Interviews

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Interview With A Poet- 3 Poets, 5 Questions, Each Month 2016-2019

Dec 2019: Kathy Fagan, Victor B. Johnson, Sr.
Nov 2019: Mary Galvin, Anannya Dasgupta, Yvonne Zipter
Oct 2019: Crystal Boson, Glen Wilson
Sep 2019: Amirah Al Wassif, Claus Ankersen, Judy Ireland
Aug 2019: Marci Cancio-Bello, Paul Hostovsky, Flose Boursiquot
Jul 2019: Fang Bu, Tony Barnstone, Gabriella Garofalo
Jun 2019: Sanjeev Sethi, Melissa Studdard, Austin Davis
May 2019: David Trinidad, Thomas Fucaloro, Chris Bluemer
Apr 2019: Terese Svoboda, Angela Narciso Torres, Emma Trelles
Mar 2019: Susan Deer Cloud, Bunkong Tuon, Robbi Nester
Feb 2019: Charles Scheitler, Kristin Garth, Drew Pisarra
Jan 2019: Jesse Millner, Elizabeth Jacobson, Ray Neubert

Dec 2018: Yaddyra Peralta, David Estringel, Arminé Iknadossian
Nov 2018: David Kirby, Jen Karetnick, Sean Sexton
Oct 2018: Catherine Esposito Prescott, Eric Campbell, Mia Leonin
Sep 2018: Marianne Szlyk, Patricia Carragon, Martina Reisz Newberry
Aug 2018: Len Lawson, Nina Romano, Holly Lyn Walrath
Jul 2018: Doug Ramspeck, Nicole Yurcaba, Indran Amirthanayagam
Jun 2018: Joan Leotta, Caitlin Scarano, Joan Colby
May 2018: Yuan Changming, Karen Paul Holmes, Gregory Byrd
Apr 2018: Vicki Iorio, Alexis Bhagat, Lucia Leao
Mar 2018: Geoffrey Philp, Sarah White, Richard Smyth
Feb 2018: Grace Cavalieri, Allan Peterson, Jade Cuttie
Jan 2018: L.B. Sedlacek, David B. Axelrod

Dec 2017: Robert Cooperman, Ian Haight, Adam Levon Brown
Nov 2017: Dorianne Laux, Catfish McDaris, Carolyne Wright
Oct 2017: Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Joseph Fasano, Devon Balwit
Sep 2017: Charles Rammelkamp, Susan Marie, Joshua Medsker
Aug 2017: Julie Marie Wade, Akor Emmanuel Oche, Austin Alexis
Jul 2017: Bryan R. Monte, Gregg Shapiro, Ace Boggess
Jun 2017: Alan Catlin, Laurel S. Peterson, Ariel Francisco
May 2017: Molly Peacock, Gregg Dotoli, Allison Stone
Apr 2017: Cara Nusinov, Paul David Adkins, Elizabeth Upshur
Mar 2017: Norman Minnick, J.S. Watts, J. Tarwood
Feb 2017: Linda Nemec Foster, David Colodney, Suzette Dawes
Jan 2017: John Arndt, Linda Avila, Bruce Sager

Dec 2016: Denise Duhamel, Deborah Denicola, Maureen Seaton
Nov 2016: Nicole Rollender, Jordi Alonso, Alexis Rhone Fancher
Oct 2016: Peter Adam Salomon, Monalisa Maione, Nick Romeo
Sep 2016: Trish Hopkinson, David Lawton, Laura Peña
Aug 2016: Rick Lupert, Francine Witte, Jordi Alonso
Jul 2016: Howard Camner, M.J. Iuppa, Jonathan Rose
Jun 2016: Donna Hilbert, Lynne Viti, Rachel Galvin
May 2016: Bruce Weber, Elisa Albo, C.S. Fuqua
Apr 2016: Lyn Lifshin, Corey Mesler, Janet Bohac
Mar 2016: Michael Hettich, Barbra Nightingale, Richard Ryal
Feb 2016: Dianne Borsenik, Paul Saluk, Stacie M. Kiner

December 2019

Kathy Fagan

1 Who are you reading?

To be absolutely honest, I spend most of my time reading my students or former students right now—and that’s fine with me. They are all so different, one from another, and writing with much greater depth and understanding than I ever did when I was young. In addition, I read Poem-a-Day and Poetry Daily every day, and I have new poetry collections by Linda Bierds, Mary Ruefle, Rose M. Smith, Carmen Gimenez and Christopher Howell on my desk, along with the fiction and nonfiction I ride with in the car to keep me road-calm (Kiese Laymon, Elizabeth Strout, Toni Morrison) and in hard copy beside me in the mornings with whom I caffeinate (James Baldwin, Hilary Mantel, Kathryn Davis)

2 How often do you write/edit poetry?

I engage with poetry every day one way or the other and don’t fret anymore about which ways. I take notes for or revise my own work, and I make notes on my students’ poems. I also serve as series co-editor for the OSU Press/Wheeler Poetry Prize , so at the moment I have a few dozen semi-finalists’ manuscripts I’m looking through. I have found over the years that even when I’m not actively engaged in a poem of my own, I am engaged with poetry somehow, and on the rare occasions when I’m not, I’m experiencing something that will perhaps lead to a poem. I write words and phrases in my phone or notebook pretty much every day; poetry is no longer what I do, it’s who I am.

3 What do you think of literary magazine submission fees?

Hmm, I wish they didn’t exist, of course, but with the convenience of Submittable, I understand why they do. There are plenty of fine journals that do not charge submission fees, and I still tend to submit to them, when I get around to submitting poems, and encourage my students to do the same. It’s important to remember that editors and journals aren’t getting rich on submission fees; in fact, most of the editors I know personally don’t get paid for their work on behalf of other writers at all.

4 And MFA programs?

Well, I’m first-gen college, the product of one MFA program, and Director of another, so I have to say I am in favor. They’re not for everyone, but there are only a handful of places in smaller cities and towns where poets can find mentorship and community. An MFA program is one of those places, and if it also financially supports its writers for a few years, as ours does, so much the better. Writing complex, crafted and interesting poems is hard; finding a way in the poetry world may be even harder. I support any mechanism by which poets find their pursuit more tenable.

5 Do you send out snail-mail submissions?

I never send snail-mail submissions anymore—and I am a dinosaur so that’s saying a lot. I reserve snail-mail for personal notes and surprise packages, and still go to my local post office regularly because I sort of love it.

Kathy Fagan’s fifth book is Sycamore (Milkweed, 2017), a finalist for the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Award. She has received fellowships from the NEA, the Ingram Merrill and the Ohio Arts Council. Recent work has appeared in Poetry, Tin House and The Nation. Fagan directs the MFA Program at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she also serves as series co-editor for the OSU Press/Wheeler Poetry Prize.

Victor B. Johnson Sr.

1 Who are you reading?

Paul Laurence Dunbar is an African American author and poet born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His reputation grew upon how his verse and short stories where written in black dialect. He was the first black writer in the U.S. who attempted to live off the earnings of his writings and became the first to get national prominence. He started writing when he was only 6 years old, and was reading them out loud by 9. His first two poems, "Our Martyred Solider's" and "One the River", were published when he was 16 years old. Two years later he was writing for The Tattler. I enjoy his poems because some are short and some long with different styles of rhyming and non rhyming verse.

2 How often do you write/edit poetry?

I try to write everyday. Some days I write just a few lines then put it away and come back later to finish it. I make my own schedule since I am retired . I traveI, I take pictures, shoot videos and listen to music daily for inspiration.

3 What do you think of literary magazine submission fees?

When I first tried to get my poems published, I sent them in regularly. When I didn't hear back from them or they would say they couldn't use my poems, I started researching what other writers were saying and doing. They told me its a business and most of the time my poetry probably never was read. It's a business that gives a beginner hope of becoming a published writer without telling them how to improve their writing skills. It pays their bills and only a handful of writers get the break they are looking for.

4 And MFA programs?

They are great for someone who can afford the cost and wants to get into theatre, creative writing, visual arts or graphic design. It can open many doors on the professional level. MFA programs are not for everyone, myself included.

5 Do you send out snail-mail submissions?

No not anymore, since email has become so popular I prefer to get my submissions out as soon as possible.

Originally from Benton Harbor, Michigan and a Graduate from John Wesley College with a B.A. in Social Science, ITT-Tech AA in Networking Admin, Computer Tech Certificate from JTI, and certification in Mobile App developer from Google. Birdman31355 has been writing poetry for the past 30 years. He has nine published poetry books and four published poetry chapbooks and several poetry videos on DVD’s. Has been published in Forward Times Newspaper, Silver Birch Press, Storm Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, Indiana Review News Letter, The Permain Basin Poetry Society, Expressions Anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses, Waco Word Fest Anthology, Button Poetry and No Mad's Choir Poetry Journey along with several Newsletters.
Birdman31355 has several Editor’s Choice Awards and one International award for his poetry. In addition, he has done editing for SOL Magazine, and readings at Open Mics includes Jump Cut Café in Thousand Oaks, Calif, Soapbox Sessions in Encino, CA., Waco Word Festm Waco,TX. ,Full English Coffee, Expressions, Kick Butt Coffee and Booze, Stomping Grounds, Buzz Mill, New World Deli, Malvern Books, Rad Radam, Strange Brew, Hot Mama’s, Texas Nafas, AIPF Festival, Awesmic City Expo in Austin, TX, Taft Street Coffee, Heights Book Store, Starving Artist Gallery, Jet Lounge, Costas Elixir Lounge, Houston, TX, Friendwoods public Library Friendswood, TX. Coffee Oasis, Murder by Chocolate, Nocturne Coffee Seabrook, TX. Maude Coffee Galveston, TX. October Fest, Barnes Nobile in Webster, TX. Chicago open mic Podcast and Cincinnati Orphanage in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He has appeared on blogtalk radio Maverick-Media, Dark and Delicious, Sister-Sister, The Shirley Ann Show, The Authors Corner Blog Talk Radio, Twin cities network radio programs, The Authors Lounge and CrowdPublish.TV. He was presented a plaque for the poem “She”, a gold medallion and a pendant. He is in a documentary (Poetry is Dead) by Vagabonds press. His Video "Forgotten Time" won first place in The Light Poetic Ministry Poety Video Contest and he has hosted the Spoken Word Contest at the National Black Book Festival in Houston,TX. Many of his poems and videos can be found on Instagram/author_poet_birdman31355
Youtube.com/AuthorPoetBirdman31355
Twitter.com/Birdman31355
Facebook.com/victorjohnson
"Author/Poet Birdman31355"

November 2019

Anannya Dasgupta

1 Is there a poetic device/technique you seem to use more than any other?

I am partial to using rhyme. Rhyming poetry comes with the challenge of tending to sound trite or too contrived. Contemporary poets use it for its comic and satiric potential. But, having spent a lot of time reading renaissance poetry in English and having a fondness for lyric poetry, in English but also in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali, I am also not alone in thinking that good rhyming poetry lends itself to being inhabited, embodied and remembered in the bones. Rhyme, of course, does not work without rhythm which makes one pay careful attention to metre or line lengths that set up the reader / listener’s expectation of rhyme. One way for me to teach myself to use rhyme has been to write a lot of formal poetry that requires rhyme; my favorite forms being the sonnet, villanelle and the ghazal. Practicing writing in each of these forms has taught me different things about how to make rhyme, rhythm and repetition work. For instance, the ghazal, presents a particular challenge of a mono-rhyme in every second line of a couplet that is followed by word that is repeated. For instance, here are two couplets from my ghazal “Today”

Dust off the carpet, set out the
china, spruce up the nest today.

The wine in that bottle has long
since turned, empty the rest today.

Writing ghazals trained me out of the instinct for end rhymes only that writing the quatrains and couplets required of sonnets trained me into doing. It has impacted the way that I write some of my free verse now. I often use internal or end rhyme to end non-rhyming free verse. In that I am inspired by the couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet where the rhyme brings home a surprising but also conclusive end. It is often the volta of the couplet that will help make sense of the rest of the sonnet. I have been using this idea in some of my free verse. Here is one by way of illustration:

Venus Rising from the Sea

The first time I found a
scallop shell on the beach
I thought, but of course,
Venus, goddess of love,
born of the ocean,
rode this to the shore.

So sensuous to behold,
fanning out in shades of
fading rose, this would be
the abandoned carriage
of the goddess of love who
made a loveless marriage.

I think using rhyme reminds me of the artifice of poetry at the same time that it allows me to access something primal and deeply organic to the way we listen and remember.

2 Could you recommend a good essay about the craft of writing poetry?

The essay I have in mind is not about the craft of writing poetry per se but in effect it is exactly that. In his book The Art of Description , Mark Doty has a wonderful essay called “Tremendous Fish” in which the poet Doty close reads Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish” not as a literary critic as much as one poet reading another for mastery in craft. Doty’s objective is to get to the heart of the work of description, and the way that he reads Bishop’s poem is a masterclass in understanding the craft of narrative and lyric poetry. For instance, Doty establishes the structural scaffolding of the poem to show how Bishop’s poem shuttles her reader from “outward detail to inward association” as a prelude to lyric time. Here is a taste of the insights the essay holds on crafting the lyric: “Perhaps the dream of lyric poetry is not just to represent states of mind but to actually provoke them in the reader. Bishop’s poems restore us to a sense of energized, liberating uncertainty.”

3 Is there a person whose life you’d like to capture in a poem?

Not of an individual as of now, but if I could write about a cast of characters drawn from my familiar and distant surroundings, part mythic, part real as after Derek Walcott’s Omeros that would be something incredibly challenging and fun.

4 Should your readers “Google it” or do you need to clarify it in a note or epigraph?

I tend towards the note because that gives me a way to make sure that the relevant information is put right there on the page, and also in its way of writing the note is still a part of the moment of the poem. Readers will google what they must but that can also be distracting in going away from the words on the page. And if there is anything to be learned from Doty’s essay I mentioned earlier, it is also that we have to stay deliberately and elaborately with the words on the page in the writing of the poems and most certainly in reading them.

5 Tell us about your latest poem.

Poetry is my way to make sense of my surroundings and to cope. My latest poems are a series of short poems doing exactly that. I moved, not so long ago, for a job to a part of the country I have not lived in before. A geographically and culturally different landscape contours the shapes of things we know a little differently than before. And it can do that to something as familiar as rain

Rain in Sricity

Here rain does not fall
it descends in droves
of cattle, done kicking
up the dust of dusk,
now returning home to
parched new born calves

Anannya Dasgupta poems have appeared, among other places, in The South Florida Poetry Journal, Wasafiri, Pierene’s Fountain, The Literateur, All Roads Will Lead You Home, Madras Courier and The Ghazal Page. Her book of poems Between Sure Places came out in 2015. She is in the process of completing her next poetry manuscript The Weight of Air. She has lived in New Delhi and New Jersey where she completed her doctorate in English literature. She now lives in Chennai and works at Krea University as director of the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy and faculty in the division of Literature and the Arts.

Yvonne Zipter

1 Is there a poetic device/technique you seem to use more than any other?

My favorite thing to do, in poems, is to write about what we often think of as commonplace and, through close observation, make accessible the extraordinary within them: to find the magic in everyday things. It’s easy to take the things, people, and animals around us for granted in a world where our attention is so often directed elsewhere. But I find that when I slow down and really pay attention to what’s around me, I am in awe of the complexities of nature or a bird or common moments or the people in my life. I take it as my job, as a poet, to try to put this awe into words for others who may not have taken notice of these things but realize, once I do find the right words, that this is just how they feel, too. In this way, I like to help others regain their own sense of wonder for the world. That sense of wonder is part of what keeps me young, I think. I am endlessly curious about the world around me.

2 Could you recommend a good essay about the craft of writing poetry?

To be honest, I’m not someone who often reads essays on craft—I tend, instead, to go directly to specific poems to try to figure out how the poet has created certain effects and/or handled a difficult subject. In essence, I guess I tend to learn by example. However, there is a Mary Oliver essay, titled “Sound,” that I found delightful and thought provoking. In it, she delineates the different families of sounds—including mutes, liquids, and aspirates—and the effect that these sounds have: “Now we see that words have not only a definition and possibly connotation, but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound” (A Poetry Handbook, p. 22). This is one of those things I think I’ve done for years—considering “the music” of a word—without the in-depth understanding of exactly what I was doing. I don’t think the essay changes how I write poems but it does, perhaps, give me a deeper understanding of what’s at work when I spend hours looking for precisely the right word in some line of a poem.

3 Is there a person whose life you’d like to capture in a poem?

What a timely question for me! I have actually been trying to write a poem about my mother’s 88-year-old cousin, whose life was incredibly difficult, in some ways, because of the cruel people around her. She could easily be bitter and mean-spirited, but when she recounts these stories, there is no hint of her feeling she’s been treated unfairly. She is matter of fact about the events and cruelties of her life, but chooses mostly to focus on the joys, from her little dog to her memories of family vacations in the woods of rural Wisconsin back in the 1940s. When I visited with her recently, she was barefoot and chattered on happily while making me the lunch she had insisted on preparing. The problem, in terms of writing a poem about her, is that I want to use every detail I know. Since I’m not planning on writing an epic poem, that clearly won’t do!

4 Should your readers “Google it” or do you need to clarify it in a note or epigraph?

I have employed notes following several poems, but those have been to indicate small passages quoted from other sources. In the main, I don’t think I tend to make too many obscure cultural references. That said, though, I guess I do expect readers to look up what they don’t know. I am sometimes surprised, however, that what I think is common knowledge might be new information to a reader. I happened on a short commentary about a recently published poem of mine in which the writer said: “And even Chet Baker we may only know through faint rumor. An old jazz singer? Blues?” It never occurred to me that anyone might not know who Chet Baker was.

5 Tell us about your latest poem.

I had read, not long ago, that scientists just discovered that giraffes hum at night. I also learned that some bats are known as whispering bats because of the low-intensity of their calls. I found both of these tidbits of information fascinating. Then, in August, my physician told me I had a heart murmur. Shortly thereafter, the lines “Giraffes hum. Bats whisper. / My heart murmurs” popped into my head. I walked around for several weeks with those two lines rattling in my brain until I finally sat down one day and wrote a little riff on my heart murmuring and what that might mean. The poem closes with musing about an echocardiogram. It is titled “Resound” in the sense of “to become filled with sound,” but also as in “about sound” (re: sound).

Yvonne Zipter is the author of the full-length collection The Patience of Metal (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist) and the chapbook Like Some Bookie God. Her poems have appeared in numerous periodicals over the years, including Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, Calyx, Crab Orchard Review, Metronome of Aptekarsky Ostrov (Russia), Bellingham Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review, as well as in several anthologies. Her poem “Osteosarcoma: A Love Poem,” originally published in Poetry, was reprinted in Writing and Understanding Poetry for Teachers and Students: A Heart’s Craft, edited by Suzanne Keyworth and Cassandra Robison. She is also the author of two nonfiction books: Diamonds Are a Dyke’s Best Friend and Ransacking the Closet. She is one of the founders of Hot Wire: A Journal of Women’s Music and Culture and a 1995 inductee into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. She received a fellowship to the Summer Literary Seminar in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2004, an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award in 2001, and the Sprague/Todes Literary Award in 1997. Her published poems are currently being sold in two poetry-vending machines in Chicago, the proceeds from which are donated to a nonprofit arts organization called Arts Alive Chicago. She holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Vermont College and has taught fiction and nonfiction writing at the Graham School of the University of Chicago. She recently retired from being a manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press.

October 2019

Crystal Boson

1 Is there a poem that comes back to you again and again? Why?

Honorée Fanonne Jeffer’s poem, "The Gospel of Barbeque" is the one I constantly think about and reread. About once a week actually. It is a work that reminds me of home, not just in terms of the South, but home as an idea of family that together land and legacy. There is a solid legacy of survival that is read through family that binds together and enacts practices that teach you to navigate a landscape, system, nation, and neighbors who desire to starve and drive you out. It is a poem that reminds me to survive, and laugh and dig deep. Every bit of that work is sound advice.

2 How important is reading a poem aloud?

Even though I often shy away from reading my work out loud, I think it is extremely important. Poems are spells that need to be spoken aloud to give them more life. When we read poems out loud, it lets us share them more widely and experience them in different ways. I think this is especially true for the "hard poems" we write. The poems that take the most from us to write need to be shared out loud. The extra effort of speaking them out makes them more powerful.

3 Do you subscribe to literary journals?

I actually don't right now, and I feel bad about it. After I left the academy and being a professor, I needed a break from everything creative and academic. I still am taking that break. It took me a while to get back to writing. I'm just not ready to dive back into the journals yet.

4 Is there a poetry resource that has helped you with your writing, or in getting published?

Yes. The best thing thing for my poetry has been going to the Rhode Island Writer's Colony. It was a place that gave me space to write without having to explain myself, my work, or my view point. It was fantastic to be in a space with other Black writers who were equally as serious about their craft as they were building community. This was the space where I wrote most of my collection "The Bitter Map". The RIWC gave me both space and a family and has been the absolute best thing for my writing.

5 How much time do you spend in the poetry world?

I'm just now starting to get back in. I've been happily asked to be on a board of "Paper Plains" and I'm getting to do readings again. I've also started writing a new collection. I'm really fortunate I'm getting this opportunity to come back in.

Crystal Boson writes short, dense poems that lay bare the complicated geographies of the United States and the lives of the Black, queer, and marginalized bodies that dwell within its boundaries. She currently writes about, and resides in the midwest. She is a Rhode Island Writer's Colony, Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, and was awarded the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award in 2014. She has work published in Blueshift Journal, Pank, Parcel, among other locations. Most recently her work: the bitter map was selected as the winner of the 2017 Honeysuckle Press Chapbook Contest by Saeed Jones. Videos of her reading, purchase information, and links to individually published works can be found on her website: crystalboson.com

Glen Wilson

1 Is there a poem that comes back to you again and again? Why?

I'm a massive Heaney fan but its perhaps one of his lesser known poems Limbo that I find I return to again and again, its use of language is so sparse but accomplishes so much in it's narrative, It deals with the story of an illegitimate child and its mother in Ireland. How Heaney deftly handles this story shows why he is regarded so highly. Patrick Kavanagh's Epic is another touchstone poem for me, depending on the day it's one of those two. I also often find a line or couplet keep coming back to me more so than whole poems.

2 How important is reading a poem aloud?

I think you are missing out so much from a poem by it being simply a written form, to hear the aural richness of a great poem takes it to another level, even in terms of composing your own work it gives you a whole new set of tools to work with, it is more than just a proving ground. I also lead worship at my local church so the musicality of poetry is important to me

3 Do you subscribe to literary journals?

I currently have a subscription to The Moth magazine in Ireland, its a beautifully curated journal that has great selection of poems, short stories and artwork. Aside from that I tend to dip into an issue at a time to get an idea of what is out there, I have copies of Poetry Ireland review, The Stinging Fly, Southern Humanities Review and Rattle to name a few.

4 Is there a poetry resource that has helped you with your writing, or in getting published?

I was recommended an anthology of poetry called Staying Alive (Bloodaxe) that is a feast of poetics, there is so much to explore and get your teeth into, the editor Neil Astley has gathered a fantastic selection of the greats and lesser-known gems.

5 How much time do you spend in the poetry world?

I attend readings when I can but probably spend a lot more time conversing and engaging with other poets online via twitter, Facebook etc. I don't think I ever switch off from poetry, it's fairly intrinsic to my life so I'm always open to ideas and inspiration so I suppose in a sense my antenna is always tuned to the poetry world.

Glen Wilson lives with his wife Rhonda and two children in Portadown, Co Armagh, Ireland. He is Worship Leader at St Mark’s Church of Ireland Portadown. He studied English and Politics at Queens University Belfast and has a Post Grad Diploma in Journalism studies from the University of Ulster.
He has been widely published having work in The Honest Ulsterman, The Stony Thursday Book, Foliate Oak, Iota, the Interpreters House, Southword, The Ogham Stone, The Luxembourg Review, RAUM and The Incubator Journal amongst others. In 2014 he won the Poetry Space competition and was shortlisted for the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. He was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2016 and The 2016 Wells Festival of Literature. He won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2017 for his poem "The Lotus Gait" and the Jonahtan Swift Creative Writing Award in 2018.
In 2018 He was shortlisted for the Mairtin Crawford Poetry Award and the Hungry Hill Poets Meet Politics Competition, Clodhorick Poetry Competition, Leeds Peace Poetry Prize, and was highly commended in the iYeats Poetry Competition. In 2019 he won the Trim Poetry Competition, was shortlisted for the Strokestown international Poetry Competition, Doolin Writers Weekend and was highly commended in the Oliver Goldsmith Poetry Competition.
He has also been longlisted and commended in The National Poetry Competition, The Plough Prize, Segora Poetry Competition and the Welsh International Poetry Competition His first collection of poetry An Experience on the Tongue is out 2019 with Doire Press.

https://glenwilsonpoetry.wordpress.com/
Twitter @glenhswilson
https://www.doirepress.com/bookstore/poetry/

September 2019

Amirah Al Wassif

1 If you were Poet Laureate of the US, (or any country) what program(s) would you put forth?

There are many important issues, I would love to focus on it. these issues include cultural, social and these various obstacles which stand against our humanity. I would love to play a serious role in the society, not a fake role, I would love to tell all the people the truth, not the cliché speech which they used to listen. I would love to try my best to spread the spirit of poetry trough my position because I believe that the poetry power is the best motivation for nations.i believe that the secret of the successful program(s) is the honesty! If we are so honest and serious, if we believe in poetry, if we encourage people to read poetry, the world will be better.
I'm tempted to work on human rights issues and if I had such a chance, I would love also to support all those talented persons in many and different fields like literature, music, dancing, visual arts who never find the full support to start and complete their creative journey just because they don’t have enough money to study, to learn or to travel.
Maybe someone will name these programs "so dreamy", but insist saying that if we are honest enough, if we read more poetry, we will achieve what we want, and we will spread love and peace.

2 Some do, some say never. Have your poems that use a line from the poem as the title?

Yes, I have many poems which use a line as the title, for example, my poetry collection For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate, and many poems of mine. Actually, I don’t plan to do that, I leave this to my feeling then, how I feel while writing the poem, if I felt that any line in the poem more suitable and sensitive enough to be the title, I gladly choose it and some times, something I don’t know what is that, whisper to my soul secretly by the title of the poem before discovering the rest of the poem, and how it will be in the end?

3 What has been the best advice you’ve received while attending a workshop?

The funny thing is that I didn’t attend any poetry workshop before. Actually, I loved to do that, but I didn’t have such a wonderful chance. and, the best advice I had received is from the great poet Maya Angelou, from her inspiring writing, she wrote: "if you are always trying to be normal, you will never know, how amazing you can be."

4 Could you share the first draft of a poem you’re working on now and tell us where you’re going with it?

Of course, this is my horrible first draft of my new poem which I am working on right now " how could Alexandria speaks poetry?"
I hope to finish it with a bit feeling of satisfaction, I just want to tell the world how I feel towards Alexandria and how poetic her voice is?

How could Alexandria speak poetry?

Alexandria represents herself as an excellent poet
sets on the top of the world, with curious eyes and merciful heart
dries her eternity hair with civilization towel
picks the obvious stars from the sky
whispers in a very warm tone " hello"
Alexandria hugs you like a sea
she knows how to get you a great piece of advice like a sea!
the poetic kingdom fulls of tears and smiles
Alexandria, the factory of butterflies
where each elegant butterfly was a perfect poem
All my age, I wonder how could Alexandria speak poetry?
how could that kingdom absorb me?
talk to my senses, to my bones
shared my heart perfectly??
Alexandria represents herself as an excellent poet
invents new words for describing the beauty
sets on the top of the world
uses its landscapes as a punctuations
catches the wet clouds by her magical eyes
and turns them into wondrous verses and miracles
but, she drives me truly insane
while wandering in her corners as a crazy fan
asking myself how could Alexandria speak poetry?
how could that kingdom absorb me?
and shared my heart perfectly??

5 Do you listen to music while writing a poem?

Absolutely, I listen to music while writing poetry, this is an essential part of my writing process, I also practice the meditation in the middle of my writing.

Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer, poet, and novelist. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English works have been published in cultural magazines in many international literary and cultural magazines around the globe such as Praxis Magazine , A Gathering of the Tribes, Credo Espoir, Reach Poetry, Otherwise Engaged literature and arts journal, Cannon's Mouth, Mediterranean Poetry, The BeZine , Spillwords, Merak Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Writers Resist, the Bosphorus Review Of Books, the Writer NewSletter, Call and Response Journal, Echoes Literary Magazine, Better Than Starbucks, Envision Arts, Women of Strength Strong Courage Magazine, Chiron Review , the Conclusion Magazine and Street Light Press.
She has two published books in English, for those who don't know chocolate and a children's book the cocoa boy and other stories.
Her English literary creative works have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, and Kurdish

Claus Ankersen

1 If you were Poet Laureate of the US, (or any country) what program(s) would you put forth?

Ah, thank you so much for asking this excellent question. I am actually working to import and introduce this fantastic concept to my country. What programs would I NOT launch as poet laureate, given the opportunity?
I would work to popularize and promote literature and poetry by making it widely accessible for the general public. I would promote and initiate programmes to publish poetry in nationwide newspapers and magazines, besides putting poetry on the curriculum in schools. Poetry installed as visual, site-specific artworks in the public space, throughout the country would be a welcome way to counter the commodification and capitalization of the public realm. I would also initiate programs to further local, regional and international networking and collaboration among poets, most notably I would work on strengthening Army of Poets, a global sister-brotherhood of hypersensitive pensters and a network of actionpoets and like minded, that I founded in 2015 to help connect poets and work together on making not only the voice of poetry heard, but also the voice of the poets – whose inspired and visual inputs are much needed in today’s world. Oh, I would do so many things. Seminars and colloquiums and festivals and talks and literatours and wordcaravans...Outreach must never be forgotten. Or the spoken word of performance poetry. The common denominator of all this would in a sense be ’the meeting’.

2 Some do, some say never. Have you poems that use a line from the poem as the title?

I guess I do both-and. Quite a few of my poems have a title that includes at least part of a line from the poem. A lot of poems have a title that refers to some aspect of the poems meaning or narrative, and then others again have titles that doesn’t directly refer to words or lines used in the poem. I might come off as literary naïve here, but frankly, I have never even heard of this controversy.
It reminds me a bit of the old page vs stage discussion, or the different opinions about performative use of the so-called poetic voice during live-readings. Different practices and opinions are fine. The detrimentally to the entire field of poetry arises when the differing opinions lead to fraktionism, exclusionism and elitism among the literary community. Something I have witnessed all over the world. We all think, this culture of envious squabble is a local or national thing, but the sad truth is that it happens all over. In every poetry community on the globe. Basically the poetry community is as divided and polarized as the rest of society, and affected by the same dynamics. We divide when we could unite. We repel when we could embrace. We hate when we could love. Working with Army of Poets and the practice of international literary ambassadorship is my way to counteract this. With the meeting. It all starts with the meeting. Lets meet. We need to unite.

3 What has been the best advice you’ve received while attending a workshop?

I think perhaps, technically, it wasn’t in a workshop, but during my University days, where the resident Head of Department asked an overly complex question, more a statement of scientific position than actual question, the same kind of question often heard at the very end of a literary panel-debate, and got the following reply from the legendary Norwegian ethnographer, Fredrik Barth who simply replied: As long as it looks savvy on paper. How’s that for killing a heckler. I never forgot that.

4 Could you share a first draft of a poem you’re working on now and tell us where you’re going with it?

I would love to. In my open docs, this one pops up. It is a work in progress and sort of a poets poem. Right now spurred by the title question, you asked, I just used an initial note in Danish ’Du må ikke tjene penge på digte’ , translated it and made it into the title with the original idea for the title added as a sub- or alternative title.

You mustn’t make money on poems
(We Built Our Legacy)

we build our legacy in stacks of books
others build digits on electronic accounts
accumulate afterlife in sculpture parks and on the walls
of hospital wings and university departments

we build our legacy channeling stories
chipping flints from the bedrock
human imagination
fishing for blue fish of illumination
chasing adventures
through pen, keyboard or microphone
in dance, play always and forever

we build our legacy in poetry
capturing snaphots of human rays
as they materialise as a kiss
between strangers united
on some square looking up
at miracles unfolding
the impossible in full, eternal bloom
natural as nature becoming
we build our legacy

we build our legacy
gazing at the stars
reading between the lines

with every breath, we build our legacy
with every kiss, we seal the deal
with every dance, we celebrate the fruits
of the loins of creation
we spring our legacy fountainesque
with every letter
we build our legacy
in the beginning
the word.

5 Do you listen to music while writing a poem?

Well, I am afraid I’ve gotta hit the both-and button once again here. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. It all depends on the material, my mood, the time of day...many things.
When I wrote as a teenager it would almost always be to music. Dance music and upbeat disco and pop music would enable me to ride on the energy and pace of the music, without being distracted, as I would be if I were to listen to jazz and loosing the creative flow for a musical one, starting to whistle or drum my knees. Later in my writing career, and during my time in university, I have written a lot in silence. I like that too. Now I do both. This November I will see publication of Pink Pong Poetry (forthcoming on Editura FrACTalia, 2019), a trilingual collaborative collection of poetry written to Pink Floyd songs by Romanian poet Andrei Zbirnea and myself. This fusion of worlds have produced a truly trippy collection, which I think many people will enjoy. It will come out in English, Romanian and Danish, and I hope reading it will inspire more people with experimenting working with music as jumpstarter in writing sessions. Big Magic is there, poet.

Claus Ankersen, intergalactic traveler, poet, writer, artist, anthropologist and performer, is the author of 12 books of prose and poetry. A world leading voice in performance poetry, Claus has performed readings of his literature and poetry at festivals in 20 countries around the world. The author works bilingually in Danish and English, his work ranging from poetry and short stories to longer fiction, and deals with such themes as esoterics, systems-critique, love, r/evolution and magical reality. Often likened to such luminaries as Alan Ginsberg, Dan Turell, James Joyce and Hunter S. Thompson, Ankersen offers a fresh perspective all his own. Published internationally, his work translated into 12 languages, Ankersen shares his treasure-chest of perpetually blooming wonder across numerous continents. His merging of cross-disciplinary works comes from a range of sources, including those of the site-specific, psycho-geography of inner and outer landscapes. Recent publications include the full poetry collections Cantecul Tigrului/ Song of the Tiger (Editura Fractalia, 2019), in defense of the cherries (Brumar, 2019), Grab Your Heart And Follow Me (Poetrywala/Paperwall, 2018, Soulmates (Copenhagen Storytellers, 2017), A Sudden Convergence (Krok Books, 2016), as well as the picaresque novel Pendæmonium (Det Poetiske Bureau, 2018), contributions to two Indian international poetry anthologies, Capitals (Bloomsbury, 2017), All The Worlds Between (Yoda Press, 2017), two American anthologies; The van Gogh tribute Resurrection of a Sunflower (Pski’s Porch Publishing, 2017) and Insert Yourself Here (The Paragon Journal Press, 2017) as well as Cleptohydra ALMANAH, a Romanian anthology on the river Danube (Lower Danube Cultural Center). Latest performance-venues include Bucharest International Poetry Festival, Faine Misto Festival in Ukraine and TEDxCopenhagen. India holds a special place in this poet's heart. In India, Claus holds fellowships from Sangam House, Studio Arnawaz, and CMI Arts Initiative, and has appeared at Poetry with Prakriti, Delhi Arts Festival, Kala Ghoda Festival, as well as given guest lectures at Universities and learning institutes. Having met and interacted with poetry colleagues and titans across the world, Claus Ankersen has realized the need for a formal organization of the global-local sister-brotherhood of hypersensitive pens, most recently founding the activist artist network Army of Poets. When he is not writing poetry, traveling or making art, Claus is developing his own mystery school of yoga and magic, cooking and talking back to nature.

Judy Ireland

1 If you were Poet Laureate of the US (or any country) what program(s) would you put forth?

I would create a “Poetry at the Playground” program. I’d send volunteers to every playground in every town and city in the U.S., whether it’s a playground with nice shiny equipment or a half-bare sandlot. We’d go wherever kids gather to have fun. The volunteers would be armed with poetry books and blank journals and two kinds of pencils, skinny and fat. The goal would be to create a nation of readers of poetry, and we’d be catching them before they get into high school and (as Billy Collins says) their poetry deflector shields are installed. Poetry and play would be forever paired in their minds, and hopefully, they would continue to read poetry for the rest of their lives, and maybe even write poems.

2 Some do, some say never. Have you poems that use a line from the poem as the title?

Yes, and I also have poems where the first line of the poem completes the sentence begun by the title. And I have poems that have titles containing words that never appear in the body of the poem. Titles are very tough for most of us, so the fewer rules, the better. I like titles that draw me into a poem, and make me want to know more, and I also like titles that acquire new meaning once I’ve read the entire poem. I have to confess, I sometimes choose a poetry book to read by looking at the Table of Contents, and seeing if the titles grab me. The only rule I have for myself is to never leave a poem untitled. I did that once, and it was unsatisfying for me, and probably for a reader.

3 What has been the best advice you’ve received while attending a workshop?

Every poet with whom I’ve had a workshop has given one identical piece of advice: READ. If we’re serious about our writing, we need to know what has brought greater minds than ours to the page, and how they’ve handled language in order to speak their truth. We need to know what we like and where we fit; we need perspective. In addition to the universal direction to read, I would add “widely”. I think it’s best to read across the ages, across the oceans, and across our own and other poets’ cultures.

4 Could you share a first draft of a poem you’re working on now and tell us where you’re going with it?

I often become inspired by some odd thing I run across, and I try to turn it into a poem. This is a draft of a poem that I wrote after seeing a photo of an index card. On the card was a question, in old-fashioned typewriter font, that had been phoned in to an Ask-a-Librarian service in 1963. The question was: Any statistics on the life span of the abandoned woman? My draft is currently a persona poem and engages with an aspect of such a life, but it doesn’t yet address the “life span” part of the question. It may or may not remain a persona poem…..and it may or may not live on into subsequent drafts, but here it is:

The Life Span of the Abandoned Woman

Today the quiet sounds like hammers. Not jack hammers –
little hammers, hammers used to pound soft metal into plates
no one uses because forks scrape too loudly on their surface.
The quiet is also decorative, festooned around my rooms
like unfurled holiday banners, falling down in places
where the scotch tape lost its glue and released.

It’s a knick-knack kind of quiet that stares at me,
demanding to be dusted. A crocheted doily quiet,
starched and undistressed.

Silence is the outermost edge of this quiet,
like sorrow is where sadness ends up when its wrapped
in resignation.

And sometimes my silence is alligators, eyes barely above
the water line, thick hides that are not quite bulletproof, but almost.
The only way to handle one is with jaws taped shut.

5 Do you listen to music while writing a poem?

I love silence. I love music, too, but I rarely listen to music while writing or reading. To do so feels like dividing my attention. The work in front of me, as well as the musical work, deserve my full attention. Poetry is, for me, so much about the sound of the words and the sound of the lines; I just couldn’t hear that as well, if sounds from outside were engaging me in the moment. I have, however, turned off a piece of music, and then ran to my desk to write. I sometimes feel so moved that I need to respond, and if I’m lucky, that response becomes a poem.

Judy Ireland’s poems have appeared in Calyx, Saranac Review, Eclipse, Cold Mountain, Hotel Amerika, and other journals, as well as in the Best Indie Lit New England anthology. Her book, Cement Shoes, won the 2013 Sinclair Poetry Prize, and was published in 2014 by Evening Street Press. She currently serves as Executive Director of the DePorres Place Adult Literacy Center in West Palm Beach, as Co-Director for the Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches, and she teaches at Palm Beach State College.

August 2019

Marci Cancio-Bello

1 Does sexism and/or racism exist in the literary community, and if so, what can be done to end it?

I think if we’re still asking this question, then we need to take a long hard look at the literary world from the ground up. Who has the luxury of accessing books, MFA programs, internships, submission fees, post-doc fellowships, residencies, and workshops? The publishing industry is currently made up of 80-90% white cisgender able-bodied females, from agents, editors, and executives to PR and sales teams, and book reviewers. We all engage the world with our own biases, so what does that say about who gets hired, what gets published, and what is considered noteworthy? We wait for a select few writers to come to us, pitch to us, submit to us, and if and when they get through the door, we put too much pressure on those same few to check the “right” boxes. Natalie Diaz once said, “Sometimes by knowing about the issue, we believe we’ve done enough.” How might the community really change if we were more proactive and thoughtful in our efforts?

2 What is the worst poem you’ve ever written?

So many. How many examples do you want? Still, I remind myself that every poem gets me to the next one.

3 Is there a one-line poem, by you or anyone else, that you absolutely love? Please share.

It’s not so much a one-line poem as it is a one-line zinger, but Min Jin Lee starts her stunning novel, Pachinko, with the sentence: “History has failed us, but no matter.”

4 You take your poem to the repair shop. Who’s the mechanic?

The person who checks me in and takes my keys is my husband, always my first reader steering me in a better direction. The mechanic team that’s most in my head, tinkering with each line, checking the oil and the undercarriage and the tires: Jim Daniels, who taught me to always be writing; Terrance Hayes, who asked me to loosen up and experiment more; Campbell McGrath, who is a straight-up honest reader for my work; Don Mee Choi, who taught me that accuracy is a nine-tailed fox; Natalie Diaz, who taught me that generosity is not the same as kindness.

5 What efforts do you make personally to sell your book(s)?

By being the best poet I can be so that the work speaks for itself. By being the best literary citizen I can be so that connection feels organic to me and not inauthentically mass-produced for the numbers. I’m grateful to everyone who has ever bought my book, taught my book, recommended my book, but I also didn’t become a poet to sell books.
The marketability of a book is wholly separate from writing it, so if you’re looking for more practical advice, here it is. I have an author website where I sell signed copies if purchased directly from me, with an option for personalization. I bring copies of my book any conference or presentation I’m at, in case people want to buy on the spot. I’ve done book swaps, promos, giveaways. I’ve donated copies to organizations and fundraisers for good causes. I’m not a good self-promoter, but I recognize that part of the joy of being a writer is sharing that work with others.

Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox (University of Pittsburgh, 2016), which won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and Florida Book Award bronze medal for poetry. She has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Knight Foundation, and the American Literary Translators Association, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions, and more. She serves as the poetry editor for Hyphen magazine and as a program coordinator for Miami Book Fair. www.marcicalabretta.com

Paul Hostovsky

1 Does sexism and/or racism exist in the literary community, and if so, what can be done to end it?

Racism and sexism exist everywhere, so why should the literary community be any different? I’m not exactly an active member of the so-called literary community—always been more of a loner myself—but what I notice when I occasionally lift my gaze up from my own involute navel is that diverse voices—writers of color, LGBTQ writers, disabled writers, etc—are being celebrated more and more, which is encouraging and enlightening. That being said, I hear the occasional grumblings—racist, sexist, heterosexist grumblings—bemoaning all the diverse voices in the literary landscape and blaming them for not being able to get one’s own poem/story/book in edgewise. Pure jealousy, that’s what that is. And small-mindedness. And what can be done to end it? Well, for one thing: start reading some of the many great books coming out by poets and writers who don’t look like you and whose experience is different from yours. And you will likely find yourself falling in love with those voices. And falling in love goes a long way toward, well, if not changing the world, at least changing your mind about the world. Which is a start. But we can’t simply read and write our way out of racism and sexism. That only comes from cultivating authentic and loving relationships with people who are different from us. And leaning into the discomfort that comes up, when it comes up, if we’re being honest and seeing clearly. And talking about it. And acting on it.

2 What is the worst poem you’ve ever written?

Well, I’ve written many bad poems, that’s for sure. Sometimes I think they all suck. One never knows. As Merwin said that Berryman said: “...you can’t/ you can’t you can never be sure/ whether anything you wrote was any good/ if you have to be sure don’t write”. And the worst part about writing bad poems is that you actually think they’re pretty damn good when you’re writing them and under their spell. And often after you’ve finished them you still think they’re pretty damn good. So good, in fact, that you send them out to discerning editors at prestigious magazines. And it’s not until the poems have been rejected a dozen times that the spell starts to wear off and you begin to see that they’re bad, very bad, indeed, the worst thing you’ve ever written. I’m not going to show it to you, but I do remember a poem I wrote that sort of hinged on an extended metaphor in which my father was a big old preening tom cat perched on the hood of my car, a sort of monstrous hood ornament, preventing me from going anywhere because he was so big and in-my-face and I couldn’t see past him. It was a very bad poem. Maybe not the worst but definitely up there, definitely in the running.

3 Is there a one-line poem, by you or anyone else, that you absolutely love? Please share-

I don’t think I’ve ever written a poem that was a single line. I guess I’m too long winded for that. Heh heh. I’ve written quite a few poems that are a single sentence though, because I’m partial to poems that don’t let you catch your breath. My favorite single run-on sentence in the whole wide world has to be the one that Michael Chabon crafted in his novel Telegraph Avenue. It encompasses the whole of the third chapter (“A Bird of Wide Experience”) and goes on for 11 pages with only one single period at the very end. A real tour de force of a run-on sentence. And then of course there are many poems that contain great and memorable single lines that I love, and maybe even one or two that I myself have written and am rather proud of. But that’s not the question, is it? The question is about a poem that is itself a one-liner. No, I can’t think of a one-line poem offhand that I’ve read and loved and want to share. Unless you count some of those clever palindromes out there that are fun to read—though perhaps more fun for the contriver of the form than for its apprehender. I do like palindromes but I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say I love them. Like this one for example:

“Murder for a jar of red rum.”

4 You take your poem to the repair shop. Who’s the mechanic?

I have a few poet friends, three or four, whom I sometimes show my poems to when I’m working on them. They’ll occasionally point things out that I can’t hear—some annoyance coming from under the hood, a sound in one of the tires or wheels like metal grinding on metal, probably a wheel bearing going out. Things like that. So they help me hear the problem. They help with the diagnosis. But I’m the mechanic. I do all the repair work myself. Which is how it should be. I mean, I have the tools, I have the hydraulic lift, I have the skills, the know-how, the experience, the only childhood, the bruised longing, the lifetime of solitude, and the damn thing is mine, after all, so why would I take it to someone else to do the repair work for me? Once in a while though, when I’m really struggling, two of us will put our heads together underneath the chassis and get our hands dirty and try to come up with a solution. But even when such collaborations yield a good result, I still end up putting my name to them and taking all the credit. But that’s sort of the industry standard, isn’t it?

