Wednesday 26 August 2020

Keith Leonard : part one

Keith Leonard is the author of the poetry collection Ramshackle Ode (Mainer/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). His poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in New England Review, Ploughshares, and The Believer. Keith has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Ohio Arts Council. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I’m afraid I don’t. Not really. It’s generally a vague sensation. I try to lean towards hope in my work—which is always an incomplete gesture, a feeling with a touch of mystery and momentum. For that reason, I try not to over-polish a poem—I want a line or phrase I don’t completely understand in there.

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