Jessica Barksdale Inclán : part five

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

For years and years (about fifteen) I ordered the poetry anthology 180 More edited by Billy Collins for my freshman composition classes. My department was totally against teaching poetry in composition classes, but I always ended with a poetry paper. My students always loved that collection. They were sometimes stunned by how much they enjoyed the poems. And there are poems in that collection that I see as old friends. Each semester, I’d open up that book and feel relieved to see Hate Poem by Julie Sheehan and On Parting by Cate Marvin and Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy. Old friends who sustained me and my students.

Jessica Barksdale Inclán : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

I don’t think anything is difficult about writing poetry, but I think writing really good poems is rare, a miracle, a gift. Writing good poems is hard. I would say maybe one in twenty poems is really worth beating into shape. But it’s the writing of those pretty terrible poems that leads to the good ones. So every day, I keep flexing my poetry muscles, waiting for the one worth keeping. 

Jessica Barksdale Inclán : part three

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

Poetry can tell it all, often in one shape, on one page, even. Poetry can also take huge risks with sentences, words, and layout. Poetry can also hold so many things in one small container: voice, imagery, sensory detail, narrative.

Jessica Barksdale Inclán : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

It sounds right with my eye. I can see its wholeness. It resounds, all of it. It’s a feeling, a done poem. A sound and a feeling. So unhelpful! But I think every poet knows what I’m trying to say—it’s the same thing as when we listen to a completely successful poem while at a reading. It’s like a bell ringing.

Jessica Barksdale Inclán : part one

Jessica Barksdale Inclán is the author of fifteen novels, including the award-winning The Burning Hour as well as Her Daughter's Eyes, The Matter of Grace, and When You Believe. Her debut poetry collection, When We Almost Drowned, was published by Finishing Line Press in March 2019. Her second poetry book, Grim Honey, was published on April 1, 2021. Barksdale Inclán’s short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in the Waccamaw Journal, Salt Hill Journal, Tahoma Review, and So to Speak. Her work has also been recognized and honored by The Sewanee Review, The Wigleaf, The North American Review, and The Ocotillo Review. A Pushcart Prize, Million Writers Award, and Best-of-the-Net nominee, Barksdale Inclán was an English professor at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, for thirty-one years, and continues to teach novel writing for UCLA Extension and the MFA program for Southern New Hampshire University. She holds an MA in English Literature from San Francisco State University and an MFA from the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.

What are you working on?

Currently I’m writing a poem a day with Two Sylvias Press for National Poetry Month. I love prompts. They take me completely out of my stomping grounds and force me to be original (at least to myself).

In prose, I’m writing a novel that I’ve been meaning to write for decades, but one I could not have written if I hadn’t written a failed novel (for five years!), one that only scratched the surface of the main story I’m writing now.