5 What efforts do you make personally to sell your book(s)?

I’m a terrible salesman. I give them away to friends, relatives, strangers, hoping they’ll come back for more (a trick I learned from my drug dealer), but they don’t come back. And they don’t write back. And who knows if they even read them? I don’t do social media at all (partly because I’m antisocial and partly because I’m old and tech-illiterate and don’t really know how), so no one’s buying my books or reading my poems on Facebook. I’m just not a good self-promoter. Except in the poems themselves--the poems are all about me. Which is probably another reason why they don’t sell. But seriously, it’s at my readings that I tend to sell the most books. For some reason, when people hear me read my poems aloud, especially the humorous ones, and especially the tearjerkers, they line up afterwards to buy my books. I used to want to take credit for that, but now I think it has less to do with me than with the power of poetry itself. The spoken word, the air in the room, the silences, the breath, the breathing, the listening, it puts a spell on people and they can’t get enough of it. And they don’t know that it’s theirs already. It already belongs to them. So it feels a little like extortion, them lining up afterwards and me taking their money just to give it back to them.

Paul Hostovsky’s poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and Best of the Net. He has been published in Poetry, Passages North, Carolina Quarterly, Shenandoah, Bellevue Literary Review, Poetry East, The Sun, and many other journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart Prize, the Comstock Review's Muriel Craft Bailey Award, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and chapbook contests from Grayson Books, Riverstone Press, Frank Cat Press, Split Oak Press, and Sport Literate. Paul has ten full-length collections of poetry, Sonnets from South Mountain (2001), Bending the Notes (2008), Dear Truth (2009), A Little in Love a Lot (2011), Hurt Into Beauty (2012), Naming Names (2013), Selected Poems (2014), The Bad Guys (2015), Is That What That Is (2017), and Late for the Gratitude Meeting (2019). He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and Braille instructor. Visit him at: www.paulhostovsky.com

Flose Boursiquot

1 Does sexism and/or racism exist in the literary community, and if so, what can be done to end it?

Racism and sexism persist in American society, so they must. For example, there are writing workshops that seek to target immigrants that are now left empty-roomed because people fear ICE. That’s a direct consequence of this country’s current racist immigration policy.

What I could personally speak to is the lack of representation that exists within the literary community. I’m interested in seeing more editors, publishers, and agents of color, and I’m interested in seeing the white women and men who dominate the literary community call for diversity. I’m partly speaking about skin color, but I’m also talking about writing styles.

2 What is the worst poem you’ve ever written?

There is no such thing as a “worst” or “bad” poem. I’ve written poems that didn't work in their current form, but after I let them sit, they evolved. I’ve also written poems that only exist to help me write other poems – how could I call them less desirable because they chose to be something else?

3 Is there a one-line poem, by you or anyone else, that you absolutely love? Please share-

Suicide's Note

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

-Langston Hughes

Not exactly one line, but Jericho Brown shared it during a talk and I was like, wow. Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Nikki Giovanni helped me fall in love with poetry, so it’s pretty cool that Hughes and I sort of share a poem title.

Suicide Note

I wrote you a long letter on Wednesday.
All the feelings I’ve felt over the years, I drunkenly scribbled.

I never sent the letter.

It hangs from my heart like a nightmare
Waiting for the right time to free itself
Its legs thrusting widely as it runs out of breath.

4 You take your poem to the repair shop. Who’s the mechanic?

That’s a great question! It’d be the kind of repair shop where there are three excited mechanics ready to help: Tracy Smith, Billy Collins, and my partner Jesse LaPierre. Jericho Brown would be in the back asking the universe questions, and I’d likely pop in to see him before heading out. I might even walk into some other dope people on the walk home :)

5 What efforts do you make personally to sell your book(s)?

Shamelessly sharing with people that I have two collections of poetry: Close Your Eyes, Now Breathe and loudmouth, and they can be purchased online, at The Book Cellar in Lake Worth, and Poetic Justice Books and Art in Port Saint Lucie. I also share my work at open mics and publicize the collections when I do speaking engagements. Because I'm self-published, selling my books takes personal effort, so I do my best to share them on social media and in-person.

Flose Boursiquot is a Haitian-born writer, spoken word artist, and political campaign manager. Flose has two published works: Close Your Eyes, Now Breathe (2017) and loudmouth (2018). Flose’s poem "It's we" has been selected to appear in A Garden Of Black Joy: Global Poetry From The Edges of Liberation & Living! — a University of Minnesota Press and Button Poetry publication. Flose's work has been published in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, the Huffington Post, on Blavity, in the Delray Newspaper, and in 2017, BET named Flose one of its millennial poets to watch. The Malala Foundation's Assembly Platform featured Flose’s story and poem “March on Sister” in their September 2018 issue.
Flose teaches spoken word poetry to adults and children and is a founding member of kärnl moon. Both of her collections can be found on Amazon, in select Barnes and Noble stores, and at local South Florida Bookstores: The Book Cellar in Lake Worth and Poetic Justice Books & Arts in Port St. Lucie.

July 2019

Fang Bu

1 You get to the end of your new poem, and you think: “So What?” What do you do?

Shrug, put it away and don't think about it for a while, pull it out and read it once I've forgotten it for a few days to weeks, mull over it obsessively, type it out (since the first draft is always handwritten), send it to my fiancé for critiquing because he can be brutally honest and not bound by irrational emotions, and then either crumple it up or edit the stuffing out of it until it sparks at least marginally more joy. Then put it away for another round.

2 Do you have a bone yard of discarded lines?

More like an entire fossil record. Probably including entire poems.

3 How often do literary references appear in your work?

I am a huge literary nerd, so there are ALWAYS literary references in my work. Really ought to start setting quotas.

4 Is there a non-American poet who deserves more readers?

Absolutely, although I've been guilty myself of stocking the bookshelf with dead white men with already massive audiences (*cough* /Keats / *cough*). Would definitely be marooned on a desert island with the side-by-side Spanish and English version of Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, so even though he probably has tons of readers already, he deserves them. Also I'd be remiss not to credit the Tang Dynasty poetry my grandparents taught me to recite when I was basically a toddler, so...Li Bai, probably?

5 Your house is haunted by past poets, who makes the most noise in the middle of the night?

Sylvia Plath. She's kind of a kindred spirit. And she's not physically loud, just mentally and emotionally and spiritually clanging and bouncing against all the boundaries of my space until I give her an out.

Fang Bu is a pediatric pathologist by day, although she's been furiously scribbling poetry in her downtime since college to get through the less glamorous side of pre-med requirements, medical school, residency, and academic medicine. Her poems have appeared in the the Journal of Medical Humanities, the 2RiverView, the Furious Gazelle, Room, and SoFloPoJo. Her first (and so far only) poetry collection, Spring Cleaning, was published by Xlibris in 2012.

Tony Barnstone

.1 You get to the end of your new poem, and you think: “So What?” What do you do?

I take the advice that I give to my students: a poem needs to have three things: body, soul, and heart. By body I mean the surface of the poem needs to have jazz and pizzazz, wordplay and playful wordings, surprise and reprise, sound and resounding, plus some good rhetoric. By soul, I just mean that the poem needs to have a story to tell, needs to be about something, not just wordplay or writing about writing or clearing the throat. By heart, I mean heart. The poem needs to trigger emotions in the reader. The reader is the lock; the poem is the key. If I am asking “So what?” at the end of the poem, it usually means the poem lacks heart.

So that’s the disease. What’s the medicine?

First off, chances are that I haven’t actually written a poem. I’ve probably written the first strophe of a poem and I need to think about what the antistrophe might be, and what a resolving epode could look like. That is, I think of the poem as an argument. An argument is not just the stating of a problem. It is also evidence and resolution. Another way of thinking of it is that poems are inherently dialectic. This is why the English sonnet structure is so effective: octave, quatrain, couplet = Point, counter-point, resolution, which is to say thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It works for free verse, too.

Next, I’ve probably spent too much time describing – appealing to the senses -- instead of appealing to language’s social aspect – appealing to the emotions. The linguistic terms for this are demonstrative and performative speech. Demonstrative speech is, for example: “You put the key into the lock.” Performative speech is, “Open the goddamn door, already!” Demonstrative speech is “He was sentenced to be executed.” Performative speech is, “I hereby sentence you to be burned at the stake.” So I go through the poem seeking moments when I can convert demonstrative lines into performative lines. Really dull endings are usually demonstrative. Performative endings perform social/emotional actions on the reader and are inherently more interesting, effective, and resonant.

Finally, some poems you can’t revise with a knife. You have to smash them with a big fucking hammer. I’ll often simply excise the best lines from a poem and discard the rest and then restart the poem, incorporating the good lines where I can.

2 Do you have a bone yard of discarded lines?

It is really useful to have lots of failed experiments buried in the backyard, corpses ready to sprout, but most of my dead lines have been Frankensteined into new monsters already, so the answer is, “no.”

I used many of them in my “readymade” poems in The Golem of Los Angeles, in which I interwove lines from Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra with my own malformed failures and then riffed off of them until they became new poems. Others I used in Sad Jazz: Sonnets and Pulp Sonnets, where a single reanimated line could often provide a good intro or outro to the mind-movie of the sonnet.

Since I have just completed my new manuscript, all my old catastrophes have pushed through the dirt and are shuffling up the hill to your house. There they are now, peering strangely through the windows.

3 How often do literary references appear in your work?

They appear an awful lot, but typically I reference through allusions revised extensively enough to hide their inspiring source.

I think of them as superheroes. They are lines with special powers but also a secret identity. If you could look behind the mask, you would find not Clark Kent but Federico Garcia Lorca, Constantine Cavafy, Jorge Luis Borges, Yannis Ritsos, Alexandra Pizarnik, Georg Trakl, Du Fu, Izumi Shikibu, Yosano Akiko, or Ghalib.

I stole their power to make my own heroes.

Knowing that they are literary references, though, would instantly sap their energy, making the lines scholarly, pedantic, boring, and emotionally null. That kind of silly academic footnoting is kryptonite to a poem.
For example, in my poem in the upcoming August issue of SoFloPoJo, “Leper Messiah Blues,” the opening lines are “I dreamed I saw David Bowie last night. / He had grown a transparent beard.” These lines echo the Phil Ochs song “Joe Hill,” which begins, “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, / Alive as you and me.” And in another poem in the same issue, “Yellow Moon Blues,” the first line (The moon was arched like a raccoon’s eyebrow) is a pilfering of the classical Chinese image of the beautiful woman’s arched eyebrows being compared to the eyebrows of a moth. You can find the image in Qu Yuan’s “Encountering Sorrow,” Bai Juyi’s “Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” and in many other Chinese poems.
Here is a discussion of the technique by a Chinese poet (from my book, The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters):
Three Ways to Steal: There are three kinds of plagiarism in poetry writing. The clumsiest thief steals the words. Cheng Ju's line "The light of sun and moon is heavenly virtue" is from Fu Changyu's line "The light of sun and moon is transparent." The second kind of plagiarist steals the idea. Consider Shen Chenqi's lines:

The remains of summer flee from a small pond.
Coolness returns to the tips of tall trees first.

Now consider the original lines by Liu Hun:

Ripples arise in the pool.
Autumn comes to tall poplar trees.

The third type of theft doesn't leave much trace. Wang Changlin's lines go:

With two carp in my hand
I watch wild geese fall into distance.

The original lines by Qi Kang are:

My eyes see off migrating cranes.
Holding up my zither, I wave.
from Varieties in a Poetic Garden

As other Chinese writers put it, “If you follow someone, you will always be behind,” and “You can’t build a house inside a house.”

4 Is there a non-American poet who deserves more readers?

Many! Of the ones I referenced above, I think Ritsos, Pizarnik, Trakl, Ghalib and Yosano Akiko are not as well-known as they deserve.

Isaac Rosenberg is a remarkable British WWI poet who is rarely read. Among the war poets, he comes in a close second to Wilfred Owen, to my taste, and is ten times the poet of Stephen Spender or Siegfried Sassoon.

I love the incredible short poems of Jean Follain (W.S. Merwin has translated a book of his work).

The prose poems of Francis Ponge and those of Julio Cortazar are remarkable, too (see an excellent old anthology called Another Republic: 17 European and South American Writers, edited by Charles Simic and Mark Strand).

Then there is Tamura Ryuichi, a fantastic 20th century Japanese poet. Begin with his “Green Conceptual Body” and “Human House” and you’ll fall in love with him.

There are so many others, but that’s a start!

5 Your house is haunted by past poets; who makes the most noise in the middle of the night?

William Carlos Williams, upon whom I wrote my dissertation, keeps keening about my images when they aren’t sharp enough and pushing me to elongate my sentences and have them fold in interesting ways through the lines.

Robert Frost pounds from inside the walls when I don’t have a real story to tell, with characters who are suffering grief, not grievance. He makes the chandeliers flicker when I use meter like a metronome instead of using the double iamb, headless feet, tailless feet, trochaic substitution, elision, promotion and demotion to make the lines contrapuntal, to put a little skip into my walk.

William Butler Yeats howls through the chimney when my rhetoric is boring and gives me nightmares in which Greek and Roman rhetoricians grade my poems for their insufficient use of anadiplosis, anastrophe, catachresis, hyperbole, paraprosdokian, paranosmasia, polysyndeton, chiasmus, aporia, etc. I have a hard time remembering what all of these mean—though they are great Scrabble words—so I tend to reread a classical rhetoric handbook as part of my revision process for a book to make sure I am using the tricks that come in the magician’s box.

Constantine Cavafy stalks in a darkened room and wails at me if my poems are not performative enough. “The aging of my body and face,” he moans, “is a wound from a terrible knife.” I have to agree.

Sylvia Plath beats me about the head with ghostly chains when my diction is boring. “Really?” she whispers, “You call that a verb?”

Lorca and Trakl and Pizarnik lift the table and rattle the cabinets, because I too often write poems that are not strange enough, in which I haven’t put in anything that I don’t completely understand. They scoff, “At any moment you can drop through a hole into the underworld or step through a door in the air to another universe, and you are trying to make your poems logical?” However, as Wallace Stevens writes, “The poem must resist intelligence / Almost successfully.” The key word is “Almost.”

Tony Barnstone is Professor of English and Environment Studies at Whittier College and the author of 20 books and a music CD. He has served as the Visiting Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing in the MFA Program at Bowling Green State University and as the Visiting Professor of Translation in the Ph.D. Program at the University of California, Irvine. He has a Masters in English and Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to Pulp Sonnets, his books of poetry include Beast in the Apartment; Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki, winner of the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry; The Golem of Los Angeles which won the Poets Prize and the Benjamin Saltman Award in Poetry; Sad Jazz: Sonnets; and Impure: Poems by Tony Barnstone, and a chapbook of poems titled Naked Magic (Main Street Rag). He is also a distinguished co-translator of Chinese poetry and literary prose and an editor of literary textbooks. His books in these areas include Chinese Erotic Poems; The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry; Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry; Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei; The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters; The River Merchant’s Wife; Twenty Sonnets for Mother; and the textbooks Literatures of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Literatures of Asia, and Literatures of the Middle East. His bilingual Spanish/English selected poems, Buda en Llamas: Antología poética (1999-2012) appeared in 2014. He has also co-edited the anthologies Dead and Undead Poems and Monster Verse.Among his awards are the Poets Prize, Grand Prize of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the California Arts Council, the Benjamin Saltman Award in Poetry and the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry. His CD of folk rock/blues songs (in collaboration with singer-songwriters Ariana Hall and John Clinebell, based upon Tongue of War and titled Tokyo’s Burning: World War II Songs) is available on Amazon.com, Rhapsody, and CD Baby. His forthcoming books are a co-translation of the Urdu poet Ghalib (White Pine Press), the anthology Republic of Apples, Democracy of Oranges: New Eco-Poetry from China and the United States(University of Hawaii Press, co-edited) and an edition of the collected poems of Mary Ellen Solt (Sinewave Press). His website is https://www.whittier.edu/academics/english/barnstone .

Gabriella Garofalo

1. You get to the end of your new poem, and you think: “So What?” What do you do?

I‘m a staunch believer in 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle', not only in everyday life, but particularly as for the words I wrote. So what I do is to use the words left behind for another poem.
In addition, whenever I finish struggling with my words, I feel a sort of weird happiness, a kind of blue riot in my mind and heart.

2. Do you have a bone yard of discarded lines?

Most certainly yes; it doesn’t, though, ever bother me; more often than not, discarded lines can prove very useful for another poem.

3. How often do literary references appear in your work?

Sometimes in my work appear literary references from Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath.

4. Is there a non-American poet who deserves more readers?

An Italian poet, Amelia Rosselli.

5. Your house is haunted by past poets, who makes the most noise in the middle of the night?

Oh, they certainly do, but, far from feeling scared and frightened I do enjoy chatting and discussing with them- on the proviso that they don’t speak too loud.

Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella Garofalo fell in love with the English language at 6, started writing poems (in Italian) at 6 and is the author of Lo sguardo di Orfeo; L’inverno di vetro; Di altre stelle polari; Blue branches, and A Blue Soul.

June 2019

Sanjeev Sethi

1 In your opinion, which decade best represents poetry of the 20th century?

The last decade for its propinquity to the present. It is the nature of evolution: the freshest has the richest offerings. Literary critics and historians may quibble about this or that decade? For me it is the present, where I and my peers across the globe are producing frabjous work.

2 You’re driving down an imaginary interstate, which imaginary poetry hotel do you stop at to sleep?

A hotel that helps me find my centre, a place that spurs and sharpens my poetic instincts, where I indite without care or caution, a space I wish to return to. Sleep be damned!

3 Who is your best critic?

My instincts.

4 At what point do you decide to change past tense to present tense?

When the tone and tenor of a poem demands it, when it helps a poem.

5 What question did you really want us to ask you for this interview?

About Brishtisahay, my recent chapbook of poems translated into Bengali. It is published in May 2019 by the Kolkata based Shambhabi Imprint. Kiriti Sengupta, the noted poet is the publisher while the gifted Bitan Chakraborty has painstakingly worked on the poems.

Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). He is published in more than 25 countries. Recent credits: Talking Writing, Packingtown Review, The Sandy River Review, Modern Poets Magazine, Poets' Espresso Review, Future Trading Anthology Six, Litbreak, The Poetry Village, Selcouth Station, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Melissa Studdard

photo by Kelli Russell Agodon

1 In your opinion, which decade best represents poetry of the 20th century?

I want to say all of them. However, I’ll zero in on the 1920’s— not to say that this decade best represents the century, but, rather, that it was a great moment in the era. As we know, the Harlem Renaissance was an incredible flourishing of poetry and the arts in general. And, it was also during this time that the magical overlap of Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, César Vallejo, and Frederico Garcia Lorca occurred. As well--modernism emerged, with Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein, and so many more. There was Anna Akhmatova in Russia. And the Surrealist movement was at its peak in France. It feels like both language and the minds that housed it became more elastic during the 20’s.

2 You’re driving down an imaginary interstate, which imaginary poetry hotel do you stop at to sleep?

It would be called “The Unfinished Wing of Heaven” after a line from Li-Young Lee’s Book of My Nights. I have pretty serious insomnia and often only sleep 2-3 hours a night. I feel like I could rest inside these poems. The hotel would look like an ice sculpture of an angels’s wing. It would melt during the day and reappear at night. Behind it would be a beach and in front, an elaborate labyrinth. The trees would grow poems instead of leaves, and birds would fly around inside the lobby, reciting poetry to the guests. The bar would have a jukebox that played poems instead of songs, and each room would be wallpapered with the writings of a different poet. I could go on, but I think you get the idea—poetry everywhere, magic everywhere.

3 Who is your best critic?

I never used to show my work to anyone before I published it, but in recent years I have. I’ve got several trusted people now, but RJ Jeffreys is the person I revise and edit with the most. We’re completely in sync intuitively, and he knows what’s happening without having to be told. If a line nags at me, and I give the poem to Jeff without any comment at all, he’ll go straight to the line that’s bothering me and tell me exactly what’s wrong with it, and often, how to fix it. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever shown him a poem without having him key into precisely the things I was struggling with.

4 At what point do you decide to change past tense to present tense?

Right after I show the reader a river and then toss them the rope swing to get over it.

5 What question did you really want us to ask you for this interview?
I’d love to share a few poems by other living poets:

Noah Baldino at Poetry Daily:
https://poems.com/poem/hearing-loss/

Bola Opaleke
https://www.cleavermagazine.com/broken-ghazal-for-afrika-by-bola-opaleke/

Stalina Villarreal at the Ascentos Review:
http://www.acentosreview.com/february2018/stalina-villarreal.html

Aliah Lavonne Tigh
https://www.guernicamag.com/love-american-made-your-toy-odeus/

Of Melissa Studdard's debut poetry collection, Robert Pinsky writes, “This poet’s ardent, winning ebullience echoes that of God…” and Charles Clifford Brooks III says, “The nature of existence is putty Studdard shapes into voluptuous bits of truth." Studdard is the author of the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the young adult novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her writings have appeared in periodicals such as The Guardian, The New York Times, Poetry, Harvard Review, New Ohio Review, Psychology Today, and Poets & Writers, and have received awards such as The Forward National Literature Award and the International Book Award. She is spending much of this summer as a poet-in-residence at The Hermitage Artist Retreat, where she is working on a poetry manuscript narrated mostly from the perspective the mythological character Philomela's severed tongue. To learn more, visit www.melissastuddard.com.

Austin Davis

1 In your opinion, which decade best represents poetry of the 20th century?

I think that the 1950s best represents poetry of the 20th century because of the beat generation. I think that the whole first half of the 1900s in the poetry world led up to the emergence of the beat poets. Poets of the early 20th century began to reject traditional forms which had a huge impact on the way the art form developed, evolved, and branched out in the future because it led to the emergence of beat poetry, spoken word, and slam poetry later in the 20th century. The beat movement was all about experimenting with new ideas and asking difficult social questions through poetic expression, and that, to me, best represents poetry of the 20th century. The beat movement was also very influential because it led to more and more slam poets tackling political issues with their poetry in the late 20th century and present time.

2 You’re driving down an imaginary interstate, which imaginary poetry hotel do you stop at to sleep?

The imaginary poetry hotel I'd stop at would be somewhere in the middle of the country where the days are always the perfect amount of cloudy. The hotel would be big, old fashioned and quiet. All my poetry friends and all my favorite poets from the past and present would be in attendance, sharing poems with each other in a very intimate common area complete with comfortable seating, endless tea, a crackling fire, and walls and walls of books.

3 Who is your best critic?

I think that I'm definitely one of my best critics. I spend a lot of time and effort editing and reworking my poems until I feel they're right. My poetry professor at ASU, Sally Ball, has such a talent for critique though, so she's definitely one of my best critics as well. Every poem of mine that Sally edits gets tremendously better after she gives me comments about what it's doing well and what it's lacking.

4 At what point do you decide to change past tense to present tense?

For me it really depends on the point of view of the poem. Every little thing can add something to a poem, and for me, it comes down to deciding whether past tense or present tense will add the most value to the poem I'm writing. One thing I've learned to let myself do is listen to where the poem wants to go.

5 What question did you really want us to ask you for this interview?

"What role does poetry play in activism and politics in 2019?"

Austin Davis is a poet and student activist currently studying Creative Writing at ASU. Austin's writing has been widely published in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Pif Magazine, After the Pause, Philosophical Idiot, Soft Cartel, and Collective Unrest. Austin has also been featured in KJZZ’s “Word” podcast, and The East Valley Tribune. Austin's first two books, Cloudy Days, Still Nights and Second Civil War were both published by Moran Press in 2018. You can find Austin on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and you can reach him at [email protected].

May 2019

David Trinidad

1. Of the three following lines of poetry is there one that speaks to you more than the others?

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
“Phenomenal Woman”
   by Maya Angelou

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
“Walking Around”
   by Pablo Neruda

He tells her that the earth is flat--
he knows the facts, and that is that.
“Differences of Opinion”
   by Wendy Cope

The Neruda quote speaks to me most, as it conjures ideas of societal norms and gender expectations. The pressure to conform to acceptable roles, modes of behavior. In my case, being a boy who was interested in “feminine” things, a homosexual in 1950s/1960s heterosexual America. The emphasis was on sameness. To deviate from that script was dangerous. You risked humiliation, becoming an outcast, or worse. If everyone felt comfortable enough to be who they really are, the world be a completely different place.

2. Do you have a favorite “healing” poem?

Yes, Tim Dlugos’ “Healing the World from Battery Park.” Tim wrote this poem in 1984, when he was newly sober, and it functions as both an inventory of past “sins” (“I chose rage / to hold my sorrow’s head beneath the waves / until I couldn’t feel it anymore”) and an affirmation of spiritual awakening. It’s both historical and personal, specific to place and yet all-embracing. The speaker feels a kinship with everyone (“the exiled people of all times / and lands”) and, in the end, lets go, surrenders to a power greater than himself: “It’s in your hands.”

3. Have you a poem written by you that speaks to the current political climate?

I have a poem that speaks to it sideways. A recent prose poem called “Politics and the News.” It’s about an incident I witnessed at an Anaïs Nin reading in Los Angeles in 1973—at the height of the women’s movement. I guess it’s a parable of sorts. One in which I indirectly state my political views. The poem, by the way, will be in the May/June 2019 issue of The American Poetry Review.

4. We’ve recently lost some great poets. Would you care to say anything about any or all of them? Merwin, Broido, Oliver, Lux, et al?

I did not have a deep relationship with the work of any of these poets. I do like some of Merwin’s early poems about his family. And I once read a poem by Thomas Lux in The New Yorker that I liked, about a refrigerator. I wish Merwin had been nicer to Sylvia Plath. And that Mary Oliver had been nicer to me. Lucie Brock-Broido was gracious the one time I met her, in New York in the nineties. A close friend of mine was close to her, was of course shaken by her death. I like to think of the James Schuyler line, in terms of the world of poets: “I salute that various field.” And of Elizabeth Bishop’s “Somebody loves us all.” I remember when Bishop died in 1979. It was so sad: No more Elizabeth Bishop poems. With death, a door closes on a poet’s body of work. It becomes finite, contained. You begin to see their poems differently, as part of this imperfect (and quite human) whole.

5. Do you write “traditional” i.e., form poetry?

I used to write in form quite a bit: sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, pantoums, haiku. Both in a playful, irreverent way—a kind of game—and as a serious tool for excavating painful memories. In the case of the latter, focusing on a form can distract you, as you’re writing, and allow what needs to be said to surface. Inadvertently. It can magically unlock what you could never express directly. I once said to a workshop: “We’re poets, so we should write sonnets.” That got back to a friend who said, “Did you really say that?” As if the statement were foolhardy. I was probably being flip, in part. I do think it’s useful, especially at the beginning, to plug into poetic tradition, try it out, experiment, to see if anything comes of it.

David Trinidad’s latest book is Swinging on a Star (Turtle Point Press, 2017). His other books include Notes on a Past Life (BlazeVOX [books], 2016), Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera (Turtle Point, 2013), Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems (Turtle Point, 2011), The Late Show (Turtle Point, 2007), and Plasticville (Turtle Point, 2000). He is also the editor of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos (Nightboat Books, 2011) and Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith (forthcoming from Turtle Point in 2019). Trinidad lives in Chicago, where he is a Professor of Creative Writing/Poetry at Columbia College.

Thomas Fucaloro

1. Of the three following lines of poetry is there one that speaks to you more than the others?

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
“Phenomenal Woman”
       by Maya Angelou

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
“Walking Around”
       by Pablo Neruda

He tells her that the earth is flat--
he knows the facts, and that is that.
“Differences of Opinion”
by Wendy Cope

I would say the Neruda one sticks with me most. I am sick of misogyny. I am sick of sexism. I am sick of the role I am expected to play. I believe in gender fluidity and that we are not just one thing. I am sick of being a man. I would like to try and be a bit more human.

2. Do you have a favorite “healing” poem?”

Not sure I have a healing poem. Sounds like a mood ring or a healing stone. I think the act of reading poetry is healing in and of itself. But when I am looking to heal I either write or listen to the Melvins. So I would say the Melvins are my healing poem. Ha.

3. Have you a poem written by you that speaks to the current political climate?

Here is a poem that I think addresses that:

"You would make a great politician"

That's why I don't
pay my bills
because death is,
death is always calling

reminding you that you once
wanted to leave and then
on the 8th day
science
created
god
and you found the faith
in substance s
and fountains
of elixirs
without consequence
I tremble
a shake into existence.

Those that have the answers
don't bother hearing the question
is a train ride song long
and it's not propaganda
it's entenmann's, and bite sized

some of the best art comes from fists

my proctologist said

I would make a great

politician.

4. We’ve recently lost some great poets. Would you care to saying anything about any or all of them?- Merwin, Broido, Oliver, Lux, et al?

There loss is certainly felt but I am like an upside-down umbrella, I always catch the rain and pour it over my head in celebration of those we have lost and those who have survived

5. Do you write “traditional” i.e., form poetry?

I do write form poetry and I do try and create my own forms. I teach a Found Poetry class at Wagner College and I gave them a Poetic Scavenger Hunt as a form. They had nine things to find:

1.    Find a leaf where you can write a 3 lined poem on. Answer this question, “Why have I fallen?”
2.     Ask a random person what their favorite line to a song is, poem or anything.
3.     Using chalk, write 3 lines about what it means to have a solid foundation (take a photo)
4.     Go to the library, go to the poetry section, pick 3 separate lines from 3 separate books of poetry (please cite what you are using)
5.     Sit under a tree and free write for a total of 5-10 minutes. Turn your phone off. Stream of conscious
6.     Look for some official Wagner forms, flyers, etc….create an erasure line from them
7.     Use Wagner historical plaques to look up or use something that creates a line or 2 of poetry
8.     use language from a street sign
9.     Use 3 lines from 3 separate pieces of writing you have on you…doesn’t have to be from this class

This all resulted in them creating all these lines/puzzle pieces. Then they had to attempt to answer this question: Who are you, how did you get here and where are you going?

And basically they became the found poem. Whew, hope that made sense.

The winner of a performance grant from the Staten Island Council of the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Thomas Fucaloro has been on six national slam teams. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School and is a co-founding editor of Great Weather for Media and NYSAI press. He is an adjunct professor at Wagner College where he teaches world lit and advanced creative writing. He is a writing coordinator at the Harlem Children’s Zone and lives in Staten Island. His latest chapbook, There is Always Tomorrow was released in 2017 by Mad Gleam Press.

Chris Bluemer

1.   Of the three following lines of poetry is there one that speaks to you more than the others?

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
“Phenomenal Woman”
       by Maya Angelou

It so happens I am sick of being a man.
“Walking Around”
by Pablo Neruda

He tells her that the earth is flat--
he knows the facts, and that is that.
“Differences of Opinion”
       by Wendy Cope

The line that grabbed me was “I am sick with being a man” from Pablo Neruda’s “Walking Around”.

Simply said, I had been healthy for most of my 76 years, and maybe I took it for granted. But last year my health unraveled, and I had no clue what was about to happen next.

On January 5, 2018 I received a Walker. “To avoid falling down” my doctor said as she filled out forms for a handicap parking ticket, stuck needles into my legs, sent me to others for a cat scan. There were more scans, more tests…. but let’s fast forward to April when a doctor said my name and Alzheimer’s in the same sentence. Say What? But that wasn’t all. By the middle of May new doctors also diagnosed me for Neuropathy and Lyme disease.

I was a mess.

Fortunately, my new doctors had this to say about Alzheimer’s: Nobody can tell you for sure, because someone has to dig into your brain and that test is not recommended because it will kill you so chill, take these Meds, exercise, and understand that your ability to keep laughing is the best Med!

That said, go open Neruda’s poem, see how he repeats “I am sick with being a man”. Find the second place in the poem where “I am sick with being a man” repeats, and focus on what follows…. “Still, it would be marvelous to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily, or kill a nun with a blow in the ear…”   Does that speak to me? You bet.

Just like my new doctor speaks, tells me to enjoy today; reminds me nobody gets out alive.

Just like "Complainers", a slam poem by Rudy Francisco speaks to me with: “You are still alive. You are still alive. Act like it.”

Listen to “Complainers” on you tube.

2. Do you have a favorite “healing” poem?”

I do not have a favorite healing poem.
Unless you include poems like “Complainers” that say: It could be worse, get to work, live life.

3. Have you a poem written by you that speaks to the current political climate?

Only one poem? OK.

MAINSTREAM

Is this what we have become?
Are we… am I… MAINSTREAM?
Yes, damn it, yes… which gives me the right to ask
what makes you so angry with the world.
What about me??
Somebody somewhere did something to me today
and by God we are gonna make them pay.

Wait. Did I say we?
No way. This is not about us; not you with me
unless you’re an attorney
looking for 40 percent of the court
settlement which, when they pay,
will make you rich enough to support
these repulsive displays.

And lest we forget…
Is ugliness in art
the object or the subject?

Is the repository,
the creativity,
the reality
of ugliness you and me?
No fucking way.
We are innocent spectators,
couch potato standard bearers.
Nothing is our fault, nothing our responsibility.

We are the struggle.
Our obsession with oppression fuels a depression
and all the kings horses (and therapy sessions)
do nothing to assuage the rage,
so let us quickly turn the page and observe…
This is not a dream.
We really are MAINSTREAM

It is you, the poet who cries of hypocrisy
as you cheat upon your lady.
Or you, the priests and cardinals who find nothing odd
helping little boys COME with GOD.
Or you, the Jew who honors the Holocaust
then drives off in a Mercedes that costs
less due to a lease inflating phony tax deductions.

Yes. ladies and gentlemen,
this is how the MAINSTREAM functions.
Look, look about; the walls are shouting
MAINSTREAM, MAINSTREAM, MAINSTREAM!

And the headlines scream it.

Read about the kid in school
who says I’ll teach you about the rule
of a gun as we die one by one by one.
We are Enron, World Com, Arthur Andersen,
We are Bush, Obama, Clinton, Trump…
We are all of us dealers of shit
every time we try to get away with it.

MAINSTREAM!

Hello little girl.
Would you like an ice cream cone?

MAINSTREAM!

© Chris Bluemer, 2019 All rights reserved

4. We’ve recently lost some great poets. Would you care to saying anything about any or all of them? Merwin, Broido, Oliver, Lux, et al?

A moment please, for a poet and good friend who passed suddenly last June. Brenda Serotte is her name, and I miss her, especially her laugh, always from the heart.

5. Do you write “traditional” i.e., form poetry?

I have in the past, but it is not my go-to approach.

Chris Bluemer, (Chris B in Slam Poetry circles) is currently working on staying alive. That’s not a bad plan, you know, taking one step at a time. Thanks for listening.

April 2019

Terese Svoboda

1 Do you have a "routine" for National Poetry Month?

Get all psyched about Latasha Nevada Diggs' Twerk again, and new works like Xamissa by Henk Roussouw and Extra Hidden Life by Brenda Hillman. Sigh, I can't keep up. Is that a routine?

2 If you've ever attended conferences such as AWP or others, did it/do they help you in any way?

Many. See below referenced “dopamine rush” on seeing all those booths full of interesting books! And people! I run into great people I haven't seen for eons and we both blink at each other in the chaos and make all kinds of wild promises and then do the same thing the next year until one or the other breaks down and we go for a drink and voila! start again. I think of it as a hunting ritual. You need your band/to withstand/the brand/to go out/and shout/what it's really about.

3 Have you ever written poetry while intoxicated/high?

There's always a dopamine rush when you're really into it.

4 Do you have a favorite film about a poet/poetry?

Baldwin's “I Am Not Your Negro.” He called it for everyone marginalized, and so did the director. So intelligent and compassionate and beautiful, dare I say, poetic? I was once a producer/writer for Voices & Visions, the PBS series on American Poetry. I'd like to do another series called Rare Finds and include the subject of my biography, Lola Ridge.

Do you have a favorite essay or blog about poetry?

Tony Hoagland's “Fear of Narrative and the Skittery Poem of Our Moment.” And not because he's recently dead. It came at a time when chaos reigned in poetry, and explained to me and any students I had why things wouldn't cohere (to paraphrase Pound) – and gestured toward the current thrilling breakthroughs of Our New Moment, when at last lyric has more than met language.

"Terese Svoboda is one of those writers you would be tempted to read regardless of the setting or the period or the plot or even the genre.”--Bloomsbury Review. She has published 18 books of fiction, poetry, memoir, biography, and a book of translation from the Nuer. Professor Harriman's Steam Air-Ship (Eyewear UK) is her most recent book of poetry. Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet (biography) was reissued in paper in 2018. Winner of a Guggenheim, a Bobst Prize in fiction, an Iowa Prize for poetry, a NEH grant for translation, an O. Henry Award for the short story, the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, 3 NYFA fellowships, a Pushcart Prize for the essay, a Bellagio residency for a libretto, and the Jerome Foundation Award in video, she also wrote the libretto for the opera WET that premiered at L.A.'s RedCat Theater. Great American Desert, a book of stories, appears in March. In a starred review, Kirkus writes: “[Svoboda's] enigmatic sentences, elliptical narratives, and percussive plots delve into the possibilities of form, genre, and plausible futures, but always with an eye on the vast subterranean psychologies of her all-too-real creations."

Angela Narciso Torres

1 Do you have a "routine" for National Poetry Month?

For me, any month can—and should—be National Poetry Month. I know some poets who write a poem a day in April. But because there are so many events, readings, and celebrations of poetry to attend during this month, I usually pick another month (or two) out of the year to do the poem-a-day-thing. It’s a wonderful and effective way to come up with new work, often outside your comfort zone, that you otherwise may not have written. The sustained writing practice helps you develop fluency as well as the habit of observing/looking for poems in all aspects of your daily life. A number of my most successful poems have come out of this practice.

2 If you've ever attended conferences such as AWP or others, did it/do they help you in any way?

Yes, I’ve attended AWP several times, mostly because of my association with RHINO magazine, which I co-edit. As an editor, I like the fact that I can meet our contributor-poets face-to-face. As a writer, I’ve found the conference to be a wonderful place to discover new books and publications by poets you may not have heard of before, as well as to promote your own work. It’s also a chance to “fan-girl” on poets you’ve always admired on the page. If nothing else, the AWP book fair is the best kind of party a poet/writer could imagine.

3 Have you ever written poetry while intoxicated/high?

Not that I recall (but that doesn’t mean I haven’t). However, I have written many poems while intoxicated/high on another poet’s words. I remember reading Sharon Olds’, The Dead and the Living, and staying up afterwards till early morning feverishly writing a poem that eventually ended up placing in a poetry contest. I’ve had times when I rushed home after readings to get to my desk and write poems. That’s when I know a reader/reading has been particularly amazing.

4 Do you have a favorite film about a poet/poetry?

POETRY, a Korean film released in 2010—a film about a woman who is dealing with early onset Alzheimer’s disease and a violent crime implicating her grandson. She discovers a love of poetry when she takes a poetry class. Poetry eventually becomes her sanctuary and respite from a difficult life, though ultimately, it ends up not being enough.

5 Do you have a favorite essay or blog about poetry?

I love NPR’s, On Being, a podcast by Krista Tippett. While it’s not exclusively about poetry, Tippett often features poets I admire. What I like about the interviews is that they focus not only on the poets’ craft and work but also about their lives as poets and human beings navigating this complex world. So they are really about how to live, how to make meaning, how to be human. Some of my favorite past features are Marie Howe (May 2017), Mary Oliver (January 2019 re-run of Oliver’s 2015 interview), and most recently, Sharon Olds (March 2019). I’ll often go back and listen to these again and again.

Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange (Willow Books Poetry Prize). Her work appears or is forthcoming in POETRY, New Ohio Review, Quarterly West, Missouri Review, Bellingham Review, Cortland Review, and PANK. A graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA program and Harvard Graduate School of Education, Angela has received fellowships from Bread Loaf and Ragdale Foundation. She received First Prize in the 2019 Yeats Poetry Prize by the W.B. Yeats Society of New York. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manila, she is a senior and reviews editor for RHINO and serves on the editorial panel of New England Review. Currently, she resides in Delray Beach, Florida.

Emma Trelles

1 Do you have a "routine" for National Poetry Month?

Only that I’m galloping around a todo—to readings that I’m giving, readings that I’m hosting, poetry projects that I’m editing or contributing to in some way. April is the blurriest month.

2 If you've ever attended conferences such as AWP or others, did it/do they help you in any way?

I can’t recall a specific instance where I could point to someone I’ve met and said, yes, that acquaintance specifically led me to this success. Maybe it’s happened, but that’s not really why I attend. I go because I want to be around my tribe. I want to listen to and spend time with artists and the wonderful humans who help place our work in the world. I want to see my friends and eat overpriced pasta and buy books and take notes and walk around the city and its gardens and cafes and outdoor murals. I want to get out of the weary grooves in my own head, and AWP, while also overwhelming, is good at doing that for me.

3 Have you ever written poetry while intoxicated/high?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been notably buzzed, but, yes, I have. I wrote an early draft of “Woman on the Boulevard” from Tropicalia into my notebook after my car conked out on the side of Federal Highway after happy hour. I remember someone I don’t know reading it and being angry because they assumed that I was exploiting the women who are sex workers along that corridor, but I wasn’t. I was writing about myself and my real and imagined experiences, some of which happened that night and most of which occurred another time or not at all. The poem is honest, but it’s not journalism.

4 Do you have a favorite film about a poet/poetry?

Several, and I imagine they’re the usual suspects: Reaching for the Moon (about Elizabeth Bishop); Bright Star (about Keats); Tom and Viv (about T.S. Eliot and Vivienne Haigh-Wood); Paterson (about a bus driver poet whose poems are actually written in real life by the poet Ron Padgett).
There’s also a new one coming out soon — Wild Nights with Emily, a dramedy starring Molly Shannon playing an irreverent and carnal Emily Dickinson. That should be good...

5 Do you have a favorite essay or blog about poetry?

The Best American Poetry blog is rich reading (I’m an occasional contributor) and so is Notes on Pinay Liminality, the longtime blog of Barbara Jane Reyes, a Pinay poet who writes a lot about the practice and hustle of poetry and what it means to be an artist of color; her posts are deeply reflective and always speak some kind of truth to me.

Emma Trelles is the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the author of Tropicalia (University of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, a finalist for Foreword/Indies poetry book of the year, and a recommended read by The Rumpus. She is currently writing a second book of poems, Courage and the Clock. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Best of the Net, Verse Daily, Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity, To Give Life A Shape: Poems Inspired by The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and others. Recent poems appear or are forthcoming in the Colorado Review, Spillway, The Miami Rail, Zócalo Public Square, and SWWIM. A recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and a founding member of the AWP Latinx Caucus, she lived and worked for many years as an arts journalist in South Florida. She now lives with her husband in California, where she teaches at Santa Barbara City College and programs the Mission Poetry Series.

March 2019

Susan Deer Cloud

1 Choose a fictional character from a novel you love and have them read one of your poems. Who is that character? Which of your poems are they reading?

Becky Sharp, the main character in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair. Becky is reading my poem "You Really Have" written in response to every person who has ever told me I really have "a lot of balls" whenever I exhibit brains and moxie and humor similar to what the inimitable "born into poverty" Miss Sharp possessed.

2 Where were you (specifically) when you wrote your first poem?

I was in a second floor bedroom in a green, stuccoed cinder block house built by my stone mason Indian grandfather, father, and uncles. I wrote the poem in long hand on a bed from where I could gaze out a western window at a Dutch Elm tree. I hid the poem under my mattress where I continued to hide poems away from the mean eyes of small town brutes and gossips.

3 Is there a poet you’ve recently discovered whose work you love?

Moises Edelberto Alvarez Monroy, a Chilean poet/artist/musician I happened to meet when he came to sell his art in a mural-covered lighthouse near Chile's Pacific where I was traveling this past autumn. He, my roving companion, and I got into one of those conversations straight from the heart and Moises, of indigenous lineage, played a Native song for me on his flute. I gave him some of my poetry and he gave me a carved rock evocative of the land and ancient spirit in that part of Mother Earth. This extraordinary poet lives in Huasco Bajo, Atacama, of the wild donkeys.

4 If it were up to you, who would be the next U.S. Poet Laureate? Why?

Me, of course. Because I have the same inimitable spirit as Becky Sharp (see response to first question) and dare to be enough of a high-spirited asshole to write "Me" in response to such a question.

5 Give us your thoughts on submission managers such as Submittable?

I don't like submission managers one bit, but I have had to learn to deal with Submittable, etc., because often there appears to be no other choice. I prefer direct submissions to editors.

Susan Deer Cloud is a mixed lineage Catskill Indian, an alumna of Goddard College (MFA) and Binghamton University (B.A. and M.A.). She has taught Creative Writing, Rhetoric and Literature at Binghamton University and Broome Community College. In April 2013, she returned to her “heart country” Catskills to dwell once more with foxes, deer, black bears, bald eagles, and the ghosts of panthers and ancestors. She now lives as a full-time mountain woman, dreamer and writer.
   Deer Cloud is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, two New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, and a Chenango County Council for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant. Some of her books are Before Language and Hunger Moon (Shabda Press); Fox Mountain, The Last Ceremony and Car Stealer (FootHills Publishing); and Braiding Starlight (Split Oak Press). Her poems, stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies and journals.
   In order to get out “the voices of the voiceless,” the poet has edited three published anthologies: multicultural Confluence and Native American I Was Indian (Before Being Indian Was Cool), Volumes I & II; the 2008 Spring Issue of Yellow Medicine Review, a Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art & Thought; and the Re-Matriation Chapbook Series of Indigenous Poetry. She is a member of the international peace organization SERVAS; Poets & Writers; Associated Writing Programs (AWP); and indigenous Wordcraft Circle. She has served on panels at writers’ conferences and given myriad poetry readings at colleges, cultural centers, coffee houses, and rowdy bars.
   In between her sojourns in the Catskills, Deer Cloud has spent recent years roving with her current companion around Turtle Island (North America), on the Isles (Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England), Europe proper, and Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. She has been not only on a physical journey but a spiritual quest for her deepest roots tied in with ancestors, ancient truths, and the sacred web of life.

Bunkong Tuon

1 Choose a fictional character from a novel you love and have them read one of your poems. Who is that character? Which of your poems are they reading?

That would be Anthony “Tonio” Benedetto in Roland Merullo’s In Revere, In Those Days. Tonio is an orphan raised by his grandparents and uncle. He’s of Italian descent from Revere, MA. The novel takes place in America of the 1960s. Merullo is a terrific writer; you can feel the emotional intensity and spiritual journey of his characters. It’s like reading Dostoevsky. Anyway, in the book, Tonio eventually becomes an artist, a painter living in Western Massachusetts.
When I was growing up in Revere in the early 1980s, I witnessed much racial tension and conflict between Italian Americans and the newly arrived Cambodians. Merullo’s book opened my eyes to Italian American culture. I wish that Tonio and others like him read my first poetry book, Gruel, published by NYQ Books, to get a perspective on Cambodian Americans, especially the sections “Family Portrait,” “East Coast,” and “Cambodia.”

