excellent eye and is a great help. I’ve recently joined a small group of poets here in Kingston and we read each other’s work and I’m so not a joiner but it is the best thing ever. I’m so grateful they invited me to join them and I’m patting myself on the back for having the wisdom to say yes.
Wednesday, 21 November 2018
Nisa Malli : part four
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Anne Boyer, Anne Carson, Anne-Marie Turza, Elizabeth Phillip, Emma Healey, Gwendolyn Macewen, Karen Solie, Kaveh Akbar, Leah Horlick, Melissa Stein, Sylvia Legris....
Anne Boyer, Anne Carson, Anne-Marie Turza, Elizabeth Phillip, Emma Healey, Gwendolyn Macewen, Karen Solie, Kaveh Akbar, Leah Horlick, Melissa Stein, Sylvia Legris....
Courtney Bates-Hardy : part one
Photo credit: Ali Lauren Creative Services
What are you working on?
I’m currently working on my second collection of poetry, which is tentatively titled The Anatomy of a Monster. My first book, House of Mystery was all about fairy tales and the various transformations of life, but this collection is mostly about monsters and anatomy and death and injury and recovery.
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Dominik Parisien : part four
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
Early on I didn’t think elements relating to identity could be the subject of poetry. When I was younger I never saw myself or people like me - disabled, queer, bilingual - reflected in the work we studied. The disabled body and disability experience in particular never seemed worthy of poetry. When I was finally introduced to disability poetics, and to the study of gender and sexuality, it opened up the world to me. Poetry expanded from language, psychology, and imagery to include experience, identity, and the political.
Early on I didn’t think elements relating to identity could be the subject of poetry. When I was younger I never saw myself or people like me - disabled, queer, bilingual - reflected in the work we studied. The disabled body and disability experience in particular never seemed worthy of poetry. When I was finally introduced to disability poetics, and to the study of gender and sexuality, it opened up the world to me. Poetry expanded from language, psychology, and imagery to include experience, identity, and the political.
Connie Voisine : part three
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Anne Carson taught me how to think in a poem.
Gwendolyn Brooks taught me how to think and sing.
George Herbert taught me how to doubt in a poem.
Anne Carson taught me how to think in a poem.
Gwendolyn Brooks taught me how to think and sing.
George Herbert taught me how to doubt in a poem.
Monday, 19 November 2018
Catherine Graham : part four
Why is poetry important?
Poetry is like the crack of language (and craic!). Words meet and explosions happen. Poetry elicits more with less and refuses to be caged. It isn’t afraid of feelings or engaging with mysteries. Poetry embraces clarity and ambiguity. It’s a place of edges, thresholds, encounters. Silence and pulse.
Poetry is like the crack of language (and craic!). Words meet and explosions happen. Poetry elicits more with less and refuses to be caged. It isn’t afraid of feelings or engaging with mysteries. Poetry embraces clarity and ambiguity. It’s a place of edges, thresholds, encounters. Silence and pulse.
Sunday, 18 November 2018
Mugabi Byenkya : coda
“Literary serotonin floods my brain
The bane of my existence is causing me pain
No dame, no pain, the old tune wanes as I let the neural rain
Arraign my brain
I think I just came” – Mugabi Byenkya
The bane of my existence is causing me pain
No dame, no pain, the old tune wanes as I let the neural rain
Arraign my brain
I think I just came” – Mugabi Byenkya
Stephen Cain : part one
Photo Credit: Sharon Harris
What are you working on?
A new collection of poetry, a triptych of serial poems, currently under the title Walking & Stealing. A play about Rene Daumal and Roger Gilbert-Lecomte of Le Grand Jeu, and an essay on Daphne Marlatt and geologic space.
Saturday, 17 November 2018
Jónína Kirton : part four
How important is music to your poetry?
It is essential. I use a variety of music to enter my poet mind and to bring forth the memories or feelings that I want to bring into a poem. Like poetry, music enters our body and takes us on a journey which at times feels like time travel. Hearing certain songs suddenly I am twenty-three at The Zoo listening to Streetheart or Barrelhouse or at Bogart’s Nightclub disco dancing to Lionel Richie. Sometimes the lyrics provide powerful writing prompts. Other times it is the music that transports me to the place where memory and creativity merge.
