Emily Izsak : part five

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

Mina Loy. Mina Loy. Mina Loy.

( http://themanygenderedmothers.blogspot.ca/2017/02/emily-izsak-on-mina-loy.html )

Emily Izsak : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Finding the words. Literally finding them. I look through so many different kinds of dictionaries (reverse, rhyming, online, print) for words that I like the sound of. I have a running list of words at the bottom of every in-progress poetry document. I spend more time looking for words than I do arranging them. 

Emily Izsak : 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 do have a group. A few groups. All of my poems are read and edited by trusted friends before they end up in print (or online) anywhere.

Emily Izsak : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

When there is at least one “special” grouping of words in it, by which I mean a phrase I’ve never heard before that makes me laugh or feel something. A punch line, I guess. If a poem is all set up and no punch line, it’s not finished.

Emily Izsak : part one

Emily Izsak is the author of Whistle Stops: A Locomotive Serial Poem (Signature Editions, 2017) and Stickup (shuffaloff/Eternal Network, 2015). Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, The Puritan, House Organ, Cough, CV2, The Doris, and The Hart House Review. In 2014 she was selected as PEN Canada’s New Voices Award nominee.

What are you working on?

I am currently working on a chapbook for above/ground press tentatively titled “25.” The press is turning 25 this year and I turned 25 in January, so I’m writing 25 poems on being 25. I am also working on a full-length collection about avian mating dances.