2 Where were you (specifically) when you wrote your first poem?

In a tiny studio in Long Beach, California, I hammered the old typewriter like a musical “instrument until the fingers (began) to bleed a little.” Next to me sat a heavy jug of cheap red wine I got from the corner store. The poem was probably a poor imitation of a Bukowski poem, except that I was writing about the experience of a Cambodian American trying to make sense of America and his place in it and understanding the traumas of his uncles, aunts, and grandparents.

3 Is there a poet you’ve recently discovered whose work you love?

I’d like to mention two poets because they are very different from each other in terms of style and aesthetic.
David M. Taylor is a terrific poet and teacher at a community college in St. Louis, MO. He writes about being black and what it means to be a parent to biracial children in these very polarizing times. His poetry is personal, direct, accessible, and restraint. Here’s an interview with Taylor that Rebecca Schumejda, a fellow NYQ poet, did for Albany Poets: https://albanypoets.com/2018/12/interview-with-poet-david-m-taylor/

I also like the poetry of Ilya Kaminsky. He’s a beautiful writer; his poetry is mystical, spiritual, and yet grounded in a particular political and cultural climate. He writes with such generosity, kindness, love, and hope in a world of political unrest and violence.

These two poets have been writing for some time now. I simply discovered their work recently, and they represent two kinds of approach to poetry: narrative and lyric poetry. As a teacher, I feel it’s my job to be grounded in both modes.

4 If it were up to you, who would be the next U.S. Poet Laureate? Why?

That’s a really difficult question. So many people are publishing today, writing in different voices, styles, and aesthetics, bending and blending genres, that it’s difficult to keep up and thus I don’t think it’s fair for me to name one.

With that said, I’d say a U.S. Poet Laureate should be someone who knows deeply, in his very bones, about the tradition of American poetics and the diverse landscape of contemporary U.S. poetry. Equally important, it should be someone who loves poetry and finds pleasure in sharing that love with the American public. In other words, a U.S. Poet Laureate should be both a poet and a natural teacher.

5 Give us your thoughts on submission managers such as Submittable?

I’m unaware of any controversy surrounding submission managers such as Submittable. I have an account with Submittable, and it’s helpful for me to organize my submissions. I find it helpful, so convenient, for someone like me, who is disorganized and forgetful, to have a place that keeps a record of what I submitted and what I said in my cover letters. If there are controversies, readers, do let me know. As a teacher, I love to listen and learn from others.

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer, critic, professor, and, most importantly, father. He is the author of Gruel (NYQ Books, 2015), And So I Was Blessed (NYQ Books, 2017), and Dead Tongue (with Joanna C. Valente, forthcoming from Yes Poetry), as well as a contributor to Cultural Weekly. Nominated for the Pushcart numerous times, his poetry recently won the 2019 Nasiona Nonfiction Poetry Prize. He has completed a book of poems about raising his daughter in contemporary America. He is an associate professor of English and Asian Studies at Union College in Schenectady, NY.

Robbi Nester

1 Choose a fictional character from a novel you love and have them read one of your poems. Who is that character? Which of your poems are they reading?

One of my favorite novels is Tolstoi's Anna Karenina. It is heart-rending to read of a person with so much potential but one who does not have a place in the world she inhabits. I have read that novel over and over, wincing as I read because I know that what is coming cannot be avoided, but looking for possible ways out she might have missed.
Her world is not my world. Intelligent women have many more options now than they did at that time and place.
If I could sit with her and offer any of my own words, I would probably choose a poem about my mother, like "Squeaky Wheel." This poem appeared in my second collection, Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017).
Here it is:

The Squeaky Wheel

My mother—pretty, prim,

never flashy—turned out

in her white gloves for Saturdays

at Wanamakers, downtown.

She taught me to eat lunch only

in places with white tablecloths,

cloth napkins, and the hum

of quiet conversation,

and corrected my infelicitous

grammar, gleaned from playmates

on the grubby streets of Philadelphia.

For this I belatedly thank her,

though she kept her imagination

buttoned up against uncivil

thoughts, tried unsuccessfully

to censor mine as well.

It must have been hard

to have been married

to my father, king

of wherever he was,

who embodied such drama,

dark brows lowered,

ready for a storm.

He mocked her manners

and her haughty bearing,

the perfect enunciation

that made her so conspicuous

despite herself.

Yet she never said a word,

except under her breath,

and then only in Afrikaans.

I used to love to watch her

pouring tea for smiling

women friends, high priestess

of civility, but they would never

visit more than once.

My father drove them off,

and then the silver tea

service and cutlery she’d bought

in London were retired.

She polished them

in silence, or else recited

tales of former glory as she rubbed,

as though her efforts

might restore the past.

Soon, no one would listen

when she spoke.

I’d heard it all before.

My father simply

told her to shut up.

She stopped singing,

telling stories of her family

in South Africa, and slipped

away, into her private world.

So when at 93, her mind

half gone, she let me see

the jealousy she felt

at the attention her husband

always got from everyone--

caregivers propping up his pillows,

polishing his shoes, doctors

laughing at his jokes

and jotting notes about

his special, complicated case--

it spoke a lifetime of missed chances,

regret that she, so charming

and popular in youth,

had been reduced to this.

“Doctors want to see

me too,” she said,

pointing with a pink-tipped finger

turning away.

Anna's situation was nothing like my mother's except that she was limited by men who suffered from serious limitations themselves. Those men were far more conventional and sane than my father was, but her response to them was similar to my mother's. She didn't believe there was any way out for her at all. My mother retreated to dementia, while Anna did violence to herself. Both were effectively lost.

2 Where were you (specifically) when you wrote your first poem?

My mother's friend used to babysit for me when I was very small (infancy to three years old) and told me that I used to dictate stories for her to type out on my mother's typewriter.
But the first poem I personally remember writing was in elementary school. My class in third or fourth grade had been asked to write a poem. The best of these were chosen to be read by the writers in auditorium.
I wrote about a wolf, since I had been reading Call of the Wild. When I read the poem aloud, no one could hear me. There were no microphones that I can remember. The teacher was really upset with me.
That didn't stop me from writing or continuing to share my work with others. At recess, when others were gossiping or playing handball or dodgeball, I was offering my latest pieces to the kids I wanted to impress. None of them ever understood what I was trying to do or were interested, but it was the only way I knew of to connect with people.

3 Is there a poet you’ve recently discovered whose work you love?

Poet Elizabeth Bradfield, editor of the wonderful Ekphrastic publication, Broadsided and wonderful poet, introduced Facebook friends to the writer Jenny George, whose book The Dream of Reason was published by Copper Canyon Press. That is her first book, but she appears to be one of those poets who came into print fully mature.

4 If it were up to you, who would be the next U.S. Poet Laureate? Why?

I haven't given this a lot of thought, but I'd like to see writers who are not only exemplary poets but also gifted teachers with ideas of how they can use their position to bring poetry to audiences that have not spent much time reading or thinking about it in the past.
There have been a few excellent Laureates like that, like Dana Gioia, who currently holds the position, I believe, and Robert Pinsky. I'd like to see more of the same sort of writers, each with his or her own constituency and goals.

5 Give us your thoughts on submission managers such as Submittable?

I only have good things to say about them. Though they aren't perfect (what is?), they are far preferable to the state of affairs that existed before the Internet took so much of the burden out of finding opportunities to publish and making it easy to submit individual poems and manuscripts.
Since the advent of Submittable, I have sent out hundreds if not thousands of poems and half a dozen or more manuscripts and have had a fair amount of success.
While there are glitches of various kinds and the existence of these submission managers has probably led to the proliferation of reading fees, I still applaud them. They make it easier for disorganized folks like me to keep track of their submissions.

Robbi Nester is a retired teacher of composition and literature who still tutors occasionally. She is the author of four books of poetry, including a chapbook, Balance (White Violet, 2012) and three collections of poetry: A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014), Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017), and Narrow Bridge, recently released by Main Street Rag. She also edited two anthologies--The Liberal Media Made Me Do It! (Nine Toes, 2014) and an Ekphrastic e-book, Over the Moon: Birds, Beasts, and Trees: Celebrating the Photography of Beth Moon, which was published as a special edition of Poemeleon Poetry Journal. Her essays, reviews, and poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including most recently Pirene's Fountain, Ghost Town, Sheila Na Gig, Tipton Poetry Review, Pilgrimage, and the anthologies Dark Ink and Collateral Damage.

February 2019

Charles Scheitler

1 Do you have a scrap of a poem, or a line in which you’ve been trying to use but have not yet been able? Will you share it with us?

Practically everything I write is of instant use. I so seldom write a phrase down because of its sound or brisk meaning that I could easily say I don’t go that route. Is “gofortea” or “the sequin sea” a poem? Golly, they rhymes. Cancel this answer. If I do write them down I hardly ever find them again, so what’s the use. Most of my poems are so short they’re finished when I’m done with them; and the longer ones are a mystery until they’re finished.

2 Is poetry a pleasant disease? If so, give us an example.

Poetry is heart, poetry is love, creation is joy. How can we give it a negative connotation? The pure babyhood of poetry can arise from the most severe disease. Ego is the disease.

Maybe the egoless create
The great art
Effortlessly--
Whatever godhood is
It is egoless and effortless--

3 Do you keep a dream journal or any journal that you sometimes use for inspiration to write a poem?

Confession time. Only at the rarest times do I dare call myself a poet. I distrust most of the poetic devices. And if most of life is holy inspirational, how can I say this particular bit is inspired? Since most of my “poems” are short, the creation is the miracle. Also, since I have a short memory, my dreams don’t exist when I wake up. Maybe my dreams are, eh.

4 Whose poetry do you admire that might be considered difficult?

The more I respond here the more likely the answers have already appeared. The more difficulty I find in poetry the more quickly I abandon it. Maybe I’m not the brightest, but I don’t think difficulty is to be the delight in poetry. We have all sorts of word games for that. Poetry should be the most immediately apprehended; that is the only survival guarantee it has. Brevity must be clarity. Surely brevity is poetry’s greatest claim to fame. Again, maybe I’m claiming that leisure isn’t best produced by walking five miles to and from work every day.

5 If there were a speed limit on the poetry highway, how fast do you drive?

Poems are about time--
Timeless--
As if we cannot read
Fast enough
And then suddenly
The poem ends
And we’re left
Out in the middle of nowhere
Breathless and lost--
Where do we go from there?
We search for our way back
To the beginning--
It is gone

Charles Scheitler moved to Florida as a young man, and on his way, discovered Zen, haiku poetry, and the moon. These were his beginning tools as an author. Writing seriously, humorously, exaltedly, and divisively about god gave him reason to leave a broader trail.
Growing confidence and dedication to his craft have allowed him to produce volumes of work. Reading and writing, steadily revising, being work-shopped, and judged by qualified critics sharpened his skills. Obviously commercial and scholastic successes are a truer standard and the only guarantee of relevance and worth. But credentials and reputation, finally, are for readers to define. His philosophy can be summed up as follows:

Inspiration is a leaf
Erratic in drift--
But like the Arctic tern
That flies from pole to pole
The poet must be
Ever vigilant and without rest--
Inspiration must be sustained
By direction and dedication--

Kristin Garth

1 Do you have a scrap of a poem, or a line in which you’ve been trying to use but have not yet been able? Will you share it with us?

I rarely abandon poems. I think it’s my Capricorn nature that I will struggle and fight for something I love. A poem always falls into that category. I’m never afraid to work hard. Every once in a while though, something starts, and it just doesn’t go anywhere. Maybe for a good reason.

While I love little notebooks, I must confess that I write most often on my iPhone. I have the bigger version, an older version of the Plus which, to me, is the perfect portable writing device (especially for a Shakespearean sonnet stalker who writes most things the length of 14 lines) – small enough to take anywhere but large enough to see. I like to write in places like coffee shops, the woods, on walks, my bathtub – which I finally got, for Christmas, a clawfoot bath tub in a new house that I moved into that, remarkably, had no tubs. Paper wouldn’t do at all in a tub. Soggy paper and smeared ink do not a sonnet make. The phone is ideal, and I’ve never dropped it in the bubbly depths yet.

I usually just write in the memo program – which I saw Chen Chen (whose adorable Twitter I love to stalk for poetic inspiration, cozy sweaters and bow-tie cheekiness) a while back saying he does, too (or did at this time) – which, to me, means it’s totally a legitimate way to go. I scanned quite a ways back to find an abandoned set of lines that didn’t turn into something, and I found this. I don’t exactly know what it is or where it was going though it seems to be a silly little treatise on submissiveness, something that is inherently a part of my makeup I sometimes embrace and often quarrel with/rebel against:

“Prefers a profile shadowed, lit below.
Blue-black, bare back, each forlorn bone does show
a deference that’s lower than her knees.
She knows a thousand synonyms for please.”

2 Is poetry a pleasant disease? If so, give us an example.

I have an addictive personality. When I was younger, specifically in the years that I was stripping (a subject of my full-length Candy Cigarette womanchild noir publishing this April from Hedgehog Poetry Press), this manifested itself in traditionally negative addictive ways: substance abuse, sexual addiction, codependency. Fortunately, I did hard work to combat the substance abuse, and it’s not been an issue in my life since this period. I still very much depend on people though I try to manage that better, too, with differing results -- the point is that the addictiveness itself never resolved. I’m still that person who does something 300 percent or not at all.

I transferred a lot of that energy of addiction to positive things like poetry, working out, helping others. So if I’m still an addict, the object of that addiction – my disease is poetry. I love everything about it – the hours alone contemplating, mulling over words, philosophies, images to the insanely intimidating and exhilarating moment when I hit a button and send the product off to editors like a piece of my soul to celebrate or reject at their whim. Then if you’re lucky, you can wait for months sometimes to have your work hit other human eyes, and they may even engage with you about it.

Yes, poetry is a disease, and I suffer from it. It’s most often pleasant though not always. It’s the most delicious, rewarding process when it goes your way. I will say I think there is no writer at any level that doesn’t have those moments when the disease overtakes them in negative ways: whether that be imposter syndrome, dealing with rejection, competitiveness, jealousy, out of balance lives.

For me, my worst struggle is the latter. I don’t like to compete with other poets. I find that quality very off-putting in art. We all have our own voices, paths, speed that we take on this journey. This year I produced a lot of books, for example, I didn’t do it to try to one up anyone or keep a ledger, I just had a lot to say. I spent a long, long time of my life not saying anything. Maybe next year, I’ll have less to say. We’ll see.

People who read the annotated version of my first chapbook Pink Plastic House know there is a ghost inside it named Jeff. Jeff is a ghost of a poet that I knew as a college girl before I took a long hiatus in writing poetry. Then I got a social media message riddled with misspelled monosyllabic words from a brilliant poet I once knew. He was dying of a brain tumor, and he used some of his last moments on earth to find a poet who had given up and haunt her to doing what she is supposed to do. If poetry is a disease, I went into a long remission, and then Jeff reinfected me. I will stay this way because I have never felt as alive.

In addition to Shakespeare for Sociopaths, A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony and a tiny book that was just accepted The Legend of The Were-Mer, I have two poetic memoirs coming out this year, Puritan U and Candy Cigarette womanchild noir (a full-length). I know this all sounds insane, but what happens when you take a long time off writing and live a lot, you are essentially storing up manuscript outlines in your brain. I didn’t put a pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard) for years, but I was living stories that demanded to be told. Years were spent contemplating nuances, images of my own journey long before I ever consciously thought, “Oh, this will be a poetry book.” The disease might not have been showing its symptoms, but it was there dormant, and I was aware of it. It was taking hold.

When I was at BYU, against my will, with no rights and sexually assaulted, I knew that I was living an experience that needed to be told. I hoped that I would some day be a space safe enough to do so, which I am now and thus have written Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press, March 2019). The sequel Candy Cigarette womanchild noir follows my life when I returned back to Pensacola and asserted my financial independence from a stifling, abusive childhood by becoming a stripper in cheerleader uniforms and Catholic schoolgirl outfits. I did this job for five years, and I did write a few sonnets in diaries (one I did some work on recently and published, “The Sexual Hypocrite Has No Clothes” which you can read here at Work To A Calm Zine: https://worktoacalm.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/two-poems-from-kristin-garth/ --

3 Do you keep a dream journal or any journal that you sometimes use for inspiration to write a poem?

I don’t really keep a diary. I did when I was younger because journaling is very important in the Mormon religion, and my father insisted upon it. We would have family mandated journaling times sitting in a room together writing until my father was satisfied we had documented our day. A large part of my childhood my privacy and dignity wasn’t violated in writing. It gave me a false sense of security that I could be candid in my writing. That was ultimately taken from me when my father started reading my diaries in high school and acted out violently towards me based on the sinful thoughts and expressions inside.

It’s hard to get over an invasion of privacy like that – one of many brutalities I endured in my life. It soured me on diaries and journals though I sort of fetishize them, too. I collect little cute notebooks. It’s interesting this question of dreams and what I do with them because I’m literally working on a book right now that is the subject of my dream. It’s called A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony, and it is a collaborative poetic opera (what we call it) between three poets: myself (writing as The Doll), Justin Karcher (writing the character of The Wizard) and Tianna Hansen (writing The Firebird.) The plot of the story is a wizard shrinks a troubled ballerina to live inside his enchanted dollhouse at the behest of her competitor in the role of The Firebird.

The title poem of this book, the plot of the book itself all came from a dream I had that I wrote the very next morning into a sonnet (you can read it here at Mojave Heart Review https://mojaveheart.com/a-victorian-dollhousing-ceremony/ ). I have so many poems that have roots in dreams, but this full-length book literally came from one dream that my awesome contributors and I continue to dissect, explore and expand. We’ve even enlisted an illustrator Russ Daum, so we are now a four-part dream team creating art out of a plot that was one literal chilling dream. Dreams are a rich resource for writers and poets, and I think when you have one that resonates, you should record it in some way a diary, a poem immediately while it’s fresh and full of its specifics. If you do, your dream might, through the disease of poetry, infect others and inspire worlds whose outlines you only barely imagined.

4 Whose poetry do you admire that might be considered difficult?

I like the world difficult. It’s so loaded with meanings, but, to me, the kind of difficult poetry I particularly love is brave poetry—poetry that looks into the abyss that threatens to consume us and doesn’t blink. It doesn’t mean that the poet themselves is completely fearless. They are, after all, mortals and they can be wounded, destroyed. This kind of poetry can be considered difficult because it scares people with its honesty, reminds them of things around them that they would rather not know, remember, consider. For some people, it’s difficult because they have been through these things themselves, and for their own health and mental safety they need not to engage with this work. I understand and respect that position.

This poetry I’m describing is the poetry of survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault. I recently had the great honor of co-editing a feminist anthology on surviving sexual assault with Tianna Hansen, editor in chief of Rhythm & Bones Press. The anthology came about as a direct result of the Kavanaugh hearing before Congress. In my own tribute to Christine Blasey Ford who bravely went before the world to testify, I made a Twitter thread encouraging poets (if they were inclined) to link to works about their own sexual assault. Tianna Hansen posted in the thread with the incredibly powerful idea that she would like to anthologize these stories in print. Tianna asked me to help her curate these, and we named the book You Are Not Your Rape after a line in a poem she herself wrote.

Working with these brave women, reading these stories, I felt such a respect for their candor and bravery in telling these terrible tales. Some were speaking for the first time decades post their assault. It’s such a powerful book and testament to the evil that is in the world but also the resilience of the human spirit. It’s difficult to read works like this and write them. It’s not for everyone, and I caution all people not to go there if they are not ready, reading or composing . I will say for me and for those of us who did write in this book, I suffered to get those words on a page, but having done so I have more peace. There is an alchemy when trauma hits ink, when they mix, something poisonous you’ve held inside a long time is released – not in its entirety, at least not for me. For me, it has lessened, and anything that can lessen it, that is a miracle. I read every contribution to this anthology, and I respect every woman for her bravery in telling a difficult story with beauty, grace and relentless honesty.

5 If there were a speed limit on the poetry highway, how fast do you drive?

I go fast. I keep moving. To me, that’s the secret of life in all things. I spent my 20’s and 30’s not writing, for the most part. Don’t regret that choice for me. I think about it like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, wherever poetry comes is somewhere after the actual survival. In my 20’s and 30’s, I was hustling and surviving finally trying to become an independent, stable person after a very restricted, elongated terrible adolescence.

So many of the female poets I admire are in their 20’s or even younger: Rebecca Kokitus, Lauren Milici, Tianna Hansen, Tanya Singh, Wanda Deglane. I look at their wisdom, talent, work ethic, and I am so in awe of them. They know who they are, and they are thriving. It’s something I admire very much.

You have to know who you are to write poetry – maybe not entirely. Certainly you can explore that in poetry itself, and I did some at that age. For me, though I didn’t know myself in my 20’s and 30’s enough to commit to a poetic career, to the discipline of it. It wasn’t entirely my fault. I came from a background of abuse, control and domination. My primary focus at these ages was getting to a place of financial and actual independence from my abusers – or growing up belatedly because they never wanted me to do so. I was emotionally stunted. I call myself a womanchild because I’m still a little that way, and I recognize that. I’ve grown up a lot though. Poetry has helped me grow up more. I know who I am now. I’m a poet, and no one can take that from me, not one single day of it. I write every day. I know most of the curves of the terrain now, and I’m learning how to handle the ones I didn’t see coming better. I write my heart out. I love every second of the race that is only against myself and the time I have left. I go fast.

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola, FL, with four Best of the Net and three Pushcart nominations from Ghost City Review, Work To A Calm Zine, Bone & Ink Press, Neologism Poetry, Hedgehog Poetry, New Southern Fugitives, and Vessel Press. She writes Shakespearean sonnets primarily and has three chapbooks available: Pink Plastic House, Good Girl Games (both available from Maverick Duck Press.). Her chapbook Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press) is about her abuse as a child and the death of her neighbor, Dericka Lindsay, who died of child abuse. (This Book was a collaboration with Elizabeth Horan.) Garth’s latest chapbook is Shakespeare for Sociopaths (Hedgehog Poetry Press).
A full-length poetic memoir Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir is forthcoming in April 2019 and is about her history as a school stripper (dressed in Catholic schoolgirl outfits or cheerleading uniforms.) She performed this to gain the financial stability from her abusers. The book is an exploration of what it is like to do that sort of job and at the sane time live in the puritanical Bible Belt. Garth’s other poetic memoir Puritan U , forthcoming in March 2019, chronicles her life at Brigham Young University and sexual assault. She is currently working on another project--A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony—a fantasy fairytale collaboration with Tianna Hansen and Justin Karcher. It is a poetic, operatic story of rivalry between dancers that ends with her character shrunken and kept in a dollhouse. Garth’s sonnets have stalked magazines such as Five: 2: One, Yes, Glass, Anti-Heroin Chic, Occulum, Drunk Monkeys, Luna Luna, TERSE and many more. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie). She has a weekly poetry column “The Sonnetarium”. Visit her at kristingarth.com.

Drew Pisarra

1 Do you have a scrap of a poem, or a line in which you’ve been trying to use but have not yet been able? Will you share it with us?

On road trips, it’s all A.M. radio
of one-sided conversations ‘bout lives
gone wrong…

2 Is poetry a pleasant disease? If so, give us an example.

In Phaedrus, Plato quotes Socrates as saying that “Love is a serious mental disease.” I would add that poetry can be one of love’s primary symptoms. Sadly, there is no treatment for poetry. Once it’s got a hold of you, it’s pretty much chronic. So even while the disease of love may become dormant (much like HPV), this symptom will likely remain with you for life.

3 Do you keep a dream journal or any journal that you sometimes use for inspiration to write a poem?

I’ve been keeping a dream journal fairly regularly since 2017 and while my attempts to mine this bedside composition book have generally failed, I did once dream that the local fire department commissioned me to write a poem that would seduce potential suicides to jump to a safe place so that they could be rescued. This poem was going to be placed on bridges that overlooked beautiful tarps that would both entice and catch the jumpers. I believe it was going to be a haiku because the consensus was suicidal people were unlikely to read anything that ran long. While the dream occurred in December 2017, the exact date was unfortunately omitted.

4 Whose poetry do you admire that might be considered difficult?

There ought to be a poetry anthology entitled The Collected Works of God which would include the Psalms, the Vedas, assorted anonymous works often attributed to a higher power. As an author, God gets a lot of criticism but let’s look at the body of work. Sure, God is difficult for some as an imperfect creator, an indifferent bystander, a merciless judge, and the great unknowable one. But man, God sure knows how to inspire poetry even from non-believers. I’m a big fan of Anne Sexton’s forays into religious verse as well as anything written by Teresa of Avila, the patron saint of writers.

5 If there were a speed limit on the poetry highway, how fast do you drive?

My kneejerk response is “Faster!” but the truth of the matter is if there were a poetry highway, I would probably have limited access to the passing lane and be more often stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic headed towards a toll booth, staffed by someone indifferent to my craving to gallop apace like fiery-footed steeds (as Shakespeare might put it).

As one half of conceptual art duo Saint Flashlight (with Molly Gross), Drew Pisarra has been finding playful ways to get poetry into public places such as film-themed haiku on a movie marquee and a series of lost-dog style flyers that drive to a phone bank of poems. These unconventional installations have been part of the O, Miami Poetry Festival, Free Verse: Charleston Poetry Festival, and Capturing Fire’s International Poetry Summit and Slam in D.C. His first book of poetry Infinity Standing Up, a collection of sonnets, came out in early 2019. His short story collection Publick Spanking was published some time ago by Future Tense. Additionally, he once toured a ventriloquist act entitled Singularly Grotesque – commissioned by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art – but has since retired from the world of dummies.

January 2019

Jesse Millner

1 Do you see a role for the poet in society?

Yes. It begins Whitman’s idea that poets should celebrate democracy with poems that in turn celebrate everything American, from the beautiful to the ugly, every single thing that makes up the fabric of our country. In a multicultural society the whole idea of “American” would be a broad cloth colored with all the cultures and peoples who have migrated here, whether it was in the 17th century or last Tuesday. The poet’s role is to witness and tell the truth. Because there is so much suffering in the world and so much injustice, we need poems that confront the ugliness and absurdity of prejudice and oppression. We need poems that pay attention to the particulars of intolerance and in doing so maybe the poem will speak to someone somewhere who really needs to hear it. At the very least the witnessing shines a light on those who are too often ignored—maybe I’m circling back to Whitman here—and in doing so becomes a way of honoring the “least” among us, those who are often ignored in the reality show drama of the current day. And, somehow these poems need to be tender, humble, and humorous because quite often it seems like the world belongs to egotists and their voices drown out the true things, which reside in human affection, in the cries of chuck-wills-widows at dusk, in the surprise of a river otter who rolls like a dog in my backyard--and in paying attention to all these things each day we wander through our lives. So, witness, catalog, celebrate, mourn—and in doing so pay attention, which might be the most difficult thing for any human to do in these days of so much electrified distraction.

2 45 is re-elected and you are invited to write and present an inaugural poem, what do you do?

I would tell him to Completely. Fuck. Off. Or, I do have a poem about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West that he might like…

3 What do you think people are missing in your work? (If anything).

I think my work is really accessible, so I’m not sure there’s much to miss. Any complexity is the result of the subconscious, which I don’t try to control and is the only source of anything weird and interesting in my poems. To the extent that I am surprised by a poem usually is the measure of any value the poem might have. In this “surprise” there might be confusion, but that’s one of the truest things about the human condition.

4 What do you consider as the heart of your work?

At the heart of my work is my own quest to find out why I’m here on earth. How do I make sense of loss and suffering and sorrow? How do I reconcile those things with the exhilarating beauty I sometimes encounter in this world? Within this larger context, I struggle with faith: My parents and grandparents were religious fundamentalists and I’m not. Maybe that’s what’s at the heart of my work, this idea that my own religion will be the result of all the mornings I spend at my desk writing about this troubling and beautiful world, how each line of each poem is a (very) small step toward the sacred. I often think about the cliché, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. I will never find the answers to all my questions, but as long as I’m asking them, I’m on the poet’s path.

5 Which of your poems would you want to be known for? Could you share it with us?

I give you this ghost:

of the skinny ten-year-old playing in the woods
near my grandfather’s farm in Burkeville, of all the moons
I watched tremble in the evening skies of childhood,
and the rope swing with a tractor tire on the end of it,
the wonder of centrifugal force, the spinning majesty
of the dervish, and even though I did not know yet about Rumi,
I knew that god lived at the edge of the gaining
spiral, that the whirl of blood in my brain
matched somehow the spin of the cosmic wheel,
the one god that rules over all of us, and infinitely so.

And even without the big tire, I’d spin
amid the lightning bugs in a Virginia dusk
when the dark fell and the stars came out,
those regions of big dippers and bears,
and with each breathless circling
I’d feel the pull of something greater
than myself, a true poem of scrambled
neurons, of gaping ganglia and pulsating
arteries, my body itself the scattered verse
of eons, my body electric and pierced
by bug light and cosmic night. Oh, great
god almighty, why did I capture those
little bug angels and trap them in a jar?
Where soon the tiny lights would fade
and only an insect would remain, where
once there had been yellow light, that sweet
yellow light that danced on the margins
of tobacco fields and woods, that rose
and fell into the sweltering sea of dusk.

Jesse Millner’s poems and prose have appeared most recently in Steam Ticket, The Split Rock Review, The Comstock Review, The South Florida Poetry Journal, and The West Texas Literary Review. “Real Reality,” which appeared in Steam Ticket, was nominated for Best of the Net, 2018. His most recent poetry chapbook, Noonday Duende, was published by Kattywompus Press. Jesse teaches writing courses at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida.

Elizabeth Jacobson

1 Do you see a role for the poet in society?

Humans are a passionately social species, and poetry— all the arts, really— can be a powerful and compelling medium for creating empathy and compassion and as a vehicle demonstrating the interconnectedness of all creatures— all things. And then there is pleasure, and horror, and truth, and the transmission of individual and mutual happenings— all this energy— the poet is a conduit for these currents.

2 45 is re-elected and you are invited to write and present an inaugural poem, what do you do?

Very Funny! Because of course this will not happen— that hoodlum is going down!

3 What do you think people are missing in your work? (If anything)

This is a provocative question, and one I am not sure I can fully answer. For the most part my work is very nuanced, and I hope people see this. Rarely do I think about meaning, but rather rely on observation to help make sense of experience. Much of my work, and particularly the poems in my new book, are straightforward, conversational in that they are not overly abstract, but perhaps the abstractions that are present result from a deep intuitive sensitivity. Conceivably, all my work may generate from a question— What is it like to be a person on this planet now?

4 What do you consider to be the heart of your work?

Aside from an intrinsic relationship to the natural world being the center of my poetry, as it is for so many poets, I have studied the Chan koans for a number of years. A group of us meet once a week and we essentially hang-out with these ancient teachings. I could go through the poems in my new book and discuss many of them in reference to different koans. For instance, there is a prose poem titled "Welcome", in which the speaker’s grandmother is dying and the grandmother, who is in a cancer hospital, receives roses with a card reading Welcome. The grandmother laughs and sticks the card on her morphine pump. This is the koan: A student asked, when times of great difficulty visit us, how should we meet them? The teacher responds, “Welcome.” Koans work in multifarious ways. I didn’t notice this thread myself until the poem was completed.

5 Which of your poems would you want to be known for? Could you share it with us?

The fourth section in my new book, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, which was just published on January 1, is a long sequenced lyric poem in eight sections titled "Here is a Pilgrim on a Waterless Shore". This poem had amoeba-like qualities, changing shapes during the many years I worked on it, and for me it is the landscape and creatures of New Mexico (where I have lived for most of the past thirty years) being wild in me. I would be very happy to share the entire poem with you here, but maybe it's too long, so I have selected two sections.

Here is a Pilgrim on a Waterless Shore

1

A month before spring,
the first day of spring arrives.
She cannot stop breathing in the scent of cold fresh water
where there isn’t any water,
the smell of flowers
that haven’t appeared.

She takes off her arms,
her legs,
unwinds her head,
tucks them into the compost with her breath.
Within minutes she sees the star-shaped leaves of the delphinium
stir under the mulch,
their shoots coiling around her wrists,
pulling her in.

A woman practicing for death
in the waking green undergrass of her life.
She has never lost an eye or a finger,
or even much bone.
She has not been splayed and sliced open,
arranged on a giant Styrofoam tray
by a man whose bathroom
is strung with human heads.

Now a buttery swallowtail lands on her arm,
the sleek black V at the end of its body a pulse
that offers her a shudder.
How possible it is to speak of something treasured
as we watch it appear.

An eagle is silent while circling its prey,
as it pulls apart a rabbit under the moonlight
leaving the insides, leaving the white tail on the earth.

The liquid bark of her runs down her throat,
out a hole at the bottom of a foot.

It is the way of things to empty what is too full.
In a month, honeybees will drink from her neck,
the plump yellow part of their bodies
hidden under furry black pollen from oriental poppies:

7

Ecstasy comes in lengthier moments now,
comes when it’s called,
and comes when it’s not.

A single thinning cloud disintegrating across this steely sphere of sky.
The one tree standing
a little higher than the rest on the ridge of a mountain,
in the distance.

Last night a clothes moth landed in my hair
and laid her web of eggs close to my scalp.
By morning, her body, a golden powder,
had spread across one of my eyelids like shadow.
Most of the time there is a non-linearity of things,
but still I sense a line trying to draw me in,
tempting me as if it were the snake charmer and I its curving form;
but so curious to go against its nature,
so wanting to straighten out.

Here is a finger pushing itself into hot wax.
Here is a tongue putting its tip
on a gritty stone.
Here is a sharp knife cutting ever so slightly
into the thinnest part of a wrist.

What I continue to count on is flux;
still, there are some things that do not move.

Every night a hawk. Every day,
another set of rabbit innards
left behind on the ground.

I can’t help myself,
like a child
I find the nearest stick and turn them over,
the prize being a slithering nest of maggots,
the flesh eaten through until the larvae on the bare grass become flies.

I thought it would be harder,
to break the identity with the body,
with the mind,
but as it turns out, all I have to do is open my eyes,
and keep them empty.

Elizabeth Jacobson's second book, Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air, won the New Measure Poetry Prize, selected by Marianne Boruch, and is just out from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. She has published two chapbooks, Are the Children Make Believe?, and A Brown Stone, both from Dancing Girl Press, and a full-length collection, Her Knees Pulled In, from Tres Chicas Books. She is the founding director of the WingSpan Poetry Project, a not-for-profit which conducts poetry classes at homeless and battered family shelters in Santa Fe, New Mexico. WingSpan has received a Community Partnership award from the Esperanza Shelter in New Mexico and three grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the American Poetry Review, Hinchas de Poesia, Indolent Books, JuxtaProse, On The Seawall, Orion Magazine, Ploughshares, Plume, Poet Lore, Taos Journal of Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, The Laurel Review, Terrain, The Miami Rail, Vox Populi, Women's Studies and others. Elizabeth is the recipient of the Mountain West Writers' Award from Western Humanities Review, The Jim Sagel Prize for Poetry from Puerto del Sol, and a grant from New Mexico Literary Arts. She has received residencies from Key West Literary Seminars, Atlantic Center for the Arts, The Mable Dodge Luhan House where she was the 2018 writer-in-residence, and Herekeke Arts Center. This June she will begin teaching a weekly community poetry class in conjunction with the Santa Fe Railyard Art Project. She has an MFA from Columbia University. www.elizabethjacobson.wordpress.com

Ray Neubert

1 Do you see a role for the poet in society?

The heart of my work is humanity. I love people and studying them...and words. A perfect fit for poetry.

2 45 is re-elected and you are invited to write and present an inaugural poem, what do you do?

The poet has a very special place in society. The freedom to be true to its art. The poet could gain a more 'popular' place but not without compromise and the possibility of loosing significance.
3 What do you think people are missing in your work? (If anything)

I would accept and honestly thank all assembled at the inauguration for the privilege of sharing with them my positive impression of the president's accomplishments. I would open my notes, scan them carefully, thank all assembled, then close my notes and reseat myself.

4 What do you consider as the heart of your work?

The goal of my work is to personally involve my audience. Missing that involvement would be my failure.

5 Which of your poems would you want to be known for? Could you share it with us?

The poem I am presently working on is my favorite. Since it isn't finished I will share the poem that has been received most positively.

Young and Black

ELEVEN

Cities

Chicago
Chicago
That toddling town
When I was young
And black
In Chicago
I walked east
Onto the
University Of Chicago
Campus
They do things
They don’t do
On Broadway
Wandered in and out
Of substantial stone buildings
Entered classrooms
Sat and listened
To discussions
About numbers
Teaching children
Religions and
How to cure
Mental illnesses
But that was
When I was young
And black

In Detroit
When I was not so young
White and just learning
About art
I competed
With the best

Would watch
The others
And not do
What they did wrong

When I was a married
Middle class woman
In South Florida
I would stand
In the middle of the street
Watch my boys play
And let them wander
Not too close
To Military Trail
Then
Call them back loudly

My neighbor thought
I taught
The deaf

When I was
A mixed race
Couple
We would go to
The Kingdom Hall
Put in our time
Pass out literature
And beat the boys
Into quiet submission

When I was
A Muslim infant
Sleeping in a crib
In Pontiac, Michigan
I was left to die

When I was
A middle aged gay man
In Wellington, Florida
I would visit
Secret dark places
Explore other men’s
Secret dark places
And pray I would
Survive intact

When I was
A teen-aged runaway
Hitch-hiking
In BeeBe Arkansas
I had second thoughts

Now that I’m
A multicultural
GSBTO (Gay, Straight, Bi, Trans, Other)
Senior citizen
I go to bed each night
With the love of my life

Raymond P. Neubert is a poet artist whose work is a combination of word play, expressionism, comics of all genres, and heroic propaganda art. He has exhibited in Southeast Florida, Los Angeles, the Washington D.C. area and North East Ohio museums, galleries, libraries, universities, and juried shows and has published two books of photographs and one of colored drawings. His paintings were featured in SoFloPoJo Issue 4 and video of the first chapter of his poem Layers appear on the SoFloPoJo YouTube Channel.

December 2018

Yaddyra Peralta

1 Which of your poems would be a good bribe to get out of a traffic ticket?

I have a poem entitled “Christ Still Swimming” which places Jesus Christ in the Caribbean swimming and marveling at the coral forming part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It’s one of the most peaceful poems I’ve ever written—good enough to defuse any tension, unless it reminds you in some way of climate change.

2 You are to give a presentation on a pre-20th century poet. Whom do you choose and why?

Gerard Manley Hopkins. He was my first favorite dead poet and though I prefer others now, I will never forget the visceral quality of reading his work out loud, of truly realizing what could be done musically with a poem, and that poetry—my favorite poetry—is not just about meaning making but about experiencing wonder and mystery.

3 Your work is closer to _____ ’s work (fill in the blank) than to _____’s work.

My work is closer to Mary Ruefle’s work than to Billy Collins’ work.
(I think this is more of an aspiration than a reality.)

4 Who are you reading? (poetry)

I am currently reading Danez Smith’s Don’t Call Us Dead. It is one of the wittiest, most soulful, heartbreaking, masterful, and innovative collections I’ve read in the last couple of years. I love their inventive use of language which takes me out of myself and reminds me of the power of poetry to transform the way I/we can see the world.
But I could just as easily say that about the two books I read before, Eve Ewing’s Electric Arches and Terrance Hayes American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin. Next up is Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s Cenzontle —as Kevin Young said at this year’s Miami Book Fair, (I’m paraphrasing) we’re undergoing a poetry renaissance in America. I’m glad to be here to see it.

5 Do you have a favorite cafe where you read and/or write?

I’ve lived in four places in the last year, so I have not had the opportunity to acclimate myself to a neighborhood long enough to find that “favorite” café. I think too that I no longer romanticize writing in cafés the way I did when I lived in NYC. Every apartment I lived in there was either too small or too crowded and it was a treat to head to one of several cafés in the East Village or Greenpoint, Brooklyn—wherever I was stationed—to pull out my pen and notebook and be inspired by the personalities coming in and out. The café was an escape from isolation or domestic tensions. It was often a refuge when it was freezing mid-winter, or when I was broke.
There are two cafés in walking distance from my new apartment in the Little Haiti/Mimo neighborhood in Miami. One, a Starbucks, is a hard pass. The other, Panther Coffee, is part of a small local chain of about five coffee shops and I have been a couple of times to meet friends and just to people watch. I’m not sure if I will make the kind of bond with a café the way Patti Smith made with her beloved and now closed Café Ino in Greenwich Village, where she’d sit in the same table visit after visit and truly get work done. Did you hear she was allowed to take her regular table and chair home when the place closed in 2013?

Yaddyra Peralta’s work has appeared in SWWIM, Miami Rail, Ploughshares, Tigertail, Abe's Penny, Hinchas de Poesia, Eight Miami Poets (Jai Alai Books) and The Miami Herald. She has taught writing at Miami Dade College, Homestead Correctional Institution, and for O,Miami’s Sunroom project. Yaddyra is Associate Editor at Mango Publishing. https://sliverofstonemagazine.com/yaddyra-peralta-poems

David Estringel

1 Which of your poems would be a good bribe to get out of a traffic ticket?

I would have to say it would be one of my newer ones, "Storms." It is a rather raw and honest look at my own internal "ugliness" and vulnerability in life, relationships, and the self. I supposed it stemmed from a moment of unadulterated self-reflection upon some of my "fractured" parts (I hate the word "broken"), but despite its personal nature, it reflects what—I think—many of us feel as we trudge through life doing the best we can. It—like the rest of the batch—do a good job at connecting with the life experiences of others that most often get pushed to the side due to the difficult feelings that come along as part of the package. It would be my hope that the person giving me the ticket would see a bit of them self in the poem and not feel so alone in that moment and—maybe—in general.

2 You are to give a presentation on a pre-20th century poet. Whom do you choose and why?

Homer (and/or the collective we know as Homer) would have to be my choice. Hands down. The Iliad and The Odyssey have stayed with me, forever imprinted in my mind by virtue of their magnanimity and powerful voice. To convincingly capture the relentless cruelty of war, death, and loss in one epic poem, only to then offer the soothing balm of another (in the form of post-war literature) not only denotes the characteristic of genius but the ability to expose vulnerability and the need for long-due succor. From Freud's psychoanalytical perspective, The Odyssey's (and Odysseus') vacillation between "work" and "pleasure" principles is fascinating, speaking—more generally—of a war-torn society desperate for healing, which is pretty amazing stuff. Since my undergrad years, I have been mad for The Homeric Hymns. Whether the ones of just a few lines or the longer, more narrative pieces they take you back into your past to a time when magic touched everything and nothing happened at random. I remember the first time I read a hymn to Apollo. I paused, afterwards, as if waiting for something to happen. No other poet or poem has ever had that effect on me since or probably ever will.

3 Your work is closer to _____ ’s work (fill in the blank) than to _____’s work.

My work is definitely more Raymond Carver than it is Homer. Looking back at my portfolio, it is evident that these two poets are significant influences. My darker pieces (and others) tend to be peppered with classical allusion—not so much for effect but to convey the depth (Stygian, perhaps) of emotion I am feeling about the subject and in that moment. Dirty realism, however, presents its ugly self most, especially in my more recent works, capturing very real moments, "stripped down" and free from hyperbole or symbolism. That is what I appreciate in Carver's work, as a whole. To me, his poems are distillates of everyday life that convey experiences—unapologetically—in fragments, leaving one feeling they have just walked into the middle of something meaningful. That is what I strive for, anyway. Two of Carver's poems come to mind, "The Current" and "Drinking While Driving." Looking back at my portfolio, it is evident that these two poets are significant influences. My darker pieces (and others) tend to be peppered with classical allusion—not so much for effect but to convey the depth (Stygian, perhaps) of emotion I am feeling about the subject and in that moment. Dirty realism, however, presents its ugly self most, especially in my more recent works, capturing very real moments, "stripped down" and free from hyperbole or symbolism. That is what I appreciate in Carver's work, as a whole. To me, his poems are distillates of everyday life that convey experiences—unapologetically—in fragments, leaving one feeling they have just walked into the middle of something meaningful. That is what I strive for, anyway. Two of Carver's poems come to mind, "The Current" and "Drinking While Driving."

4 Who are you reading? (poetry)

Right now I am reading Robert M. Drake's works right now. I just started A Brilliant Madness, after finishing his Black Butterfly. I have a love/hate relationship with these poems, actually. Every flip of the page is a surprise, though. Just as one poem hits my consciousness with a resounding, wince-inducing thud, another pops up that makes my heart melt and not feel so alone. Either way Drake's words make me think and challenge my own stuff. He is amazing.

5 Do you have a favorite cafe where you read and/or write?

Honestly, the cafes here in Brownsville, Tx., don't really do it for me. When I was in Austin, Tx., however, Spider House would have been my choice without a doubt. Very eclectic crowd and the conversations around you were always intelligent and often unexpected. I am pretty weird about writing environment, though. I need to be home, where I can read my work aloud, pace the floors, and smoke without judgment (although my dogs have seemed pretty annoyed, lately), but I will take myself out to Starbucks for a couple of toasted, plain bagels and cream cheese to celebrate finishing a poem or receiving an acceptance of a submission.

David Estringel is an emerging writer of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and essays. He is a teaching assistant for the Writing and Language Studies department at the University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley, located in Brownsville, Texas. He has a BA in English and will receive his MAIS in English Spring 2019 and MFA in Creative Writing Spring 2020. Future plans include teaching college literature & composition/rhetoric and continuing to work on his first chapbook of poetry Indelible Fingerprints. His work has been accepted and/or published by Specter Magazine, Foliate Oak Magazine, Indiana Review, Terror House Magazine, Expat Press, 50 Haikus, littledeathlit, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Route 7, Setu, Paper Trains, and The Good Men Project, where he is a soon-to-be editor and writes his weekly column “Going Grey with David Estringel.” He is also a Contributing Editor (fiction) at Red Fez and has recently joined the team at The Elixir Magazine. You can find David on Twitter @The_Booky_Man and his blog https://thebookyman.wordpress.com.

Arminé Iknadossian

1 Which of your poems would be a good bribe to get out of a traffic ticket?

I guess the poem I would choose would be “United States of Love” published in the Alabama Literary Review a few years back. In this poem, I imagine a world driven by love instead of the punitive.

2 You are to give a presentation on a pre-20th century poet. Whom do you choose and why?

Since many folks don’t know about the Armenian poet Siamanto (Atom Yarjanian), it would behoove me to educate others.