I have been listening to healing ragas and chanting music for thirty years now. I experience the sound of the tap, tap, tap of finger tips and palms on the various drums as an invitation to be fearless when dealing with difficult themes like loss. At times the healing nature of the slow, steady call and response rhythm of the chants can be felt in my writing. Other times I find that the Metis fiddle and the movement of my feet brings words that are dancing the jig. When writing of my twenties I might listen to Steely Dan. Elvis Presley is pre-teen, and such dreamy stuff for me. Occasionally, I need something big and theatrical like The Phantom of the Opera or Meatloaf to elicit passion and longing. Whatever I am listening to informs the writing I do. Knowing this I become my own DJ developing playlists that will bring forth the right feeling tone to whatever I am working on.
It is essential. I use a variety of music to enter my poet mind and to bring forth the memories or feelings that I want to bring into a poem. Like poetry, music enters our body and takes us on a journey which at times feels like time travel. Hearing certain songs suddenly I am twenty-three at The Zoo listening to Streetheart or Barrelhouse or at Bogart’s Nightclub disco dancing to Lionel Richie. Sometimes the lyrics provide powerful writing prompts. Other times it is the music that transports me to the place where memory and creativity merge.
I have been listening to healing ragas and chanting music for thirty years now. I experience the sound of the tap, tap, tap of finger tips and palms on the various drums as an invitation to be fearless when dealing with difficult themes like loss. At times the healing nature of the slow, steady call and response rhythm of the chants can be felt in my writing. Other times I find that the Metis fiddle and the movement of my feet brings words that are dancing the jig. When writing of my twenties I might listen to Steely Dan. Elvis Presley is pre-teen, and such dreamy stuff for me. Occasionally, I need something big and theatrical like The Phantom of the Opera or Meatloaf to elicit passion and longing. Whatever I am listening to informs the writing I do. Knowing this I become my own DJ developing playlists that will bring forth the right feeling tone to whatever I am working on.
Erin Bedford : part one
What are you working on?
As is the case with most writers, I am always working on getting previously-written work published. The first is a novel set in York in the early nineteenth century. The second is a complete manuscript of poems that explore human relationships through hendiadys. For all who aren’t total word nerds, hendiadys is a figure of speech that makes use of conjunction (and) to allow two words to unify as a single concept without using one to modify or subordinate the other.
I am also writing new poems and working on an essay about my experience of getting a massage from my ex-husband’s new girlfriend.
Friday, 16 November 2018
Andrea Blythe : part two
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
Definitely. The way I read, write, and perceive poetry is constantly changing. Years ago, I took a post-modern poetry class in college and it blew my mind, expanding my conception of what a poem could be, opening new doors into approaching poetry. As I continue to read both contemporary and past poets, I discover more and more ways that poetry can use words to draw out emotion or intellectual discourse. I am continually fascinated by the structural forms and styles that poets use, by the unique choices of words, phrases, or dialect. I am so inspired by the poets around me.
Definitely. The way I read, write, and perceive poetry is constantly changing. Years ago, I took a post-modern poetry class in college and it blew my mind, expanding my conception of what a poem could be, opening new doors into approaching poetry. As I continue to read both contemporary and past poets, I discover more and more ways that poetry can use words to draw out emotion or intellectual discourse. I am continually fascinated by the structural forms and styles that poets use, by the unique choices of words, phrases, or dialect. I am so inspired by the poets around me.
Thursday, 15 November 2018
Nancy Jo Cullen : part two
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
I absolutely love Billy Rae Belcourt’s This Wound is a World. Danez Smith’s Do Not Call us Dead, Marie Howe’s Magdalene. Three books I’ve read this year that I’ve really loved.
I absolutely love Billy Rae Belcourt’s This Wound is a World. Danez Smith’s Do Not Call us Dead, Marie Howe’s Magdalene. Three books I’ve read this year that I’ve really loved.
Wednesday, 14 November 2018
Nisa Malli : part three
How do you know when a poem is finished?
When you cannot imagine reading it any other way and no parts of it stick on your tongue.
When you cannot imagine reading it any other way and no parts of it stick on your tongue.
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Canisia Lubrin : part six
Why is poetry important?
Poetry opens at the edge of further possibility because it’s raw materials is the whole of life. Big, unknowable, loveable, ever-expanding, terrifying life.
Poetry opens at the edge of further possibility because it’s raw materials is the whole of life. Big, unknowable, loveable, ever-expanding, terrifying life.
