What are you working on?
All sorts. Sonnet sequence, occasional poems (some with a vaguely political edge. A first for me), and a sequence based on myth inspired by Gunslinger. There’s a ‘character’ in that poem that is literally a circle of parsons, each holding a candle. It’s in the very early stages and is probably going to be quite the undertaking. ‘Bull’ (the long poem/sequence that makes up my chapbook) took four years to get right, so we’ll see!
I’m also putting together a collaborative pamphlet with a friend, James Lock, whose work I greatly respect for its commitment to making poetry useful. He’s someone who comes at writing poetry from a completely different standpoint to me really – where I aim for ridiculousness, he sees poetry (and I hope I’m getting him right here) as a means to say things that need to be said.
Now that the chapbook’s out, my next aim as an individual poet is to put together a pamphlet or full collection, which I’m working towards. I have around 30 complete poems at the moment, though whether they’ll all make it into a final collection I have no idea.
And then there’s the endless cycle of submissions and rejections, though I have had a micro poem published recently in Black Bough (a new digital micro poetry publisher) and I have had a short sequence accepted by Stride, so that should be appearing at some point over the summer.
Friday, 12 July 2019
Steve Venright : part five
What are you working on?
Poetry in a broad sense—I suppose this is obvious—can be found in any medium. I move from one to another, depending on what feels fun and otherwise compelling at the time: writing, visual art, audio recording, and sub-media within those fields. As for literary projects, I’m completing work—after a lengthy hiatus—on a book about the dream world of legendary sleeptalker Dion McGregor, to feature dozens of original transcriptions of his somniloquies, which were recorded in the ’60s by his roommate/songwriting partner Michel Barr and are now in the archives of my little Torpor Vigil label. Its title is The Somnolent Adventures of Dion McGregor, and I confidently anticipate that it will be the fastest-selling book of its kind in more than half a century. (There was one other book of its kind that came out in 1964.)
I’m also assembling a compilation of poems that were not part of my 2017 selected. It will likely be called The Golden Age of Noxious Drivel. Though not by me, of course!
Poetry in a broad sense—I suppose this is obvious—can be found in any medium. I move from one to another, depending on what feels fun and otherwise compelling at the time: writing, visual art, audio recording, and sub-media within those fields. As for literary projects, I’m completing work—after a lengthy hiatus—on a book about the dream world of legendary sleeptalker Dion McGregor, to feature dozens of original transcriptions of his somniloquies, which were recorded in the ’60s by his roommate/songwriting partner Michel Barr and are now in the archives of my little Torpor Vigil label. Its title is The Somnolent Adventures of Dion McGregor, and I confidently anticipate that it will be the fastest-selling book of its kind in more than half a century. (There was one other book of its kind that came out in 1964.)
I’m also assembling a compilation of poems that were not part of my 2017 selected. It will likely be called The Golden Age of Noxious Drivel. Though not by me, of course!
Thursday, 11 July 2019
Mary J. Oliver : 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?
Yes, though I spent a decade in a dark room on my own first. I came out with a draft but realized I'd almost forgotten how to speak and I'd lost and all my friends. But I made new ones in local groups and on courses, who helped me perfect my story - though, of course, it is far from perfect.
Yes, though I spent a decade in a dark room on my own first. I came out with a draft but realized I'd almost forgotten how to speak and I'd lost and all my friends. But I made new ones in local groups and on courses, who helped me perfect my story - though, of course, it is far from perfect.
Wednesday, 10 July 2019
Nicole Raziya Fong : part three
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
George Oppen’s work—reading him felt like an outstretched hand. His presence & very humanistic perceiving has really informed how I cast my own experiencing into the act of writing.
Aimé Césaire absolutely shattered all tentative obligations I might have felt to keep believing / caring about the people who had told me for so long what the function and tradition of poetry might be. It was hugely important to be able to read him, and important to still be reading him.
Lisa Robertson, as a different way to approach and grapple with the lyric in poetry. The same with Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley, the early work of Joseph Ceravolo.
Dictée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, essential. Paul Celan (of course).
Really, a great majority of the writers who have vitally affected my relationship to writing haven’t been poets.
George Oppen’s work—reading him felt like an outstretched hand. His presence & very humanistic perceiving has really informed how I cast my own experiencing into the act of writing.