3 Your work is closer to _____ ’s work (fill in the blank) than to _____’s work.

My work is closer to Mahmood Darwish’s work than to Anne Carson’s work.
The only writer I have ever been compared to is the late Mahmood Darwish. I bow to his talent. I do not dare compare myself to him, but I will take the compliment. As for Anne Carson, I can only hope to be as good as she is with metaphor and fragments.

4 Who are you reading? (poetry)

I have such talented friends, I pinch myself every single day:
Natalie Graham, Nicelle Davis, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Natalie Diaz, Chrys Tobey, Terry Wolverton, Mary Angelino, Arthur Kayzakian, Lory Bedikian, Alene Terzian-Zeitounian, Shahe Mankerian inspire me endlessly.

5 Do you have a favorite cafe where you read and/or write?

Cafes are too distracting for me. I keep wanting to write about the people. I prefer my bed for reading and writing. It’s big enough for me and my cat Henry.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Arminé Iknadossian immigrated to the United States in 1978 to escape the civil war. She is the author of All That Wasted Fruit (Main Street Rag Press). She earned an MFA from Antioch University where she was awarded a fellowship from Summer Poetry in Idyllwild. After teaching English for 20 years, Iknadossian wrote United States of Love & Other Poems (2015). During her tenure as a teacher, The Los Angeles Writing Project awarded Iknadossian a fellowship for their summer residency. Iknadossian is also a founding fellow of Anaphora Writing Residency at Otis College of Art and Design. She currently lives close to the sea with Henry the Cat. Find out more at armineiknadossian.com. Book Order Link:
http://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/all-that-wasted-fruit-armine-iknadossian/

November 2018

David Kirby

1. Have you ever memorized one of your poems? Someone else’s?

   Not my own, no. I’d be ashamed to. If I memorized Tennyson and recited him back to you, I’d be honoring Tennyson. If I memorized myself, I’d be honoring me. When I see someone reciting their own poems, I always expect them to stop in the middle and just starting kissing the backs of their own hands.
   Unlike my wife Barbara, who has memorized tons of Shakespeare and Keats, I’m not very good at long literary pieces. But when a late-afternoon class is losing its energy, I can leap to my feet and shout out Blake’s “Jerusalem” and jump-start the drowsy students.
   And sometimes when I stutter or just get my words twisted up, I’ll straighten myself out by reciting aloud the chorus of the Butthole Surfers’ “Pepper” (“Some will die in hot pursuit in fiery auto crashes / Some will die in hot pursuit while sifting through my ashes,” etc.).
   I can recite half a dozen limericks. I can sing from memory the words to maybe 40 pop, rock, and soul songs recorded between 1955 and 1970.

2. What is one image from someone else's poem that you've read and that's stuck with you?

   It’s from a Barbara Hamby poem. It’s a great image, but also I was there when it happened, so it really stuck with me. We were eating in a noisy, overheated restaurant one night in Fiesole, the hill town above Florence. Barbara started lowering her head, and I thought she was leaning in to say something to me, but she just kept going and put her head down on the table and passed out. A waiter and I lugged her into the kitchen, and she came around, so we went back and resumed our meal. Then the lights went out. Now this was at night, and the restaurant was in a basement, so the place was pitch black. There was the longest silence, and finally a man said, Prima quella signora, ed ora la luce (“First that woman, and now the light”). That’s poetry to me. What compression, huh? The whole evening in seven words.

3. Besides poetry, what are your other favorite art forms?

   I love music of all kinds. I was in a couple of bands when I was young, but while I loved being on stage, I liked to write poems more than I liked practicing my instrument, so I went with what I knew would work out better for me, and it did – I’ve never heard anyone say that the music world would be a lot better with me in it. I do play guitar right before bed a lot, and Barbara often says she really likes one song or another, and that’s all the musical audience I need.
   I believe wholeheartedly in supporting live music – live anything, really. Live theater, live performance of every kind. So I try to get out once or twice a week to see a rock band or solo musician or opera or jazz quartet. And of course I go to poetry readings the way you breathe air. As you know, the standard poetry reading can often be pretty terrible, so when I can, I coach others to do what musicians do: engage the audience, make eye contact, put on a show. You don’t have to be Little Richard when you’re up there, but this is show biz, not hothouse art.
   When I was a kid, I lived on a farm, and I’d ride my bike into town every week and see a movie, usually a western. All the movie posters promised that this or that western was “action-packed,” and they all were. That’s my bottom line for a soul revue or a performance of Tosca or an academic lecture or a poetry reading. It can be anything else it wants to be, but it better be action-packed.

4. What is a piece of poetry advice that you never follow?

   I’m often on panels, and when it’s Q & A time, often someone will ask what advice the panelists would give an aspiring poet. Oh, read, says everyone. Read, read, read. You can’t read too much! Start reading right now, and don’t ever stop. Readity-read-read-read!
   When the mike is passed to me, I say, well, whatever you do, don’t read. I quote Hobbes, who said, “If I had read as much as other men, I should be as ignorant.”
   What I say is that aspiring poets should acquire the mind of a poet. It’s kind of obvious, but I say think the way poets think. When you take your car in, do you want a mechanic who says, “I’ve driven lots of cars” or one who says, “I know what to do – stand back!”
   Someone asked Joyce what he had learned from the Jesuits who taught him in college, and Joyce said, “I have learnt to arrange things in such a way that they become easy to survey and to judge.” Now you’d think Joyce would say he’d learned something visionary or mystical, but no. What he said was that he learned to see the world the way poets do.
   By the way, you can have a poetic mind and never write a single poem in your life. It’s better to have a poetic mind than to write poetry. Life comes at you a mile a minute; you’re going to enjoy and manage it a lot better if you know how to pick and choose and combine and put things in perspective, to be able to explain to yourself and others what matters and what doesn’t, the way a great poem does.
   I’m sure most of my undergraduate students never write another poem after they leave my class, but if they look at the world with a poetic mind for the rest of their lives, I’ve done my job.

5. How would you put together your new book-length collection regarding sequence of poems?

   I tell poets putting together a first book that they should think like a pop star. A lot of collections begin timidly, but no rock or soul or hip-hop show does.
   So you start with something that has a lot of energy. And you continue that way for a while. Okay, you got ‘em where you want ‘em, right? The audience is eating out of your hands. So now that it’s the middle of the show, it’s okay to work in the more experimental stuff or the slow pieces, the ballads. Do that for a while, then turn up the volume. Raise the energy level back to where it was, then go higher. And end with a real audience killer of a poem, one that leaves them gasping in the aisles.
   That said, I’ve got a collection called More Than This coming out in 2019, and the poems in it suited themselves more to a symphony format. So you’ll see four distinct sections. But the idea’s the same: More Than This starts big, slows things down, develops the motifs that occur earlier, and goes off like World War III at the end.
   Or at least that’s the idea. Whatever you do, think the way musicians do. As I say, this is show biz.

David Kirby's collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2007. Kirby is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of London called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense.” He teaches at Florida State University, where he is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English. Kirby’s honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation; in 2016, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Humanities Council. His latest poetry collection is Get Up, Please. See also www.davidkirby.com.

Jen Karetnick

1. Have you ever memorized one of your poems? Someone else’s?

Sadly, only once. It was “Jabberwocky” and the reason I memorized it was because it was set to music – some obscure piece that I sang in a choir at the music camp I attended every summer. When I was younger, I always had to memorize music, and by the time I discovered poetry, I didn’t want to memorize anything anymore. Now, finding my phone is difficult enough, and I’m usually talking on it at the time.

2. What is one image from someone else's poem that you've read and that's stuck with you?

My mentor at Tufts University, the late Deborah Digges, wrote a love poem to her husband about sweeping the broom of her hair – she had long, beautiful hair –across his chest. That might not be the exact wording, but I remember the hair and the sweeping and the emphasis on it going back and forth. When she read that poem out loud, it always received applause.

3 Besides poetry, what are your other favorite art forms?

I grew up playing flute and singing, then later I taught myself guitar, so music has been a big part of my life. And as a vocation, I write about food, restaurants, and cooking, so I’m especially fond of the culinary arts. But I also really enjoy visual art. I’m in awe of anyone who can draw, paint, craft, or design. The visual gene runs in my family but seems to have missed me. It’s amazing what people can do with their hands, and how they interpret the images from their brains.

4 What is a piece of "poetry advice" that you never follow?

To put the first completed draft away and then look at it later to revise it. I’m guilty of only writing when the poem is ready to appear, and then I revise until it’s mostly done. If a poem isn’t working, I don’t write it at all. That doesn’t mean I don’t revise little things here and there in a completed draft, or that I don’t write a misguided stinker now and then. But for the most part, because I write all day every day for various editors in genres that have nothing to do with poetry, I don’t really have time to belabor the process.

5. How do you/would you put together your new book-length collection regarding sequence of poems?

A Best poem opens the collection
B Thematically transition one poem to the next
C Throw the poems in the air and order them in the sequence you pick them up
D None of the above- please explain

Both A and D. I identify the largest themes of the collection, then group those poems together in piles. Then I start with the “best” ones from each pile and order them sequentially, from most prominent theme to least. If any of the poems are too similar in form or subject – say, two sonnets back to back, or two poems that feature family or nature – I replace one from a different poem in that pile. Then I start over again. So the poems create a recurrence of themes in the mind of the reader, but each poem is a surprise in terms of structure and content. This is especially important to me because I write in a variety of ways, ranging from form to free verse to found poetry. A reader might find a prose poem followed by a sestina followed by an experimental piece that uses all the white space on the page. The themes bind them together. At least, I hope they do.

The winner of the 2018 Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition for The Crossing Over (May 2019), Jen Karetnick is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, September 2016), finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Book Prize. She is also the author of four other poetry chapbooks, including Bud Break at Mango House, winner of the 2008 Portlandia Prize. Her work appears recently in Crab Orchard Review, Cutthroat, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Hamilton Stone Review, JAMA, Lunch Ticket, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Missouri Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and Waxwing. New work is forthcoming in BARNHOUSE, Cider Press Review, Cigar City Poetry Journal, The Laurel Review, Ovenbird, Salamander, and Whale Road Review. She is co-founder/co-editor of the daily online literary journal, SWWIM Every Day (@SWWIMmiami). Jen received an MFA in poetry from University of California, Irvine, and an MFA in fiction from University of Miami. She works as the dining critic for MIAMI Magazine and as a freelance lifestyle journalist and a trade book author. Her fourth cookbook (and 18th book overall) is forthcoming in May 2019. Find her on Twitter @Kavetchnik, Facebook @Kavetchnik and @JenKaretnick, and Instagram @JenKaretnick, or see jkaretnick.com.

Sean Sexton

1 Have you ever memorized one of your poems? Someone else’s?

Yes to both. One of mine is not too long and I’ll recite it here:
DESCENT
She has her father’s hands
Small and delicate on him,
and ears of the old man,
made of pearly skin.

His features fair and slight,
best imagined on another;
have crossed a great divide
reaching from his mother.

We go about our lives,
a panoply of parts,
all with the he and she of it
tangled in our hearts.

The other memorized poem is “Loveliest of Trees” by the English poet, A E Houseman. A mortality poem of the first order, I’ve delivered it graveside on more than one occasion for beloved friends I’ve lost.

2. What is one image from someone else's poem that you've read and that's stuck with you?

Spiderwebs: My friend, California Cattle rancher and poet, Linda Hussa, who works and lives in the Surprise Valley in the NW corner of the Great Basin has a wonderful poem, “In the Evening Autumn” about the spider webs seen everywhere in the grass, saying: “while I go about my singular life...an army of spiders have sought to hold this world together in a fine veil of billowing silk.”

3 Besides poetry, what are your other favorite art forms?

Paintings, Ceramics, Etchings, Drawings
(I do all 4)
Music ( I sing in our church choir as a baritone though I once was a tenor)
And certainly all the other longer forms of literature.

4 What is a piece of "poetry advice" that you never follow?

Stay open to your original vision and let it come...in other words, don’t listen to that second-guessing inner voice that kills poems. Editing is a different “light” to be turned on later. All important, but later.

5. How do you/would you put together your new book-length collection regarding sequence of poems?

A Best poem opens the collection
B Thematically transition one poem to the next
C Throw the poems in the air and order them in the sequence you pick them up
D None of the above- please explain

I want to open with an “immersion” poem.
That may not in any way be the best poem, but places you in the middle of the voice/context of the book. Even if “knocking you off balance is a good kind of immersion.
The order of things in fashioning a book or exhibition is all important to me though there are those who insist on randomness, to isolate each experience. There are curators who hang galleries under the same auspice. Place is a big thing with me. If you come visit my Art, my writing, expect a grounding. I want to give you that, it’s what I’m about, although I want there to be a dynamism that excites, and a connecting you relish and keep in your heart.

Sean Sexton was born in Indian River County and grew up on his family's Treasure Hammock Ranch. He divides his time between taking care of a 600 acre cow-calf operation, painting, and writing. He is married to artist, Sharon Sexton, and they live on the ranch in a house they built on the ranch. Sexton has kept daily journal-sketch and writing books since 1973. He received an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the State of Florida in 2000-2001. He is author of Blood Writing, Poems, Anhinga Press, 2009, The Empty Tomb, University of Alabama Slash Pine Press, 2014, and Descent, Yellow Jacket Press, 2018. May Darkness Restore, Poems, Press 53 is due out in early 2019. He has performed and presented at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, The Miami Book Fair International, O' Miami, and Other Words Arts Literary Conference in Tampa, FL. On Sept 1, 2016, He became the inaugural Poet Laureate of Indian River County.
He is represented in Art collections throughout the US and will be featured in a selected group exhibition, Lay of the Land, The Art of Florida’s Cattle Culture at the Albin Polasek Museum in Winter Park, FL, Dec11, 2018—April 14, 2019.

October 2018

Catherine Esposito Prescott

1. How would you like God—if you believe in God-- to greet you?

“Oh, it’s you!”

2. What legacy words would you like inscribed on your tombstone?

Love is everything.

3. When you’re stuck in revising a poem, how do you handle it?

If most of the poem is sound, but the ending’s not coming together, I’ll put the poem down and forget about it for week or a year. Then I’ll pick it up again. I’ll repeat this process for as long as needed with the awareness that some poems will never be done.

4. Do you remember the moment when you identified yourself as a"poet?"

I’ve always been creative. I bounced around the arts before finding writing—from music (for which I had an aptitude) to the visual arts (for which I had none) to the performing arts (for which I had some). In high school, I failed my first creative writing assignment, a poem. However, days before my senior year began, my guidance counselor called to see if he could enroll me in a creative writing elective because the cool-kid elective I wanted to take—AV something or other—filled up (with all the cool kids, no doubt). I don’t know if it was his insight so much as wanting to fill the class with smart-ish kids or fate finding its way or all of the above. Anyhow, that teacher, John Azrak, gave me a proper introduction to poetry. From then on, I was a poet. I didn’t call myself one; it was a quiet, confident knowing. True story: A few months ago, John Azrak and I published poems in the same issue of Poetry East. Talk about coming full circle.

5. If there are repeating images, references or phrases, in your work, why do you think that is?
What are they/is it?

I don’t know why, exactly, but I believe there are patterns in every writer’s work. Maybe it’s our obsessions finding language? For me, it happens on a subliminal level. I find it fascinating how we acquire language, play with it, overcome it, shift it, and put it down. In my latest manuscript, which is making the rounds, the words “water,” “ocean,” “palms,” and “time” come up often as do themes of loss, forgiveness, love, and gratitude.

On a personal note, I’m working on not using expressions that contain violence at the root, of which there are so many—from “kill time” to “give it a shot.” Language creates my reality, and I want it to be peaceful. This is not wishful thinking; it’s creating a new world, really. I look forward to witnessing how this practice seeps into my work.

Catherine Esposito Prescott is the author of the chapbooks Maria Sings and The Living Ruin. Recent poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Flyway, MiPOesias, Pleiades, Poetry East, Southern Poetry Review, The Orison Anthology, TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics, and elsewhere. Prescott earned an MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry from NYU. She is a co-founder of SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami), which curates a reading series and publishes the online literary journal SWWIM Every Day.

Eric Campbell

1. How would you like God—if you believe in God-- to greet you?

I'd like him/her/it to say, "I'm sorry I just couldn't give you enough evidence, but I'm still knocking about."

2. What legacy words would you like inscribed on your tombstone?

In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

3. When you’re stuck in revising a poem, how do you handle it?

It is usually abandoned, because to struggle too long with a poem you wrote might suggest it shouldn't exist at all.

4. Do you remember the moment when you identified yourself as a”poet?"

I never have. I have never called myself one, as for me a poet shouldn't self-identify. I'm more of a fan of The Replacements and certain authors than I am a "poet." Self proclaimed poets, like self-proclaimed philosophers, are usually frauds and, what's even worse, bores.

5. If there are repeating images, references or phrases, in your work, why do you think that is?
What are they/is it?

In my second collection there were two poems back to back that invoked The Cold War and Bruce Willis. That's all I comfortably have to say about that.

Erik Campbell’s poems and essays have appeared in New Letters, Tin House,Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. His first poetry collection, Arguments for Stillness(Curbstone Press), was named by Book Senseas one of the “Top Ten Poetry Collections for 2007.” His second collection, The Corpse Pose(Red Hen Press), was named byEntropy Magazineas one of the “Best Poetry Books and Collections of 2016.” His poem, “Faith for My Father, circa 1980” will appear in the XLIII Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses.

Mia Leonin

1. How would you like God—if you believe in God-- to greet you?

Unconditional love would be nice, but a chorus of angels will suffice.

2. What legacy words would you like inscribed on your tombstone?

She was a nice lady.

3. When you’re stuck in revising a poem, how do you handle it?

I "let it cool off" as my mentor Maxine Kumin used to always advise. It also helps me to read the poem out loud over and over until I can hear a new arrangement of words that sound more authentic and click into place. If I'm really stuck or if it's a longer poem, I'll record myself reading the poem and listen to it while I'm driving to work. A sharper focus occurs when I am engaged in monotonous activity like driving or staring out the window of a bus or train.

4. Do you remember the moment when you identified yourself as a"poet?"

I have always shied away from announcing myself as anything. I'm more interested in being an active verb than a noun. I write. I write poetry.

5. If there are repeating images, references or phrases, in your work, why do you think that is?
What are they/is it?

Breasts, wrists, the belly, and the throat appear throughout my poems. I'm not sure why. Because life pulsates there?

Mia Leonin is the author of four poetry collections: Fable of the Pack-Saddle Child(BkMk Press), Braid,Unraveling the Bed, and Chance Born(Anhinga Press), and a memoir, Havana and Other Missing Fathers (University of Arizona Press). Leonin has been awarded fellowships from the State of Florida Department of Cultural Affairs for her poetry and creative nonfiction, two Money for Women grants by the Barbara Deming Fund, and she has been a fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts/Annenberg Institute on Theater and Musical Theater. Leonin has published poetry and creative nonfiction in New Letters, Prairie Schooner,Alaska Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, Witness, North American Review, River Styx, Chelsea, and others.She received a special mention in the 2014 Pushcart Prize anthology. She has written extensively about Spanish-language theater and culture for the Miami Herald, New Times, ArtburstMiami.com,and other publications. Leonin’s poetry has been translated to Spanish and she has been invited to read at the Miami International Book Fair, Poesia en el Laurel in Granada, Spain, and in Barcelona, Spain. She teaches creative writing at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.

Leonin's latest book, Fable of the Pack-Saddle Child, an illustrated book-length poem for adults, illustrated by Nereida García Ferraz, lays bare the life of Micaela, 10, who lives in an unnamed Spanish-speaking city by the sea. Seeking emotional refuge after a traumatic assault, Micaela withdraws from the world of adults. Almost losing her burgeoning sense of self, she instead becomes enchanted by language, beginning with the tilde that sits atop the Spanish letter Ñ. Her new love of the written word helps her find redemption in surprising places.

September 2018

Marianne Szlyk

1. Do you share new poems for feedback from a friend or partner before submitting them?

Yes, I do. These days I share poems with my husband Ethan Goffman as well as with my friend and mentor Catfish McDaris. Additionally, this past year I’ve joined a critiquing group that meets in Washington, DC. It’s good to find out whether or not I’m on the right track—and, at times, to kickstart my revision process. Sometimes I can be too satisfied with poems. At other times I worry that I am repeating myself, writing the same poem over and over, or heading in the wrong direction. A recent poem, “Woolworth’s, 1970,” particularly benefited from other eyes. My readers helped me sharpen the poem’s focus. After that, I added more sensory detail to enliven the piece, and it was much improved!

2. Do you save original drafts of your poems, and if so, how many drafts are there for a poem?

My first drafts are handwritten, and generally I write one or two handwritten drafts, even at workshops. Those I save. It always surprises me how poems take shape from sometimes unpromising beginnings. Unfortunately, I don’t save my typed drafts (actually drafts typed on a computer) unless I make fairly major changes, I’m not committed to the changes, or the poem changes from submission to submission. When I am on the computer, I don’t always make major changes in one draft. I tend to peck at a poem here and there so that it evolves over time.

3. If you have a brief ekphrastic poem- published or not- or a stanza or two of one, would you share it with us?
OPTIONAL: Do you have the image to go with it?

I have been writing a number of ekphrastic poems, but “At the Water’s Edge,” inspired by Cezanne’s painting of the same name, came to mind most readily. Here are the last three stanzas. (The poem is in couplets, and it appeared in both Of/With and Long Exposure as well as in my new book, On the Other Side of the Window.)

No swimmer, no boat breaks the surface,
more mirror for land and sky than home for fish and weeds.

But the house’s heart is dark and sweet
with sage and lavender, with the scent of grass and lake

protecting its guests from the hot wind, the drought,
and the smoke to the water’s edge.

Perhaps this poem means more to me because it took a while for me to place it.

4. Please give us the first line of 3 of your favorite poems by a poet other than yourself. Please provide the poem title and poet's name.

Wow, this is a hard one. I was puzzling over this question for days!
Let’s start with the first line of Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays.” I love teaching this poem; it doesn’t rhyme, and it blends emotion and description so well, but it’s also the same length as a sonnet would be: “Sundays too my father got up early…”. I just noticed that this line has ten syllables—just like a sonnet does.

Tara Betts’ “An Introduction” is actually a prose poem: “The summer’s end marked September’s bid towards chill.” The first line is so evocative, but then the poem turns out to be about the speaker’s “relationship” with a spider she names Craig. This poem is from her book Break the Habit, which covers the aftermath of her divorce.

Richard Wilbur’s “Thyme Flowering among Rocks” influenced me to strive for more form in my poems even if I’m “just” counting words or syllables. His poem also encouraged me because each stanza is in the form of a haiku. I had been discouraged by the haiku format. However, reading Wilbur’s poem gave me the idea of making each stanza a kind of haiku. Here is his first line: “This, if Japanese”---five syllables!

I am going to sneak in a mention of Tad Richards, a poet whom I’ve published in my blog-zine. Drawing my attention to his poem “She Took Off Her Dress” (which begins “She took off her dress”), he told me about a form he had devised: five stanzas of five lines each, following the syllabic pattern: 54635 – 46354 – 63546 – 35463 – 54635. I gave it a try and had fun with it. It’s an elegant form that allows one to balance form, content, imagery, and language.

5. Do you have a favorite venue where poetry readings take place? What is the name of the place and what's so great about it?

The Folger Theater is one of my favorite venues in Washington, DC. On the nights that readings are held, it’s dedicated to the readings. No loud music in the next room, no worries about servers and one’s meal. The poets stand at the lectern and read their poems. Since this is a theater, the sight lines are clear, and the comfortable seats face the stage. At the beginning of the summer, my husband and I went to hear Kazim Ali and Keshav Akbar. This was an eye-opening, ear-opening, and mind-opening reading.

As for the places where I myself have read, the basement of the Watha T. Daniel Library in Washington, DC bears some happy memories. The DC Poetry Project used to meet there for its workshop and open mic. The room wasn’t terribly fancy—unless Anastacia Peace was decorating it. Another place I enjoy reading is the meeting room of the Unitarian church in Rockville. There people do sit at tables and eat cookies, but the focus is on the poetry and the music.

Marianne Szlyk is a professor of English and Reading at Montgomery College. She also edits The Song Is... a blog-zine for poetry and prose inspired by music (especially jazz). This summer she and her husband started It Takes A Community! Poetry Workshop at Montgomery College Rockville. Her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking up at Trees of Heaven, is available online at Kind of a Hurricane Press. Her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, is available on Amazon. Her poems have appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, of/with, bird's thumb, Cactifur, Mad Swirl, Setu, Solidago, Red Bird Chapbook's Weekly Read, and Resurrection of a Sunflower, an anthology of work responding to Vincent Van Gogh's art. Her full-length book, On the Other Side of the Window, is now available from Pski's Porch and Amazon. She invites you to stop by her blog-zine and perhaps even submit some poems: http://thesongis.blogspot.com

Patricia Carragon

1. Do you share new poems for feedback from a friend of partner before submitting them?

I started doing this recently and I find it helpful. I even email a few versions of the same poem. I make my comments, select my favorite, and hear what my friends have to say before submitting the final version.

2. Do you save original drafts of your poems, and if so, how many drafts are there for a poem?

I used to do this, but it got to the point where the “paper trail” got out of hand. There was no room to store these versions in binders. I have the same storage problem on my computer and can’t afford to pay for extra ROM for my MacBook.

3. If you have a brief ekphrastic poem- published or not- or a stanza or two of one, would you share it with us?
OPTIONAL: Do you have the image to go with it?

My ekphrastic poem, “Picture of Life,” is from my chapbook Innocence (Finishing Line Press 2017). This poem was first published in Alison Ross’ online journal, Clockwise Cat, on October 26, 2010. Sadly, I have no image to accompany the poem, because my mother’s unfinished Parisian oil by numbers was thrown out by her many years ago.

Picture of Life

A painting’s still in progress--
Parisian life
numbered for color.
People sit at an outdoor café,
sip wine
between conversations.
A man delivers his wares
in an ancient
but sturdy wagon
as long as his horse
can be of service.

But the artist
didn’t finish her piece.
Instead,
she allowed age
to paint the edges,
kept some areas
devoid of color.
Inside her dented box,
capsules have lost their oil.
Brushes lie unwashed,
too brittle for use--
inertia lives in the dust.
I wonder why,
but the artist isn’t here
to answer.

4. Please give us the first line of 3 of your favorite poems by a poet other than yourself. Please provide the poem title and poet's name.

Emily Dickinson my favorite poet since childhood:

Because I could not stop for Death (479)

Because I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stopped for me--

I'm Nobody! Who are you? (260)

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?

Publication--is the Auction (788)

Publication--is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man--
Poverty--be justifying
For so foul a thing

5. Do you have a favorite venue where poetry readings take place? What is the name of the place and what's so great about it?

I enjoy the energy, community, and poetry of the Sunday Great Weather for MEDIA Reading Series at the Parkside Lounge (Manhattan, NYC). It reminds me of the Friday night Pink Pony Reading Series that used to be held at The Cornelia Street Café. I wish the trains from Brooklyn were better on weekends. The MTA’s weekend track work causes too much confusion when the F becomes the D, the N turns into the D, the R is in semi-limbo, plus all the delays and other route switches that make you feel like you’re traversing through Kafka’s “A Message from the Emperor.”

Patricia Carragon’s recent publications include The Avocet, A Journal of Nature Poetry, Bear Creek Haiku, Danse Macabre, First Literary Review-East, Last Call: The Anthology of Beer, Wine & Spirits Poetry, and The New Verse News, and has work forthcoming in Muddy River Poetry Review and Walt’s Corner. She is the author of Journey to the Center of My Mind (Rogue Scholars Press, 2005) and Urban Haiku and More (Fierce Grace Press, 2010). Her latest books are The Cupcake Chronicles (Poets Wear Prada, 2017) and Innocence (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Patricia hosts the Brooklyn-based Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology. She is an active member of brevitas, PEN Women’s Literary Workshop, Women Writers in Bloom, and Tamarind. She is an executive editor for Home Planet News Online. Carragon lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Martina Reisz Newberry

1. Do you share new poems for feedback from a friend of partner before submitting them?

Occasionally I do. My friend, Raymond Soulard, is often the first one to see new poems. He has a most excellent eye/ear. When the poems are in a fairly strong manuscript form, my publisher and friend, Jeffrey Haste of Deerbrook Editions goes over my work. I have absolute trust in his perceptions.

2. Do you save original drafts of your poems, and if so, how many drafts are there for a poem?

The original drafts are in a notebook. I write in a notebook to begin poems. I edit, polish, fine-tune them on the computer. There are usually two or three drafts in my notebook with countless squiggles and notes and changes. I keep the notebooks and look back on what I’ve done. It helps me keep an eye on my work—make certain it continues to grow.

3. If you have a brief ekphrastic poem- published or not- or a stanza or two of one, would you share it with us?
OPTIONAL: Do you have the image to go with it?

I just finished a long poem titled “Three Paintings” about a Vermeer painting which I love.
Stanza from

“Three Paintings…”

A rug, a breast, a leer, a coin.
The world is, in this way, unmasked--
shown for what it is. A man’s blood-red
jacket lights the way to an impatient end.

4. Please give us the first line of 3 of your favorite poems by a poet other than yourself. Please provide the poem title and poet's name.

1. “The Hill Wife– Loneliness (Her Word)” by Robert Frost:
One ought not to have to care/ So much as you and I…

2. “Strong Winds Below the Canyon” by Larry Kramer
Like a rubber tire another /night bears down…

3. “Patterns” by Amy Lowell
I walk down the garden paths/And all the daffodils/are blowing…

5. Do you have a favorite venue where poetry readings take place? What is the name of the place and what's so great about it?

My favorite place to read and hear readings is a charming bookstore in Long Beach, CA, Gatsby’s Bookstore (http://gatsbybooks.com/). They charge nothing to come listen, they are always open to having a poet come read, they are not elitist, are gracious and kind. They support poetry in all the best ways.

Martina Reisz Newberry has been writing for 60 years. She has a passionate romance with Los Angeles and currently lives there with her husband, Brian Newberry, a Media Creative. Her most recent books are Take the Long Way Home (Unsolicited Press, September 2017 ), Never Completely Awake, (May 2017, Deerbrook Editions). She is also the author of Where It Goes (Deerbrook Editions). Learning by Rote (Deerbrook Editions) and Running Like a Woman With Her Hair on Fire and Other Poems (Red Hen Press).

August 2018

Len Lawson

1. If you read essays about poetry please tell us about one of them that might have enlightened you.

I have read some great essays on poetry craft from the 18th and 19th Centuries lately which I have incorporated into my poetry workshops. One is by Ralph Waldo Emerson called “The Poet” where he offers an inspiring view of poets as cornerstones of the human experience. Another great essay is by Percy Shelley called “A Defense of Poetry” in which he promotes poets like the prophets of their generations with references to Dante, Moses, Homer, and many other pillars of literature. These texts motivate me when I feel underwhelmed by the perils of the craft to keep my objectives and purpose foremost in mind.

2. Are you reading a collection of poetry at this moment?

At the moment, I'm reading everything! Poetry, novels, plays, essays...you name it! Being a Ph.D. student spreads you very thin across many genres. The latest collection I read was For colored girls by Ntozake Shange which I was always on my unofficial reading list but popped up on my graduate reading list! The plight of the African American woman is chronicled with much joy and sorrow in the book.

3. How many times do you read an especially “difficult” poem?

I wouldn't attach a number per say to it, but it would definitely be more than once. Perhaps the number of times read is not as important as the number of attempts to read. Reading doesn't always equate to understanding. The degree of difficulty would compel me to stay in the fight until I had assimilated something from the text. Then, I would live to fight another day.

4. Has a poem ever made you cry?

Yes. It is a poem I wrote about my children. It was visceral for a few private reasons. I read it in front of them at home which is probably the most difficult poetry reading I've ever had.

5. Summon three poets from the past for a reading in your house. Who’s reading?

With this enchanted and mystical power, I summon Emily Dickinson because she wouldn't want to read, so it would be a spectacle just to see how she reacts to the setting. I summon Gwendolyn Brooks because that would be an experience I can always live with and cherish. I summon Lucille Clifton because she seems like someone unlike Emily who would enjoy a house reading and she seems like the type of person to adopt me instantly and to help me nurture my craft. What a trio to have a reading, a panel discussion, and hopefully some dinner and more conversation after! My door remains open for them to enter...

Len Lawson earned a B.S. in Business Administration from Winthrop University and an M.A. in English from National University. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature & Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches English at the University of South Carolina Sumter. His scholarly article "Back to the Future: Approaches to Best Practices in Reflective Teaching" appeared in Cultivating Visionary Leadership by Learning for Global Success: Beyond the Language and Literature Classroom (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015). He is a Poetry Reader and Book Reviewer for Up the Staricase Quarterly.

Lawson is co-founder of Poets Respond to Race and co-editor of its first anthology Hand in Hand (Muddy Ford Press). He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a multiple Best of the Net nominee. He is a 2016 Callaloo Barbados Fellow and has had writing residencies at Sumter County Gallery of Art and Vermont Studio Center. He won the 2016 Jasper Magazine Artist of the Year Award in Literary Arts and was named among Ten South Carolina Poets to Watch by Richland County Library. He has been a finalist for the inaugural Berfrois Poetry Prize, the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, and the Yellow Chair Review Chapbook Prize. His poetry has also been and will be featured in coffee shops and transit buses in the Columbia, SC metro area, selected by Columbia, SC Poet Laureate Ed Madden. Lawson has given poetry readings and workshops in such venues as the Poetry Society of South Carolina, the Pat Conroy Literary Center, and the South Carolina State House.

He has poems appearing in several anthologies and journals including [PANK], The Good Men Project, Winter Tangerine Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Charleston Currents, selected by South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth. His debut full-length poetry collection Chime will be released in 2019. His website is www.lenlawson.co.

Nina Romano

1. If you read essays about poetry please tell us about one of them that might have enlightened you.

I don’t read as many essays as I did while I was in Grad School, that’s for sure. However, “The Poetry Crowd,” by Donald Hall was wonderful and stands out in my memory. I’ve always admired Maxine Kumin’s work, and read her essay: “One Poet’s View of Social Change at the Library of Congress,” but those were both quite a while ago.

2. Are you reading a collection of poetry at this moment?

I always have several collections near at hand. Currently they are Philip Larkin: Collected Poems, the Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, and Reply from Wilderness Island by Peter Balakian.

I like to read poetry for about ten or fifteen minutes before I write fiction, and lately I’ve been writing quite a bit of fiction, more than poetry. But I’ve included poems and poetry in my novels and short stories, and I love to use elevated language and lyrical passages in my work. Reading poetry before writing prose give me a sense of rhythm and balance—it also provides me with interesting metaphors and similes, and incredible images—a great jumping off place for ideas.

3. How many times do you read an especially “difficult” poem?

I don’t count and that certainly depends on the poet and the poem. I adore the metaphysical poets, especially John Donne, and have read and re-read some of his poems countless times—not so much because they’re difficult, but to fully grasp their meanings. I admire his Divine Meditations, and it amazes me how he had time to write all of those esoteric verses, wooing the love of his life, Anne, half his age, and who bore him a dozen children. He was a Catholic who switched to the Church of England and had an obsession with Death and God. I love his religious work.

4. Has a poem ever made you cry?

Yes, when I was younger—Andrew Marvel’s "To His Coy Mistress,” John Donne’s “Air and Angels” and “The Relic” I can get rather emotional reading other poet’s poems, but haven’t cried in a long time. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to say, some of my own poetry makes me cry. Several of them are published here: http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/slq/3.4.july2010/poetry/nina-romano.html

5. Summon three poems from the past for a reading in your house. Who’s reading?

“The White Magnolia Tree” by Helen Deutsch, and it would have to be read by Helen Hayes, but that’s impossible because she died in 1987, so maybe, I’d read it. I memorized the poem when I was sixteen because of Hayes’s recitation, and listened to her performing it so many times, I think I’d get the inflections correct.

“Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann—I have an Italian copy of it framed in my office. It’s simply stunning. James Earl Jones would read it.

“Sea Fever” by John Masefield—I’ve loved this poem ever since I was a girl. I’d ask Campbell McGrath to read it.

Nina Romano earned a B. S. from Ithaca College, an M.A. from Adelphi University, a B. A. in English, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Florida International University. She lived in Rome, Italy, for twenty years where many of her poems and stories are set, and is fluent in Italian and Spanish. Romano has taught English and Literature as an adjunct professor at St. Thomas University, and has interned for poets Marie Howe, Denise Duhamel, and C. K. Williams at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival.
Romano has presented her poetry and fiction at the Miami Book Fair International and has facilitated poetry and creative writing workshops at the Ft. Lauderdale Main Library, the Sanibel Island Writers Conference, Bridle Path Press Baltimore, Lopez Island Library, Florida Gulf Coast University, Rosemary Beach Writers Conference, the Outreach Program of Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and the Utah Summit County Library.
Her short fiction, memoir, and poetry appear in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies.
Romano has presented numerous times at the Miami Book Fair International with her fiction and also with her poetry collections which include: Cooking Lessons from Rock Press, submitted for a Pulitzer Prize, Coffeehouse Meditations from Kitsune Books, She Wouldn’t Sing at My Wedding from Bridle Path Press, Faraway Confections, from Aldrich Press, and Westward: Guided by Starfalls and Moonbows from Red Dashboard, LLC. She has also had two poetry chapbooks published: Prayer in a Summer of Grace and Time’s Mirrored Illusion, both from Flutter Press, and a short story collection, The Other Side of the Gates, from Bridle Path Press.
She has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She has co-authored Writing in a Changing World.
Nina Romano’s historical Wayfarer Trilogy has been published from Turner Publishing. The Secret Language of Women, Book #1, was a Foreword Reviews Book Award Finalist and won the Independent Publisher’s 2016 Gold Medal IPPY Book Award. Lemon Blossoms, Book # 2, was a Foreword Reviews Book Award Finalist, and In America, Book #3, was a finalist in Chanticleer Media’s Chatelaine Book Awards. More about the author here: www.ninaromano.com

Holly Lyn Walrath

1. If you read essays about poetry please tell us about one of them that might have enlightened you.

One of my favorite books is Edward Hirsch’s How to Read a Poem. Hirsch says “These poems have come from a great distance to find you.” He talks about how poems are a message in a bottle. As a writer, I send out my work into the world because I want the one person who needs it to find it. The distance between the poet and the reader is a great gulf, crashing in the darkness, and I get to shine a light into the crevices and weird places of the world with my words. This is why my work is so often speculative in nature—because it’s the undiscovered country that excites me.

2. Are you reading a collection of poetry at this moment?

I’m currently reading Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. It’s a collection about femininity from an astoundingly good selection of poets, including one of my favorite spoken word poets, Denice Frohman.

3. How many times do you read an especially “difficult” poem?

I think it depends on the poem. There are poems that just aren’t for me as a reader. But then there are poems that I don’t fully understand and find myself rereading over and over again. An example is Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” I keep coming back to it and I always find something new to love there.

4. Has a poem ever made you cry?

I watch a lot of spoken word poetry online from places like Button Poetry and Write About Now. There are gut-wrenching, emotional, personal, powerful pieces coming out of those websites that have left me just devastated.

5. Summon three poets from the past for a reading in your house. Who’s reading?

Ooh. I’d love to get the ghosts of Ursula K. Le Guin, Jorge Luis Borges, and Emily Dickinson together. Can you just imagine what the conversation would be like afterwards?

Holly Lyn Walrath’s poetry and short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Luna Station Quarterly, Liminality, and elsewhere. Her chapbook of words and images, Glimmerglass Girl, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2018. She holds a B.A. in English from The University of Texas and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. She is a freelance editor and host of The Weird Circular, an e-newsletter for writers containing submission calls and writing prompts. You can find her canoeing the bayou in Seabrook, Tx., on Twitter @HollyLynWalrath, or at www.hlwalrath.com.

July 2018

Doug Ramspeck

1. If you’re a fan of Haiku please give us an example of one of your favorite pieces. If you’re not, why not?

“On a branch . . .” Kobayashi Issa (translated by Jane Hirshfield)

On a branch
floating downriver
a cricket, singing.

I am both a fan and not a fan of Haiku. What often draws me to poetry is the way that images—especially natural images—evoke a larger sense of the world, reflecting human ideas and emotions. But what I also like about poetry, and which Haiku is less adept at accomplishing, is storytelling. In other words, my favorite poems are the ones that manage to combine mysterious and suggestive images with narratives. We are, at our cores, storytellers, and the poems that speak to me the most fully are the ones that recognize that.

2. Is there a poem you could use to demonstrate a great use of line breaks? Please give an example.

From “To My Father / To My Future Son,” by Ocean Vuong:

Once I fell in love
during a slow-motion car crash.

Even very serious poems, I think, often follow the structure of a joke. And what is that? A line will take us in an expected direction so we anticipate what might be coming next, and then that expectation is defied. For example, Mark Twain writes this: “I did not attend the funeral, but I sent a nice note saying I approved of it.” We expect, at first, some expression of sorrow or appreciation for the deceased, but that expectation is thwarted.

What I like about the line break from Ocean Vuong is how the poet uses the same basic approach to take the poem in unexpected and surprising directions, bringing together elements we don’t normally associate with each other, like “love” and “car crash.”

3. If you had to tattoo a line from one of your poems onto your body, what would it be? Where on your body would you put it?

I am at work on a new book of poetry entitled Long Marriage, and a poem I am considering using to begin the collection has these first lines:

I have been studying the migration
of the years, the dull heat of their passage

a strange fire. And because they are holy,
gravity slips through them . . .

As I have been composing the book, I have been thinking a good deal about the passage of time (I am 64), and these lines, I hope, reflect the sense of that preoccupation. But, no, I am not going to have them tattooed on any part of my body. Sorry.

4. Strangers always ask “What kind of poetry do you write”? Before rolling your eyes, what is your answer?

I like to think of myself as a storyteller (as I mentioned earlier), so here are a few opening lines from the first poem in my collection Black Flowers, which will be published by LSU Press in September:

My father, in the hard gray
of winter, is kneeling again

and sliding the knife
from sternum to crotch,

blood welling like a dark liquid
oozing from a secret burrow,

intestines pouring onto grass.
Dead is dead, he always claimed,

adding that we might as well
toss him someday in a landfill

for all he cared, leave him
to feed the buzzards . . .

These lines, I think, contain many of the elements I include in my poetry: a focus on the natural world and animism, a meditation on memory and personal history, and a penchant for narrative.

5. You run into the editor of a prestigious poetry journal in which you very much want to be published. What do you say? (What is your “elevator pitch?)

Nope. Wouldn’t do it. I would nod and say hello, but I would not try to peddle my own work. I feel guilty enough trying to hawk my books at readings (though I know I shouldn’t feel that way). In any case, it’s better to take the stairs for the exercise, so I guess I wouldn’t get on the elevator in the first place.

Doug Ramspeck is the author of six poetry collections and one collection of short stories. His most recent book, Black Flowers, is forthcoming by LSU Press. His story collection, The Owl That Carries Us Away (2018), is published by BkMk Press. Individual poems have appeared in journals that include The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Georgia Review, and The Southern Review. An associate professor at The Ohio State University at Lima, he teaches creative writing and is the faculty advisor for the literary journal Asterism, which publishes undergraduates from the United States and beyond.

Nicole Yurcaba

1. If you’re a fan of Haiku please give us an example of one of your favorite pieces. If you’re not, why?

I have always been a fan of Basho. My favorite Basho haiku is:

No one travels
Along this way but I,
This autumn evening.

It pretty sums up my life’s journeys and my aesthetics about individualism.

2. Is there a poem you could use to demonstrate a great use of line breaks? Please give an example.

Truth: I never pay attention to line breaks when I’m writing poetry; typically, because I handwrite everything before the final draft, I end lines where they stop on the page. However, a poem that is near to my Ukrainian heart is Taras Shevchenko’s “The Mighty Dnipro.” The lines end with words like “bellows” and “raves” and “willows” and “waves,” balancing action with objects, utilizing rhyme and in some cases consonance. This poem, a testimony to Ukrainian spirit and independence, oozes defiance, so ending lines with words like “moment,” “cloud,” “ocean,” “down” reinforces the struggle of the Ukrainian people throughout history. These line endings also create a bluntness that mimics the idea that, throughout history, the Ukrainian people would continue to rise and reclaim their independence.

3. If you had to tattoo a line from one of your poems onto your body, what would it be? Where on your body would you put it?

Oh! I love the idea of tattooing, but I’m completely mysophobic, so…no needles. I often daydream about what poems I would have tattooed on me, and if I had to choose a line from one of my poems, it would be the line

I sing. I hold. I keep. I muse

from my poem “I Find My Lover Hidden in the Myths,” which the Polish and Ukrainian folk tales of my childhood inspired. I think I would tattoo it on my right shoulder, along with a graveyard scene, to represent life’s full circle, and my own philosophies about life and death.

4. Strangers always ask “What kind of poetry do you write”? Before rolling your eyes, what is your answer?

I LOVE this question, actually, because my writing is typically esoteric and requires a great deal of research. I write poetry, typically free verse, that blends Slavic mythology and gothic subculture aesthetic (because I’m a Ukrainian-American goth like that), but I also, at times, write very bucolic and transcendentalist poetry (inspired by my life in the West Virginia mountains, where I live, garden, bee-keep with my fiancé). In other words, I guess I could say I write whatever kind of poetry I’m inspired to write. I try not to confine or limit myself; I love experimentation, and I love “breaking the rules” of traditional forms, but I still respect traditional forms and utilize them if they fit the subject matter I’m working with for a poem.

5. You run into the editor of a prestigious poetry journal in which you very much want to be published. What do you say? (What is your “elevator pitch?)

This is a GREAT question, especially since as the Assistant Director of the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival I often find myself in such a position. Typically, what I do is I begin by asking “Have you ever read[insert author’s name or collection’s title here]? What did you think?”. Then, I discuss current poems I’m drafting in relation to this author, depending on the editor’s response. This doesn’t always guarantee a hey-send-me-your-work response, but if nothing else it opens a decent conversation about writing practices and reading preferences.

Nicole Yurcaba, a Ukrainian-American writer, teaches in Bridgewater College’s English department, where she also serves as the Assistant Director for the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA from Lindenwood University, and her poems and essays appear in online and print venues such as The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Chariton Review, Still: The Journal, OTHER., Junto Magazine, and many other online and print journals. She is the author of Hollow Bottles, a chapbook focusing on human futility, nature, and music. When she is not teaching, writing, or traveling, she lives in West Virginia with her fiancé on their homestead where they garden, fish, and keep bees.