Dominik Parisien : part three
When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
I return to the poetry of Jim Ferris over and over again - The Hospital Poems and Slouching Towards Guantanamo especially. It drives me forward in my own work, particularly in times where I am in a great deal of pain or my disability has been manifesting in very public ways (convulsing in public, losing consciousness, etc). The anthology Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry is Disability is another source of renewal. Tainaron: Mail From Another City by Finish author Leena Krohn is a grounding text. Tainaron isn’t poetry, although it is quiet, imagistic, poetic, obsessed with metamorphosis, and it fires up my imagination in ways nothing else does.
I return to the poetry of Jim Ferris over and over again - The Hospital Poems and Slouching Towards Guantanamo especially. It drives me forward in my own work, particularly in times where I am in a great deal of pain or my disability has been manifesting in very public ways (convulsing in public, losing consciousness, etc). The anthology Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry is Disability is another source of renewal. Tainaron: Mail From Another City by Finish author Leena Krohn is a grounding text. Tainaron isn’t poetry, although it is quiet, imagistic, poetic, obsessed with metamorphosis, and it fires up my imagination in ways nothing else does.
Connie Voisine : part two
What are you working on?
I had a chapbook come out recently and a book is being printed as I type. I have been wanting to tell a long story about addiction, about opioids in rural America (where I am from) and the women who keep their children alive. I don’t know where that is going or how it’s going to happen, but mostly I don’t understand these days the border between fiction and nonfiction.
I had a chapbook come out recently and a book is being printed as I type. I have been wanting to tell a long story about addiction, about opioids in rural America (where I am from) and the women who keep their children alive. I don’t know where that is going or how it’s going to happen, but mostly I don’t understand these days the border between fiction and nonfiction.
Monday, 12 November 2018
Catherine Graham : part three
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
I had the honour of returning twice these past nine months to read at various venues in Northern Ireland where I lived for many years after completing an MA in Creative Writing. During my recent time there, I connected with poets familiar and new. I’m reading their work now: Kathleen McCracken’s Selected, Joan Newmann’s Dead End, Kate Newmann’s I Am a Horse, Mel McMahon’s Beneath Our Feet, Moyra Donaldson’s Selected Poems, Julie Morrissy’s I Am Where, Michael Longley’s Angel Hill.
I had the honour of returning twice these past nine months to read at various venues in Northern Ireland where I lived for many years after completing an MA in Creative Writing. During my recent time there, I connected with poets familiar and new. I’m reading their work now: Kathleen McCracken’s Selected, Joan Newmann’s Dead End, Kate Newmann’s I Am a Horse, Mel McMahon’s Beneath Our Feet, Moyra Donaldson’s Selected Poems, Julie Morrissy’s I Am Where, Michael Longley’s Angel Hill.
Raina K. Puels : coda
In several interviews, the advice Sharon Olds gives to all writers is to take care of their bodies. To me, part of this is ensuring my reproductive health and rights. I’m terrified that Roe V. Wade could be jeopardized if Kavanaugh or another anti-choice justice is confirmed to the Supreme Court. The best way to stop this is to vote in midterm elections this November. If we elect more pro-choice officials to the House or Senate, we have a much greater chance of stopping any bills or justices that would mean the end of Roe or access to emergency contraceptives.
While Plan B is the most convenient emergency contraception because it can be purchased over the counter or on Amazon, it has a huge issue: Plan B is only effective for those weighing 165lb or less and nearly INEFFECTIVE for anyone over 176lb. This information about weight restrictions is only available in super tiny print inside the box.
Ella is an emergency contraceptive that is effective for people of all weights, but it is typically only available with a prescription. PRJKT RUBY is an online service that allows people to access hormonal birth control and emergency contraceptives without a visiting a doctor. They offer FREE online health consultations. I highly suggest checking out their website for more information. I know this sounds like an advertisement, but I share this information in the hopes it can help poets with uteruses take and keep control of their reproductive health so they can continue to create beautiful and important art.
While Plan B is the most convenient emergency contraception because it can be purchased over the counter or on Amazon, it has a huge issue: Plan B is only effective for those weighing 165lb or less and nearly INEFFECTIVE for anyone over 176lb. This information about weight restrictions is only available in super tiny print inside the box.
