Richard Capener : part two

How important is music to your poetry?

I can’t overstate it’s importance enough. My first chapbook, Dance! The Statue Has Fallen! Now His Head is Beneath Our Feet! began as an exercise in which I sought to construct a text the same way the Canadian experimental rock ensemble, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, constructed their older albums. That is, through a montage of emotional passages, social documentary and drones, the last of which were explored though timestamps within my text (of course, following the exercise, I needed a ridiculously long title too). My forthcoming chapbook, The Voice Without, began as a response to the early experimental radio of Swiss-Canadian artist Christof Migone, especially his project, Hole in the Head, which originated from a broadcast series called Danger in Paradise. 

It isn’t unusual for poets to emphasise the sonic dimensions of text, well known examples being Pound referring to “cadence” and “rhythmic structures”. My primary interest, however, has been contemporary aural practices, originating from my love of free improvisation and extreme noise. What are the poetic equivalents? I’m by no means the first to raise this question, or note that comparisons can be drawn between, say, bebop and the Beats (who were themselves aware of this) or postwar composition and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry.

Bára Hladík : part five

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

I always come back to Jorge Luis Borges. There is something about his work that is so layered and magical. Ficciones is a huge inspiration to my work and I will come back to those stories my whole life. The labyrinths of meaning and mystery that he creates leave you feeling whole and empty at the same time. His work does what literature should do, it reminds you of the magic of everyday life. 

Aysegul Yildirim : part five

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

The most recent example is when I saw Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of ‘Everyman’ performed by Miracle Theatre few months ago in Cornwall. I was blown away by the seamlessness of the contemporary rendering of the old text, the stage design and the performances. That night I read the script. It was such an experience at a time when I was already thinking a lot about the intimate dialog between poetry and playwriting. Having said that, for me, any author has the credibility to change how I think about writing at any time. We need to expose ourselves to as much work as possible. And that’s not only that of the literary but also many other realms of creative endeavour. 

Joseph Fasano : part three

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

Poetry is the pure word, the most distilled language that uses its rhythms and images to be the mystery rather than to convey it.  As long as there is language, poetry cannot be replaced by any other medium, as it is the human voice stripped down to its essential, abiding song.

E.J. McAdams : part five

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

Moscow Conceptualism and Charles Reznikoff.  When I was in college most of the poets were English majors, but I was a philosophy major. One of my best friends, the poet Phil Metres, also translated Russian and he introduced me to the Moscow Conceptualist poets, Dmitri Prigov and Lev Rubinstein.  I was very turned on by this poetry and how little personality there was in it, compared to English and American mainstream contemporary poetry.  (In this way it reminded me of the Japanese haiku poets.)  They gave me hope there might be this different possibility in poetry, a possibility that I couldn’t even find in my MFA program at Columbia University, where I didn’t exactly fit in.  I actually found this other possibility after graduate school on a sign in a NYC subway. It was a Charles Reznikoff poem, “If there is a scheme…”:

If there is a scheme,
perhaps this too is in the scheme,
as when a subway car turns on a switch,
the wheels screeching against the rails,
and the lights go out —
but are on again in a moment.

I read more Reznikoff which led me to the Objectivists like Oppen and Niedecker and then I was off on an alternative path that foregrounded process as much (or more) than product/publication, an off-the-rails path where your lights may go out.

Isabel Sobral Campos : part three

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

Here are some excellent poetry books that I have recently read:

Cody-Rose Clevidence – Aux/Arc Tryptich (Nightboat)

Ian Dreiblatt - Forget Thee (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Aja Couchois Duncan, Vestigial (Litmus Press)

Jeremy Hoevenaar – Our Insolvency (Golias Books)

MC Hyland - The End (Sidebrow Books)

John Paetsch, --of shapes off-shore (H’d’ng Press)

This December I also revisited Bernadette Mayer’s Midwinter Day and The Collected Songs of Han Shan (published by Copper Canyon Press).

Kate Siklosi : part four

What poets changed the way you thought about writing?

Oh gosh—I wouldn’t have even been remotely interested in reading, studying, or writing poetry without the influence of four poets early on: M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand, bpNichol, and bill bissett. From each I learned a different and particular way of practicing the craft of poetry. From Philip, I learned how to use poetry as an interrogator of authority but also as a source of resistance, love, and regeneration. From Brand, I learned how to see and gesture toward a world of gorgeous complexity using everyday, mundane, human things. From Nichol, I learned how to just have fun and play, and not take the thing or the act too seriously. From bissett, I learned how to use language and its parts as shapes—much like how a painter uses a palette knife, letters and phonemes and fragments can create texture and form, also sound and dissonance.