Indran Amirthanayagam

1. If you’re a fan of haiku please give us an example of one of your favorite pieces. If you’re not, why?

I love haiku, yes, but it is not my first or only love. When I think of haiku I think of imagist poetry, these apparitions of faces in a crowd/petals on a wet, black bough. Or Williams pulling his wheelbarrow past the white chickens. Or Pound as Li Po in the persona of the River Merchant's young wife and her plaintive cry, I will come out to see you/as far as Cho Fu Sa. So haiku for me is imagist poetry and a form that is popular, that lives in communities with ordinary people, not in the rhetorical prisons of hermetic academic poets...So all power to the haiku. Let a thousand haikus be written every day.

2. Is there a poem you could use to demonstrate a great use of line breaks? Please give an example.

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics,

This is how Yeats begins his last poem “Politics”. How can I , he asks, and then he shows us the girl standing there. out there on the same line followed by that powerful fix, that short, firm utterance, and then the wonderful off rhymes, Ro man Rus sian Spa nish Po li tics...

3. If you had to tattoo a line from one of your poems onto your body, what would it be? Where on your body would you put it?

The elephants of reckoning/are bunches of scruff men and women/picking up thrown out antennae/from the rubbish bins of the city.

I would wear the tattoo on my left hand, my writing hand.

4. Strangers always ask “What kind of poetry do you write”? Before rolling your eyes, what is your answer?

I write lyric poetry about life on the run, away from paradise because paradise has burned to the ground...and I carry a mark on my forehead..and I cannot find enough water to quench my thirst, but I write and write finding Solace in the confection of metaphor.

5. You run into the editor of a prestigious poetry journal in which you very much want to be published. What do you say? (What is your “elevator pitch?)

I would say good evening. I enjoyed the poem about the fish. And the one last week about the color green. Now I have poems toó about fish and colors. Would you like to see some?

Writing/Publishing Experience

I am a poet, journalist , musician and theater critic in several languages, including Spanish, French, Haitian Creole and Portuguese. I have published thirteen poetry collections thus far, including The Elephants of Reckoning (Hanging Loose Press, NY, 1993) which won the 1994 Paterson Prize in the United States, The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems (Hanging Loose Press, NY, 2008) and Uncivil War (Tsar/now Mawenzi House, Toronto, 2013).
My first album Rankont Dout was released in January, 2018. It can be downloaded from the major music stores and heard on You Tube. My French poems have appeared thus far in Aller-Retour au Bord de La Mer (Legs Editions, Port au Prince, December 2014) and Il n'est que l'ile lointaine (Legs Editions, Port Au Prince, 2017). My latest in Spanish is Ventana Azul (El Tapiz del Unicornio, Mexico City, 2016). My poetry in creole appears in Pwezi a Kat Men (Delince Editions, Miami, 2017)-- a dialog in poetry written with Alex Laguerre.
My articles, essays and op-eds have been published in the New York Times, the Hindu, Reforma, El Norte, The Indian Express, The Deccan Chronicle, The Daily News (Sri Lanka), the Island (Sri Lanka), among other newspapers.
My theater criticism appeared in the Westsider and the Chelsea-Clinton News in New York City ( 1986- 1992)
Poems and translations have appeared, or are to appear, in Strix, Wasafiri, Grand Street, the Kenyon Review, the Massachusetts Review, New England Review, Exquisite Corpse, Hanging Loose, BOMB, Alforja, Siempre, La Gaceta, Groundviews, The Portable Lower East Side, among other magazines. They have been included in the anthologies ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Capitals, The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America, Language for a New Century, Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry, Living in America, the Poety of Roses, Only the Sea Keeps: Poetry of the Tsunami, and on the Poetry Foundation website, among others.
I have read at various poetry festivals, including the International Poetry Festival, London, and those in Medellin and Bogota (Colombia), Granada (Nicaragua), Rosario (Argentina), Lima (Peru), Trois Rivieres (Canada), San Salvador (El Salvador), as well as festivals in the Mexican cities of Ciudad Juarez, Hermosillo, Monterrey, and Mexico City, and the Dodge Festival in the United States. I guest-edited special issues of magazines BOMB and the Portable Lower East Side. I have directed poetry workshops in the United States, Mexico, Argentina and Haiti.
My Spanish collections include El Infierno de los Pajaro (Resistencia, Mexico City, 2001), El Hombre que Recoge Nidos (Resistencia/CONARTE, Mexico City, 2005), Sin Adorno: lirica para tiempos neobarrocos (Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Mexico, 2013), Sol Camuflado (Lustra Editores, LIma 2011) and Ventana Azul (El Tapiz del Unicornio, Mexico City, 2016). I wrote about the 2010 World Cup in La Pelota del Pulpo (The Octopus’s Ball), a book of poems in three languages.
I am a past fellow of the New Foundation for the Arts and of the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. I won the Juegos Florales of Guayamas, Sonora in 2006 for the poem Juarez.

Teaching Experience

Directed Poetry and Autobiography Workshop, Le Centre d' Art, Port Au Prince, 2017
Directed Poetry Workshop, La Casa de la Cultura, Monterrey, Mexico, 2005-2006
Directed Poetry Workshop, Biblioteca Publica, Oaxaca, Mexico. 2001.
Adjunct Professor, Eugene Lang College, The New School for Social Research. Taught English literature and creative writing. 1991-1993.
English Teacher, New York City Public Schools. Taught high school English. 1985-1986.
English as a Second Language Professor. Taught Japanese college students in a study abroad program. Kansai Gaidai Hawaii College. 1984.
English Teacher, George School, Newtown, PA. Taught high school English. 1982-1983.

Education

Master of Science, Journalism, Columbia University. 1985.
Bachelor of Arts, English. Haverford College. 1982.

Languages

Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, Portuguese

Blog: http://indranamirthanayagam.blogspot.com

June 2018

Joan Leotta

1. The mayor of your city is going to erect a monument to a poet no longer
with us and asks you to choose the poet. Whom do you choose?

This is a hard one... so many wonderful words given by so many... and many whose words have set me thinking more deeply, understanding more fully, wanting to do more for others ... King David, author of many Psalms has a place in my heart, Rumi... jumping ahead to modern times, such diverse influences! Pablo Neruda, TS Eliot, Ginsberg, F. Garcia Lorca, Williams, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou and my birthday buddy, Phillip Levine.
However, since I now live in NC, where Angelou last lived and worked, I will pick her... but I would much rather have a monument that had all of these and maybe a few more. I picture them all sitting at a table, sharing a meal, discussing poetry, and reading to each other from their work.

2. How would you define what a “leap” is in a poem?

Funny you should ask this question since two of the poets I love (Lorca and Neruda) used this technique often, to great effect, in their work.
A leap is an active move between two points—in ballet and in poetry. We move from one place quickly to another—these moves may at first seem unrelated, but, in actuality, provide perspective on the first group of words. Since I like to build bridges between people, cultures (in my performances), I often use this practice (leap) in writing—both prose and poetry— to highlight that the differences actually provide perspective.
What I wonder is how a leap is different from a volta—a sudden turn in the poem?

3. Have you written a one-line poem? If so, will you share it?

I am too verbose to do much one-line poetry—okay, okay, I have tried haiku (some success) and I even sent a few one sentence poems out into the world. Ok, I do try my hand at haiku too.... But to achieve much in such a compressed space—I am still studying. So much to learn before I would feel comfortable putting one out into the world as an example of my work.

4. Is there a theme that runs through your work?

Not just one theme, but several. These are family, food, and small moments—all three together in some poems. Objects, from the traditional artwork of the ekphrastic poem, to the half-eaten bowl of cold curry in front of me the other day at lunchtime—all of these inspire poems. Because my themes are such “common” subjects, this makes my poetry quite accessible. Yes, oh yes, I do stick in the occasional symbol. But in most cases, in my poems, the symbolism will be of a more personal, (and discernible in the poem) , rather than of a broader universal nature—(longevity, immortality). When I dare to eat a peach, it is usually more about the peach—all respect to TS Eliot.

5. Why is it important for you to write?

I’ve been writing ever since I could wield a crayon. My very first “book” was a bunch of scribbles on folded construction paper that I would read over and over to my mother—each day hanging the story since of course, at age three I could neither read nor write in the traditional sense.
Once I learned the secret of letters on the page and how to formulate them for myself, I began what has been a lifelong exploration of sounds, (transferring talk and thought to a page and back again), themes, story plots. I read and write widely diverse things from business articles to poetry, from crime fiction to historical fiction to biographies. I write for adults, for children and am currently working on a middle grade. I’m still a working journalist.
I’ve been fortunate in that several publishers have believed enough in my work to take me on—in poetry, in women’s fiction, in a short story collection, and in picture books. Last year, two of those publishers (picture book and the short story collections) went out of business, but I soldier on looking for a new publisher in each of those areas and innovative ways to get those works into the hands of readers.
I write to make sense of the world around me, to share beauty that I find, sometimes to share moments of sorrow or insight, with the idea of raising up the reader, or allowing the reader to share my sorrow in the hope of assuaging his or her own sadness through the sharing. I believe poetry is one of the highest form of writing—boiling down all we know and want to say in a short space. From early school days I wrote and was encouraged to write poetry—by teachers, by my father, by the City of Pittsburgh, through its many city-wide anthologies (competitive) we could submit to. The only time I stopped writing poetry was when I worked as an economist. Perhaps the numbers crowded out the poems in my head? I did write articles and reports by the desk full during that period. Maybe I was just too tired. After I stayed home with our children, I began to do more personal creative work along with articles (for the newspaper) but my fires breakthrough back into poetry came when my father died, and I felt I wanted to share him with the world. So, after revision, I sent it to a small anthology that published it and it has been republished many times since.
A long answer to a short question---it’s the storyteller in me.
Thanks for including me in this project. I hope my responses encourage others to write.

Joan Leotta has been playing with words on page and stage since childhood in Pittsburgh. She is a journalist, author, poet, essayist, playwright and story performer—not in any particular order. Her poetry, short stories and essays appear or are forthcoming in Gnarled Oak, the A-3 Review, Kai-Xin (award winner), Spelk Fiction, Hobart Literary Review, Silver Birch, and Postcard Poems and Prose among others. Her new blog, What Editors Want, is at joanleotta.wordpress.com. It will focus on short story writing and publication.
Her four novels, published by Desert Breeze, the Legacy of Honor Series, feature strong Italian-American women. Her four picture books (currently out of print) celebrate food and family. Her essays, poems, and plays also pursue themes of food and family, and often, social justice.
Ekphrastic themes (using ordinary objects as well as are often her muse for poems and short stories and her book of short stories, Simply a Smile, is a collection of short stories inspired by objects. Her most recent book is a collection of her poems, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. The title poem was inspired by a still life at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.
Leotta performs folk tales in schools, museums and festivals. She also is available to perform two different one-woman, one that depicts a Civil War spy and another from the American Colonial Period. In 2017 she was one of the Featured Tellers at the North Carolina Fall Storytelling Festival (Tarheel Tellers).
When she is not writing, performing, cooking, or just spending time with family and friends, you can find her at the beach, watching the waves, photographing light on the water, and collecting seashells.

Caitlin Scarano

1. The mayor of your city is going to erect a monument to a poet no longer alive and asks you to choose the poet. Whom do you choose?

Audre Lorde. It is unsettling, though not surprising in a way, how relevant her work still is, that this country is still struggling with issues of systemic racial bias ending in state-sanctioned violence, for example, the murdering of children. Check out “Power,” a poem about a white police officer killing a 10-year-old black boy, which was published in 1978 in The Black Unicorn.

2. How would you define what a “leap” is in a poem?

An associative leap is a point in a poem when the writer releases the reigns of control a bit and allows their subconscious to make seemingly disparate connections that don’t follow an apparent system of logic, although an emotional or instinctual logic may be constructing itself. Leaps are most successful when the poet allows the poem to be a thing that is made as it is being written.

3. Have you written a one-line poem? If so, will you share it?

I don’t know if I have ever written a one-line poem. But I often write lines and never find a home for them. Like this one, which reads like an ending of a poem I haven’t yet written:

“No matter how long I live—in this man’s house, in these isolated mountains,
in this troubled town, in this country that breaks the backs
of its own people—there are ways in which I will never belong.”

4. Is there a theme that runs through your work?

Of course, there are themes across my work! Although I like to think of them more as questions that I keep asking myself and the world. Some of the most persistent questions have to do with the tensions and relationships between thinking/living/writing multigenerationality and trying to cultivate a reflexive self-responsibility and self-reflectivity (“What role did I have in X situation?”). Questions of what we inherit vs. what we create; which shames comprise us and which we can untangle ourselves from; what has been done to me vs. what I’ve done.

5. Why is it important for you to write?

I think addressing that question I wrote above (“What role did I have in this situation?”) is one of the most important things poetry has done, and hopefully will continue to do, for me and my impact on others.

Caitlin Scarano is a poet based in northwest Washington, and a PhD candidate in English (creative writing) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work was included in Best New Poets 2016 and The Best Small Fictions 2016. Her debut collection of poems, Do Not Bring Him Water, was released in Fall 2017 by Write Bloody Publishing. You can find her at caitlinscarano.com

Joan Colby

1. The mayor of your city is going to erect a monument to a poet no longer alive and asks you to choose the poet. Whom do you choose?

Gwendolyn Brooks

2. How would you define what a “leap” is in a poem?

A leap is a non-sequitur linking two unrelated images or ideas in such a manner that it seems preordained.

3. Have you written a one-line poem? If so, will you share it?

I have never written a one line poem and doubt that I will.

4. Is there a theme that runs through your work?

The themes that run through my work are the connections of nature and esthetics and of course the universals: meaning of life, acceptance of death, love, loss and loneliness.

5. Why is it important for you to write?

I have written since childhood, it is something I do like breathing, and frequently the emergence of a poem is more akin to taking dictation from a voice in my head than any planned action.

Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, Gargoyle, Pinyon, Little Patuxent Review, Spillway, Midwestern Gothic and others. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 20 books including Selected Poems from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and Ribcage from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Three of her poems have been featured on Verse Daily and another is among the winners of the 2016 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. Her newest books are Carnival from FutureCycle Press, The Seven Heavenly Virtues from Kelsay Books and Her Heartsongs from Presa Press. Colby is a senior editor of FutureCycle Press and an associate editor of Good Works Review. Website: www.joancolby.com. Facebook: Joan Colby. Twitter: poetjm.

May 2018

Yuan Changming

1. When do you give up editing a poem and just start over?

Seldom would I do that. I usually keep editing a poem until i feel more or less satisfied; if not, I would just forget it and throw it into a file-bin. Sometimes, I edit a piece so substantially that it may become a complete new one.

2. Must a poem have a specific meaning?

Insofar as my writing practice goes, I do not try to make every poem 'meaningful.' An image or sensation itself can be poetic enough.

3. Do you have an audience i mind when you write a poem?

No. i always care about what and how I can write rather than about who will read my poetry.

4. Have you taken workshops from poets you admire? Such as?

Alas, I have never taken a single course or workshop about creative/poetry writing, nor do I ever subject myself to anyone's influence, nor do I even admire any particular poet except some great poems. In other words, I admire poems, not poets.

5. What is the best advice you've received regarding your poetry?

'Keep writing!'

Yuan wanted to also answer the five questions we had asked poets last month for the March issue.

1. When reading a poem aloud, how does, or does, your voice change to compel listeners to listen?

Each time I read my poetry to an audience, I cannot help feeling both excited and nervous. Nervous because of one of my psychological problems: when I began to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at age nineteen, my teachers and classmates often ridiculed my village accent and thus deeply hurt my pride. I hated the fact that it took me as long as three months to make the distinction in pronunciation between the consonants ‘l’ and ‘n’. Since then, I have had to overcome this long-hidden hurtful and shameful feeling whenever it comes to oral English. Excited because of the challenge I deliberately take: being a shy hermit, I seldom come out of my private world to face a group of strangers. As a result, I don’t sound like myself at all when I perform reading in a louder and dramatic voice to attract attention.

2. How often do you write poetry that taps into your Secrets? OPTIONAL- Will you give us a brief example?

As often as I dig deeper into my childhood experiences or my personal life. For example, I tend to think my wife has played an important role in turning me into a poetry author (in a similar way Xanthippe supposedly did Socrates into a philosopher, hahaha.) Last year, I wrote ‘On a July Friday Evening’ by drawing upon an extremely private domestic scene. One version of this short poem appears in The Wire’s Dream, a quite new magazine (https://thewiresdreammagazine.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/twd-magazine-3rd-collection-interview-yuan-changming-poetry-contributor/).

3. Have you ever read a poem that has made you angry? If so, what was the poem and who is the poet?

Not yet.

4. Is there a topic you will not write about? What is it?

I have written poetry almost on every conceivable kind of topic. The only one I have always avoided is, if any, the narration of a story. For me, true poetry is lyric in nature if not by definition, whereas fiction and drama focus mainly upon the (re)presentation of an intriguing plot.

5. Are poets compelled to speak out? If so, what about?

Not necessarily. In articulating his or her innermost feeling, a poet may, rather than should, speak out intentionally or otherwise. As a poetry author – by the way, I never call myself a ‘poet’, I believe that even being apolitical is political enough.

Yuan Changming grew up in a remote village, started to learn English in Shanghai at age 19, and published monographs on the English language before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan and hosts Happy Yangsheng in Vancouver; credits include 10 Pushcart and three Best of the net nominations, seven chapbooks, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), Cincinnati Review, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1,429 other journals and anthologies across 41 countries.
Links:
poetrypacific.blogspot.ca
happyyangsheng.blogspot.ca

Karen Paul Holmes

1. When do you give up on editing a poem and just start over?

Hmmm, not often. I either put the poem away and forget about it for months or years, and if I'm lucky, I might pull it out again and suddenly see how to make it work -- with deletions, additions, changes of point of view (first person vs second, etc.), line lengths, stanza breaks, new title, etc. Otherwise, I abandon it but always keep it in my computer, and sometimes harvest lines from it for a totally different poem, which I think is different than starting over on the original poem. Normally, I don't give up and just keep editing until I'm satisfied, though I will take a break if I start to get muddled. I actually love editing, but there is a point where I know it's not productive. That's a good time to take it to my critique group. Because I don't know where a poem is going when I start it, I don't think I could just start over on the same "poem journey" with a specific purpose in mind.

2. Must a poem have a specific meaning?

Not necessarily a specific meaning, but meaning. I believe poems need to touch people. If a reader totally doesn't "get" a poem or relate to something in it, they might appreciate the tricks of the language but won't be moved. I like accessible poetry myself, and so that's what I try to write. A poem should communicate something in a meaningful way.

3. Do you have an audience in mind when you write a poem?

No. Ideally, I want anyone who's reading my work to connect to it in some way.

4. Have you taken workshops from poets you admire? Such as?

I'm somewhat of a workshop junkie, so yes, I've taken many -- some a week long, some a day, and some have included one-on-one discussions of my work. Thomas Lux (a day, several times), Dorianne Laux (a week, twice), Joseph Millar, Denise Duhamel, Carole Ann Duffy, Cecilia Woloch, David Bottoms, Kevin Young, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Travis Denton, Katie Chaple (monthly for several years), Ginger Murchison, and others. I highly recommend the Palm Beach Poetry Festival and the Sarah Lawrence Summer Writing Seminar. I'm also a huge fan of my local critique group, who are trusted poet friends.

5. What is the best advice you've received regarding your poetry?

I like the "show, not tell" rule -- to let images dwell in readers' minds where their own imaginations take over. The right image or a really great metaphor can elicit an emotional response so much better than "telling" words. I also try to live by Thomas Lux's advice to eliminate most adverbs and use a better verb instead. Really each word is important in a poem, and I love precision -- the combination of sound and rhythm and meaning and just the right words that make me want to come back to the poem again, and maybe hug it to my chest.

Karen Paul Holmes has two poetry collections, No Such Thing as Distance (Terrapin Books, 2018) and Untying the Knot (Aldrich Press, 2014). She was named a Best Emerging Poet by Stay Thirsty Media (2016), and publications include Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, Crab Orchard Review, diode, Lascaux Review, and many more. To support fellow writers, Holmes hosts a critique group in Atlanta and Writers’ Night Out in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A former VP-Communications at a global corporation, she's also a freelance writer and ballroom dancer.

Gregory Byrd

1. When do you give up on editing a poem and just start over?

Once I get to the editing portion of a draft, I’m pretty invested in it. Revision is another matter. There are a few drafts that just don’t seem to be working that I’ll lay aside with the idea that I’ll come back to them later. There are a few poems for which I’ve written several different drafts—in form, in different voices, etc—but for those poems, I’m probably concentrating too much on the idea I’m trying to convey than listening to the poem itself. Being aware of imagery, setting, word choice, myth and archetype often points me in the direction the poem wants to go. Usually, if I listen to the poem carefully, I’ll be able to cut what’s not working and refocus without starting over completely.

2. Must a poem have a specific meaning?

My students ask this question a lot, and many folks will glory in the concept that a poem can mean anything you want it to mean. But if that’s the case, why write at all? The challenge comes with the idea of assigning a linear meaning to a form which finds meaning in mythic, symbolic ways. If you watch couples who have been together a long time, you’ll notice that they have a particular sort of relationship. Their love has a particular flavor and meaning. When my daughter plays Faure’s Elegie or some of the Bach cello suites, the pieces undoubtedly create particular effects and not others. The “meaning” of a poem, if it’s a good one, is a multiplicity, but it also has a center and radiating from that center are varieties of spin on the central meaning. Get far enough from that center and you’ve missed the meaning. Robert Burns’ “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose” is just not about the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It may be about an abiding love. It may be about seduction. It may be about the freshness of young life and young love. But it’s not about Pearl Harbor. You know, a poem works by going around most of the logic in our heads. Imagery, metaphor, myth, music, all of that connects in a way that creates a “meaning” that is not easy to express in prose.

3. Do you have an audience in mind when you write a poem?

Yeah, all those women chasing Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love calling out “Will! Write me a sonnet!” Not exactly an audience but a reader. I want to write a poem that a carpenter or a mechanic can read and get something out of it. And I also want to write the poem so that the same carpenter can read it 10 years later, perhaps after taking some literature classes or just reading a lot, and find depth and more meaning in it. Folks mistake “accessible" with “simplistic.” Simplistic poems are easy to understand but fail to give anything more in subsequent readings. Accessible poems have an immediate meaning that works, but further readings show that there’s more there. My “Deer Hunting in the Everglades” seems to reach a large audience. On the surface, it’s a poem about a boy and his father on a hunting trip. Folks I wouldn’t expect to be fans of poetry continue to read that poem and find more depth in it.

4. Have you taken workshops from poets you admire? Such as?

My mentors are Peter Meinke and the late Van Brock. I worked with Peter at Eckerd College from 83-87 and with Van as a graduate student at FSU from 88-90. From both of them, I felt like I learned about poetry almost through osmosis. When I look at my work, I can see their influence, but I can’t recall either of them saying much directly, such as “use these images” or “write in form” or something like that. I asked Peter about this once. I said something like “I worked with you individually and in workshops for four years and yet I can’t ever think of anything you particularly told me to do.” His response was “you don’t need to tell committed poets what not what to, you just need to encourage them to keep doing what they’re doing well.”

I had a great experience at the Napa Valley Writers Conference in 1992, I think, where I worked with Jane Hirshfield and Gerald Stern. I was working on “Deer Hunting in the Everglades” at a time when I was heavy into the dogma “show, don’t tell.” I wrote a whole stanza about being skinny, having a fuzzy mustache, etc. Stern said “what are you trying to do here?” I hemmed and hawed and said “I was trying to say that I was fourteen.” “How about this,” he said, and crossed out the stanza, “I was fourteen.” That’s when I learned how and where to show and how and where to tell. Jane Hirshfield had us write drafts of poems until we were sure we were finished, that the poem had come to its end. Then she sent us off for 45 minutes to write from that ending point. I’ve since realized that she sent us to the place on the old maps that warned “beyond here, there be dragons.” But that’s really the point—you have to take your poems beyond what you know and be willing to go into that darkness. “Theory of Gravity” came from this exercise and garnered a Pushcart nomination in the Tampa Review. From Jane I learned that poetry is about exploration.

I imagine that Peter, Van, and every poetry writing text I’d ever read had said the same thing, but that week in Napa, I got it. Overall, the best teaching moments come when you have the teacher who has the right thing to say in the right manner at the right place and when you’re ready to hear it at that particular time in your writing life.

5. What is the best advice you've received regarding your poetry?

I probably answered this above. But maybe the best—and most cliché—is “quit if you can.” Go on a poetry-writing fast and if it sticks, you’re better off doing something else. If you find yourself coming back to it, then you’re stuck with it and you need to get busy learning craft and doing the hard and mostly thankless work of building poems. Of course, reading great work and great poets carefully Is so important. At a particular point in your writing career, it’s vital to make time for your writing and to jealously guard it. I don’t recall who said that. In modern society, it’s so hard to privilege something like writing poetry, but you have to if you’re going to write well and deeply.

Gregory Byrd is a native Floridian who grew up just south of Key Largo on Plantation Key. He has lived in Pinellas County since 1983 when he began studies in literature and creative writing at Eckerd College under the instruction of Florida Poet Laureate Peter Meinke and novelist Sterling Watson, among others. Byrd earned a master’s in creative writing at Florida State University and a Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has taught writing, literature and humanities at St. Petersburg College, Clearwater since 1990.
Byrd’s scholarly and artistic interests are influenced by the culture and landscape of Florida as well as by his studies in poetry. Tampa poet Silvia Curbelo writes that Greg’s poems “embody the restless energy of the Florida landscape, a place of stories fathers tell over beers and heroes facing unordinary times.” In his poems, you’re likely to come across references to Puccini, Beethoven, Faust or Genesis in one line and then to images of Everglades muck, rusted shotguns or dead tarpon in the next.
His novel about an American pilot flying for the British during World War I, Where Shadow Meets Water, is currently searching for a publisher. You will also find his creative nonfiction in publications such as the Tampa Bay Times, Good Old Boat and the online food journal From Plate to Palate. Byrd’s poems have appeared widely in journals such as the Tampa Review, Apalachee Review, Cortland Review, Milosao and, Poeteka (Albania, in translation), and many others. Among his poetry books are Salt and Iron (Snake Nation, 2014), At Penuel (Split Oak, 2011) and Florida Straits (Yellowjacket Press, 2005), the latter of which won the first Yellow Jacket Press Chapbook Contest for Florida Poets. Among his awards are a Creative Pinellas Rapid Returns Fellowship (2016), Fulbright Fellowship to Albania (2011), an SPC Distinguished Teaching Award (2015) and a Pushcart Prize Nomination (1988).
When not working on his writing, he fishes the flats near Clearwater, sails, rides his bicycle and works on his 1966 Ford pickup.

April 2018

Vicki Iorio

1. When reading a poem aloud, how does, or does, your voice change to compel listeners to listen?

I have a loud voice and enjoy the open mic. I try to read my poems in a clear manner and I try never to drop the last line of the poem, which most times is the most important line.

How often do you write poetry that taps into your Secrets? OPTIONAL- Will you give us a brief example?

2. I fall into that category of confessional poets. Most of my poems tap into my angry secrets. Even when I think a poem will not be a poem about secrets or something personal, most of my poems have a mind of their own and make the big reveal. For a brief example, I had a boil in a very personal area while I was writing a poem on a sweltering day. Of course, without my permission, this skin affliction became the star of the poem and it was a very successful poem!

3. Have you ever read a poem that has made you angry? If so, what was the poem and who is the poet?

I am angry about the terrorism of mass shootings: Las Vegas, San Bernadino, The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, school shootings too numerous to list here. My head is ready to explode about the gun debate and the killing and maiming of all these people. I read “The New School” by Lara Bozabalian on the Rattle website and it made even angrier and sadder.

4. Is there a topic you will not write about? What is it?

I can't write about animal abuse or the killing of animals. Ellen's Bass poem, “What Did I love”, describes the slaughter of chickens in a very matter of fact way. It is an amazing poem but very hard to read because of the subject matter. I have been Disney traumatized by Bambi and Old Yeller. I can't even watch the commercials for the ASPCA on television. I will leave this subject matter to poets who have more finesse than me.

5. Are poets compelled to speak out? If so, what about?

The only thing poets should be compelled to do is make art. I don't think artists should be forced to use their work as a platform for social or political agendas. Of course, if that is their passion, go for it.

Vicki Iorio is the author of the poetry collection, Poems from the Dirty Couch, (Local Gems Press, 2013), and the chapbook, Send me a Letter, (dancinggirlpress). You can read Iorio's work in Hell strung and Crooked, I Let Go of the Stars, (Great Weather for Media), The Brownstone Poets Anthology, The San Pedro Review, The Mom Egg, Crack the Spine, The Painted Bride Quarterly, The Fem Lit Magazine, Redheaded Stepchild Magazine, The Paper Street Journal, Poetry Bay, Home Planet News,Concise, Cactus Heart, Rattle on line, South Florida Poetry Journal, 521 Magazine, RatsAss Review, New York Times, blog site, 823 on High, Poetry Super Highway, Eratio Poetry Journal, In Between Hangovers, Conch.es, Anti Heroin Chic, Misfit, Califragile Poetry, Poetry Pacific, Carcinogenic Poetry., (b) OINK zine and puchdrunkpress.

Alexis Bhagat

1. When reading a poem aloud, how does, or does, your voice change to compel listeners to listen?

I do not wish to compel, nor coerce, nor command. “(1) To urge irresistibly, constrain, oblige, force.” That’s what my dictionary — a Shorter OED revised 1955 — says after “compel.” My mind says “The power of Christ compels you,” replaying a deeply buried loop of that scene in The Exorcist (1973.)
No, I do not wish to compel. I wish to communicate. Of course, that affects my voice.

2. How often do you write poetry that taps into your Secrets? OPTIONAL- Will you give us a brief example?

When I was a teenager, like many Geminis, I embraced the confessional style. To write confessionally is to cultivate shamelessness. Does the confessional writer even have secrets? Weren’t confessionalists the avant-garde of the post-privacy culture ushered in by social media?
Since becoming a father, not very long ago, I have discovered shame.
No, I don’t write verses about what I am ashamed of, nor will I give you an example of recent writing derived from my secrets.

3. Have you ever read a poem that has made you angry? If so, what was the poem and who is the poet?

I honestly can’t remember ever getting angry reading a verse on a page. I guess I just turn the page before I get mad? I get angry at readings, listening to poets. Maybe it’s because I can’t turn the page; or maybe they compel me to listen when I would prefer to drift off?

4. Is there a topic you will not write about? What is it?

Israel-Palestine. What about you?

5. Are poets compelled to speak out? If so, what about?

Compelled by whom? Muses? Mercury? Angels? Zeitgeist?
I’m guessing by “speak out” you mean to express a principled position. I would like to think that poets are not so compelled. People can speak out. Citizens should speak out. I speak out, when I can, about what I care about. Today I called Governor Cuomo of NY to support the Parole Board releasing Herman Bell, a member of the Black Liberation Army who been in prison since 1971 and has at last been cleared for parole. It’s a good community where poets and other citizens can and do speak out, do testify. The speaking out of poets, lyricists especially, will be more memorable than the speaking out of non-poet citizens. It is not necessarily more persuasive.

Alexis Bhagat is co-founder, with Lauren Rosati, of ((audience)), an organization that promotes sound art. He was co-editor, with Lize Mogel, of “An Atlas of Radical Cartography”, a collection of 10 maps and 10 essays which travelled the world as an exhibition and ongoing series of discussions. In September 2016, he met Dgls Rothschild and Aimee Harrison. Together with Keny J.P. Garcia, Michael Peters and Alifair Skebe, founded the St. Rocco’s Poetry Collective, a writers workshop in Albany, NY that organizes a monthly reading series. http://stroccos.xyz.
Born and raised in New York City, Alexis Bhagat was active (for a teenager) in the spoken word poetry scene in the East Village in the 90s. In the summer of 1994, he organized "ATM Poetry Opens”, a series of late night poetry readings in air conditioned bank lobbies. He also acquired his first email address in 1994, and quickly discovered spam, usurping list-serves including Chris Funkouser’s DIU with calls for a “Poetry Strike.” The purpose of this “Year without Poetry” would have been to put an end to the “relentless identity” that the spoken word form provoked/demanded. At Goddard College during the “Year without Poetry", he produced his first multi-channel tape installations and tape-collages for radio. Subsequently, he ceased writing for the page, and produced sound installations, collages, radio-plays and performances that utilized the recorded voice as material. He returned to writing for the page in 2006, beginning a novel consisting only of speech called “I’d Rather Talk About it.”
Bhagat spent many years of his life sitting at a table not far from Madeline Gins, who embodied the revolutionary possibilities of poetry for remaking the world. Madeline guided him to fall into correspondence, which became his form and vocation. He has been the Corresponding Secretary of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and has been a correspondent for activist campaigns. A prolific writer of letters, he has made a career of helping artists to articulate their projects and desires, asking people for money, and telling people about the good work of this-or-that cultural organization or noble cause. Currently he is the director of the Albany Public Library Foundation, where he continues to explore permutations of “please” and “thank you."
He is currently working on an epistolary novel about nuclear weapons, space travel, and the nature of influence called “Muktananda,"

Lucia Leao

1. When reading a poem aloud, how does, or does, your voice change to compel listeners to listen?

I don’t read poems aloud very often, in public, I mean. But because I have a Brazilian accent I need to deal with this extra element, which is a not a bad challenge, regarding sounds and rhythm.

2. How often do you write poetry that taps into your Secrets? OPTIONAL- Will you give us a brief example?

Which secrets?

3. Have you ever read a poem that has made you angry? If so, what was the poem and who is the poet?

I don’t remember… But reading bad translations of great poems can be upsetting.

4. Is there a topic you will not write about? What is it?

I realized only now that I avoid writing about my son. It may be because I want to give him the pleasure and the freedom to exist – and to deal with all the fictionalization of one’s own existence – in his own words. It is one of those cases in which watching is better than saying anything.

5. Are poets compelled to speak out? If so, what about?

Yes, about everything, sorrows and joys, either personal or collective.

Lucia Leao is a Brazilian translator and writer who has been living in Florida for 24 years. Leao has published t a collection of short stories and is a co-author of a young-adult novel, both published in Portuguese, in Brazil. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Literatures from UERJ (Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from UERJ and a master’s degree in print journalism from University of Miami, Florida, USA.
to edit.

March 2018

Geoffrey Philp

1. How do you use sound when writing a poem? Will you give us a brief example?

http://ia800201.us.archive.org/2/items/GeoffreyPhilpdancehall/dancehall_REAL_THING.mp3

The poem was originally published in Florida Bound (1995).

Dancehall

Man, mek me tell yu dat was a fete!
Riddim was wile, an de dawta dem a grine,
de idren dem a smoke de sweetes lamb's bret
straight from St. Ann, de bes colly we cud fine.
Security did tight, yu cudn even see a rachet,
fa de local top ranking stan up broad by de gate
till one fool-fool rumhead decide fe chuck a yute,
Bwai, me neva see one man eat so much bullet.
We kotch de bwai pon a speaka, an call him girlfren,
she search him till she fine de gole ring inna him ves
an shub him dung a dutty, figet him like de res.
Now das when de dance look like it was gwane en,
den we put on sum oldies, an leggo de bass,
fa yu cyaan cum a dance widdout a gun inna yu wais

2. Which poet has the best voice for reading their poetry aloud?

I loved listening to my mentor, Dennis Scott read his poetry or just plain talking. His voice was so playful, so rich, so warm--it was like a cave that you could enter and seek shelter.

3. What is your favorite film about a poet?

“Il Postino”

4. Do you dream of poetry?

Never.

5. Please complete the line: I am an imaginary ice cream man…

in a real refrigerator (with apologies to Marianne Moore).

Born in Jamaica, Geoffrey Philp has published two novels, five volumes of poetry, two short-story collections, and three children’s books. His work is represented in nearly every anthology of Caribbean literature, and he is one of the few writers whose work has been published in the Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories and Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse. A graduate of the University of Miami, where he earned an MA in English, Philp teaches creative writing at Miami Dade College.

Sarah White

1. How do you use sound when writing a poem?

Sound is primary for me. The first thing I do is let a phrase of verbal music come to me; then I figure out what the phrase is about, and try to let it be a poem, not a sing-song ditty. Here is the ending of a poem about Sylvia Plath, “Mrs. Hughes’ Bees,” from The Unknowing Muse:
…
The kids in their home-
made sun-suits
heard the buzz
and murmur

of bees responding
to Mother’s query:
“Is it very stupid
to be happy?”

It is, it is, it is,
Mrs. Hughes.

2. Which poet has the best voice for reading their poems aloud?

I love hearing Gerald Stern read. His voice is resonant but a little raspy, wholly unaffected, full of the humor, warmth, and forgiveness that permeate his lovely poems.

3. What is your favorite film about a poet?

I haven’t seen many films about poets. Does Shakespeare in Love count? It isn’t serious, but it’s appealing.
I did not at all like “A Quiet Passion.” It came down so heavily on the grimmest aspects of Dickinson’s life. To leave out Carlo, her Newfoundland dog, is a real distortion.

4. Do you dream of poetry?

Not often, but, by coincidence, I was writing a poem based on last night’s dream at the very moment when I got your e-mail inviting me to do this interview. I’ve been working on a collection of poems whose common theme is shadows. Dreams are shadowy, so who knows what will happen?

5. Please complete the line: I am an imaginary ice cream man…

I am an imaginary ice cream man whose shoulder is tattooed with the word “Endurance” and whose truck emits an odor of warm corn chowder.

The poems I encountered earliest were R.L. Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses and Edward Lear’s The Jumblies. I mention them because I’m sure their influence can be felt in my work: I rhyme a lot and often adopt the deadpan stance of a child. In college and grad school years, most of my readings were in French and Italian, especially from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. I majored in early Romance literatures, and came quite late to contemporary poetry in English. Some years ago,
I went down on my knees to Emily Dickinson and have never gotten up, not that I lack admiration for the poetry of my contemporaries, among whom I have many favorites. Among my own books the one I like best is probably Alice Ages and Ages (Blaze Vox, 2007) in which I narrate the same inconsequential story in 50 different styles. I have published a lyric memoir, The Poem Has Reasons: a story of far love, on-line at Proem Press.com. I co-translated, with two medievalist friends, Songs
of the [Occitan] Women Troubadours (Garland, 1997). My first poetry collection was Cleopatra Haunts the Hudson (Spuyten Duyvil, 2006). Then came The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres, 2015), and, from Deerbrook Editions (Wars Don’t Happen Anymore, 2015) and To one who bends my time (Deerbrook, 2017). I live in New York City and divide my time between poetry and painting.

Richard Smyth

1. How do you use sound when writing a poem? Will you give us a brief example?

I definitely pay attention to sound when I’m writing. I’m constantly speaking the line out loud as I draft the poem and listening to the rhythm of the sentence and the internal sounds (e.g. assonance, alliteration).
For example, in a recent draft of a poem, I originally wrote, “And my wife remembering / that eleven years ago today / the psychotic woman who walked / naked into traffic…” but then scratched out “psychotic woman” and made it “crazy lady,” emphasizing the hard A sound of todAY and crAzy and lAdy. This also had the effect of simplifying a multisyllabic phrase (psychotic woman = five syllables) to one with only four syllables while also just sounding a bit more natural. If you say “psychotic woman”, it doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as “crazy lady.”
Another example: listen for the assonance and alliteration as you read through this:

you ring like a bell at a wedding
of a couple so in love
they will endure the decades
and die in their nineties,
one shortly after
the other

bell / wedding, couple / love, die / nineties all reflect my attention to assonance, while the D sounds of “endure the decades and die…”

2. Which poet has the best voice for reading their poetry aloud?

I still remember hearing Sylvia Plath reading “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” for the first time, over 30 years ago. I can still hear her sharp, crisp voice articulating every single syllable. (Now there’s a poet who paid attention to sound!). T.S. Eliot, on the other hand, is horrible.

3. What is your favorite film about a poet?

One of the more recent films I’ve seen was called “Paterson,” which was about a bus driver in Paterson, NJ (site and title of the famous book-length poem by William Carlos Williams). The poetry was delightful and quirky, by Ron Padgett.

4. Do you dream of poetry?

The real question is whether or not poetry dreams me. And the answer is YES. To be the dream of poetry, to be dreamt by poetry, to be a place, a setting for a dream that poetry has had, or some element in some other dream that poetry has had – a broom; a sparrow; the corpse of your very mother, lying in her grave and sitting up to speak to you, as if nothing is the matter; or even a cockroach, symbolizing the latent homosexual tendencies (instilled in your psyche by your dysfunctional, emotionally co-dependent mother) only to be masked by her very fears of your potential effeminacy, given your tendency to play with dolls while young or your desire to experiment with her make-up – or, perhaps more significantly, to be considered, once recalled in a particular dream that poetry has had, by the Jungian psychologist who is analyzing the dreams of poetry to determine some archetypal pattern, some fundamental truth underlying all of human experience – or could it be broader than that? Could it be that, rather than being anthropocentric, the dreams of poetry are cosmocentric? Could it be that the dreams of poetry indicate the inherent life in all of matter, even non-carbon based “life,” what Manuel Delanda has called “nonorganic life,” suggesting that, as he writes in his book A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History, “Reality is a single matter-energy undergoing phase transitions of various kinds…”, which would lead us to conclude that life is very much a manifestation of the Buddhist concept of sunyata: not in the nihilistic sense but the sense that recognizes all is not being but becoming, ever becoming….
So all this to say that I don’t dream of poetry, as poetry dreams me, but let’s remember that dreams are superlatively poetic phenomena, as Freud insightfully recognized, despite his many shortcomings and problematic conclusions regarding the structure and contents of the mind. So, in a sense, to dream is to engage in poetry. So all who dream are poets! Secret surreal poets of the immanent night

5. Please complete the line: I am an imaginary ice cream man…

I am an imaginary ice cream man
who circles the neighborhood
jingling bells to tell the children
of his coming
and the promise of pleasure

and so being an imaginary ice cream man
sets me apart from all living beings
as I symbolize pleasure
in its most fundamental form
its most primitive and necessary form –
the satisfying of biological urges
involved in the sustenance of life itself

and so I represent
the very force of living itself:
I am a small sun,
star umbilical for a planet
teeming with life

Richard Smyth earned his Ph.D. in English in 1994 from the University of Florida. He is editor and publisher of the environmental poetry journal Albatross, which has been published for over 30 years now. He was an assistant professor of English at Hamline University and adjunct professor of New Media at Emerson College and currently teaches Computer Science in the Stoneham Public School system in Massachusetts. His poems have appeared in such journals as Southern Poetry Review, Tampa Review, Kansas Quarterly, Midwest Quarterly, Wisconsin Review, Southern Florida Poetry Review, Sucarnochee Review, Caesura, Florida Review, Best Poem, and others. He is married, has two sets of identical boy twins, and lives in Haverhill, MA.

February 2018

Grace Cavalieri

Please use in a sentence and/or define the following imaginary words-
Slunder

Making a dreadful blunder in a summer dress; wardrobe malfunction at a garden party.

Brutique

A boutique selling gloves for men who can’t keep their hands to themselves.

Aliminal

Alumnae who become subliminal choosing a life of poetry.

An alien from another galaxy asks- What is Poetry? You can only answer by giving it one of the following answers-- which do you choose? Crown of Thorns, The latest New Yorker magazine, A Sparkler

A sparkler (preferably Roman Candle)

Please give us up to 10 lines of one of your poems and tell us how it is more than the sum of its words.

Work

takes the palm of my hand to kiss
In the middle of the night
It holds my wrist lightly and feels the pulse
Work is who you’ll find with me
when you tiptoe up the stairs
and hear my footsteps through the shadows
you’ll see me lift my arm
to stretch and then lean down
to put my head to it

The poem is bigger than its verbiage because it creates characters and situation with psychological action..

If you could compare your work to another contemporary poet, which poet would that be?

Nin Andrews would be my wish. Why? Because I believe we promote women’s studies slant, with irony and sometimes silliness.

You are an UPS driver- United Poetry Service. You are delivering a parcel to a contemporary poet- to whom is the parcel being delivered, and what is in the box?

A box to Tom Sleigh filled with valentines of Mother’s Love and a big card that says “You are not a pissant. I’m so proud that my books made you what you are.”

Grace Cavalieri’s new book is Other Voice, Other Lives (2017, Alan Squire Publishers.) She’s founder/producer of Public Radio’s “The Poet and the Poem” now recorded at the Library of Congress; and now celebrating 41 years on-air; as a CPB silver medalist. After co-founding Washington D.C.’s newest FM station, WPFW- FM (1977,) she became Associate Director for Children’s Programming, PBS, in charge of the national daytime schedule; and then Senior Media Program Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities where she set up a funding mechanism for children’s programming. She was honored by the National Commission On Working Women with national recognition. Grace hosted the cable series, “On the Go,” for the AAUW, featuring women poets. She’s the founder of two poetry presses in DC, still thriving; and, is presently monthly poetry columnist/reviewer for The Washington Independent Review of Books where, in 2015, she received their Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 she received the Associated Writing Program’s “George Garrett Award” for Service to Literature. She’s twice the recipient of the Allen Ginsberg Award (1993, 2013 ;) and, holds the Bordighera Poetry Prize, a Paterson Poetry Award, and The Inaugural Columbia Award. Cavalieri has 20 books, and chapbooks, of poetry and has seen 26 plays produced on American stages. Her latest play is “Calico and Lennie” (Theater for the New City, NYC, 2017.) Grace was married to the late sculptor Kenneth Flynn. They have four children, four grandchildren, and a great grandchild. Read Cavaliere’s reviews at: http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/january-2018-exemplars-poetry-reviews-by-grace-cavalieri

Allan Peterson

Please use in a sentence and/or define the following imaginary words-
Slunder

Noun: A lesser insult, not prosecutable. var. on old Ger. aufgeslundishe, to pull one’s punches, p.p. slundered.
            “I could have told the blunt truth about his miserable sonnet. Instead, I merely slundered it."

Brutique

Noun: A particularly unkind review or assessment, sometimes used in conjunction with “slunder.”
        “I was totally shocked at his brutique of my excellent sonnet. I felt slundered."

Aliminal

Actually, “liminal" is a word: an in-between phase, a threshold. So “aliminal," adj., having no threshold, nothing in-between, no half measures,               clearly distinct, a complete passthrough, no equivocation, no stopping at Go, solid, definable, resolute, forgiving and revealing.
           “ That sonnet had the aliminal certainty of the wished-for aspect of unintended consequences, superbness," he said.

An alien from another galaxy asks- What is Poetry?