Ella is an emergency contraceptive that is effective for people of all weights, but it is typically only available with a prescription. PRJKT RUBY is an online service that allows people to access hormonal birth control and emergency contraceptives without a visiting a doctor. They offer FREE online health consultations. I highly suggest checking out their website for more information. I know this sounds like an advertisement, but I share this information in the hopes it can help poets with uteruses take and keep control of their reproductive health so they can continue to create beautiful and important art.
Sunday, 11 November 2018
Mugabi Byenkya : part five
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 am often incredibly private with my work/writing process until it is published in a journal/zine/publication or shared on stage through a live reading/performance. If I’m struggling with a piece, I run it by my dogs/selves/whoever I happen to be around and that often helps me get out of my rut. I enjoy working ideas/poems with my brother who is one of my favourite writers and an inspiration along with ‘Writing While Black’ a collective of Black writers I belong to co-created by the illustrious Whitney French, that has facilitated my growth.
I am often incredibly private with my work/writing process until it is published in a journal/zine/publication or shared on stage through a live reading/performance. If I’m struggling with a piece, I run it by my dogs/selves/whoever I happen to be around and that often helps me get out of my rut. I enjoy working ideas/poems with my brother who is one of my favourite writers and an inspiration along with ‘Writing While Black’ a collective of Black writers I belong to co-created by the illustrious Whitney French, that has facilitated my growth.
Saturday, 10 November 2018
Jónína Kirton : part three
When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
At sixty-three I no longer turn to books for renewal. I turn to music or I take walks. When I need to remember why I write I find working with emerging poets and reading the poetry submissions for Room Magazine or for Turtle Island Responds brings me much needed inspiration. It is often emerging poets that restore my belief in the power of poetry to bring awareness and healing to difficult issues.
At sixty-three I no longer turn to books for renewal. I turn to music or I take walks. When I need to remember why I write I find working with emerging poets and reading the poetry submissions for Room Magazine or for Turtle Island Responds brings me much needed inspiration. It is often emerging poets that restore my belief in the power of poetry to bring awareness and healing to difficult issues.
Friday, 9 November 2018
Andrea Blythe : part one
What are you working on?
I have a number of projects floating at the same time (as per my usual). I’m currently writing and editing three chapbooks of poetry. Pantheon is a collection honoring fictional characters in pop culture, which I finished a couple of years ago and am reworking before I continue sending it out on submissions. I have another untitled collection of found poems based on Stephen King’s The Plant that’s in the works. And I’m continuing to edit a series of prose poems based on the “Twelve Dancing Princesses” fairy tale (although it’s starting to morph into something else entirely at this point). With my collaborator, Laura Madeline Wiseman, I’m working on two separate collections — a series of Valkyrie poems and a series on warrior women in history.
Outside of poetry, I have a novel and several short stories in progress. And I’m also collaborating on a musical webseries about a woman who gets dumped and turns to her puppet friends for support.
Linda Frank : part five
How important is music to your poetry?
Pretty crucial. My third book was called Insomnie Blues. An attempt to write a book that loosely followed a blues scale! The title came from a song by the same name sung by the Québecois singer Pauline Julien. It always haunted me.
Pretty crucial. My third book was called Insomnie Blues. An attempt to write a book that loosely followed a blues scale! The title came from a song by the same name sung by the Québecois singer Pauline Julien. It always haunted me.
Thursday, 8 November 2018
Nancy Jo Cullen : part one
How does a poem begin?
A poem for me usually begins for me as a phrase image that I want to explore. Sometimes I have a plan, I know what I want to get to in the poem, other times I riff on the image and one idea leads to the next until the poem is finished.
Jennifer Zilm : part five
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
Rachel Zucker’s The Pedestrians, Kim Trainor's Ledi, Carl Phillips, Sue Goyette, C.D. Wright, Ian Williams— I keep a list at https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5857664-jennifer?shelf=2018
Rachel Zucker’s The Pedestrians, Kim Trainor's Ledi, Carl Phillips, Sue Goyette, C.D. Wright, Ian Williams— I keep a list at https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5857664-jennifer?shelf=2018
Wednesday, 7 November 2018
Nisa Malli : part two
What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
In poetry, you can be unrelenting. You can hold the reader’s breath for a full page and build and dismantle tension with precise grace. It allows for hairpin turns and pivots, lets you (and the reader’s eye) turn away from something that is hard to see and turn back a line later.
