Kristin Garth : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

If I don’t have an idea, it’s getting started.  Coming up with that idea out of what sometimes can feel like a void – or a distraction of the mundane that conspires against the kind of silence it takes, at least me, to be able to write.  I have to be alone.  Not physically alone in a room.  I actually like to write in coffee shops, but I need headphones.  I need music without words because I can’t have other people’s words in my head while I’m writing.  I’m really focused – or maybe I am just easily distracted.  But that’s my method.  I like to be in physical proximity to people but buried in music and my ideas.

If I have the idea, the hardest part is coming up with a good first line.  If I have a good first line and an idea, I am gold.  I have a map to where I’m going.  I know I’m going to get there.  I just have to wait it out and listen to the voice because it’s happening.

Cameron Anstee : part four

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

I have admiringly read the interviews at Sachiko Murakami’s The Hardest Thing About Being a Writer, and don’t want to repeat things that have already been so articulately discussed there. So first, I would direct anyone that hasn’t already to visit and read. On top of these things, for me, I struggle with patience (impatience), volume of projects, and time. I’m learning to sit on my work, and learning that it tends to improve when I do, but I’m also conscious of how long the first book took to write, and trying to be at peace with seeing that I might not write too many (if I even manage to write a second—the first feels like such a surprise now that it exists, I’m not quite sure how it happened). I also always try to keep in mind that the writing is just one small part of the community/continuum of small press action and people that I consider myself lucky to be connected to. There is a responsibility to be an engaged member of such communities as more than just a writer—you need to contribute in other ways. Be a chapbook maker, or run a reading series, or show up at readings and buy chapbooks, or research and write literary histories, or be a bookseller, or write reviews, or do amazing things like the CWILA count, or run magazines, or organize book fairs, etc. etc. etc. You need to find and make space for your own writing, but you also need to try to show up when you’re able and to do these other vital things. I run a very modest chapbook operation, but one that still requires a fair bit of time, and one that I feel like I never have enough time to even begin to make a dent in the list of poets I want to publish. I’m really trying to actively think about how much time I can give the press, and give my poetry, and find some kind of balance with and between the non-poetry things in my life. I see no way to write in isolation of these other things, and it is a negotiation I’m trying to figure out on a daily basis.

Joelle Barron : part three

How do you know when a poem is finished?

I don’t know if I ever feel like my poems are really finished. There’s always something I’ll change or want to change later. I used to feel like they were finished if someone published them in a journal; now I’m not even sure if they’re finished once they’re in a book!

Martha Silano : 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?

My work enters the world in myriad ways. Sometimes I am sitting in an airport and I hear something over the loudspeaker—While maintenance deals with an avionics problem …—so I get out my notebook and jot that down, then continue writing what occurs to me. Or my yoga instructor says “please refrain from efforting.” Efforting? So I go home and try to write a poem about efforting, or lack thereof. I also belong to two writing groups. They’re not critique groups; we generate new work using writing prompts—set a timer for 20 minutes, share aloud what we’ve written. These groups have been very helpful for increasing productivity and striving to make my work more enticing/lively/entertaining (having an instant audience will do that to you).  When a poem feels like it’s getting closer to being finished but I’m not sure, I often send it to a poet friend for suggestions. They’ll catch the unclear/fuzzy places, along with spelling and grammatical errors.  So yes, depending on the kindness of (once) strangers has been essential since the beginning.
  

Elisabeth Horan : part five

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

Dickinson grounds me. When I read her I realize anything is possible. She is so quiet, but loud, pastoral and lusting. My favorite feminist shut-in beauty. I wish I had known her.

Plath. Well, she is Plath. That kind of intensity, but written in such precision, awes me…

Frost. Meter, rhyme, cadence, sublime tension and subtlety. Master of words. Stopping by Woods. Knowing how to write formal poetry in a modern voice is serious business. I am in training.

Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, James Diaz, Kaveh Akbar, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Sexton, Yusef Komunyaka, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, Li-Young Lee, Robert Hayden, e.e. Cummings, Ada Limon, Lorca, Borges, so many others… I know I am forgetting. There are so many exciting things happening in the poetry community right now, everytime I read a new lit journal I learn and I am inspired.

Cassidy McFadzean : part four

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

Certain poems have meant a great deal to me at different times. One poem I would recommend and that I have returned to for consolation and fortitude is Anne Boyer’s “What Resembles the Grave But Isn’t.”

Wayde Compton : part four

How important is music to your poetry?

Not all of my poetry is based in music, but the most enjoyable part of writing poetry is when I can get it to feel similar to music. Yet I think my concrete poetry appeared as a balance against this.