Welcome. How nice of you to ask. I thought your question might be about parking. However, your actual question is much easier: Poetry is the general term for any of a number of hand-held fireworks that burn slowly while emitting colored flames, shooting stars, and special effects. I hope that helps. sparkler).

Please give us up to 10 lines of one of your poems and tell us how it is more than the sum of its words.

A flash then another there are tusks in the river
a clarinet on the far bank You are rose and grey
in a white chair my national flag the river
does not stop the shadows slough off and lie
in the underbrush lovers it says that’s everyone
isn’t it those having or wanting a river’s worth
without being shattered downstream by rapids

Because language is a tacit agreement that words and combinations of words carry meaning and can be shaped, and because each successive line is an accrual, a complication of associations, and despite using words to focus a local concentration, the poem, a poem, and its message on the page, cannot help but go beyond itself, outward from the life that made it, each of the words, denotatively and connotatively expanded by the associative meanings and experiences (not unlike sparklers) of a reader if there should be one, human or alien. Until then, it will wait quietly.

If you could compare your work to a another contemporary poet which poet would that be? Why?

A single poet is too spare for comparison; correspondences would be more like it: a portion of Pattiann Rogers for the immersion in the details of the natural world we share; a bit of Beckian Fritz Goldberg for the unexpectedness of metaphor; some Frank X. Gaspar for the philosophical implications of the local; Jorie Graham for belief in sentences; Norman Dubie for historical imagination; John Witte for miracles of plain speech, Andrea Cohen for deft concision.…how much space am I allowed; this could go on for some time.  These are flickering recognitions— sparks. And yes, I can hold them in my hands.

You are an UPS driver- United Poetry Service. You are delivering a parcel to a contemporary poet- to whom is the parcel being delivered, and what is in the box?

Against company policy, I peeked. It is a small Tintoretto for W.S. Di Piero. He will know which one, and what to make of it.

Allan Peterson is a poet and visual artist whose work has appeared in print and online in national and international journals for many years. He is the author of five full length books: Precarious, (42 Miles Press) a finalist for The Lascaux Prize; Fragile Acts, (McSweeney's Poetry Series), a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Oregon Book Award; As Much As, (Salmon Press, Ireland); All the Lavish in Common, (Juniper Prize, University of Massachusetts); Anonymous Or, (Defined Providence Prize) and eight chapbooks, including Other Than They Seem, (Tupelo Press), winner of the Snowbound Chapbook Prize. This Luminous, New and Selected Poems, is forthcoming later this year.

His work was selected by Poet Laureate Ted Kooser for his American Life in Poetry Series (#159) and appears in several anthologies: American Poetry At the End of the Millennium, Poetry of the American Apocalypse, (Green Mountains Review), Don’t Leave Hungry: 50 Years of the Southern Poetry Review, and in critical essays in Stephen Burt’s The Poem is You, 60 Contemporary Poets and How to Read Them, and Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and The State of Florida and prizes from Arts & Letters, GSU Review, Alligator Juniper, the American Poet Prize, Comstock Review and others. He has been invited to read at the Cuisle International Poetry Festival in Limerick, Ireland, and was a poetry panelist at the 61st Conference on World Affairs, University of Colorado. He taught (art) at The State University of New York, Geneseo, and was for many years chair of the art department and director of The Switzer Center for Visual Arts, Pensacola State College until retirement in 2005.

Jade Cuttie

Please use in a sentence and/or define the following imaginary words-

Slunder

The state of somnolence one slips into on the underground system after a long day’s work, not quite as drastic as slumber, but definitely a slumping of the soul.

Brutique

A harsh, unmerited response to a situation, polished up with excuses to not look so bad.

Aliminal

The heart racing state you enter when alone in the dark woods, characterized by heightened animal instincts.

An alien from another galaxy asks- What is Poetry? You can only answer by giving one of the following answers- Crown of Thorns, The latest New Yorker magazine, A sparkler

A poem is a crown of thorns; its precious gems merit a majestic reception, and leaves paper cuts when you turn the page.

Please give us up to 10 lines of one of your poems and tell us how it is more than the sum of its words.

From “The Art of Splinters”

a flower rips out its roots
and runs away,
packs up its petals
and the last of its leaves,
spitting its seeds…

My crave for alliteration suggests the poems can only ever be the sum of their words, held together by the sticky residue of similarity at a phonetic and graphic level. But there's usually an explosive violence, manifested here where flowers rip out their own roots and run away, that strives to cut through this inter-poetic dependence.

If you could compare your work to a another contemporary poet which poet would that be? Why?

I love how Alice Oswald rummages through the bare earth, woodlands to river beds, to discover its darkest secrets, but in a way that breathes a menacing life back into a banal theme: 'There's a terror in beauty'. One of the lines that stick with me the most from her collection Falling Awake is "dreams lean over the lane like nettles", perfectly encapsulating the element of danger that is so enticing in her work, rippling beneath as a silent current.

You are an UPS driver- United Poetry Service. You are delivering a parcel to a contemporary poet- to whom is the parcel being delivered, and what is in the box?

I’d like to deliver a garden trowel to Vénus-Khoury Ghata and ask what she’d most like to unearth. I think her collection A Handful of Blue Earth, translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker, is more of a poetic burial site than a book. Its busy pages are packed full of pickaxes, chisels and “shovels peeling away the world’s underside”. But I'm convinced these tools herald a mission of excavation that digs much deeper than soil. I suspect that it serves as a metaphor for mourning over her mother tongue, but I can't be sure.

Jade Cuttle is a poet and BBC Introducing poetic-folk songwriter who read literature at University of Cambridge. Her debut album 'Leaves & Lovers' is inspired by the humble-hearted wisdom and resilience of nature.
She has performed her work on BBC Radio 3 in association with BBC Proms ('The Art of Splinters') and been commissioned for other BBC podcasts such as celebrating Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary ('I can’t fall in love with the night').

She is a double recipient of the Foyle Young Poets Award and won competitions run by Ledbury Poetry Festival, BBC Proms, Poetry Book Society (National Student Poetry Competition), and The National Seafaring Limerick Competition judged by Ian McMillan.
She was Poet-in-Residence for Ilkley Literature Festival 2017, closely mentored by BBC 4’s Daljit Nagra, and is now being mentored by Sarah Howe, Sandeep Parmar, Jeremy Noel-Tod, Claire Trévien and Vidyan Ravinthiran for Ledbury Poetry Festival's Emerging Poetry Critic scheme.
Her work has been published by The Poetry Society, The Poetry Book Society, Young Poets Network, Risenzine, Foxglove, The Cambridge Student, Varsity, Notes, Fly, The Dial, The Corrugated Wave, The Student Review, and elsewhere.
She is also a reviewer and journalist with articles published in The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Cadaverine, and Poetry Book Society.

January 2018

L.B. Sedlacek

Which language would you like to see your work translated? Why?

German. After I discovered "Letters to a Young Poet," I went on to read any poetry books I could find by Rainer Maria Rilke. He's still one of my favorite poets. I also spent a lot of time in Germany when I was a kid, so it'd be cool to hear one of my poems read out loud in German!

You’ve just written a novel based on your poems- what is the title of the novel?

Electric Maps

Yeats said “Words are wasted breath”- Agree or disagree? (Quote taken from Stanley Plumly in an interview in the December 2017 issue of “The Writer’s Chronicle” published by AWP).

Disagree. Words are more than sounds from those speaking them - words can be preserved and shared and from them comes something transforming which is poetry and writing.

Is there a poet whose sense of humor you enjoy?

Bob Hickok, Rick Lupert.

Is your poetry coffee or tea? Explain please.

Tea - as my poetry requires time to seep into the thoughts in a slow, calm and tranquil pace.

LB Sedlacek's poems and short stories have been published in numerous literary journals such as Clare Literary Magazine, The Broken Plate, Mastondon Dentist, RiverLit, Folded Word, The Foliate Oak and others. She is a former Poetry Editor for ESC! Magazine. She also co-hosted the podcast for the small press community "Coffee House to Go" with Michael Potter, the Publisher of ESC! Magazine. LB is the author of 13 chapbooks including her most recent ones, Mars or Bust, Hey Astro! and Infra Dig (It's a Chemical Life) which were all successfully funded as poetry projects on Kickstarter. She has a local poetry page on Facebook, "Poetry in LA" (@poetryinla) featuring poems all about LA of the East - her small mountain city in North Carolina locals refer to as "LA". She has just released a compilation poetry book of some of the poems featured on the page, Only in LA (LA poems). In 2001, she created and still publishes The Poetry Market Ezine - a free monthly resource just for poets and poetry publishers. She also critiques and reviews poems and chapbooks and can proudly say that many of the poets she's worked with have gone on to have their poems or chapbooks published. While getting her Master's degree at Wake Forest, she was able to study poetry with Maya Angelou. In her free time, LB enjoys swimming, reading, and volunteering for the local humane society. She lives with her family in North Carolina where she also works PT as a Lifeguard.

David B. Axelrod

Into which language would you like to see your work translated? Why?

Translation of poetry has a special place. I’ve been a translator of four languages and fortunate to have my work translated into and published in many languages: Italian, Sicilian, French, Gaelic, German, Yiddish, Russian, Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hebrew. I know I’m leaving some out, but to begin with, that is six language schools. I’ve studied nine languages.
Some might say I’ve listed a couple dialects not separate languages, but I can tell you, for a number of reasons I would disagree. To begin with, translating, and working with translators, I’ve realized each of the languages I’ve listed has its own history and culture, and as often different words for the most basic things like counting. It is only the tendency of “dominant” language speakers to impose their language on minorities that leads us to categorize the less-spoken languages as “dialects”.

There isn’t a single language into to which I yearn to be translated, though I look for chances to score new translations. It is odd that I haven’t been translated into or published in Spanish which is all but ubiquitous. What I do find is that every language opens another entire thought process and way of seeing the world. Also, if you say you can translate, authors will occupy all your time asking to have their own work translated.
I once spent days at a time translating individual poems of Jozo Boskovski, a Macedonian poet and folklorist. We sat together and debated for hours which words worked best. We must have done something right. When I read the English for him at the United Nations, native speakers came up to congratulate us on how well we did.

However, when my work was to be published with the assistance of a Fulbright Award bilingually in Macedonian/English, I was asked to chose a translator. My choices were a poet, a scholar or a journalist. I feared the poet would try to translate my poems as he would have written them. The scholar would lack passion. I chose the journalist and the result was what people told me was a perfectly literal translation—which lacked all subtlety but people sure understood it. The resulting book, Resurrections, was never sent to me to proof before printing. Produced by non-English speakers, it was so riddled with typos that I never had it distributed in the United States.

You’ve just written a novel based on your poems. What is the title of the novel?

Several good back stories here. I once had a famous novelist speak at a conference I ran and he began by declaring, “All poets are novelists manqué.” I spent the entire talk brooding over what I regarded as an insult. I’ve always felt the best novelists write like poets. I’ve even spent my time marking the line endings in passages by Proust or rendering a friend, the wonderful novelist and naturalist Peter Matthiessen’s passages into poetry. We never finished the project, but he was happy when I told him I would turn his prose, word-for-word, into poetry and publish a book for him. He said he always wanted to be a poet. (The snow tigers regarded him as one.)

I’ve written and published long, narrative poems, prose poetry, short stories, memoirs, and even won a Gold Medal for best non-fiction book from the Florida Book Awards (Merlin Stone Remembered. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2014), as much as anything for my as-told-to rendering of the relationship of Merlin Stone and her life partner, Lenny Schneir. But, I’ve only completed one novel which I wrote in the early 80s, soon after I bought my first computer—an Apple 2K. I boosted its memory to an amazing 128K.

My effort was a crime novel fashioned after a favorite author of mine in that genre, Elmore Leonard, and it attracted a good agent whom I knew out in Long Island’s Hamptons. He admired my discipline, pointing out that every chapter was exactly nine pages long. I told him that was all my computer memory could hold before it told me, if I wanted to type more, I’d have to delete something I’d already written.

I was, at the time, married to a novelist and knew that she spent years on each novel she wrote, as much as anything because each revision required an entire retyping. I rushed my work to completion—250 pages—in just nine months. The agent raved about the first hundred pages which I had slaved to perfect. But to prove I could finish the entire book more quickly than he predicted, I rushed the completed draft to him. He didn’t care that I told him it was still in draft. He excoriated me for showing him sloppy copy and dropped my representation. I, in turn, had given up a year of writing poems to prove myself a novelist, and was glad to go back to what I knew and loved best—poetry. The novel sits in its deteriorating manuscript box, never fully revised and markedly dated when I read parts of it now.

I suppose if I were to title a novel based on my poems, I might play on a personal story I will spare you at this time—part rancor, part fact, part admiration—and call it, Being Billy Collins, in which I would star. The film adaptation would follow the style of “Being John Malkovich.” But would I play the real Billy or the man who goes inside Billy’s head?

Yeats said, “Words are wasted breath”- Agree or disagree? (Quote taken from Stanley Plumly in an interview in the December 2017 issue of The Writer’s Chronicle, published by AWP).

They say Google makes everyone a genius, but I’ve searched to find Yeats’ words in their original context, and lacking scholarly library access, I’m feeling a bit dumb. I haven’t come upon a definitive source, although I’ve found a poem of Yeats (“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”) that states, “The years to come seemed waste of breath … In balance with this life, this death.” That may just be the dread of one man at war, or more broadly what is referred to as the “tragic vision” of modern literature: a loss of faith; a sense of meaninglessness. Not knowing exactly what was in Yeats’ or Plumly’s mind, I will just deal with the idea expressed.

I spent much of my first cognizant life, until at least the age of 40, as a passionate nihilist. My transformation into what I regard as a more-healthy state of mind—and with that, a much-healthier body—was dramatic enough to precipitate a divorce. My first wife—of the novelist persuasion—and I met at The Johns Hopkins in The Writing Seminars. Walking the streets of Baltimore near the Homewood Campus on an early date, we looked out over the moonlit row-houses and exclaimed, simultaneously, “They look like coffins.” Thereafter, we were two nihilists in love—for at least twenty years—until Ecclesiastes began to lose its grip on me.

I yearned to breathe free of despair. There had to be more than just “vanity and a craving after wind.” If life didn’t have a particular purpose, at least it could be lived well. I was doing stand-up comedy and have preserved an early line from that time: “I was a hypochondriac until I got sick of it.” But my wife lived and breathed the nothingness. Late at night, I could hear her praying with Hemmingway in another room: “Our nada which art in nada, nada be thy name.”
I resolved to convert myself. I went so far as to go to the local mall, to a Walden’s Bookstore, and ask a young clerk for a self-help book I was recommended.

“Do you have Jongeward and James’ "Born to Win?” I all but whispered, actually embarrassed by the positivism of the title. “Breaking Wind?” she repeated loudly enough that other patrons turned to stare at us at the front of the store.

From then until now, I’ve spoken more openly about how life isn’t meaningless, followed a more upbeat path, and feel the better for it. Granted, friends complained to me that the sheer number of poems I wrote about my subsequent divorce came close to establishing its own genre. But another line I now use when teaching “The Healing Power of Poetry,” is that “it took me half my life to learn that I didn’t need a headache to write good poetry.”

I still feel shy about writing specifically humorous poems. The critics think anything with a measure of comedy is “light poetry,” and I admit, there’s nothing like personal tragedy to cue good poetry. But, the non-profit organization I founded and currently direct is named the Creative Happiness Institute, and its motto is, “Be creative, be well.” I’m pleased if I can live by that. I think poetry, as an activity and an art form, should be a breath of fresh air.

Is there a poet whose sense of humor you enjoy?

Oh yes, yes, apropos of my comments above, please lead me from the room where yet another poet is proving that cancer causes poetry and just read me some Ogden Nash. He’s probably the first humorous poet I remember reading and I love him to this day. Can anyone write more righteously outrageous rhyme?

Since those childhood encounters with Ogden, I’ve treasured the humorists I find. For some reason, as a teen, I loved the witty lyrics of Noel Coward. (“What’s going to happen to the children when there aren’t anymore adults?”) My youngest daughter and I would crack up reading Shel Silverstein’s “Falling Up.” I discovered and made great use of T.S. Eliot’s “Cats” in poet-in-the-schools programs well before the poems captivated Broadway. I used to hold up the cover of Elliot’s Collected Poems, with the picture of him that looks like an anorexic Winston Churchill, and ask kids in elementary schools, “Would you like to hear poems by this fellow?” You could see them shrink in horror. “Cats” won them over, and they wrote some clever poems of their own, albeit in rhyme.

I found myself performing on a program once with a poet I had never heard of before, Russell Edson. He took the stage and read in a monotone—poems that, at first, I didn’t understand. Then, it occurred to me and simultaneously most of the audience, that he was being funny. At first, there were a few repressed giggles, then a few open laughs. We ended up guffawing with glee and slapping our knees.

I kept in touch with him, collected his work, studied it. I engaged in “creative borrowing” until I felt I had learned some of his moves, and brought my work to a friend and mentor at the time, David Ignatow—himself given to some funny lines. (“I stopped to pick up the bagel/ rolling away in the wind,/ annoyed with myself/ for having dropped it.”) He declared, “These are enough Axelrod that you can publish them,” and the result was a book dedicated to Edson, of which I am still very proud: The Man Who Fell in Love with a Chicken. I still perform the title poem often, though lines from the poem continue to get me in trouble.

I was thrown out of a Barnes and Noble when I read it at, of all places, The Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, New York. In fact, the entire poetry-reading series was cancelled thereafter. Worse still, writing humorous poems, it seems, can undercut one’s most serious work. At a reading during a State University of New York writers’ conference in Albany, I co-featured with Louis Simpson and Galway Kinnell. I read what I considered my most important work. As I concluded my set, spontaneously, I told the audience, “You’ve been such a good crowd that I think I’ll leave you with a little fun.” I recited the “Chicken” poem by memory with full, dramatic gestures. Thereafter, people who saw me in the halls bent and flapped their arms at me as if they were doing the chicken dance and clucked. Sigh…

Is your poetry coffee or tea? Explain please.

I grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts, north of Boston. Tea, of course. I’m probably allergic to coffee—as surely as I’m increasingly intolerant of bitter poetry, though much of the poetry world is addicted to it. Similarly, if you come to my house, I am likely to offer you a choice of either poorly concocted instant coffee, or a vast and subtle variety of teas.

I don’t get it with coffee and what wins prizes more often with poetry. I suppose I understand all the hoopla about fine beans and rich brews—though I truly love Morgan Freeman’s character in Bucket List, when he reveals to Jack Nicholson the secret of “Kopi Luwak.”

Poetry and tea for me can have many and more happy variations than the usual dark mix that dominates our current coffee shops and poetics. Short of the cliché that is Constant Comment (which I can still love with a fine honey), I relish tea.

Dr. David B. Axelrod is an author/poet, arts administrator and sponsor of international writers’ programs covering dozens of countries and nearly forty languages. He has performed and taught as an author and educator lecturing in England, France, Sicily, Italy, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Hong Kong and throughout the People's Republic of China. He was Suffolk County, Long Island, Poet Laureate and since moving to Florida, is now Volusia County Poet Laureate.

A three-time Fulbright Award winner, he was the first official Fulbright Poet-in-Residence in the Peoples’ Republic of China. He has appeared at the United Nations, for the American Library Association, as a feature on National Public Radio, as America's official representative at the International Struga Festivals, as featured reader at the New York State Fine Arts Center in Albany, and at literally hundreds more venues including radio and television appearances.
As founder and director of Writers Unlimited Agency, Inc., a not-for-profit (501-C-3) organization, he continues to provide information on the writing arts. In that capacity he also publishes arts books under the imprint of Writers Ink Press. He is founder and director of Creative Happiness Institute, Inc., a grant-funded non-profit arts organization whose motto is, “Be creative, be well.” He is senior partner of 3WS, World-Wide Writers Services, a network for authors and editors aiding international publication and exchange. Dr. Axelrod’s website is at www.poetrydoctor.org

Himself a student of ten languages, author of twenty-three books and literally hundreds of articles, his work has been translated and published in fourteen languages. He has entered record books as the only American to receive two back-to-back Fulbright Awards in separate areas, as poet-in-residence in Yugoslavia and then professor of American Literature in Macedonia. As co-author and editor of the critical biography, Merlin Stone Remembered, he won a gold medal for the best non-fiction book from the Florida Book Awards, and first place for best biography from the Coalition of Visionary Resources COVR Awards.
Dr. Axelrod holds his Ph.D. from Union Institute in Academic Program Design and Administration, granted for his establishing the not-for-profit writers services, Writers Unlimited Agency, Inc., as well as Writers Ink Press. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the University of Iowa Writers Workshops; a Master of Arts degree in poetry from The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Massachusetts.

Dr. Axelrod has received grants for literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of writing, arts and service projects including funding from the National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council for the Arts; County of Suffolk; State of Virginia; Towns of Brookhaven, Westhampton and Riverhead; America the Beautiful Foundation; International Paper Company; Bankers Trust and Marine Midland and Chemical Bank; State University of New York Research Division and Board of Education Cooperative Services among many others, Walmart Foundation, and Volusia County Cultural Council.
Dr. Axelrod lives with his wife, Sandy Martin, in Daytona Beach, Florida. He can be reached at [email protected].

December 2017

Robert Cooperman

What The Most Important Poem in English?

I’m going to fudge this one and propose three candidates: The first, The Canterbury Tales, for its sheer verve in depicting life in the late Middle Ages. For pure virtuosity of verse forms, wildly exuberant language, and the melding of high and low themes, nothing can touch it. If I had to take one book to a desert island, or read one book and only one book for the rest of my life, it would be that one. When I first encountered it in grad school, in its original Middle English, I nearly fell out of my chair with amazement that anything could be so fecund, so bursting at the seams with joie de vivre, even the grim “Pardoner’s Tale,” about three men meeting Death under a tree, since Chaucer employed such mordant irony to undercut the character of the hypocrite-Pardoner. The same goes for the “Prioress’s Tale,” a bloodthirsty account that would’ve done Stephen King, or even vile Father Coughlin, proud, about the blood libel against the Jews and the murder of Little Hugh of Lincoln, all the while the Prioress claiming to be such a sensitive soul. As for “The Miller’s Tale,” there are few poems in our language as wonderfully scatalogically funny.

Second, I’d go with Keats’s last great ode, “To Autumn.” It’s so filled with the softness of the season, and the sense of things (including Keats’s own life) coming to an end that one must have a heart of stone not to feel moved by it. It also contains some of the greatest poetry in our or any language. Especially in this poem, the man knew how to use alliteration and assonance and rhyme like almost no one else: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…,” “To plump the gourd…” Jesus, you can just about touch and taste and see the fullness of the harvest season, plus the mists are a great foreshadowing of the darkness and desolation to come with winter, and with death. This is one of the few poems I managed to memorize. One year, I recited it on Keats’s birthday (October 31st) for my wife. The first time I read this poem I thought, if I can’t write like this, what’s the point of writing poetry at all?

Third, especially in these times, Yeats’s “The Second Coming.” If we’re not living in the apocalyptic age Yeats foresaw here, I don’t know what to call it: with narcissistic egomaniacs in the White House and in Pyongyang playing with nuclear holocaust, and throw in global warming and total environmental degradation by morons in power who have no respect for science and really do believe the earth is less than 6,000 years old. The center is definitely not holding, and I fear the falcon is shitting on the falconer’s head, and surely the Second Coming is upon us, and it ain’t going to be nearly as pretty as the early Christians wanted to believe.

Has the line between poetry and prose been completely erased?

Absolutely not. While most of the poets writing well today do not use traditional rhyme and meter, some do and do so with great skill and beauty. Also, the other tools of poetry are very much in evidence, especially concision and compression of language that is the natural domain of poetry, as opposed to the expansiveness of the novel. Close your eyes and have someone recite, say, William Stafford’s “Traveling Through the Dark” to you. To paraphrase the old joke, now that’s poetry, even without rhyme or meter. The cadences and caesuras when recited tell us that something very different from prose is going on here. The same goes for Stephen Dobyns’ collection, MYSTERY, SO LONG, which I use because I just read it. His language is deadpan and dry and there’s not a rhyme to cause your eyes and ears to pause, but you know, you just know, this is poetry, not prose. I could go on and on, but I’ll spare your skeptical readers.

Are dead poets more influential than living poets?

To me? For sure. They’re the ones I go back to over and over again, like the aforementioned Holy Trinity of Chaucer, Keats, and Yeats, like Shakespeare, who wrote not only some of the greatest works for the stage, but also my single favorite line of poetry: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,” from the Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” sonnet. Like Dickinson and even my favorite anti-Semite T.S. Eliot. All of this is not to say that contemporary poets aren’t influential. I love Natasha Tretheway’s unearthing of black history in her collections, the decorousness of Richard Wilbur, Denise Duhamel’s raucous feminism, Sharon Olds’s poetry of rage, Carl Dennis’ urbanity, Kevin Young’s amazing fecundity of imagination. But the poets that mean the most to me have all shuffled off this mortal coil into the great darkness and silence. But at least we have their words.

Are there too many references to birds in poetry today?

Let me think for a second. Nope.

Have you ever written a poem about a city? Which one?

Where do I start? Aside from one collection about the Trojan War, Troy; and another one about the fictional Colorado Territory boom town of Gold Creek, In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains, I’ve written about my hometown, New York: The Words We Used, about growing up Jewish in Brooklyn; its sequel, My Shetyl; Just Drive, about my days, or rather nights, as a New York City cab driver back in the ‘70s; City Hat Frame Factory, about my dad’s small and ultimately doomed millinery factory. The book’s a love letter, of sorts, to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, despite its filth and squalor and poverty and air of hopelessness back then; and most recently, Draft Board Blues, about my battle to keep from getting killed in Vietnam, played against the backdrop of my New York City draft board and its loathsome, Nurse Ratchet-like clerk.

Robert Cooperman is the author of many poetry collections; his latest is Draft Board Blues (FutureCycle Press). Other recent collections are City Hat Frame Factory (Aldrich Press) and Just Drive (Brick Road Poetry Press). Cooperman is the winner of the Colorado Book Award for Poetry with In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Western Reflections Books); The Window's Burden, alsoWestern Reflections Books, was runner-up for the Willa Awards from Women Writing the West. My Shetyl won the Holland Prize from Logan House Press. In the Household of Bysshe Shelley was published by the U. of Florida Contemporary Poetry Society. Higganum House brought out Petitions for Immortality: Scenes from the Life of John Keats and The Long Black Veil. Main Street Rag published The Words We Used and A Tale of the Grateful Dead. March Street Press brought out Letters to Juliet,Little Timothy in Heaven, A Tiny sHIP upon the Sea, and A Dream of the Northwest Passage. Wind Publications published The Lily of the West and Cave Dweller. Forthcoming from Aldrich Press is Their Wars. Cooperman earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. He lives in Denver with his wife Beth.

Ian Haight

What is the most important poem in the English language?

The most important poem in the English language can only be evaluated, I think, in terms of audience, and for me, now, the most important audience member is the individual poet-as-reader. Framing the question in those terms, the most important poem to the individual poet will be the poem that inspires awe, which is harder to feel as a poet ages. If a poem challenges a poet's assumptions both positively and negatively, it is only a good thing, because it helps the individual poet come to terms with a definition as to what a poem should be. In my experience, the poems that challenge a poet's assumptions and then further motivate a response in writing--writing of any kind--at that interval of time, the poem-influence is the most important poem to the individual poet.

Has the line between poetry and prose been completely erased?

It's hard to use the word "completely." In this contemporary moment there's still, largely, a difference between a poem and a novel or short story. However, without question, one person's micro-fiction or short short or memoir is another person's prose poem. In the same manner, one person's novel is another person's long poem. Looking at tradition, probably the only difference between poetry and prose with respect to prosody--to my mind anyway--is lineation and end-line rhyme. Some forms of essay writing are mostly unique to prose, but there are people who have pushed and always will push the boundaries between poetry and prose, even in terms of scientific "essay" writing.

Are dead poets more influential than living poets?

I guess it depends on how influence is read in the contemporary, so I'll give a shorter answer that still has some risk. Sometimes I wish dead poets had more influence than the living. Some living poets whose work I love and admire deeply have chosen to be out of the limelight, even though I think they deserve to be more influential and a part of the conversation in contemporary poetry. The politics of po-biz exacerbated by social media have made the question of influence, emulation, and popular themes in poetry more relevant. I know people will disagree with me but I think more respect needs to be given to our elder living poets. I am concerned about ageism as a practice and how rewards and influence are divvied out in poetry, lately.

Are there too many references to birds in poetry today?

If I have recently read a contemporary poem that referenced birds, I don't remember it. So....

Have you ever written poem about a city? Which one?

Yes, my long poem, "Detroit", is about working in a downtown person-of-color nightclub in the motor city. The poem appears in my book Celadon (Unicorn, 2017), and should appear online in MAYDAY magazine sometime in November 2017

Ian Haight’s collection of poetry, Celadon, won Unicorn Press’ First Book
Prize and is scheduled for release in the fall of 2017. He is the editor of Zen
Questions and Answers from Korea, and with T’ae-yong Hŏ, he is the
translator of Borderland Roads: Selected Poems of Kyun Hŏ and Magnolia
and Lotus: Selected Poems of Hyesim--finalist for ALTA’s Stryk Prize--
all from White Pine Press. Other awards include Ninth Letter’s Literary
Award in Translation, and grants from the Daesan Foundation, the Korea
Literary Translation Institute, and the Baroboin Buddhist Foundation. For
more information please visit ianhaight.com.

Adam Levon Brown

What is the most important poem in the English language?

I would have to say “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” (by W.B. Yeats) because with dwindling resources in the world, and an overabundance of poverty, this poem ushers in new light and new futures for people to dwell upon.

Has the line between poetry and prose been completely erased?

No, there is a clear line between prose and poetry. I am an editor and reader for several publications, and also read many books. There is a definite line. While there are hybrid works, it’s usually either poetry or prose.

Are dead poets more influential than living poets?

Tough question. Dead poets are usually more referenced by the non-writing fans while living poets seem to inspire contemporary poets a great deal more. So, I’d say that living poets are more important for keeping poetry alive.

Are there too many references to birds in poetry today?

Yes, and yes. You have no idea how many poems I’ve read about birds, especially the Phoenix. Birds are heavily cliché and should be used sparingly, if at all.

Have you ever written poem about a city? Which one?

I have written about a city. I wrote about my hometown, Eugene, Oregon in a novella. Poetry-wise, I’ve written about various towns throughout the United States; usually in
settings which seem wrought with poverty and sickness.

Adam Levon Brown is an internationally published author, poet, amateur photographer, and cat lover who identifies as Queer and is neurodivergent. He is Founder, Owner, and editor in chief of Madness Muse Press. He has had poetry published hundreds of times in several languages, along with two full collections and three chapbooks. Anti-imperialist, peacenik with a love for books, when not tripping on his own musings, he enjoys reading fiction. He also participate as an assistant editor at Caravel Literary Arts Journal, a poetry reader for Tilde: A Literary Journal, and a Poetry reader for Driving Range Review. His work has appeared in Harbinger Asylum, Firefly Magazine, and Five 2 One Magazine. He has two collections of poetry; Musings of a Madman (Creative Talents Unleashed, 2015); Cadence of Cupid (Creative Talents Unleashed, 2016) He has two chapbooks; “Loco”motion of Life (Alien Buddha Press, 2017) and Embedded Memories of a Shooting Star (Transcendent Zero Press, 2017)

November 2017

Dorianne Laux

Photo by John Campbell

Robert Hass' new book "A Little Book on Form" talks about form in a single line. Can you share with us one of your one-line, two-line, or three-line poems and talk a bit about it?

I know that bird calling out in the night. This isn’t the first time he’s mistaken moonlight for sunrise. --Gary Young

Do you have a “special” place where you write? A corner nook, garage, gazebo?

Right now, on our balcony in The Hotel Parkvilla in Vienna where we're teaching at The American International High School. On our off time we walk around the city and stop to take notes in our pocket moleskins. Today, after looking at the Raphael exhibit at the Albertina Museum, we stopped in at the Cafe Central to have a bowl of goulash and a kaiser roll. It's the place where odd fellows Freud, Adler, Stalin, Trotsky and Hitler went to sip coffee and discuss the news of the day. We opened our notebooks there. But mostly, our balcony overlooking the breakfast garden with the carved marble bust pouring water from a jug into the fountain, a buddha bust nearby, its boulder size red terra-cotta face being overgrown with ice green ivy, only it's Mona Lisa smile and one closed eye visible. http://www.parkvilla.at/en/

How soon after you’ve completed a poem do you send it out for publication?

It takes me ages to send a poem out for publication. They sit in a file for so long I sometimes forget I've written them. However, just recently I sat down to write a poem about autumn. I'd been teaching the ode and re-read Keats' "Ode to Autumn" and was overcome by it once again. The poem quickly turned on me and became a poem about the word war between Trump and Kim Jong Un, so sent it off to Rattle's "Poets Respond". That was a strange, fanciful and exhilarating first. https://www.rattle.com/if-its-the-last-thing-i-do-by-dorianne-laux/

Can you share any interesting/amusing rejection letters with us? (You can paraphrase, and you’re not compelled to say from where if you don’t wish to)

"We liked some of these quite a bit, but not quite enough."

Why is giraffe better than itch? Or is it?

They hold equal value if the giraffe has an itch at the nape of her neck.

Dorianne Laux’s most recent collections are The Book of Men, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize and Facts about the Moon, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, and Smoke from BOA Editions. Only As The Day Is Long: New and Selected, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. She teaches poetry in the MFA Program at North Carolina State University and is founding faculty at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program.

Catfish McDaris

Robert Haas’ new book, “A Little Book on Form” talks about form in a single line. Can you share a one-line, two-line, or a three-line poem, and talks a bit about it?

Her inviting smile was
a proposition, a pork
chop for a hungry dog.

A poem about true lust.

Do you have a “special” place where you write? A corner nook, garage, gazebo?

I write everywhere I am, I write notes on everything. When a line or idea strikes me, or wakes me up in the night I sneak to the bathroom so my wife doesn’t get angry. We have an extra bedroom with my computer, where I type, rewrite, store all ideas. I don’t remember if it was Ginsberg or Bukowski that said that first, but revision helps.

How soon after you’ve completed a poem do you send it out for publication?

I keep a poem for a few days and look at it several times before submitting it. I’ve sent stuff out right away, then looked at it again and thought I wasn’t quite finished.

Can you share any interesting/amusing rejection letters with us? (You can paraphrase, and you’re not compelled to say from where if you don’t wish to)

Nobody likes rejects. Sometimes it’s nice when you get a reject and you end up in a much better magazine. Or when you get it back and your entire poem is red inked by a beginner, that wouldn’t know a haiku from dog bite.

Why is giraffe better than itch? Or is it?

The Magic Smile

I love giraffes, I got into a book about giraffes on the moon. The research was fun. We saw Don Felder that played for 27 years with the Eagles play next to the giraffe cage in Milwaukee. His band was excellent and when they played "Hotel California" the giraffes were grooving. All itches aren’t bad. The itch that makes man curious enough to explore new horizons is great. Getting poison ivy, a fungus, the seven-year itch, when your skin starts crawling, they are bad news.

Catfish McDaris’ most infamous chapbook is Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. His has read in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and with Jimmy “the ghost of Hendrix” Spencer in NYC on 42nd St. McDaris has published more than 25 chaps in the last 25 years. His work can be found in the New York Quarterly, Slipstream, Pearl, Main St. Rag, Café Review, Chiron Review, Zen Tattoo, Wormwood Review, Great Weather For Media, Silver Birch Press, Louisiana Review, George Mason Univ. Press, New Coin and Graffiti. McDaris has been nominated for 15 Pushcarts, Best of Net in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017. He won the Uprising Award in 1999, and won the Flash Fiction Contest judged by the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2009. McDaris has been translated into Spanish, French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Mandarin, Yoruba, Tagalog, and Esperanto. His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette Univ. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Bukowski’s Indian pal Dave Reeve, editor of Zen Tattoo gave Catfish McDaris his name when he spoke of wanting to quit the post office and start a catfish farm. He spent a summer shark fishing in the Sea of Cortez, built adobe houses, tamed wild horses around the Grand Canyon, worked in a zinc smelter in the panhandle of Texas, and painted flag poles in the wind. He ended at the post office in Milwaukee.

Carolyne Wright

Robert Hass' new book "A Little Book on Form" talks about form in a single line. Can you share with us one of your one-line, two-line, or three-line poems and talk a bit about it?

If you mean poems that are one, two or three lines in length, I don't really have anything except a few "American haikus"--by "American" I mean that they do not strive to follow the complicated rules that measure sound-particles and imagery that apply to haiku written in Japanese. There are some American poets who do strive to follow such rules, but since I do not read or write Japanese, I allow that the form has altered in its entry into the English language, much as il soneto altered some elements of its rhyming pattern and syllabic count when it was "translated" from Italy to English by poet-diplomats such as Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542). If you mean poems written in stanzas of one line, two lines (i.e. couplets), or three lines (i.e. tercets or triplets), I have a lot of these! Beginning around the time of writing poems included in my book, A Change of Maps (Lost Horse Press, 2006), I focused on symmetry and balance, putting poems into regular stanzas, though these were largely unrhymed and not in any fixed meter. Partly in reaction to what I felt were too many shapeless-looking free-verse poems in earlier books, this collection features several poems that appear formal: their stanzas divided into couplets and tercets, as well as other, longer stanzaic forms. Most of these poems achieve a sense of intrinsic order with a fairly regular number of stresses per line, but without strictly counting stressed and unstressed syllables to measure feet; and in a few poems, with slant rhyme. Thus the formal look is mainly just that--a look--and not truly a demonstration of rhymed and metered couplets, terza rima, or whatever. But I wanted to create a more harmonious and finished quality to individual poems, a greater sense of such as this one:

Night Walk Around Green Lakes

Above Hancock Field, light keeps on
arriving in stars' past formations.
Late jets circle in the holding patterns,

Syracuse glows over the horizon
like a dying sun. The engines' roar
lags behind, cone of a noise

pointed backwards: silence,
landing lights advancing on the night.
Silence, too, where the Pleiades,

misty sisters, huddle under
the sky's dome, where the ancients
watched huge gladiators wheel

and stride down the dark ecliptic.
At midnight, the jewels in Orion's belt
glitter through the smog.

Let's ask the few owls left
for wisdom, save some inflections
from the clipped shriek of a mouse.

When we go, we take our tail lights
with us, fuel exhaust streaming
behind us like Andromeda's veil.

As if Diogenes, old Cynic,
had thrust his lamp into our faces,
left us dazed; then stumped away,

hefting his receding light,
we slam the car doors, shift
into position, turn out of the driveway.

All night, the Great Bears
circle each other in the sky.

From A Change of Maps, Lost Horse Press, 2006.
© 2006 by Carolyne Wright.
First published in Cream City Review.

Do you have a "special" place where you write? A corner nook, garage, gazebo?

I do much of my writing in my "office," the smaller of the two bedrooms of our condo, on the first level of a three-story building in this complex. It's on a hillside, surrounded by very tall Western red cedars, Douglas firs, Western hemlocks and big-leaf maples, the ancestral native trees of my Seattle childhood. These living forest spirits are comforting, and convey the Native presence that is still a powerful influence here; but the trees are situated mainly on the adjoining properties—backyards to the north and the Jackson Park public golf course to the south. The actual condo complex property is almost entirely paved, except for some aggressively maintained garden beds. Apart from a few shrubs, pruned—hacked, really—within a micro-millimeter of their lives, the condo management company's ideal of horticultural beauty is bare dirt, punctuated by the naked stumps of dead shrubs and trees that have given up the vain attempt to grow back in an environment of corporate control, wherein no dead, decapitated stump is ever replaced with a living shrub or tree!

The window of my office faces north and uphill, and this first-level unit is set into the hillside, so my office used to be shaded and have a subterranean feel. Out the window I used to be able to look into the forest understory, as it were: the trunks of richly flowering rhododendron bushes whose leaves and branches used to screen the view of the next condo building in the complex. I say "used to" because a few years ago these lovely—and costly—rhododendron bushes were clear-cut to stumps about a foot and a half high. Several of us in the complex tried to stop this destruction, and protested loudly after this destruction—and the subsequent drop in property value for some owners seeking to sell their units: a consideration you would think the management company would understand. But these corporate functionaries replied that they were merely "following orders."

Fortunately, the rhododendrons outside our windows are slowly growing back, and in the interim, the view is enriched by several native sword ferns that my husband and I have stealth-planted. The black-capped chickadees, juncos, spotted towhees, Bewick's wrens, occasional Stellar's jays and squirrels—who used to come to eat the seed that we stealth-scattered on the rockery under the rhododendrons—are beginning to return. This sheltered, shadowed spot is beginning to return to its earlier state, and much of this imagery—as well as some of its political burden—has found its way into poems over the last few years. It's a space in which I could get cabin fever, but I break up my writing (and emailing, posting for online classes and Facebook, etc.) with plenty of other activities—phone conversations, trips down the hall to make coffee, prepare food, or do the dishes. It would be nice to have more outdoor light in this writing space, but in the winter it's easy to close the door and heat just this one room, so I don't set up my laptop in the bigger living-dining room area, which faces south and sometimes feels overly sunny and heated in the summer. (My husband’s office space is out there as well.) My office also contains two huge bookcases crammed with reference books, teaching materials and texts; two filing cabinets; a radio with CD and tape player; and a comfy futon sofa, where I take very productive and inspiring afternoon naps!
I also work on first drafts and printed-out revisions of poems, lying on my back on that futon.

How soon after you’ve completed a poem to do send it out for publication?

I usually send out newly completed poems fairly soon--within a few weeks of completion. Whenever I'm getting a group of poems ready for submission, I will often add a new poem to the group (removing poems, if any, that have been accepted elsewhere). During very busy periods, with little time to prepare submissions, I will end up with a group of 4-5 new poems, and I will then send those out: poems that have not been submitted anywhere till then.

Can you share any interesting/amusing rejection letters with us? (You can paraphrase, and you’re not compelled to say from where if you don’t wish to.)

Now that most rejection letters--as well as most acceptance messages--arrive electronically, from Submittable or other submission platforms, once I submit again to a magazine, I usually delete the older correspondence. So I don't have many electronic messages to comment on. Most rejection notes I have gotten have been of the standard-issue, plain-brown-wrapper variety, your basic form-rejection letter, usually polite and impersonal: "This work does not meet our needs at the present time," or words to that effect. Some have a personal note added by an editor--usually when that editor has liked something, or wants to give a helpful or encouraging suggestion. I always appreciate these notes, and some have been very gratifying, such as a typed letter--a typed letter!--from David Hamilton, the long-time former editor of The Iowa Review. I had sent him a group of poems set in Chile during the presidency of Salvador Allende--poems that eventually became part of the Blue Lynx Prize and American Book Award-winning book, Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire. (Lynx House Press, 2000 / 2nd edition, Eastern Washington University Press / Lynx House Books, 2005).

In his letter, Hamilton wrote that although he was returning the poems I had submitted to him, he was interested in their narrative tension, their attempt to recreate the dimensions and resonance of an era. He suggested that the world they wanted to recreate might be even more effectively realized in nonfiction prose. This was one of the most thoughtful and deeply considered letters I have received!

Two other, very different, rejection notes stand out from the hard-copy era--both of these for their exaggeratedly parsimonious use of paper. One was from early 2009, from the Seattle Review. In my standard, #10 business envelope, I received a rectangle of paper, approximately 2 inches by 1.5 inches--only slightly larger than an old-style movie-theatre ticket. On it was printed a standard form-rejection note:

Thank you for
submitting to the
Seattle Review.
Unfortunately, we are
unable to accept your
work for publication
at this time.

Sincerely,
The Editors

As you can see, I have reproduced the line breaks in this right-justified note, koan-like in its compression!

The other excessively paper-saving rejection note was from NEW AMERICAN WRITING, from August of 2004. This time, the standard, #10 business envelope contained a strip of paper, 8.5 inches long and about 1.25 inches high, which declared everything in a single, printed-out line, as follows (and yes, it does begin with a hyphen!):

- Sorry that we're unable to publish your work in NEW AMERICAN WRITING.
--The Editors

On both of these notes, straight, ruled lines--probably hand-drawn by a pen guided by a ruler--were visible: guides for the interns taking scissors to a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, to cut each sheet into about a dozen rejection notes. And both of these notes were clearly cut with scissors--the edges were uneven in the way of paper cut with hand-held scissors!

These editors could at least have splurged on a half-sheet of paper per rejection slip, cleft in twain with a paper cutter available at any office-supply outlet! Such stingy, primitive notes struck me as beneath the professional dignity of magazines with such solid literary reputations. However, the conversion in the last decade to electronic correspondence has no doubt turned these literary enterprises into all-paperless editorial offices!

Why is giraffe better than itch? Or is it?

All of the above!! We (my alter-ego Eulene . . . or should I say, Eulene as the genuine entity of whom Carolyne Wright is now a mere holographic projection), declare that capybaras are preferable to twinges of guilt. For one thing, as large aquatic rodents of the Amazon region, capybaras are compact creatures of the Western hemisphere, and in Brazilian Portuguese they called capyvaras. Moreover, we poets need to spare ourselves from getting above ourselves, though the ability to gaze across the tops of scrubby, thorny trees on the African savannah would be quite a perspective--as would be the chance to rubber-neck at literary cocktail parties with such long necks. Apropos, itch rhymes with witch, and the Día de los Muertos approaches!

Carolyne Wright’s new book is This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems (Lost Horse Press, 2017), whose title poem received a Pushcart Prize and was included in The Best American Poetry 2009. Her ground-breaking anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse Press, 2015), received ten Pushcart Prize nominations and was a finalist in the Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Awards. Her nine earlier volumes of poetry include Seasons of Mangoes and Brainfire (Eastern Washington UP/Lynx House Books), which won the Blue Lynx Prize and American Book Award; A Change of Maps (Lost Horse), an Alice Fay di Castagnola Award finalist; and Mania Klepto: the Book of Eulene (Turning Point Books). She also has five volumes of poetry in translation from Spanish and Bengali, including the new Map Traces, Blood Traces / Trazas de mapa, trazas de sangre (Mayapple Press, 2017), a bilingual sequence of poems by Seattle-based Chilean poet, Eugenia Toledo. Wright lived in Chile and traveled in Brazil on a Fulbright Grant during the presidency of Salvador Allende; and spent four years on Fulbright and other fellowships in India and Bangladesh, translating Bengali women poets. After teaching as visiting poet and writer at colleges and universities around the USA, she returned to her native Seattle with her husband in 2005, and since then has taught for Richard Hugo House, Seattle's community literary center; for the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA Program for its entire 2005-2016 existence; for the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA Program; and for national and international literary conferences and festivals. A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes, Wright has received grants and fellowships from the NEA, 4Culture, and Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture. Besides writing, teaching, and literary, social, and environmental activism, Wright's passions include Zumba and Afro-Brazilian dance. She has been regaining fluency in Brazilian Portuguese in preparation for a return visit to Bahia on an Instituto Sacatar residency fellowship in 2018.