As a patient, when interacting with the medical system, you have to learn the words your doctors will hear best. You’re stuck using their pain scales and the names of recognizable symptoms. In poetry, you can use your own language to render experiences comprehensible and make the reader feel, or at least imagine for a moment, the sometimes unbearable sensations of the body in pain. You can write the fiction of your body. The metaphor doesn’t have to be medically accurate, it just needs to evoke the feeling. If medicine fogs the order things happened in, it doesn’t matter. It can be someone else’s body, and in writing it so you can sometimes write it more clearly.
In poetry, you can be unrelenting. You can hold the reader’s breath for a full page and build and dismantle tension with precise grace. It allows for hairpin turns and pivots, lets you (and the reader’s eye) turn away from something that is hard to see and turn back a line later.
As a patient, when interacting with the medical system, you have to learn the words your doctors will hear best. You’re stuck using their pain scales and the names of recognizable symptoms. In poetry, you can use your own language to render experiences comprehensible and make the reader feel, or at least imagine for a moment, the sometimes unbearable sensations of the body in pain. You can write the fiction of your body. The metaphor doesn’t have to be medically accurate, it just needs to evoke the feeling. If medicine fogs the order things happened in, it doesn’t matter. It can be someone else’s body, and in writing it so you can sometimes write it more clearly.
Crystal Stone : part five
How does a poem begin?
A poem is continually happening for me. It’s how I perceive the world. I’m more often than not a silent observer in public spaces, taking notes of what’s around me. I record everything. Dialogue overheard from strangers. Dialogue directed at me from strangers, friends, or students. Quotes from poems I love. Words and images I misread into poems when I tried to move too fast. Headlines I’ve seen. Memes that seemed almost philosophical. Somewhere in the process of taking notes of all the things I witness, a poem emerges and I realize why I’ve seen all the things I have. For me, life is a living puzzle; a poem is the exploration of why and how those pieces fit together.
A poem is continually happening for me. It’s how I perceive the world. I’m more often than not a silent observer in public spaces, taking notes of what’s around me. I record everything. Dialogue overheard from strangers. Dialogue directed at me from strangers, friends, or students. Quotes from poems I love. Words and images I misread into poems when I tried to move too fast. Headlines I’ve seen. Memes that seemed almost philosophical. Somewhere in the process of taking notes of all the things I witness, a poem emerges and I realize why I’ve seen all the things I have. For me, life is a living puzzle; a poem is the exploration of why and how those pieces fit together.
Tuesday, 6 November 2018
Canisia Lubrin : part five
How important is music to your poetry?
Poetry is music-making language. The great pleasure of poetry is its world-expanding musicality.
Poetry is music-making language. The great pleasure of poetry is its world-expanding musicality.
Dominik Parisien : part two
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
Voodoo Hypothesis by Canisia Lubrin, Port of Being by Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Anatomic by Adam Dickinson, and the chapbooks From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris by Lamees Al Ethari and The Machete Tourist by John Elizabeth Stintzi.
Voodoo Hypothesis by Canisia Lubrin, Port of Being by Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Anatomic by Adam Dickinson, and the chapbooks From the Wounded Banks of the Tigris by Lamees Al Ethari and The Machete Tourist by John Elizabeth Stintzi.
Connie Voisine : part one
Connie Voisine is a poet living in New Mexico. Her recently published chapbook is And God Created Women, and she has a book-length poem, The Bower, forthcoming in 2019.How does a poem begin?
It begins with an image, an acute sense of description, that this image is felt in more dimensions than I actually know. The thinking comes later—why is a man who knocks at my door one afternoon compelling to me? How is that tactile, sensory, human moment unbearably real to me? Why? The language comes out of that overwhelming sensory experience, and revision reveals the significance of it.
Monday, 5 November 2018
Catherine Graham : part two
What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
Rip your heart out with its word-force and aural energy then put it back in before you know what happened.
Rip your heart out with its word-force and aural energy then put it back in before you know what happened.
Raina K. Puels : part five
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Under palm trees on a patio overlooking Tampa Bay, I sipped wine with a bunch of Literature PhD students. One said, “I love Maggie Nelson.” The next said, “No, I love Maggie Nelson.” And I said, “No, I really love Maggie Nelson.” It went around like that for a while until we agreed it’s become a cliché to say Maggie Nelson is your favorite writer.
In the same vein of kickass-female-scholar-writers, Jenny Boully is also fabulous and dreamy. As a fledgling undergrad I read The Body, her book-length essay composed in only in footnotes to an invisible text, and The Book of Beginnings and Endings, a book comprised solely of the beginnings and endings of essays. Boully is forever expanding and collapsing my notions of genre. I cannot recommend her most recent book Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life highly enough.