Aimé Césaire absolutely shattered all tentative obligations I might have felt to keep believing / caring about the people who had told me for so long what the function and tradition of poetry might be. It was hugely important to be able to read him, and important to still be reading him.
Lisa Robertson, as a different way to approach and grapple with the lyric in poetry. The same with Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley, the early work of Joseph Ceravolo.
Dictée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, essential. Paul Celan (of course).
Really, a great majority of the writers who have vitally affected my relationship to writing haven’t been poets.
Tuesday, 9 July 2019
Charles Jensen : part three
What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?
The editing process is the hardest part, and I think it’s partly because it can be endless, and some poems, no matter what you do, just won’t work. They’re mulch for the poems coming later. I love the writing process. I know some poets find it difficult, but I’m very good at shutting off my editor and letting the words get on the page. It’s once they’re there that I struggle to make sense of what the poem wants to be. I think I write so easily because I don’t consider the reader in those moments. I have permission to fail. But in the editing process I have to invite a reader in, and I have make the poem deliver something they want or need. I have never been good at killing my darlings. I want all my darlings to live.
The editing process is the hardest part, and I think it’s partly because it can be endless, and some poems, no matter what you do, just won’t work. They’re mulch for the poems coming later. I love the writing process. I know some poets find it difficult, but I’m very good at shutting off my editor and letting the words get on the page. It’s once they’re there that I struggle to make sense of what the poem wants to be. I think I write so easily because I don’t consider the reader in those moments. I have permission to fail. But in the editing process I have to invite a reader in, and I have make the poem deliver something they want or need. I have never been good at killing my darlings. I want all my darlings to live.
Chris Warren : part three
Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?
My concept of poetry now is unrecognisable from what it once was. I once liked to think, loftily, that I knew exactly what a poem was, and what constituted quality, but am happy to say that nowadays I haven’t the faintest clue. I have always had ambitions to blur the lines between my art and my poetry to create an odd amalgam that was neither one nor the other. Nowadays the line has become so successfully blurred for me that I’m never entirely how to describe or explain what I’ve done. I have had people on Twitter tell me that have loved a recently posted poem, that I didn’t even recognise was poetry. I also recently had a spot on the Chaudiere Books blog post for Poetry Month showcasing one of my visual poems from 2016. The poem was one of six from a collection containing micro poems designed around Rorschach ink blots. Since I made them I have completely forgotten what the content of those micro poems were, so am as much in the dark as to what they mean as anyone else. There is something wonderful about that. I am more than happy to have visual work I have done described as poems, or poems I have written described as something else entirely. For me to dictate that the things I make are immovably one thing or another does nothing but compromise viewer autonomy and devalue the work. If you say it’s poetry then I don’t really feel it’s my place to argue.
My concept of poetry now is unrecognisable from what it once was. I once liked to think, loftily, that I knew exactly what a poem was, and what constituted quality, but am happy to say that nowadays I haven’t the faintest clue. I have always had ambitions to blur the lines between my art and my poetry to create an odd amalgam that was neither one nor the other. Nowadays the line has become so successfully blurred for me that I’m never entirely how to describe or explain what I’ve done. I have had people on Twitter tell me that have loved a recently posted poem, that I didn’t even recognise was poetry. I also recently had a spot on the Chaudiere Books blog post for Poetry Month showcasing one of my visual poems from 2016. The poem was one of six from a collection containing micro poems designed around Rorschach ink blots. Since I made them I have completely forgotten what the content of those micro poems were, so am as much in the dark as to what they mean as anyone else. There is something wonderful about that. I am more than happy to have visual work I have done described as poems, or poems I have written described as something else entirely. For me to dictate that the things I make are immovably one thing or another does nothing but compromise viewer autonomy and devalue the work. If you say it’s poetry then I don’t really feel it’s my place to argue.
Monday, 8 July 2019
Tolu Oloruntoba : part one
How do you know when a poem is finished?
There is a sense of repose that comes over me when an unexpected ending suggests itself, and I am able to capture it. And if when I look over the poem, I am overtaken by a sense of wonder, can’t help re-reading it repeatedly (I wrote that?), and can’t, however hard I try, find anything to change, or add, I sense that the work is done. For some other poems, particularly if they deal with past trauma, when I’m done, I just feel the overwhelming urge to go lie down after. Think of Frodo’s “It’s Done,” at the Cracks of Doom (before I unearth the same issue in a different poem).
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