What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?
Maximum density of signification.
Sunday, 9 December 2018
Saturday, 8 December 2018
Erin Bedford : part four
How important is music to your poetry?
Very. I started paying close attention to phrasing and wordplay when I listened to music as a teenager and the singer-songwriters I usually listened to made me realize words didn’t have to be put together logically or rationally to make very real statements. Now, I almost always use music as assisted-entry into the particular emotions I need to write poetry.
Very. I started paying close attention to phrasing and wordplay when I listened to music as a teenager and the singer-songwriters I usually listened to made me realize words didn’t have to be put together logically or rationally to make very real statements. Now, I almost always use music as assisted-entry into the particular emotions I need to write poetry.
Friday, 7 December 2018
Andrea Blythe : part five
How do you know when a poem is finished?
I go through a few points of “completion” while composing a poem — when each stage of drafting is finished and when the poem itself is ready to share with others. I call drafting a completion, because as I’m loosing words onto a page I will inevitably reach a point of emptying. Everything I needed to say at that moment has been said and the poem in its rough, ungainly state is good enough for now.
Sometimes all a poem will need is a single draft along with some minor tinkering, sometimes this process of emptying myself is repeated multiple times as I figure out what the poem is meant to be (in some cases over a matter of years). Eventually, the poem will reach a stage at which I’m willing to send it out into the world, the point at which I suppose it could be called complete. This is governed in part by trust in my gut feeling cultivated through years of trying, failing, and trying again. Though, if I were to sum up what this feeling means, I would say that a “completed” poem has a kind of smooth roundness to it — the words, lines, imagery, beginning, and end all sitting comfortably within the curve of the whole.
I go through a few points of “completion” while composing a poem — when each stage of drafting is finished and when the poem itself is ready to share with others. I call drafting a completion, because as I’m loosing words onto a page I will inevitably reach a point of emptying. Everything I needed to say at that moment has been said and the poem in its rough, ungainly state is good enough for now.
Sometimes all a poem will need is a single draft along with some minor tinkering, sometimes this process of emptying myself is repeated multiple times as I figure out what the poem is meant to be (in some cases over a matter of years). Eventually, the poem will reach a stage at which I’m willing to send it out into the world, the point at which I suppose it could be called complete. This is governed in part by trust in my gut feeling cultivated through years of trying, failing, and trying again. Though, if I were to sum up what this feeling means, I would say that a “completed” poem has a kind of smooth roundness to it — the words, lines, imagery, beginning, and end all sitting comfortably within the curve of the whole.
Alina Pleskova : part three
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
Because my poems are entirely written w/ a first-person speaker, & very feelings-driven, it's difficult convincing myself that anyone else might care, or be interested. It's difficult to forget the word 'myopic'. Workshop experiences with [stodgy older white male] professors did a number on me, & the effects still linger.
When I see other poems that seem comfortable in/with their interiority, I relax, too. I think, "Hello, I'm waving to you from inside this poem."
Because my poems are entirely written w/ a first-person speaker, & very feelings-driven, it's difficult convincing myself that anyone else might care, or be interested. It's difficult to forget the word 'myopic'. Workshop experiences with [stodgy older white male] professors did a number on me, & the effects still linger.
When I see other poems that seem comfortable in/with their interiority, I relax, too. I think, "Hello, I'm waving to you from inside this poem."
Thursday, 6 December 2018
Nancy Jo Cullen : part five
How do you know when a poem is finished?
I don’t think there’s a specific answer to that. Sometimes I know a poem finished and I’m right. Sometimes I think a poem is finished and then I come back to it and it still wants some more work. Sometimes I stop even though the poem’s not finished because I don’t know where to go next. In that case it may be years before I come back to that poem.
I don’t think there’s a specific answer to that. Sometimes I know a poem finished and I’m right. Sometimes I think a poem is finished and then I come back to it and it still wants some more work. Sometimes I stop even though the poem’s not finished because I don’t know where to go next. In that case it may be years before I come back to that poem.
Sarah Nichols : part one
How Important is Music to Your Poetry?
Music plays an enormous role in my work, and I think that that influence has grown deeper within the past few years. I read song lyrics of my favorite artists, and I write about my connections (or obsessions) with the music that I’ve listened to for over thirty years. Since 2016, I have written, and published, an elegy for David Bowie, and my experience with the Post-punk band Joy Division. I have also had the opportunity to write micro-cnf essays on specific albums for the RS 500 project and the journal Memoir Mixtapes. I can’t play music, or read it, but I think that this is another way into it. Along with reading and writing, the music I love has been there, working as a balm or asking me to explore it on a deeper level.
Wednesday, 5 December 2018
Courtney Bates-Hardy : 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 just started another writer's group after a year or two without one. There was a while when I was being very protective of my new work, in an attempt to get it down on paper before I scared it off, but I'm at the point now in the manuscript where I feel confident sharing it with others.
I just started another writer's group after a year or two without one. There was a while when I was being very protective of my new work, in an attempt to get it down on paper before I scared it off, but I'm at the point now in the manuscript where I feel confident sharing it with others.
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