October 2017

Caridad Moro-Gronlier

1. Is there a contemporary poet you admire whose work you think is especially significant (in any way you want to define that)?

Lately, I've been immersed in the work of Danez Smith, an African-American, H.I.V.-positive, genderqueer poet who goes by plural pronouns and who challenges all I thought I knew about the intersection between deeply literary poems and slam and spoken word works. Their work succeeds in addressing issues of gender, racial inequality, the body politic, love in the age of the I-Phone, etc. in dynamic, original and wholly refreshing ways. Their poems are ecstatic, transcendent, electric, somber, joyful and quite thought provoking--everything I want from a poet’s work.

2. Is there a poetry collection or anthology you go back to again and again for inspiration or for just sheer pleasure?

Elizabeth Bishop’s Collected Works has been my go-to book for both inspiration and pleasure, for a very long time. When I fear that the muse has abandoned me, that I will never again find “the words”, I re-read “One Art” and remind myself to just (Write it!); her command, her encouragement, gets me going every single time.

3. Are you a fan of translated poetry and if so, give us an example.

I am an absolute fan of translated poetry, if translated well, that is. Doing so is trickier than one might imagine. Take Pablo Neruda’s poem “Ebrio De Trementina,” for example (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), a poem famously translated by W.S. Merwin into “Drunk with Pines” and not so famously interpreted by Christopher Logue into “Drunk as Drunk,” a version I far prefer. The first line of Neruda’s poem is “Ebrio de trementina y largos besos”. Merwin’s translation offers us this: “Drunk with pines and long kisses”, while Logue’s version reads as “Drunk as drunk on turpentine/From your open kisses”. Logue’s adaptation chooses to incorporate Neruda’s use of the word turpentine (trementina) in his version, a word Merwin eschews in his translation. By describing his speaker as drunk on turpentine, Neruda succeeds in both celebrating the erotic voyage his lovers have embarked upon and highlighting the risk that voyage entails. Merwin’s decision to switch turpentine for pine does not succeed in supplying the undertones of danger that turpentine succeeds in evoking and as a result, sacrifices the undercurrent of bitterness and danger that Neruda deftly mixes in with his meditation on the obsessive nature of sexual love.

4. Have you ever written a persona poem? If so, could you share a few lines?

I have written a few persona poems over the years, but my favorite is one of the first poems I ever published, “Susan B. Anthony, On Getting Kicked Off The Silver Dollar.”

Here is the first stanza:

I don't resent her. Sacagawea
earned her gold coined clatter. Besides,
these are the days of forgetting--
hymns we hummed on sleepy feet
have faded in streetcar din,
picket signs we jabbed through soldered fists
are sold as kitsch on Pennsylvania Ave.

5. If you could have a beer or some other drink with a contemporary poet whose work you feel in underrepresented, who would it be?

I would love to have a drink with Ocean Vuong and discuss his gorgeous debut collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds. I am a big fan!

Caridad Moro-Gronlier is the award winning author of Visionware published by Finishing Line Press as part of its New Women's Voices Series. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant and a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in poetry. Her work has appeared in the Pintura/Palabra Project-Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, Bridges To/From Cuba, The Antioch Review, The Tishman Review, The Cossack Review, Moon City Review, The Damfino Review, The Collapsar, The Notre Dame Review, The South Florida Poetry Journal, The Comstock Review, This Assignment Is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching, The Lavender Review, and others. In 2016 she was awarded a Unity Coalition Educator Leadership Award for her work with LGBTIQ youth and was also named a 2017 Francisco R. Walker Teacher of the Year Award nominee. She is a dual-enrollment English instructor for Miami Dade Public Schools, an English professor for Miami Dade College and the Editor-In-Chief of The Orange Island Review. She resides in Miami, FL with her wife and son.

Joseph Fasano

1. Is there a contemporary poet you admire whose work you think is especially significant (in any way you want to define that)?

There are many obvious choices, but I’d point to Ilya Kaminsky’s work, which is a tremendously interesting exploration of how tyranny interacts with the individual body and mind. It’s also simply gorgeous.

2. Is there a poetry collection or anthology you go back to again and again for inspiration or for just sheer pleasure?

Lately I’ve been revisiting my old teacher Mark Strand’s collection Man and Camel. I think its closing piece, “Poem after the Seven Last Words,” is a major achievement. I can never get enough of Strand’s weary lyricism, which sometimes seems to blow through his poems like a rinsing wind, sometimes to stare at you as luminously and sparely as moonlight on one of Hopper’s walls.

3. Are you a fan of translated poetry and if so, give us an example.

Of course! Translation is always the creation of a new poem that somehow maintains a fidelity to the original, which makes it one of those impossible tasks worth doing precisely because it’s impossible. I think the translations of Milosz’s late work by Robert Hass and the poet himself are an example of how poetry can achieve grace in even the most difficult of times. I dream of writing just one poem with as much plainspoken grace as Milosz’s “Orpheus and Eurydice.”

4. Have you ever written a persona poem? If so, could you share a few lines?

My third book, Vincent, is a 1,451-line persona poem, written in the voice of a semi-fictionalized version of Vince Li, a man who had a schizophrenic break that led him to kill a young man on a Greyhound bus in Canada in 2008. Here are ten lines chosen at random:

have you lain down with the dying
like a bellchoir in their evening gloves
have you heard the falcon
of their blood turn around inside them
have you listened to the wind
polishing its faceless coins
on your father’s temples
       have you lifted up the night
like the bespoke jackets
in which you shot
your boyhood horses
have you run out in thunder
in your own clothes
have you woken and woken and woken

5. If you could have a beer or some other drink with a contemporary poet whose work you feel is underrepresented, who would it be?

I’m going to cheat and go back in time a bit to say Hayden Carruth. He passed away in 2008, and I would have loved to pick his brain about poetry and life. It’s something of a tragedy that he’s so obscure among my generation of poets. Let me quote the whole of one little poem of his that’s stuck to my ribs for years:

Notes on Poverty

Was I so poor
       in those damned days
that I went in the dark
        in torn shoes
and furtiveness
       to steal fat ears
of cattle corn
        from the good cows
and pound them
       like hard maize
on my worn Aztec
       stone? I was.

Joseph Fasano is the author of three books of poetry: Vincent (Cider Press, 2015); Inheritance (2014), a James Laughlin Award nominee; and Fugue for Other Hands (2013), which was nominated by Linda Pastan for the Poets Prize, "awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American poet." His work has appeared in The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Boston Review, Tin House, The Times Literary Supplement, Measure, and the anthology Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Any Occasion (Abrams, 2015), among other publications. His honors include the RATTLE Poetry Prize and the Cider Press Review Book Award. He teaches at Manhattanville College and Columbia University.

Devon Balwit

1. Is there a contemporary poet you admire whose work you think is especially significant (in any way you want to define that)?

I would prefer to turn this question towards speaking of poets that were formative for me rather than singling out individual contemporary poets that I think are "significant." Poetry touches us in a mood and a moment. "Significant" carries a whiff of spotlight, which makes me uncomfortable. Too many of my peers speak of feeling excluded or undervalued, and I don't want to play into that, even inadvertently. I would single out Sharon Olds, not because she is a "new voice," but because she was one of the first poets whose work resonated with and inspired me.
I remember reading her poem "The Solution" back in '85 when it first came out and thinking, "What?! It's OK to use the line 'I want to be fucked senseless' in a poem?! Her work, with its raw honesty about sex, the body, and relationships, seemed a fresh way to craft experience into art. Similarly, as a young adult, I loved e.e. cummings orthographical playfulness. I liked puzzling over his work alongside that of French poet Robert Desnos, whose poems I tackled in their original French back in college.

2. Is there a poetry collection or anthology you go back to again and again for inspiration or for just sheer pleasure?

I'll answer questions 2 & 3 together as I am a fan of Polish poets and often reread Mr. Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert. I'm a sucker for self-deprecating narrators and love poems that grapple with big ideas and yet which, for all that, are tinted with irony and humor. I am also a huge fan of Wislava Szymborska, and dip into her collected works often. I have also recently fallen in love with Sylvia Plath's poems and have a collected works that I dog-ear. As for contemporaries, I love the giddy, dense language of the chapbook favorite Maritime Drinking Songs of the Miraculous Alcoholics, by fellow Portland poet, Matt Schumacher. His poems cry out to be read aloud. I stumbled upon Termination Dust by Susanna Mishler and fell in love with how she works heavily with the natural world while investing it with compelling human narratives.

3. Are you a fan of translated poetry and if so, give us an example.

See answer to Question 2

4. Have you ever written a persona poem? If so, could you share a few lines?

I often write persona poems, speaking as a canvas/a photograph, a literary character, or someone in the news. My newest chapbook, The Bow Must Bear the Brunt, (http://www.redflagpoetry.com/store/p15/The_Bow_Must_Bear_The_Brunt_-_Devon_Balwit.html)
was inspired by Moby Dick. I speak through many of its characters--Ahab, Starbuck, and Ishmael. Here is an excerpt from that chapbook, spoken as Ahab.

Thou Did’st Not Know Ahab Then

I am ever and more myself. A stump settling
into the hole set for me, my chin tillering

weatherwards, planing the wind like a knife.
My dreams condense in their alembic

in a deepening drip. Nothing soothes,
but hithering to and fro appeases. Not

for me the small pleasures, the sucked pipe
and the cracked marrowbone. Mine, instead,

obsession’s scrimshaw, whittled into a dappling
like light upon swells. Neither for me the proof

bottle with its cotton swaddle. I’d rather rasp
myself over whetstones, readying for the unseen

jugular. Down, dog, and kennel!
I have said, and almost come to grief for it,

but no man tells me to stifle, tamping me
like a sponged bore. I’ll not be de-sparked.

Rather loaded and re-, sending red hot lances
to spume before sinking. It’ll come to that,

for I’ve a premonition. Already, I answer
for the souls I drag behind. Bone rattling my way

to judgement, I turn down my brim, up my collar,
salt thoughts working their slow corrosion.

5. If you could have a beer or some other drink with a contemporary poet whose work you feel is underrepresented, who would it be?

Frankly, I think most contemporary poets are underrepresented. The internet allows us many more publishing opportunities, which, ironically, translates into greater accessibility but fewer readers. We tend to know and follow only the poets whose work we can keep track of on line. I know that I am quickly overwhelmed. I might start out dutifully reading the poem-a-day offerings of many fine journals or the shared publications of my 300 or so FB friends, and then I fall behind--not at all because I have fallen out of love, but due to the sheer volume and to wanting to devote the lion's share of my time to producing new work. That said, sometimes I wonder if it's better not to meet those whose work we admire. Nowadays we so readily conflate the narrator of the poem with the poet. We use poems to speculate about identities and affiliations. We are drawn to or avert from personalities. This can predispose us towards or against poems for reasons that have nothing to do with the language and craft before us. Even if a poet writes about his/her lived experience--narrative autobiography-- it still comes as through a shutter click, the briefest capture of a transitory moment. If I were to meet my FB poet friends, I'd love to do so one-on-one, over a glass of wine.

Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She is a poetry editor for Minute Magazine and has seven chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements (Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry); We are Procession, Seismograph (Nixes Mate Books), Risk Being/Complicated (self-published with the Canadian artist Lorette Luzajic). Her full-length, 'Motes at Play in the Halls of Light' will be published in 2018 by Kelsay Books. Her individual poems can be found in the SoFloPoJo, Cordite, The Cincinnati Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Fifth Wednesday, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River, The Free State Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Rattle, Posit, and more.

September 2017

Charles Rammelkamp

1. Do you have a writing routine? If so, what is it?

I wish I did. I would love to be disciplined that way, every day, like a job. When I am working on a project I often get into a groove that involves going to the library and writing in the quiet at a desk, then coming home and typing up the first drafts. Otherwise, when I am “inspired” (I love the photorealist Chuck Close’s observation that “inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”), that is, when an idea comes to mind, I feverishly jot down the lines or images or ideas in a self-addressed email or in a notebook, because I know from experience that I will surely forget them if I don’t. Once on paper, these ideas take on a life of their own, and I usually get to them sooner or later. But not in any scheduled sort of way. I’d like to say the work dictates my routine, but I suspect that’s a cop-out.

2. Are you a poet because you write poetry, or do you write poetry because you are a poet?

This chicken-or-egg question taps into the idea of the poet as a romantic figure. It’s in his or her soul. Just born that way. Shelley’s “sensitive plant.” A poet needs to have the talent and “vision” to express his/her thoughts, impressions, for sure, not to mention the motivation, the inspiration (see earlier reference to Chuck Close). Something innate, not “learned.” It’s the work, though, the dedication, that’s required to develop that talent. There are good poems and mediocre poems, and I suspect that’s the secret to the difference, that elusive discipline. So maybe what I’m saying is it’s the poem that counts and the poet just drops out of the equation, ultimately.

3. Have you ever written poetry while listening to music? If so, what artist were you listening to? What was the poem? (If you remember)

I think I started writing poetry by writing song lyrics, a wannabe rock star teenager. Of course, I didn’t have a backup band, so the words had to stand by themselves! Or fall. Then it was the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Simon and Bullwinkle. I’ve lately been writing hitchhike poems, recalling that period of my youth. Here’s one that may illustrate the point. The title of course is from a Stones’ song, and the epigraph from Alice Cooper.

Gimme Shelter

I’m eighteen and I don’t know what I want.
– Alice Cooper, “I’m Eighteen”

Fridays spring semester I was free
after my World Lit. class ended at ten:
a dog off its leash, out of its cage.
I’d never really hitchhiked for distance before,
but I decided I’d thumb my way
down to Saint Louis,
a hundred miles south, to see
Gimme Shelter, the movie about
the Stones’ disastrous Altamont concert
where the Hell’s Angels murdered a kid.
A huge Rolling Stones fan,
I was sure the movie would never
come to Nibana, no way
I’d see it in Potawatomi Rapids, either.
Besides, it would be an adventure.
Isn’t that what I wanted?

Hitching down was an easy A,
Basketweaving 101 for football jocks:
a man and his son picked me up
almost as soon as I stuck out my thumb,
just a few blocks from campus,
drove me all the way to the Tivoli Theater
on Delmar Boulevard. Beginners luck.

But getting back? Not so easy.
Nobody stopped for me in rush hour Saint Louis,
Friday evening, everyone with plans,
cars whizzing past, horns honking.

A couple of cops in a patrol car
took me to the Poplar Street Bridge
near the Arch, let me out with a warning,
but at least no longer their problem.
I hiked across the Mississippi
on the thin strip of sidewalk, a fugitive
feeling the heat and suction of passing cars.
Short rides in Illinois, mostly walking,
as the sun sank out of sight.

Finally, close to midnight, in Roodhouse,
a state patrolman pulled me over,
ordered me into the cruiser;
scared, sure he’d arrest me, fine me, jail me,
I struck a punk’s defiant pose,
but instead we just waited for a passing truckdriver
headed up 67 through the dark.
The officer asked him to let me out in Nibana.
I wish now I’d been more grateful.

A couple of weeks later
Gimme Shelter showed up at the State,
the art deco movie palace in the town square.
My friend Jack, pals with the owner,
scored free tickets for about a dozen of us.

4. Please write the last line for a poem titled:
“Strawberries for a Mango Kind of Girl”

Following up on the last question, I might say, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need…” Or how about, “She burst joy’s grape on her palate fine.” Strawberry fields and mango trees forever!

5. What book (poetry or otherwise) are you currently reading. What book is next?

I just finished reading Nancy Scott’s marvelous collection of poems, Ah, Men. You can tell by the title that it’s witty and thoughtful. Scott is the editor of the literary journal U.S. 1 Worksheets. The poems cover her philandering father, her first lovers, her partners, sons, later lovers, random males – a long view of the curious and complex relations with “the opposite sex,” here from a woman’s point of view. There’s tragedy, joy, heartbreak, remorse and disappointment in large helpings, but, as she concludes her poem, “Mining the Past”: On reflection, no regrets. Next up, some mind candy, something like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories, No Middle Name.

Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, where he lives. His most recent book is American Zeitgeist (Apprentice House), which deals with the populist politician, William Jennings Bryan. A chapbook, Jack Tar’s Lady Parts, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press.

Susan Marie

1. Do you have a writing routine? If so, what is it?

I have no writing routine whatsoever. I write when the words strike, when that divine stream of consciousness flows freely or if I stop and tune in, on purpose, to my creative self.

2. Are you a poet because you write poetry, or do you write poetry because you are a poet?

The poems write me.

3. Have you ever written poetry while listening to music? If so, what artist were you listening to? What was the poem? (If you remember)

Yes! Hendrix is a fantastic inspiration. Most of the artists from the 60's and 70's, depends on the tune, inspire me while writing. That music is an immense part of who I am. I do not recall writing anything specific or having a certain artist. I just pop on the tunes and go.

4. Please write the last line for a poem titled:
“Strawberries for a Mango Kind of Girl”

like the sun, pregnant and full, dragging her belly across a dying dawn.

5. What book (poetry or otherwise) are you currently reading. What book is next?

Not specifically poetry, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom [Anam Cara means "soul friend" in Irish] by John O' Donohue, which does include divine Celtic poetry. Next? Hmmm . . . I am torn between Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala and Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake.

Susan Marie is a Spoken Word Poet, Writer, Author, and Broadcast Journalist.

Joshua Medsker

1. Do you have a writing routine? If so, what is it?

Yes. I'm in the middle of a big poetry project called Medskerpedia. I write a poem a day based on entries from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Started in July 2015 and I figure I should be finished by the end of 2019. I just passed the halfway mark and I'm almost at 700 poems. I'm going in order all the way to the end of the Zs! I write late at night after my wife is asleep, sitting in my comfy recliner, my dog in my lap, while I watch reruns of Law and Order.

2. Are you a poet because you write poetry, or do you write poetry because you are a poet?
Ha! I would pick the former. I prefer to place the emphasis on the writing and not on myself. And I think everyone is a poet. Everyone experiences these heightened moments... some people just have more practice in writing them down.

3 Have you ever written poetry while listening to music? If so, what artist were you listening to? What was the poem? (If you remember)

Yes. I usually have music going as I'm thinking about how to start. Never when I'm actually writing. It gets too distracting at that point. I wrote a weird little one the other day called "Clean Slate" that's kind of infused with the Townes Van Zandt and old blues I've been listening to. Familiar folk/blues cadences, motifs, word clusters... It turned out pretty well I thought!

4 Please write the last line for a poem titled:
“Strawberries for a Mango Kind of Girl”

Infinitesimal seeds crunch under the
strength of her molars.

5 What book (poetry or otherwise) are you currently reading. What book is next?

I'm reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Finally! Haha! It's the best. Poetry-wise I'm re-reading Vachel Lindsay's Collected Poems. Next up is me getting back to Pound's Cantos. I had to take a break.

Josh Medsker is a New Jersey writer, originally from Alaska. He is currently in the middle of a sprawling poetry project, MEDSKERPEDIA, where he writes a poem a day, based on entries from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. He started in July 2015, and estimates he'll finish some time in Fall 2019. His journalism, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and criticism has been featured in a variety of publications, including: The Tishman Review, Opetry, The Ekphrastic Review, Haiku Journal, The Brooklyn Rail, The Anchorage Press, The Review Review, Penmen Review, Empty Mirror, and Red Savina Review. For a complete list of Mr. Medsker's publications, please visit his website, joshmedsker.com.

August 2017

Julie Marie Wade

1. Do you belong to any poetry organizations? If you do, is it/are they beneficial? How?

So much of writing happens in isolation that I find I long for some kind of community with other writers. Fortunately, for me, a good deal of that desire for literary community is satisfied through my professional life teaching creative writing, being surrounded by colleagues and students who are engaged in a similar enterprise. I also belong to the Academy of American Poets, which is a national organization that connects poets with one another and--equally importantly, I think--brings poetry into the lives of those who don't necessarily write or teach poems. The Poem-a-Day series sponsored by the Academy of American Poets is one of my favorite publications, a free, daily poetry venue where over 200 new/unpublished poems are debuted every year by contemporary poets. More and more often, these are poets I know personally or whose work I have read before, but the series has also introduced me to poets whose work I now seek out because of that initial poetic encounter in my inbox. Recent examples include Natalie Eilbert, Ken Chen, and Victoria Chang.

2. You’ve discovered a new planet. Name it after a poet: Why her/him?

The first living poet I ever read--though I didn't realize she was alive at the time, and sadly, she died shortly thereafter--was Denise Levertov. In 1996, my high school English teacher passed out a copy of Levertov's "In Mind" to all the students in the class. I volunteered to read it out loud, and the poem struck a deep and immediate chord with me. It sounded different from other poems I had read--different from the more formal and traditional verse I was used to reading. If I discovered a new planet, I'd name it "Taffeta" as a nod to Levertov and this pleasing word that appears in her poem.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=29544
In Mind by Denise Levertov
www.poetryfoundation.org

3. It’s dawn, birds cry loudly outside your window waking you up. You…

Rise and peer out the window. Listening is lovely, but I want also, and always, to see.

4. If a child asked you to write a poem for her/him, what is the first line?

Not long ago, I wrote a poem for my niece Evie called "Katabasis." The poem begins, "The melting snow has bleached the grasses blond."

5. What’s your favorite book store? When were you there last and why were you there?

Everywhere I've lived, I've fallen in love with a local bookstore--sometimes more than one: Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Bailey & Coy Books in Seattle, Village Books in Bellingham, Eclipse Books in Bellingham, Caliban Books in Pittsburgh, Carmichael's in Louisville, and most recently, Books and Books in Miami. But my first great bookstore love was the Twice Sold Tales at East John and Broadway on Seattle's Capitol Hill. In college in the late 1990s, my poet-friends and I would often drive from Tacoma to Seattle on Wednesday nights after workshop. Someone knew about the bookstore, which was open all night on Fridays, late on every other night, and which--in addition to used and rare books--was home to several, perhaps as many as seven or eight, truly exceptional cats. I never left that bookstore without buying a book. On every aisle there were colorful crates where a person (or cat) could perch. I did much perching there as I browsed and read. It was this bookstore that taught me my love of the dog-eared copy, of reading other readers' marginal notes. Some of my greatest finds include a copy of Lucille Clifton's Next, which she had autographed to a woman named Angie. Unbeknownst to me, I was only a couple years away from meeting a woman named Angie, a fellow poet who would become the great love of my life and eventually my spouse. In retrospect, the book feels like a prophecy: Angie was next on my own life's horizon! I also found a copy of Gary Snyder's Left Out in the Rain which--I promise this is true--had been left out in the rain. Of course I still have that book. Of course I still treasure its rumpled, water-warped pages. Twice Sold Tales still exists, though it has moved to a different location on Capitol Hill. I was last there in February 2014, with Angie and our friend Anna, who lived on the Hill at the time. We browsed the bookstore the week that Angie and I got married--I had brought her there many times in the past, so this place was part of our ritual--and since I always buy a book when I'm there, it seemed fitting on that occasion that I purchased a well-loved copy of The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich, which includes as its centerpiece "The Twenty-One Love Poems."

Julie Marie Wade is the author of Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Bywater Books, 2014; Colgate University Press, 2010), winner of the Colgate University Press Nonfiction Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir; Without: Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2010), selected for the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Series; Small Fires: Essays (Sarabande Books, 2011), selected for the Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature; Postage Due: Poems & Prose Poems (White Pine Press, 2013), winner of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series; Tremolo: An Essay (Bloom Books, 2013), selected by Bernard Cooper as the winner of the Bloom Nonfiction Chapbook Prize; When I Was Straight: Poems (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2014), selected for the American Library Association’s Over the Rainbow List; Catechism: A Love Story (Noctuary Press, 2016); and SIX: Poems, selected by C.D. Wright as the winner of the AROHO/To the Lighthouse Prize in Poetry. Her first collaborative work, The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose, is co-authored with Denise Duhamel and forthcoming in 2018 from Wild Patience Books.
She has received the Chicago Literary Award in Poetry, the Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, the Oscar Wilde Poetry Prize, the Literal Latte Nonfiction Award, two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prizes, an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, the American Literary Review Nonfiction Prize, the Arts & Letters Nonfiction Prize, the Thomas J. Hruska Nonfiction Prize, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for feminist literature, and eighteen Pushcart Prize nominations. Her poems and creative nonfiction appear or are forthcoming in Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Alaska Quarterly Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, The Bellingham Review, Blackbird, Bloom, Brevity, The Cincinnati Review, The Common, Denver Quarterly Diode, Dislocate, Fourth Genre, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, Harpur Palate, Hunger Mountain, Juked, The MacGuffin, The Kenyon Review, Literal Latte, The Los Angeles Review, Nimrod, Open 24 Hours, Pank, Passages North, Phoebe, PoemMemoirStory, Poet Lore, Quarter After Eight, Redivider, The Rumpus, Saint Ann’s Review, The Seattle Review, Seneca Review, So to Speak, StoryQuarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, Verse Daily, Water-Stone Review, Weave Magazine, and Zone 3.
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Wade completed a Master of Arts in English at Western Washington University in 2003, a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh in 2006, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Louisville in 2012. Wade teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University and reviews regularly for The Rumpus and Lambda Literary Review. She is married to Angie Griffin and lives in the Sunshine State.

Akor Emmanuel Oche

1. Do you belong to any poetry organizations? If you do, is it/are they beneficial? How?

Firstly, I do not believe a poets’ societal worth should be measured with how many poetry organizations he belongs to as a yardstick. While it is encouraged of every poet to keep in touch with the literature of the time by associating with other writers, I personally believe that in a country like mine, poetry organizations are only good for selling books. There is just too much politics in such places. What is truly beneficial to the writer is reading. Reading of contemporary works, classical works, trends. Developing his/her voice through infusion of each new discovery to literary creativity, and bless the 21st century, the internet is there to provide the major bulk of these. However, because in writing, valediction is important, fame is important, money is important, readership is important, association is important, because these reasons and many more are important if a poet wants to be recognized as one in Nigeria, I have chosen to belong to a few of such organizations. I actively belong to only one poetry organization; The Africa Haiku Network (publishers of the Mamba Journal) of which I serve as secretary. Aside from being an in-house member of AHN, the network which is online based, has helped developed my skills in the haiku genre, exposed me to new frontiers in the field and gave me an opportunity to help other writers across the continent. Apart from the AHN, I have a clique of random friends whom I share my poetry with for criticism and feedbacks.

2. You’ve discovered a new planet. Name it after a poet: Why her/him?

Ahhh tough question…. Thinking this question through in my head in a bid to resurrect a name has made me realize that I don’t actually have a favorite poet or a particular poet to whose work I return to so often, even though I have tons of poets whom I read and enjoy reading. But to name a poet after a planet? That will be something huge, I have many poets aside myself whom I feel are deserving of such honor, but two stand out, and they are my contemporaries, I will mention one and keep the other. Abeiku Arhin Tisiwah because he is one young poet with a lot of marvel. His depth is overwhelming, his dedication, even more. I have had the rare privilege of reading some of his unpublished collections, they are out of this world.

3. It’s dawn, birds cry loudly outside your window waking you up. You…

…yawns a bit and stretch my legs
‘til sheets cry for mercy// Upon these forgotten paths,
I Take a walk embracing
This golden sunshine//shimmering from deep within me,
singing along the whistling tune of sages gone
with ink for an alibi//on immaculate white sheets
oozing of long lost poetry.

4. If a child asked you to write a poem for her/him, what is the first line?

Once upon a time//somewhere near the hills//Into Ene’s ears
Oche whispered//these same words //that left him dead in the winds…

5. What’s your favorite book store? When were you there last and why were you there?

I usually do my book shopping online or get travelling friends to buy them for me when they go out of town. Unfortunately for a writer like myself, there are no suitable bookstores in the area where I live. Only multipurpose stores that sell books, which are mostly high school academic materials. The closest thing to a book store here, is the much ironical HERITAGE BOOKSHOPS which I do visit quite often to get fine art materials for my artworks. Last time I was there was to pick a copy of Niyi Osundare’s Village Voices (great book) and that was about all the poetry book they had in that store at the time of that visit, to say the least, the rest are religious books and academic materials. Too bad.

Akor Emmanuel Oche is a Nigerian poet, critic, essayist and thinker. His works have appeared in numerous journals and lit-mags across the world. He is a member of the editorial board of The Mamba Journal: Africa's first haiku journal, he also serves as Nigerian Ambassador for the Africa Haiku Network. Oche is a Regional Manager of Royallite Publisher Ltd. He loves the wild and believes that writing is first obligatory to the writers well-being before that of the world.

Austin Alexis

1. Do you belong to any poetry organizations? If you do, is it/are they beneficial? How?

I belong to The Poetry Society of America. The main benefit of membership is being able to submit work to the Society's competitions without paying a contest fee. Also, the Society publishes an informative newsletter and sends great bookmarks to its members.

2. You’ve discovered a new planet. Name it after a poet: Why her/him?

I would name a new planet after Emily Dickinson to show how I think of her poetry as universal and cosmic.

3. It’s dawn, birds cry loudly outside your window waking you up. You…

wonder if the birds are dead friends or relatives reincarnated.

4. If a child asked you to write a poem for her/him, what is the first line?

“I believe in Spring, its buds and flowers.”

5. What’s your favorite book store? When were you there last and why were you there?

My favorite book store is McNally Jackson Books on Prince Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. I was there exactly a week ago. I visited the store simply to browse and to discover a novel or two (or a short story collection) I might read this summer.

Austin Alexis is the author of Privacy Issues (Broadside Lotus Press, 2014), which received the 20th annual Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award for a first full-length collection. He is also the author of two previously published chapbooks from Poets Wear Prada: Lovers and Drag Queens (2007) and For Lincoln & Other Poems (2010). His poetry, short fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in Barrow Street, The Pedestal Magazine, The Journal, Home Planet News On-line, Ginosko Literary Journal,The Arts Cure, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems and other journals and anthologies, including the bilingual French/ English anthology Poets 4 Paris. His plays have been performed and/or read at Performance Space 122 and The Vineyard Theater in their "Field Festivals," at Theater for the New City, The Samuel French Short Plays Festival, the Henry Street Theater and elsewhere. Some of his performing arts reviews have been translated into Japanese. He attended Adelphi University, Queens College and the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University where he studied fiction writing with Mona Simpson, Lucy Rosenthal and Mary Morris, and took literature classes with Galway Kinnell, Mark Rudman, E.L. Doctorow, Dennis Donahue and others. At Queens College he studied poetry writing with Marie Ponsot. He studied play-writing with John Guare at the 92nd Street Y. He has taught academic, creative, developmental and ESL writing at several colleges, including Hunter College, Long Island University, Empire State College and John Jay College. He lives in Manhattan, where he visits art galleries, takes dance classes, haunts book stores, reads at open mics and as a featured reader (live and on the radio), and continues to write in a variety of genres.

July 2017

Bryan R. Monte

1. If you could whisper into the ear of a dead poet, whose ear would it be, and what would you whisper?

“Frank O’Hara, put that big, round head of yours, with its tired blue eyes, in my lap and let me tell you how much your poems have inspired me.”

2. You’re a part of a panel discussion, which includes your favorite contemporary poets. Who are they and what is the topic of discussion?

The poets are Richard Blanco, Bryan Borland, Carolyn Forché, Naomi Shihab Nye and Changming Yuan. The topic is: “The Political is the Personal.”

3. A trusted colleague tells you not to send a particular poem out for publication because it could be incendiary. What is the title of the poem?

"Lighting the Guy Fawkes’ Bonfire".

4. In what year did you write your first poem and what was your age?

1973; 15

5. David Lehman has asked you to guest edit Best American Poetry for 2018. What 10 literary magazines do you read to find the first 10 poets and poems to include?

If I were to exclude the South Florida Poetry Journal and my own Amsterdam Quarterly, then my top ten would include (in alphabetical order):

1. Assaracus
2. Bellevue Literary Review
3. The Georgia Review
4. The New Yorker
5. Pentimento
6. Poets & Writers
7. Poetry
8. Poetry Pacific
9. Rattle
10. ZYZZYVA

Bryan R. Monte is a cultural anthropologist, writer and editor. His forthcoming article on the religious and cultural exchanges of Ohio’s Quakers, "Shakers and Mormons in the 1830s" is due out this autumn in the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. In October 2017, he will present a paper on an intentional community as part of the Communal Studies Association’s annual conference at Zoar, Ohio. Later that month he will participate in a reading and/or panel at Western Michigan University on poetry and immigration. Monte’s poetry has appeared in Assaracus, Bay Windows, Friends Journal, Irreantum, the James White Review, Poetry Pacific, the South Florida Poetry Journal and Sunstone, and in the anthologies Gathered: Contemporary Quaker Poets (Sundress Press, 2013) and Immigration & Justice For Our Neighbors (Celery City Books, 2017). His March 2016 interview with Friends Journal can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPMOKG_nI2E. His book, On the Level: Thirty Poems about Multiple Sclerosis, is in search of a publisher. He edits Amsterdam Quarterly.

Gregg Shapiro

1. If you could whisper into the ear of a dead poet, whose ear would it be, and what would you whisper?

Frank O'Hara. Don't go to Fire Island. Provincetown is better.

2. You’re a part of a panel discussion which includes your favorite contemporary poets. Who are they and what is the topic of discussion?

Denise Duhamel, Kim Roberts, Dan Vera, Maureen Seaton, Julie Marie Wade, James Allen Hall - the role of the poet in Trump world.

3. A trusted colleague tells you not to send a particular poem out for publication because it could be incendiary. What is the title of the poem?

"How You Know You Are in Eastern Tennessee"

4. In what year did you write your first poem and what was your age?

I wrote my first real poem in the very early '80s. Age unknown.

5. Gregg passes on answering question 5.

Gregg Shapiro is the author of Fifty Degrees (Seven Kitchens, 2016), selected by Ching-In Chen as co-winner of the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. Other books by Shapiro include the short story collections How to Whistle (Lethe Press, 2016) and Lincoln Avenue (Squares and Rebels Press, 2014), the chapbook GREGG SHAPIRO: 77 (Souvenir Spoon Press, 2012), and the poetry collection Protection (Gival Press, 2008). An entertainment journalist, whose interviews and reviews run in a variety of regional LGBT and mainstream publications and websites, Shapiro lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his husband Rick and their dog k.d.

ACE BOGGESS

1. If you could whisper into the ear of a dead poet, whose ear would it be, and what would you whisper?

“Neruda. I’d probably say something like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m talking to Pablo Neruda. You’re so cool. Okay, you can go back to sleep now. Sorry to bother you.’”

2. You’re a part of a panel discussion which includes your favorite contemporary poets. Who are they and what is the topic of discussion?

“David Lehman, Bob Hicok, Natasha Saje, Jenn Givhan, Matthew Lippman, Kevin Young, Dick Allen … too many more. The unplanned topic probably would be ‘Hey, what’s THAT guy doing here?’ But, on the placard, it would say ‘Capturing Life: Poetry as Selfie.’”

3. A trusted colleague tells you not to send a particular poem out for publication because it could be incendiary. What is the title of the poem?

“‘Don’t Send This Poem Out Because It Could Be Incendiary’; or, alternately, ‘Go Fuck Yourself.’ In fact, I can see a whole sequence of poems titled ‘Go Fuck Yourself.’ You might have inspired me.

4. In what year did you write your first poem and what was your age?

“I don’t recall exactly. It would’ve been 1987 or 1988, with me 16 or 17. It wasn’t that big of a deal back then. I wanted to write rock songs instead. I can tell you when the first poem was published, though (I keep records): 1991.”

5. David Lehman has asked you to guest edit Best American Poetry for 2018, what 10 literary magazines do you read to find the first 10 poets and poems to include?

“Sneaky. Trying to get me in trouble with the hundreds of editors who’ve published me and the hundreds more that haven’t. Still, I’m game. The first three are easy. While I read a lot of journals (any I can get my hands on, really), there are only three that I consistently REREAD: Rattle, American Poetry Review, and The Bitter Oleander. Reading and rereading those three pretty much takes me through the whole spectrum of American poetry (as well as some great not-American poetry). After that, I’d jump ship and go to the web. There are so many great journals online right now. Glass and Tinderbox, especially, are doing some incredible things. That’d be 4 and 5. I’m a fan of so many e-zines, really. Too many to remember. Let’s say Noble Gas / Qtrly at 6 and, for 7, The Cortland Review. Then, I might go to the print journals that actually appear often on local shelves: Alaska Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, and Mid-American Review. That’s 10. At least, I think that’s 10. God, I’m glad I don’t have to make those kinds of decisions. I’d choose 75 poems by the end of January and spend the rest of the year cussing and shouting ‘What the hell do I do now?’ Of course, that’s never a bad question for a poet to ask.”

Ace Boggess is author of the novel A Song Without a Melody (Hyperborea Publishing, 2016) and two books of poetry, most recently, The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014). Forthcoming is a third poetry collection: Ultra Deep Field (Brick Road). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

June 2017

ALAN CATLIN

1. You’ve fallen into a rabbit hole and meet a strange character dressed for a masquerade - she/he is reciting a poem. Hurry, give us a few lines of that poem before the stranger disappears:

   In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
   A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

As the glimpse was so brief, and the words came so quickly, I can only conclude that the creature was the Monty Python Trojan Rabbit Man from Porlock

2. If you had to pinpoint one theme, topic, or image that seems to run throughout your work, what would it be?

I have so many themes it is almost impossible to answer this question. I guess for me all it would be: In art there is a fine line between creativity and madness and it is the writer’s job to find beauty where there is none.

3. Pen or keyboard? Why?

Both. I write all poems longhand in pen and revise them when I type them onto the computer. Why? Because it forces me to revise three times. I don’t like revising and I’m not good at finding common mistakes. I’m good at revising other people’s work, though, which can be annoying to other people. I do an online poetry magazine and I take the job seriously and literally. I will offer suggestions, and they remain Only suggestions, if I think a piece would be improved by making some changes. Most people appreciate the effort. Some people think I am the devil’s spawn. When asked the Revision Question, with regard to my own poems, I can honestly say that most poems are revised in my mind before they are written. I have a general theme when I begin (or an image), though not necessarily the resolution in mind, before I begin. While composing, the means (of the poem/words) are dictated by the process (interior logic of the piece). Of course, there are poems that are hopeless failures and no amount of revision can save them. Leaving a piece for a long period of time makes it new when you reread it with revision in mind. The good ones, anyway. I write All prose directly into the computer. Prose undergoes more rigorous revision process as the scope of a prose piece, even a review, is far more difficult, as in less clear, than with a poem. Also time is a factor. And legibility. My handwriting is bad. Notoriously so.

4. If you had to write a persona poem today, in whose voice would it be?

I consider myself chiefly a narrative poet. That said, I have written hundreds of different persona poems. Different voices that is. Maybe thousands. Almost schizophrenically so. Which runs in the family. Narratives and schizophrenia that is. I have several standard voices I can recreate at a moment’s notice: the cynical over-educated hard-hearted bartender, the cynical clear-eyed Vietnam veteran, the mad woman in the attic, the macho-narcissist God’s-gift-to-women, the seen-it-all done-it-all and is not-impressed-by-anything veteran waitress and her naïve-airhead sidekick, the resident bar drunk, the short-sighted clueless micro-manager and on and on. Pick one and I’ll write you a poem.

5. Do you workshop your poetry with colleagues or friends?

No. I have done but I do not feel the need for it any longer. I have a plan.

Alan Catlin is a retired barman, an “unchosen” profession he credits with improving his narrative skills. There is nothing like a captive audience of regular customers you can practice your material on and steal stories from. In the course of that career he had run a college bar, was in restaurant management, a profession slightly more rewarding than being a professional organ donor, run a top-10 rated restaurant/ nightclub bar that did over a million dollars in business during his tenure in the late 70’s, and a mercenary (bartender for hire). He considers his career as penance for what he was like in college. Graduate school doesn’t count. Over the course of his writing career he was the “we’re not used to our bartender’s being educated” voice in the small press wilderness racking up thousands of publication credits, over 65 chapbooks and full length books of prose and poetry. He is the most recent winner of the Slipstream Annual Chapbook Award for his book Blue Velvet, which officially makes him almost as weird as David Lynch. His most recent full length books are Walking Among Tombstones in the Fog from Presa Press, American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press and Last Man Standing from Lummox Press. He is the poetry editor of misfitmagazine.net
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Laurel S. Peterson

1. You’ve fallen into a rabbit hole and meet a strange character dressed for a masquerade - she/he is reciting a poem. Hurry, give us a few lines of that poem before the stranger disappears:

Oh, so you think
you have something to say?
No way.
You’re a girl.
Dress as a boy,
employ your wits to fit
in the world as it is.
Stop trying to change things,
you silly flit.
You know boys have all the fun.

Hmmm. Where did that come from?? I never employ rhyme, and strangely, the character had orange hair.

2. If you had to pinpoint one theme, topic, or image that seems to run throughout your work, what would it be?

The situation of women in the world: the ways in which the church, political institutions, marriage, parents, friends all transmit cultural expectations for women and respond when those norms are transgressed. For example, in my most recent collection of poems, Do You Expect Your Art To Answer?, the poems at the beginning deal with a woman getting divorced, a black woman who is expected to serve, a girl-child who is molested, women wearing chadri, and so on. Earlier collections deal with these topics more personally, but the older I get, the more I am horrified on a societal level. While my poems still draw on personal pain, I am also trying to channel what I hear and see from others to present a broader, more global sense of pain.

3. Pen or keyboard? Why?

Pen. Aren’t there all sorts of studies out there right now that claim that handwriting things makes for better thinking and retention? (Like here, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?_r=0)
So, that. And habit. And my journal is often the place where a poem starts, and that’s handwritten. I stare at a computer too much as it is: the computer is more about moving things around easily or deleting. I still print drafts out and make changes on the printed copy. Plus, I like to use pretty color pens, and I like the physical feel of pen and paper. It’s a sensuous experience in the way that the computer is (definitely) not. Because our culture is so involved at present at filtering things through technology, the direct experience of the world seems important in a way it hasn’t in the past.

4.If you had to write a persona poem today, in whose voice would it be?

Charlene’s. Several years ago a student in one of my creative writing classes showed up talking about how she was going to meet in person that night a guy she’d met online. He was coming in from Queens on the train, but she wasn’t sure she was going to measure up because he had all these beautiful women in his friends list. She landed in a poem. (This is a warning to everyone in my life: It could happen to you.) Charlene was not her name, but the name I created for her. Then, Charlene started appearing in other poems, usually as my bad girl. There’s a collection in her somewhere, in process.

5. Do you workshop your poetry with colleagues or friends?

My husband is a writer, so he see my work first. We have a small writing group, but I’m working on my second novel with them. I’m more confident about my poetry, but perhaps that’s not a good thing. A lot of times, the benefit of workshopping is hearing my own inner voice reinforced or challenged: something that I thought I had done right didn’t hit the best emotional note, or something that I was struggling with had succeeded. That reinforcement is useful to me.

Laurel S. Peterson is a community college English professor. She has written a column for Gannett Suburban Newspapers on local history and served as editor of the literary journal Inkwell. Her poetry has been published in many small literary journals. In 2006, she was a finalist for the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry for her manuscript Mud Never Forgets. She has published two poetry chapbooks, That’s the Way the Music Sounds (Finishing Line Press, 2009) and Talking to the Mirror (The Last Automat Press, 2010). She also co-edited a collection of essays on women’s justice titled (Re)Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women’s Experience (2009). She has written a mystery novel, Shadow Notes (Barking Rain Press, 2016) and a full length collection of poetry, Do You Expect Your Art to Answer? (Futurecycle Press, 2017). She is currently serving as the town of Norwalk, Connecticut’s poet laureate.

Ariel Francisco

1. You’ve fallen into a rabbit hole and meet a strange character dressed for a masquerade - she/he is reciting a poem. Hurry, give us a few lines of that poem before the stranger disappears:

In the jungle you must wait
until the dice rolls five or eight
and if I die before I wake
I pray that all my toys should break

2. If you had to pinpoint one theme, topic, or image that seems to run throughout your work, what would it be?

Being broke I guess. Coping with the myth of the American Dream.

3. Pen or keyboard? Why?

Definitely both. I go between one and the other, sometimes writing out something I typed or the other way around. The change in medium can make certain words/sounds etc standout. I find this is really helpful for revision and making edits.

4. If you had to write a persona poem today, in whose voice would it be?

I’m not sure. Maybe Seymour Glass, who is a character in J.D. Salinger’s short stories. He’s always been really interesting to me and was actually a poet as well...

5. Do you workshop your poetry with colleagues or friends?

Now that I’m down with school, I have about four poet-friends who I can share my work with for feedback. But I usually wait until I think a poem is done. I typically don’t workshop things that are clearly in progress, even during grad school workshops (not that I didn’t have questions about my writing of course). It’s important to be able to scrutinize your own work, and valuable to be able to recognize when you’ve written something good. So, I bring something to workshop or I ask a friend to look at it and either: a. it is good and I’ve been able to accurately assess that or b. it isn’t good/still needs work, and I can not only improve it but also improve the way I look at my own writing and recognize what I missed before it was workshopped.

Ariel Francisco is the author of All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017) and Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press, 2016). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he completed his MFA at Florida International University in Miami. His poems have appeared in The Academy of American Poets, The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2016, Gulf Coast, Washington Square, and elsewhere. He lives in South Florida (for now).

May 2017

Molly Peacock

1. Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize in Literature last year, which according to the New York Times, “dramatically redefined the boundaries of literature”. Agree or disagree? Please explain.

How giving a white man who wrote a song renowned for its sexism dramatically redefines the boundaries of literature is beyond me. Perhaps the Times reporter meant song lyrics redefining poetry? Lyrics never exist without their music. You can quote lyrics as poetry, but to call them poetry only always incites questions. Such a discussion has to contend with the fact that a poem contains its own music. I don’t have any objection to lyrics being given a Nobel Prize, except this: it avoids the committee having to contend with the density of poetry by splendid poets who might not be widely known—but would be, if given such a prize.

2. John Lennon once said “Avant Garde is French for Bullshit”. Agree or Disagree? Please explain as it pertains to poetry.

Agree! The self-aggrandizement of the Avant Garde always makes me long for modesty. Let’s be Derriere Garde.