Under palm trees on a patio overlooking Tampa Bay, I sipped wine with a bunch of Literature PhD students. One said, “I love Maggie Nelson.” The next said, “No, I love Maggie Nelson.” And I said, “No, I really love Maggie Nelson.” It went around like that for a while until we agreed it’s become a cliché to say Maggie Nelson is your favorite writer.
In the same vein of kickass-female-scholar-writers, Jenny Boully is also fabulous and dreamy. As a fledgling undergrad I read The Body, her book-length essay composed in only in footnotes to an invisible text, and The Book of Beginnings and Endings, a book comprised solely of the beginnings and endings of essays. Boully is forever expanding and collapsing my notions of genre. I cannot recommend her most recent book Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life highly enough.
Sunday, 4 November 2018
Mugabi Byenkya : part four
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
Bothism by the effervescent Tanya Evanson
Flare by the intricate Camisha L. Jones
past life. by the insightful Yemisi Adeleye
Where the Sidewalk Ends by the hilarious Shel Silverstein
The Politics of Rolling Spheres by the emerging Daniel Omara
Doomed Kids by the righteous Devis Nsubuga
Yellow Pupu Poems by the provocative Kagayi Ngobi
Bothism by the effervescent Tanya Evanson
Flare by the intricate Camisha L. Jones
past life. by the insightful Yemisi Adeleye
Where the Sidewalk Ends by the hilarious Shel Silverstein
The Politics of Rolling Spheres by the emerging Daniel Omara
Doomed Kids by the righteous Devis Nsubuga
Yellow Pupu Poems by the provocative Kagayi Ngobi
Saturday, 3 November 2018
Peter Norman : part five
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
I usually have several on the go, and I dip in and out of a given collection (unless it’s a sequential narrative or for some other reason demands a cover-to-cover read). On my shelf right now: new books from Dani Couture, Phoebe Wang, and Jeff Latosik; an earlier one by Micheline Maylor; a Selected from Charles Simic and a Collected from Rita Dove.
I usually have several on the go, and I dip in and out of a given collection (unless it’s a sequential narrative or for some other reason demands a cover-to-cover read). On my shelf right now: new books from Dani Couture, Phoebe Wang, and Jeff Latosik; an earlier one by Micheline Maylor; a Selected from Charles Simic and a Collected from Rita Dove.
Jónína Kirton : part two
What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
Good poetry invites us to lean in, to be better listeners. The succinctness of it, the sparseness, leaves space for emotional truths that we may otherwise reject. It bypasses the mind, enters the body and awakens the parts of us that have been sleepwalking through life. It reminds us that other ways of knowing not only exist but are essential to our well-being.
Good poetry invites us to lean in, to be better listeners. The succinctness of it, the sparseness, leaves space for emotional truths that we may otherwise reject. It bypasses the mind, enters the body and awakens the parts of us that have been sleepwalking through life. It reminds us that other ways of knowing not only exist but are essential to our well-being.
Friday, 2 November 2018
Linda Frank : part four
When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?
In the last few years I have returned again and again to Robert Hass. It is great to have his selected The Apple Trees at Olema…handy to have all those poems in one volume when you travel!
In the last few years I have returned again and again to Robert Hass. It is great to have his selected The Apple Trees at Olema…handy to have all those poems in one volume when you travel!
Jennifer L. Knox : part thirteen
How does a poem begin?
Differently for different people. For some, it begins in a story. For others, where a story didn’t go. For others, sound. Others, the visual. Others, a feeling. Etc. For me, it’s often in misheard language (sound and sense) or compulsions (transgressive feelings).
Differently for different people. For some, it begins in a story. For others, where a story didn’t go. For others, sound. Others, the visual. Others, a feeling. Etc. For me, it’s often in misheard language (sound and sense) or compulsions (transgressive feelings).
Thursday, 1 November 2018
Jennifer Zilm : part four
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
I write in notebooks, on postcards, on scrap paper. I like to have one person to swap poems with (a poetry wife) or a small group of writers—I like a cultish, coven atmosphere.
I write in notebooks, on postcards, on scrap paper. I like to have one person to swap poems with (a poetry wife) or a small group of writers—I like a cultish, coven atmosphere.