What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
Rimbaud’s lyricism and free spirit inspired me to write some of my first poems. Later on, Billy Collins introduced me to the short, humorous poem. I read him a long time before I found my own humorous voice in poetry. I also discovered Mary Oliver’s nature poems and was moved to write my own. I have several poems about my love of spring, even though it is a fragile beauty in the end.
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
I draw on life experience to write poetry. I have always been inspired while living in New York City. But I have spent the pandemic working remotely at my parent’s house in Connecticut. I had to draw on memory to come up with poems: I wrote about my childhood, old boyfriends, travel, even social media! I am running out of things to write about. But I will be moving back to the city once my office reopens at the end of summer. I hope to once again be inspired by random encounters in the city.
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
I began by writing many long poems about anguishing moments like a gang assault on a teenager in the Bronx and the terrorist attacks on September 11. I also wrote long poems about how my couch—where I do all my writing--is my favorite possession, how a man made fun of my disheveled appearance while I was training for my first marathon in Central Park, how I thought I was an outsider when I was growing up. I gravitated to narrative poems and still do. But now my poems are shorter, lighter, even funny. My upcoming chapbook contains poems about seeing a young topless woman walking in Central Park, seeing men in underwear as part of the No Pants Subway Ride, and being hit on by homeless men in New York City—one wanted to watch TV and hold hands, another called me Charlie’s Angels. I even have a poem about forgetting my dreams except one: I was trying to remember the name of Ken’s girlfriend. Was it Betty? No she was from the Flintstones. I woke up and instantly it came to me. Her name was Barbie.
How did you first engage with poetry?
I started writing poetry while working on a memoir about my marriage to an Israeli man and the trauma of the Gulf War. I was also the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in the Bronx, covering drugs, murders, and corruption. I had a lot of intense feeling to process and I turned to journal writing. Then poems began to appear. The poems came without struggle unlike the difficult journey to write and publish my memoir.
What are you working on?
I am working on a collection of poems that explores what it means to be a New Yorker. I often am told that I don’t seem like a New Yorker even though I have lived in Manhattan for more than 30 years. I was born in Oklahoma while my father was in the army and our family moved to Nebraska, then Ohio, before settling on Connecticut. My father took the commuter train to his office in New York City where he worked as a businessman. I was drawn to the city from a young age, inspired by my grandmother’s experience as a Rockette who performed at Radio City Music Hall. I wanted to be just like her, but I didn’t dance. I became a journalist, memoirist, and poet instead.