If poetry is a meal, what is on the table tonight? Appetizer, main course, dessert, drink(s), side dishes?

Let’s begin with an appetizer of ink, Mark Strand’s poem, “Eating Poetry,” where he tells us that “Ink runs from the corners of my mouth./ There is no happiness like mine./ I have been eating poetry.”
Perhaps fish for the main course? We could eat Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Fish,” but after she describes it so lovingly, so humanely—looking “into his eyes/ which were far larger than mine/ but shallower, and yellowed,/ the irises backed and packed/ with tarnished tinfoil/ seen through the lenses/ of old scratched isinglass,” –she lets the fish go.
Instead, our main course will be from a poet whom Bishop adored, George Herbert. He ends his poem “Love III” with the main course most of us hope for in a carnivore’s terms of love. “You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:/ So I did sit and eat.”
I’m saucing the sacred with the sexual for our main course. For dessert, Marianne Moore serves up a bowl of backyard strawberries (no tasteless perfectly-shaped Driscolls for her) and cherries from her poem, “Nevertheless,” that begins, “You’ve seen a strawberry/ that’s had a struggle,” and ends with the question, “What sap/ went through that tiny thread/to make the cherry red?” My answer for that? The energy (and fortitude) of poetry.
Plus, a cautionary sidedish from Emily Dickinson that you might consider refusing: “Fame is a fickle food/upon a shifting plate.” Since the fickle food turns out to be poison, maybe leave that plate untouched?

What betrays a flawed poem?

I believe each poem is a hand-made object. We value the hand-made for its flaws. In teaching myself to write sonnets, I realized I could never write a perfect one. Knowing each one would be flawed released me from a relentless drive for perfection. Instead, I found shapeliness. As far as betraying a poem goes, usually it’s when the poet glances at the reader, nervously wondering if she’ll meet the reader’s expectations.

The poem's title is "The Man Who Slept on Roofs", what is it about? (Aside from a man who sleeps on roofs!)

Don’t you mean “The Woman Who Slept on Roofs?” The poem is about a cat who gingerly steps around a dreaming woman on a rooftop. The woman rises, wonders how she got up on the roof, goes down into the house to begin her tasks, but all day long sees from the corner of her eye flashes of a cat’s eyes, or round the door a quick dash of a tail, then feels the brush of feline ears at the backs of her calves. Her dream, unremembered, becomes viscerally present in brief, animal reminders. That feels like poetry to me.

Molly Peacock is the author of The Analyst, a collection of poems that tell the story of a decades-long patient-therapist relationship that reverses and continues to evolve after the analyst’s stroke and reclamation of her life through painting. Peacock's other volumes of poetry include The Second Blush and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems. Passionate about bringing poetry to a wider public, she helped create Poetry in Motion on New York City’s subways and buses and inaugurated The Best Canadian Poetry series. Molly Peacock is also the author of the noted biography The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72, named a Book of the Year by The Economist, The Globe and Mail, Booklist, The London Evening Standard, The Irish Times, and The Sunday Telegraph. A fellow of the Danforth, Ingram Merrill, and Woodrow Wilson Foundations, as well as the Leon Levy Center for Biography, recipient of grants from both the NEA and the Canada Council, Peacock also wrote and performed “The Shimmering Verge,” a one-woman theatre piece in poems. One of the subjects of the documentary A Life Outside Convention about women’s choices not to have children, she is married to the James Joyce scholar Michael Groden. They are based in Toronto and New York. Visit her at www.mollypeacock.org

Gregg Dotoli

1. Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize in Literature last year, which according to the New York Times, “dramatically redefined the boundaries of literature”. Agree or disagree? Please explain.

I disagree, one decision about a Pulitzer Prize doesn't redefine the boundaries of literature. His work is verify poetic and hard core critics always have something to whine about. It's a matter of semantics, the NY Times is dramatic.
The guy's a genius with words and put those words to music. I studied "Mr. Tambourine Man" in college. It was sitting in a text book, back in 1981. So back then, editors of that English Journal saw Dylan as a poet.

2. John Lennon once said “Avant Garde is French for Bullshit”. Agree or Disagree? Please explain as it pertains to poetry.

For me, the core of my poetry is experimenting, I don't follow any school, but have many catalysts for my poetry. I'll sometimes just put on a great song, that gets my mind thinking about the music and the music leads to phrases that become my poem. I usually finish the poem within 30 minutes or so. Then I send it out to the publishers. So far, I've been writing almost all my poems by experimenting. I think John Lennon was just trying to be cool.

If poetry is a meal, what is on the table tonight? Appetizer, main course, dessert, drink(s), side dishes?

The meal is alphabet soup, T-bone steak with A1 sauce. Some Tea to drink along with Hi-C for dessert.

What betrays a flawed poem?

As beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, all is relative, if if touches anyone it works. A flaw to one, is an internal smile to another. We have become jailed by protocol and too many martinets think they're important babbling about their silly word laws.

The poem's title is "The Man Who Slept on Roofs", what is it about? (Aside from a man who sleeps on roofs!)

It's about a roofer who loved his occupation so much, he secretly began to
spend more time on roofs. They became his drug, this obsession ruined his life, and he hit asphalt bottom. He married the stars and his best man was that Man on the Moon.

Gregg Dotoli began writing poems three years ago, he is in more than 30 Periodicals, text books and anthologies. Some of his work is in International Times, The Journal, Underground Books, Metaphor, Quail Bell magazine, Taj Mahal, Down in the Dirt, Mad Swirl, Subterranean Blue, Shabdaguchha and others.
He is a Senior Architect in Cyber Security, planning, building and implementing security controls across organizations.

Allison Stone

1. Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize in Literature last year, which according to the New York Times, “dramatically redefined the boundaries of literature”. Agree or disagree? Please explain.

Disagree. Literature (especially poetry) and music have always been connected. This just brought that connection to the public’s attention.

2. John Lennon once said “Avant Garde is French for Bullshit”. Agree or Disagree? Please explain as it pertains to poetry.

The “Avant Garde” label can be a cloak for bullshit to hide behind. Anyone who questions its merit is seen as too Philistine to understand. On the other hand, the most important works were often seen as Avant Garde at the time (meaning a huge departure from the expected, a breaking of cultural norms); even if they weren’t given that label. Robert Lowell was shocking at the time; so was “Howl.” Emily Dickinson was condescended to, but her poems were certainly Avante Garde.

3. If poetry is a meal, what is on the table tonight? Appetizer, main course, dessert, drink(s), side dishes?

Word play is the appetizer. The main course is heart and soul, with a tall glass of music. For dessert, poetic leaps into the next plane.

What betrays a flawed poem?

It sounds “wrong,” like a piano out of tune. Clichés are giveaways as well.

The poem's title is "The Man Who Slept on Roofs", what is it about? (Aside from a man who sleeps on roofs!)

Someone who couldn’t bear to be separated from the sky.

Alison Stone has published five poetry collections, including Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin award. She is also a painter and the creator of The Stone Tarot. A licensed psychotherapist, she has private practices in NYC and Nyack. She is currently editing an anthology of poems on the Persephone/Demeter myth. www.stonepoetry.org www.stonetarot.com

APRIL 2017

Cara Nusinov

Do you use writing prompts? Can you share one with us if you do?

Not only do I appreciate and sometimes use writing prompts; I create them for others as a poetry therapy practitioner and for my Poetry Buffet Parties. Participants receive starters and motivation to jot what is chattering around their brains. They’ve had continued success. Many of the prompts I use are my own observations, particularly from nature and people watching. My new blog will offer some of my prompts, by request of participants who have attended my workshops.
Here is one:

Springtime! Next time there is a full moon, spring into action and go look at the moon. Write, describe your thoughts in observation. Try words that begin with these letters: F U L L M O O N. Use your words in a poem or prose piece. If you need a first line begin with: Dear friend how many full moons have I (you fill in this blank)?
Remember, prompts elicit a start in writing. You can change the prompt to suit you.

Do you subscribe, or have you subscribed to literary magazines, and if so, which one(s)? If not, which poetry journals do you admire most?

Yes. A few are, Writer’s Digest, Poetry, Tiferet Journal, The Writer’s Chronicle.

Sadly, your new poem needs surgery. You’re the poetry doctor. What needs to be removed?

Thomas Lux always reminded us to trust ourselves. I remember in one workshop he emphasized incorrect punctuation: “Punctuation: use it fully or not at all. Inconsistency looks like a mistake. It is a tool for precision. You don’t have to be a pedantic grammarian.”

Is there a trusted friend with whom you share your poetry as you write it or just after you’ve written the first draft?

Through the years I have managed to click with three critique groups, one for twenty-five years. I recommend all writers find someone to share with. I usually use the energy that comes as I write to complete the work, the first draft, alone, and then share with one of the groups.

Some poets submit work only to print journals. Where do you stand--online or print? Both? Please explain.

Online is very exciting, easy and lightning quick, but there is nothing like holding a real book and seeing new poems in print, as I like stimulating as many senses as possible. I’m onboard for both.

Cara Nusinov is a collage artist, poet, teacher, leisure photographer, Co-Director/founder of the Poetry Buffet Party, is a Poetry Therapy Practitioner, with the International Academy For Poetry Therapy, (iAPOETRY,) NY, NY, is Laughter Yoga Leader Certified. She has read poetry on NPR, and other venues. She originated the traveling Polka Dot Poetry Peacock sculpture/anthology, and conducts The Writer Within Me Salons, where she prompts new and seasoned writers to write all about it, as she peddles poetry. Nusinov enjoyed time as a poetry columnist and reporter. She is the author of Unrequited Loves and Other French Kisses. She is the mother of two, and is a doting grandma. Contact her on Facebook and she will be happy to “talk” to you

Paul David Adkins

Do you use writing prompts? Can you share one with us if you do?

The last writing prompt I used was a general call for submissions from Joanna C. Valente and Yes, Poetry, entitled “#NotTrump Series”. I was struggling with producing poems for a chapbook on 9/11 conspiracy theories, and I thought addressing the Conspiracy-Theorist-in Chief might be apropos as subject matter. Usually my prompts are simply stimuli evoked from memory + inspiration + interesting subject matter. I mean, I’m not inspired by certain subject matter so as to compose poems about it. I may enjoy hiking, but I have no interest in writing about the fauna and flora of the Adirondacks. However, reading a book about U-Boats, that’s a different story. For me, prompts feed directly into whichever subject I am obsessing over at the time.

Do you subscribe, or have you subscribed to literary magazines, and if so, which one(s)? If not, which poetry journals do you admire most?

I have subscribed to poetry journals in the past, but not many. I do, however, greatly admire Gazing Grain, So To Speak, Luna Luna, Crab Creek Review, River Styx, and Beloit Poetry Journal.

Sadly, your new poem needs surgery. You’re the poetry doctor. What needs to be removed?

I try to remove all references to non-concrete imagery: vague feelings, and the like. For me, personally, referring to “the mind,” “the heart,” things which I consider uninteresting and cliché, cheapen the writing and immediately must be expunged for more visceral, solid items.

Is there a trusted friend with whom you share your poetry as you write it or just after you’ve written the first draft?

I have used professional editors in the past, though the cost is generally prohibitive. So, no, I don’t share the work on an editorial level with anyone outside of my wife. I usually edit extensively while I compose, so very often the first draft has been changed a dozen times before I stop composing it, allowing it to cool overnight. The next morning, I admire it, polish it, buff off the burrs and remaining roughness and, if I’m satisfied, I submit it. I’m not of the opinion that I need to wait to submit. I feel a sense of urgency while writing, that the poem has something important to say, so, when it’s ready, it’s in someone’s box.

Some poets submit work only to print journals. Where do you stand- online or print? Both? Please explain.

I am not selective. The places I want to submit to, generally, are based on an editor I want to contact, an audience I want to reach. Publishing, in general, can be difficult when you are competing against peers who might be more attuned to work published or editorial tastes in a specific site. But I eventually learn who can be trusted to read my work fairly, in either print on digital formats, and I submit regularly to them.

Paul David Adkins lives in NY and works as a counselor. Lit Riot Press has published his three full-length collections La Dona, La Llorona, Flying Over Baghdad with Sylvia Plath, and Operational Terms and Graphics.

Elizabeth Upshur

Do you use writing prompts? Can you share one with us if you do?

I have a love hate relationship with writing prompts. There have been some pretty terrible prompts in my writing career, and I’m starting to have this revelation that part of what makes a prompt is bad if you don’t have the life experience to resonate with it, because some prompts can generate some potentially amazing things. I remember a high school prompt on what life would be like if all the clocks stop working, and then it meant nothing to me, like I didn’t even do the prompt, actually refused to do it because I thought it was so stupid. Got hauled into front of the principal and everything. Most badass thing nerdy little me ever did. But now I think of Toni Morrison’s magical realism, Salvador Dali paintings, or the crazy visuals of Alice and Wonderland and time has opened up so many avenues for that prompt to take me places. I like to play with forms more than with prompts. Or mixing a prompt with a form so that I get something and then go from there to edit it into whatever it wants. Sometimes you have to be esoteric, like, “poem, what do you want to be”? For example, I tried a Shadorma using Aaliyah titles that turned out really funny and dialectal. I also discovered the Bop, which is a political question and answer poetic form, and the Haiban, which is a prose stanza/poem and then a haiku stanza. So those are on my list to do this week. Wish me luck because counting syllabics at 2 a.m. during my poetry writing time is really hard. I keep thinking I’ve hit this perfect haiku and then the second line is actually eight stanzas and then I just want to burn my laptop.

Do you subscribe, or have you subscribed to literary magazines, and if so, which one(s)? If not, which poetry journals do you admire most?

That is one of the worst things about being a poor-ish graduate student, not enough money for all the literary subscriptions that I want! I don’t subscribe to as many as I want. I mean, going to AWP is simultaneously the worst and best weekend of my spring semester getting all these copies and subscribing for discounted rates. Mmm. My department gets Poets & Writers, Poetry, and a couple regional ones like Zone 3 that I used to read for when I was in undergraduate. I subscribed to Rattle, and I keep up with a couple undergraduate journals in colleges around me so that I can give my mentees advice on which journals to submit to as they cut their teeth.

Sadly, your new poem needs surgery. You’re the poetry doctor. What needs to be removed?

Nurse, scalpel, we need to remove the title stat. Perfect. Now perform a small ectomy of that extraneous penultimate stanza, and a little lysis on the words, let’s use some white space and let those words breathe. No, but seriously, about 50 percent of the time my titles are complete crap! It is a starting point that I typically abandon. Sometimes the last lines drag out and the poem actually finishes up a few lines before I realize it. One of my professors used to “cut” my “ands” and that made me realize how dependent I am it so that is another place I trip over. Repetition can be tricky, I’ve always operated on threes because that has a good flow for me, so two seems like bad repetition.

Is there a trusted friend with whom you share your poetry as you write it or just after you’ve written the first draft?

I don’t mind showing my cohort a first draft if we’ve workshopped before, but I definitely preface it with, here is this steaming garbage, don’t throw me out the window for being sentimental and there may be a forced rhyme in there somewhere. But cohort sees you in pajamas and dressed up for presentations, so they are basically functioning at the level of family for a few years. My friend and fellow poet/memoirist Regan is that one trusted friend. She is one of the best student editors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with., but I was nervous about asking her. I mean, asking a friend to look at your work is kinda like when you want to ask a friend you’re 72 percent sure has a crush on you if they do, you really can’t come back from that if your styles don’t mesh and one of you gets their feelings hurt if you didn’t take their advice or the advice actually did hurt the poem or if you weren’t open to trying new things because hey, sometimes you get two radically different poems from the suggestions of a workshop based on the allusions that people read from it and want you to follow up on. My friend Regan and I work together so well that we’re planning on collaborating on a chapbook this summer. But I mean, I think she’s the exception. I think the key to showing first drafts is that there has to be potential there, or a burning question of how do I make x work, because I’ve seen you do it?

Some poets submit work only to print journals. Where do you stand- online or print? Both? Please explain.

I submit to both. And I gotta tell you, I realized I’m a little, I guess literaryist? because the online rejections hurt so much worse than the print ones! But the situation’s a lot more nuanced than that! I think it goes back to that whole e-book versus hardcopy book debate that we’re having in the literary community right now. Like, what is worthy of respect and what isn’t. I feel elitist saying that print is better than online journals. But I like to equate it to how Buffy could only have crazy stuff like giants and universes exploding and centaurs when it moved into the comic book format after s7. So I think that there is so much more that online journals can do, crazy stuff like comics or with layered, interactive work so I think it could definitely become like film/tv, both equal in their own right. I mean, I see my generation of poets submitting to both but there is definitely a sense of pride to having something physical to show to family and demonstrate that you’re a form of success in “just writing”. Ugh, I don’t know! I submit to both, and if I think if I do something crazy I’m not at the point in my career where an established journal would print it, but an online one has the capacity and probably the willingness to try new things.

Elizabeth Upshur is a first year Creative Writing MFA student at Western Kentucky University. WKU's program is in its second cycle, and we are very excited to be creating a name for ourselves as
the first crop of writers. She has work published/forthcoming in Red Mud Review, Perceptions, Roundtable Literary Review and Lost River. I have interned with two presses, Zone3 at Austin Peay State University and, most recently, Steel Toe Books press at WKU. I have attended the past three AWPs and am still going through my haul and can't wait for the next one in Tampa.

March 2017

Norman Minnick

1. Have you ever written a poem that changed you? Tell us about the poem and the changes.

I don’t mean to sound disingenuous, but every poem changes me in some way. Not always for the better. My good poems are becoming better while my bad ones are becoming much worse. I don’t know if this means growth, and if it does, I am unsure which direction that growth extends. I have a poem in my collection Folly entitled, “In the Parking Lot of the Dry Cleaners.” I was giving a reading in Maine, and after reciting this poem, a poet named Aracelis Girmay came up to me to express her appreciation for the poem and said she was envious that I was able to use ‘pre-come’ in a poem. That experience changed me. It reminds me to trust my inherent tendencies and not to restrain myself in my poetry and the performance of my poetry.

2. Name a poet who could be your brother or sister. Please explain.

As far as I am aware, my mother has always been loyal to my father, although Maurice Manning, also from Kentucky, bears a striking resemblance to the maintenance man of our apartment complex where I grew up. I’m just fooling around, but he is a poet I greatly admire and one of only a handful of poets my age whose new poems I look forward to.

3. In the afterlife, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are at the bar, arguing again. What are they arguing about, and whose side are you on? Why?

I don’t recall them arguing much. Most readers (if there are any left) of Pound’s letters must surely be disappointed to find that the majority of the time, he was concerned and fretting about Eliot’s financial situation. I’m on Pound’s side of course. The early Pound, that is. He was, after all, il miglior fabbro. In addition to championing their work, he was always looking out for other poets’ and artists’ well-being. Poets don’t do this today. They tend to be stingy with their small allotment of success and are afraid to share any of that for fear that it be taken away as if it were some kind of Byronic superstition.
Eliot and Pound often agreed that the United States were culturally depraved. They might be looking down upon us with exasperation since things have not changed or have only gotten worse. But, like Pound especially, I am one part naïve and one part suspicious about the state of the intellectual and artistic awareness of American society.

4. In Zen, a monk on the verge of death might write a "death poem." Have you written about your own death? If not, could you? What are the risks and merits of this kind of poem?

I have a poem called “Death Sentences” in my impending collection. Now that I think about it, I covered just about everything but my own death. I shall take this as an assignment.
Occasionally I write epitaphs for myself. (No one else will do it!) I hope to have a folder full of them, which, if anyone notices, will be duly considered for the shredder along with a pile of unpaid bills.

5. Please critique the following poem by “anonymous”. Comment, cut, change, rearrange as you see fit, but it must not be more than 12 lines. (It doesn’t have to make much sense after your editing)!

The Faraday Cage by Anonymous

When I remarked your electricity I didn’t mean fuse
box relays, finger gauge copper, or meter wheels
spinning like music box ballerinas, or beaver skin
kites of Ben Franklin with infinite ribbon tails of
brass skeleton keys jangling like vertebrae of Day
of the Dead puppets, or the anonymous force of
Mary Shelly and H.G. Wells surreptitiously rubbed
together, or Old Sparky with his worn leather straps,
his metal skull cap smoking behind the rainbow
curtains of fugitive northern lights, but the money
shots of clouds’ awkward assignations, the blue
static effluent of colliding phantom souls.

You lost me at Ben Franklin’s beaver skin kites. The synonyms strewn together become more banal as they wear on. You are flogging a horse that is not quite dead, which is worse than flogging a dead horse. Stop it! before it stops twitching. Besides, call me pedantic, but I am more interested in the ‘I’ at the beginning than the fireworks that come after. I am more intrigued by the (potential) human tensions and frustrations and misunderstandings. Show us how the misunderstanding ignited. Let us feel the tension that followed. But do not tell us the outcome. Why did you make the remark about my electricity? (You are talking to me, right? –– [hint] change the second-person viewpoint.) Bring the personal element into focus at the beginning, then your reader may forgive a few of the clichéd moments that ensue. Probably not; but that is no matter. You’ll hopefully become more interested in the reasons why you remark on this person’s “electricity” and how it came out wrong and the rest will become as vague and uninteresting as colliding phantom souls.

Norman “Buzz” Minnick came of age in the 1980’s punk scene of Louisville, Kentucky and is the front man for the influential hardcore band, Bush League. His collections of poetry are To Taste the Water and Folly. Minnick is the editor of Between Water and Song: New Poets for the Twenty-First Century as well as Jim Watt’s landmark study of William Blake, Work Toward Knowing: Beginning with Blake. For more information, visit www.buzzminnick.com

J.S. WATTS

1. Have you ever written a poem that changed you? Tell us about the poem and the changes.

I think every poem I have written has changed me a little, if the poem is worth its words, that is. Each poem allows me to explore and externalise feelings, thoughts and concepts, and/or look at things in a different way, as well as challenge and develop my relationship with language. Every time I write (I hope) I grow as a writer. Practice may not make perfect, but I believe it does lead to improvement.

2. Name a poet who could be your brother or sister. Please explain.

This is probably the wrong question to ask me. I’m an only child and therefore have deeply engrained problems envisaging anyone as my brother or sister, regardless of whether or not they are a poet. That’s just me, I guess. If by the question, you mean which poets do I feel are closest to my way of writing, then I’m still going to struggle to answer the question. I’ve read individual poems that have articulated my view of the world. Off the top of my head I can think of one written by Rochelle Lynn-Holt I read many years ago that felt like my words in another’s mouth. So much so, in fact, that I wrote a poem in response to it. I can’t, however, think of any other poet whose words consistently mirror mine (or mine theirs). There are many contemporary poets I should like to write like, but, to my chagrin, I am well below their standard and command of language. Poets in this category include: Alice Oswald, Sarah Howe and Helen Mort. I am not worthy, but I should love to have their skill with words.

3. In the afterlife, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are at the bar, arguing again. What are they arguing about, and whose side are you on? Why?

As Pound’s involved, I have no idea what they are arguing about and I suspect, neither do they. Whatever it is, I am probably on Eliot’s side simply because I have always admired his poetry, whereas I have invariably felt alienated by Pound’s. Eliot, though an American, had an English poetic sensitivity which resonates with me. I find Pound’s poetry very strange and not always comprehensible. I have copies of Eliot’s work in my bookcase. All are well-thumbed. Through choice, I don’t have anything of Pound’s except in anthologies.

4. In Zen, a monk on the verge of death might write a "death poem." Have you written about your own death? If not, could you? What are the risks and merits of this kind of poem?

I have explored my death, or aspects of it, in a number of poems. The new poetry collection I am currently working on has much to do with life’s progress and transition. At this stage I am (I hope) envisaging a death that is still a little way away (although you never know). As with all poetry, these poems allow me to explore and externalise my feelings and thoughts on the matter and to consider things from different angles. As far as I am concerned, that’s a merit. I can’t personally see any risks with this kind of poem, at least, not for me. My father was an undertaker, so death has always been a fact of life, as far as I am concerned. That doesn’t make my own demise any less daunting, but I acknowledge the truth of it. Maybe, if death is not yet a reality for a person, this type of poem might open a can of worms, but I’m not convinced. I see it as the poet’s role to examine all aspects of life with eyes wide open and unflinching and that includes death, theirs as well as universal mortality.

5. Please critique the following poem by “anonymous”. Comment, cut, change, rearrange as you see fit, but it must not be more than 12 lines. (It doesn’t have to make much sense after your editing)!

The Faraday Cage by Anonymous

When I remarked your electricity I didn’t mean fuse
box relays, finger gauge copper, or meter wheels
spinning like music box ballerinas, or beaver skin
kites of Ben Franklin with infinite ribbon tails of
brass skeleton keys jangling like vertebrae of Day
of the Dead puppets, or the anonymous force of
Mary Shelly and H.G. Wells surreptitiously rubbed
together, or Old Sparky with his worn leather straps,
his metal skull cap smoking behind the rainbow
curtains of fugitive northern lights, but the money
shots of clouds’ awkward assignations, the blue
static effluent of colliding phantom souls.

Out of The Cage

I was marked by your electricity,
relays, copper, meter, wheels
like music box ballerinas
with infinite ribbon tails,
brass skeletons jangling,
anonymous dead,
surreptitious.
Old Sparky
metal skull smoking behind the rainbow.
Curtains. Fugitive northern lights
shoot cloud assignations,
blue static colliding souls.

J.S.Watts is a UK poet and novelist. She was born in London and now lives and writes near Cambridge in East Anglia. In between, she read English at Somerville College, Oxford and spent many years working in the British education sector. Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the States including Acumen, Envoi, Mslexia and Orbis and have been broadcast on BBC and independent Radio. She has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine and Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales. To date she has written five books. Her debut poetry collection, Cats and Other Myths, a multi-award nominated poetry pamphlet "Songs of Steelyard Sue", and her latest poetry collection, Years Ago You Coloured Me, are published by Lapwing Publications. Her novels, A Darker Moon and Witchlight are published in the US and the UK by Vagabondage Press. J.S.’s specific links to Florida include her novels’ publisher, Vagabondage Press, which is partially based in Florida. In addition to the two novels, her writing has appeared in Ink Stains, a dark fiction anthology published quarterly by Vagabondage and she is currently guest editing the October issue of Ink Stains. Her prose has also appeared in a prize-winning Horror Anthology published by Darkwater Syndicate, a Miami-based publisher. For more information please see her website: www.jswatts.co.uk

J. Tarwood

1. Have you ever written a poem that changed you? Tell us about the poem and the changes.

Two poems, actually. I used to aim for the kind of poems Chekov could have written, restrained, empathic. Cesare Pavese was my model. Then I wrote this poem:

AMAZON BUS

Black smoke bristling
like a skunk's tail,
Diego's bus clacks uphill,
grass still racing like a rash
across a gravel of road,
steering wheel spinning
as if to wheedle a shape
from a potter's hand.
In the back, neck pinched
by crooked motherly fingers
a rooster rasps for dawn.
Outside, condors skip
through rippling thermals
in a hopscotch of mountain air.

Hemp hooking hind paws,
a black pig squeals from the roof.
In the driver's seat,
Diego loves this back door to the sky,
white Madonna on the dashboard,
naked gringas in the wallet.
Mooning through yellowed Sears catalogs,
his wife squats below in a hut
like a melted thimble.
Their kids kick a Coke can
between giant clawing roots.
Only Diego sees the road
corkscrewing to the blue
with the rush of wings in rain.

Passengers clap for music,
cheeks puffed like sails in a gale.
Andean clarity's not for them,
home and jungle a smoky smear:
they rise just to buy
on the other side.
They want the beat to boom
like the heart of a mother
to a nipple-dazed baby.
Diego twists the black dial high,
bus bursting through
the chalky smudge of cloud
which hides the peak.

While I was living in South America when I wrote this poem, I had a very middle class life for the most part. This poem came in a burst after my father’s death, every word where it should be—and when I finished it, I thought “I’ll never write anything like this again.” It seemed the apex of everything I had aimed for. I was done. Then I suddenly wrote another poem:

A FEW THINGS I KNOW ABOUT THE DEAD MAN

Nobody remembers the man whose name
I sign to pay my power bills.
I’d rather forget myself
how he peeped from behind his eyes,
spirit crouching like a Daddy Long Legs
spinning above black well water.
He was never me. I found him dead
in a scream of light,
brains gushing through snotty nostrils,
front-end in a ditch, back tires
turning like roulette wheels.

I know all he did,
like a crack deskman
brooding over satellite photos.
Sometimes I goof and say his name
as if it were mine.

He’d love to drive the car again.
He never got to fuck his sister,
red curls heavily hooking his fingernails.
He never got to choke off
her sullen drip-drop heartbeat.
He never even got to hack up
Mom and Dad with a silver ax.

And out of all that kinfolk’s dirt,
there’s room still for a spade
to whack open a whole
wide enough for the whole family.

This poem, I had best say, is not at all autobiographical. It came to me as a voice I had to listen to, and I found myself writing a new kind of poem, one in which I was almost a medium for a kind of Shakespearian weird.

2. Name a poet who could be your brother or sister. Please explain.

Norman Dubie would be my older brother. His poems, especially the stoned narratives, opened doors in my mind. I wrote him a fan letter once when I lived in Kenya, and he responded kindly. Decades later, he provided a blurb for my last book, And For The Mouth A Flower. That’s my image of an older brother: busy with his own life, but making sure the gate is open for those who follow.

3. In the afterlife, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are at the bar, arguing again. What are they arguing about, and whose side are you on? Why?

My bet? On being clear: on making sense. Eliot could be hard to follow, but Pound could wallow in a hermetic world. I’d be torn whose side to join in this fight between my uncles: sometimes the only way to get the words out is to stop caring if you’re making sense to others. But kept as a lifelong stance, though, you’d end up talking to yourself. I’d do what I could to get them to split the difference and buy another round.

4. In Zen, a monk on the verge of death might write a "death poem."
Have you written about your own death? If not, could you? What are the risks and merits of this kind of poem?

Not about my death outright, but I wrote one poem—in the style of Swift’s verses imagining his own death—about people’s reactions to his death. It started well, nicely flippant, but then I stalled at the ending: I couldn’t figure out how to sum up my life—I couldn’t see the back of my head, so to speak. I had better luck with a poem not about me, but about my body:

FOR MY CORPSE

Dumb body, old mule,

never once were you a Mustang
storming up rocky hillsides
to rear in the rain

as if to crown the top
like a lightning strike.

You kept to dusty fields,
heehawing a plough along,
a dead-end hybrid
doing time.

What’s to be done?

My soul pouts
like a sharecropper
reckoning up debts.
Yield’s never once been
what it’s supposed to be,

and now never will.

The pity’s kept away from me here. I am off-stage for my death. After a visit to Japan, I wrote a poem inspired by Williams’ “Tract,” only the funeral instructions were for my own funeral. It closes my latest book, What The Waking See (to be published by BrickHouse Books) and I suppose in my more Tennyson moods it’s my “Crossing the Bar,” the poem I want as my last words.

Funeral Instructions

In London, I drank a cold one
with an old man on a bench
nailed to an oak. A pretty
girl jogged the morning path
unbraiding among tombstones.
A park for the quick and the very
still. In Moscow, I sauntered
around statues of Communist corpses,
many on the phone, heroic bureaucrats
rotting beyond all forms. And
in St. Petersburg, my wife weeded
graves of her gone so we might
toast the lives they had.

Graveyards, no animus. But few
friends, fewer kin, and I live far.
At great expense, strangers
would speechify, then rise
a pompous inconsequential monument.

Better, I think, a fast flash.
No urn. Who keeps ashes?
Scatter then into the sea,
or, if I die roomed
in a tall inland building,
a windy rooftop will do.
No eulogies. Goodbye. Good luck.
I got to go.

Do otherwise, I won’t haunt
like a wronged warrior.
I’ll be way too busy being nothing.

The great advantage of a death poem is it brings what Lorca called duende—the uncanny, the other world within this one. Done right, you have tremendous power, worlds coming together. Done wrong, though, and you find yourself with melodrama—or self-pity. (While pity might begin at home, it shouldn’t stay there

5. Please critique the following poem by “anonymous”. Comment, cut, change, rearrange as you see fit, but it must not be more than 12 lines. (It doesn’t have to make much sense after your editing)!

The Faraday Cage by Anonymous

When I remarked your electricity I didn’t mean fuse
box relays, finger gauge copper, or meter wheels
spinning like music box ballerinas, or beaver skin
kites of Ben Franklin with infinite ribbon tails of
brass skeleton keys jangling like vertebrae of Day
of the Dead puppets, or the anonymous force of
Mary Shelly and H.G. Wells surreptitiously rubbed
together, or Old Sparky with his worn leather straps,
his metal skull cap smoking behind the rainbow
curtains of fugitive northern lights, but the money
shots of clouds’ awkward assignations, the blue
static effluent of colliding phantom souls

My version:

When I say You’re electric I don’t have in mind
fuses, copper, or meters—or even the kites
of soaked Ben Franklin, their twisting tails
of brass skeleton keys jangling like vertebrae
of Day of the Dead dolls. Nor do I imagine
some anonymous force of Mary Shelly and H. G. Wells
surreptitiously rubbed together, or even Old
Sparky with his worn leather straps, his smoking
metal cap. No, no, what I mean is as good
as money fresh from the mint, the blue static
of phantoms colliding, the explosion making souls.

J. TARWOOD has been a dishwasher, a community organizer, a medical archivist, a documentary film producer, an oral historian, and a teacher. Much of his life has been spent in East Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. He has published three books, And For The Mouth A Flower, Grand Detour and The Cats In Zanzibar. His selected poems, What The Waking See, will appear in 2017. He has always been an unlikely man in unlikely places.

February 2017

Linda Nemec Foster

1. What inspired you write your first poem and when was that?

I remember it was an assignment in fifth grade. We had to write a poem about Spring--specifically, about the month of May. My poem was heavy on rhyme and had a strong da-dum, da-dum, da-dum beat. We also illustrated our poems and mine was bordered with Crayola flowers. I remember these details because my mother kept the poem for quite a few years. Looking back at it, I know the poem wasn't very good but it was sweet of my Mom to hold on to it for so long.

2. Is there a skeleton in your closet you’ve not written a poem about? OPTIONAL: Tell us what it is.

Absolutely! Actually, there are a number of skeletons in my closet that have never surfaced in a poem. One intriguing skeleton (if you can call a skeleton intriguing) is that I hitchhiked across the country for several months in the early 1970's. I traveled with a college friend and a dog and it was as wild, exhilarating, scary, and harrowing as one can imagine. An editor once suggested I write a memoir but I think a long poem--a contemporary twist on The Odyssey with a female lead--would be more my style.

3. Share with us a one-line poem you’ve written. If you haven’t written one- please write one now:

Gray sky, muted sun, bare branches: the amnesia of winter.

4. Your poetry reading is at a movie theater. What is he most popular concession item for your audience? (Popcorn, Milk Duds, etc) Why?

Hands down, it's gotta be popcorn. I absolutely love it and I think my audience would have that same craving. The only problem: I'd have to have my own popcorn, too. Don't know how many poems I'd be able to read if I'd be munching away. At least, I would read my poems based on Fellini's La Dolce Vita, James Bond's Thunderball, and the French film Jean de Florette. After all, we're in a movie theater.

5. Birds in some form or another are prevalent in many of the poems of one of your favorite poets. What does that mean to you, if anything at all?

The delicate art of flight, the balance between the earth and sky, the freedom to defy gravity---basically, the elements needed to create a true poem.

LINDA NEMEC FOSTER has published nine collections of poetry including Amber Necklace from Gdansk (finalist for the Ohio Book Award in Poetry) and Talking Diamonds (finalist for ForeWord Magazineʼs Book of the Year). She has been honored with Pushcart Prize nominations and has received awards from the Academy of American Poets. She was selected to serve as Grand Rapids, Michiganʼs first Poet Laureate from 2003-05. Her chapbook, Contemplating the Heavens, was the inspiration for jazz pianist Steve Talagaʼs original composition which was nominated for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

David Colodney

1. What inspired you write your first poem and when was that?

It was January, 2012, and I was FORCED to write a poem! I was taking a poetry workshop course at Nova [University] and needed to complete an assignment. I had to write something. Until that time, I had fancied myself a fiction writer, a writer of short stories, and took this course only because it worked into my schedule. David Bowie, in full Ziggy Stardust regalia, had been on the cover of Rolling Stone. I don’t remember the name of the poem, but it featured the truly wretched opening “Today I dreamed of David Bowie/Which was strange because he doesn’t even know me.” Something like that, and it went downhill from there. All “rhymie”. It was truly awful and I hope there are no remnants floating in the Internet. Luckily, I rebounded from that dismal start. That class changed the story arc of my life. I’m a poet now. And it fits like a tailored suit. Thanks, Christine Jackson! If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be in this space now.

2. Is there a skeleton in your closet you’ve not written a poem about? OPTIONAL: Tell us what it is.

Nope. It’s all out there. You just gotta look for it. But it’s there. Believe me. I hope I don’t need to go and create any more.

3. Share with us a one-line poem you’ve written. If you haven’t written one- please write one now:

Here you go:

I’ve never written a one-line poem until today and maybe you’ll read it someday.

Sorry for the rhyme. I guess it’s my default. See the answer to #1, above.

4. Your poetry reading is at a movie theater. What is he most popular concession item for your audience? (Popcorn, Milk Duds, etc) Why?

If it’s at one of those fancy movie theaters with a bar, I’d say, wine is the most popular concession because many of my poems are conceived with a bottle of wine in close proximity. I know that’s not something that may be received too well, but it’s the truth. The wine helps me dig to my core, and strips the inhibitions away so I’m fearless when I write. But in a traditional concession, I’d say Sno-Caps. Because like my poems, they can appear sweet, but that white shit on top gets stuck in your teeth. I think something in my poems always gets stuck in someone’s teeth. Maybe they can floss it out. Maybe they can’t. Hopefully, they can’t.

5. Birds in some form or another are prevalent in many of the poems of one of your favorite poets. What does that mean to you, if anything at all?

It probably means I don't share this poet's work with my wife. She doesn't care for birds in general, and she's downright scared of some of them. Eating outside with her can be an adventure. I'm no bird fan, either. I think I've only used a bird image once in a poem, and that was an ibis, which was cool because it's the ibis that's the University of Miami mascot. So I'm good with ibises. But that's it.

David Colodney realized at an early age that he had no athletic ability whatsoever, so he decided to focus his attention on writing about sports instead, covering everything from major league baseball to high school flag football for The Miami Herald and The Tampa Tribune. He holds an MFA from Converse College, where he served as poetry editor of South85, the literary journal of the Converse MFA program, and also an MA from Nova Southeastern University. His poetry has appeared or will appear in St. Petersburg Review, California Quarterly, the New York School and Diaspora issue of Valley Voices, and Gyroscope Review, among others. David lives in Boynton Beach, Florida with his wife, three sons, and golden retriever.

Suzette Dawes

1. What inspired you write your first poem and when was that?

I developed a love of poetry from my education in Jamaica. I can't recall what was my first poem but I recall writing in a notebook and lost many except one. One of the poems in that notebook was written when I was fifteen years old and afraid of the changes that was occurring in my family such as my mother moving us to the United States. Every time I see that poem, I am reminded to be true to myself.

2. Is there a skeleton in your closet you’ve not written a poem about? OPTIONAL: Tell us what it is.

I am not aware of any skeletons in my closet because I have a lot of stuff in there.

3. Share with us a one-line poem you’ve written. If you haven’t written one- please write one now:

How Horribly Terrific
two ordinary words amped up and smushed together, now diminished by overuse.

4. Your poetry reading is at a movie theater. What is the most popular concession item for your audience? (Popcorn, Wings, Pizza, Milk Duds, etc) Why?

I think its wine because wine makes the aura more divine.

5. Birds in some form or another are prevalent in many of the poems of one of your favorite poets. What does that mean to you, if anything at all?

I'm not sure if they are prevalent as only two examples come to my mind:
Doves meaning hope often quoted in the Bible
Raven as an ill-omen like "The Raven" of Edgar Allan Poe

Suzzette Dawes hosts poetry reading at Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale monthly most months of the year. She wanted a nice place for poetry lovers to meet and share their poetry in Fort Lauderdale.
Her love of poetry started with her primary school in Jamaica and although she was encouraged to pursue higher education in sciences, she kept writing. When she immigrated to the United States at fifteen years old, she experienced homesickness, culture shock and adaptation. You can find aspects of those traits in her poetry especially The Collection. Other influences such as and work-life balance have forayed in her poetry such as Tortured Souls. Stylistically she prefers to write free verse but has experimented with form in Adventures in the Courtyard. She was a finalist in the 2014 South Regional/Broward College Library Poetry Contest for her poem "Congestion." In 2015, she hosted an Ekphrastic poetry contest based on films shown at both Cinema Paradiso Theaters. In 2016, she co-edited an anthology, Bards of Broward: The Courtyard Chronicles, which featured poems of seven other poets who frequently attended the poetry readings. She currently resides in Lauderhill, Florida.

January 2017

John Arndt

1 How would your poems be different if you were the opposite sex?
They’d be much prettier with longer hair and about ten pounds lighter. Actually they could use a touch of the feminine because I tend to lay on the testosterone and as for those ten pounds there are a lot of “and”s and “the”s the workshop is always trying to trim.

2 Have you ever cried during or after writing a poem? Would you explain?

Hell, I quite often cry at the thought of my poetry. Mostly I cry or have some other profound emotional outpouring at the experience of the poem, I mean that’s usually where the poem comes from. For me poetry is about 99 percent emotion, otherwise why bother! But yes, I have cried in the writing, after the writing and in the performance. Perhaps It’s that feminine thing trying to break through.

3. Your psychologist says your poems are:

A post Freudian response to Pre Jungian impulses possibly created by bi polar ice caps that developed in my non verbal animal brain which are now melting due to global warming. If you ask me, they are a cry for help, a cry for home, a cry for love and understanding but the shrink just say’s I’m crazy.

4. Your new poem is about a circus. Which character takes center ring?

A. Clown
B. Elephant
C. Lion Tamer
D. Ring Master
E. Other: please tell us which and why:

Most definitely the Ring Master, whom, of course, has control of all the other elements of the show. I may give focus but I’m never upstaged.
5. You have options: Go back in time to hear your favorite dead poet read (who? and what is she or he reading?), Go back in time to hear Abraham Lincoln recite his Gettysburg Address, or Go back in time and visit with a relative whom you’ve never got to know.

No contest. Walt Whitman. I’ve already done this stuff, I’ve already imagined walking with him through the corridors of those Civil War hospitals. Stood with him on the span of the Brooklyn Bridge looking south to lower Manhattan, across to the Narrows inhaling what he saw and must have felt, all the while those magnificent words beating inside of me. . .

A foot and light-hearted I take to the open road
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me. leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune—I myself am good fortune.
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing
Done with indoor complaints, libraries and querulous criticisms
Strong and content I travel the open road.

All in all John Arndt has performed in over 75 full blown theatrical productions from Minnesota to Florida with stops in Maine, New York and Pennsylvania. He served five years with the Jean Cocteau Repertory in NYC, served out the full five due to some very bad behavior but got to work with Tennessee Williams. His first play Antiquities was produced there in 1984. Screen credits include sundry commercial fare and his big screen debut in The Return of the Alien’s Deadly Spawn. He’s long dead before the opening title sequence but there’s a lot of blood. His plays have been produced from FL to PA. The Palm Beach Repertory Theater came to life in 2000 where Arndt played the role of Artistic Director, Resident Playwright and Technical Director. It only lasted one short year but it was glorious. He has hosted the Beach Road Poetry Workshop since the mid 1990’s and has been working on the combination to the poetry vault ever since. He was selected for the Approved Artist Roster of the Kennedy Center in DC for his one man poetic Bio entitled Gleaning Laughter, Gleaning Light. Arndt’s poetry has been published throughout the country in small presses and dive bars. As for the rest of it, Tennessee said it best. . .
”I keep writing, sometimes I’m pleased.”

Linda Avila

1. How would your poems be different if you were the opposite sex?

Not sure I’d be a poet if I were male with male privilege having given me its advantages. I might well have been seduced into loving power. Part of why I am a poet is because I am female and had less power and fewer choices then men do. I love writing poetry so it’s not taking a back seat to what I really wanted to do as a woman, but I had a business career and it was not as gratifying as it could have been had I been male. Had I been male in that same field, becoming an editor or managing editor may well have enticed me away from writing.

2. Have you ever cried during or after writing a poem? Would you explain?
No, never. If I did, I’d suspect what I’d written as being not true in some way. Truth doesn’t make me cry although it might make me sad. Tear jerkers make me suspicious. When I cry, it’s from frustration, and that’s not fruitful for writing poems.

3. Your psychologist says your poems are:
If I had a psychologist, she’d use them to understand me, push me. As it is, my poetry critique group is a good substitution for psycho-therapy!

4. Your new poem is about a circus. Which character takes center ring?
A. Clown –
B. Elephant –
C. Lion Tamer –
D. Ring Master –
E. Other: please tell us which and why:

My feelings about circuses are complicated by the way I see the characters you’re offering as options. To me the clown illustrates the ridiculous that leads and brings up the rear of the parade. The Elephant is captive, chained, defeated. The Lion Tamer has the whip but fears the Lions who fear his whip. The Ring Master keeps order with a smile pasted on his face while he preps the audience, like the host of a game show on TV. I’d prefer to be a trapeze artist so I could fly above it all and see it all spread out below from my trapeze.
5. You have options:

Go back in time to hear your favorite dead poet read (who? and what is she or he reading?).
I’d love to sit in the same room with John Milton while he dictated some passages of “Paradise Lost.” Hear his voice, his hesitations, corrections, asides and then get caught up in the flow of words and meaning.

Linda Baldwin Avila’s poetry has appeared in Cave Rock, The Clackamas Literary Review, The South Carolina Review and The California Quarterly and in Slay My Darlings, an anthology of poetry. Her work has been published on-line in Eclectica, and in the South Florida Poetry Journal. She studied poetry at The New School for Social Research and in workshops elsewhere with Kevin Young, Sharon Olds, and Thomas Lux. She was born and educated in northwestern Pennsylvania and spent many years in the publishing industry in New York City. She is an avid traveler and photographer and continues to study poetry from her base in South Florida.

Bruce Sager

1. How would your poems be different if you were the opposite sex?

Whenever somebody complimented me on a poem, I would say, “What? This old thing? Does it make my head look big?”

Have you ever cried during or after writing a poem? Would you explain?

Cried? You mean as from frustration, when you’re on about your seventy-fifth edit of a piece, and you still don’t have it right? Nope. Not in that predictable instance. Now, flip side, I’ve undeniably written poems that make me laugh. They’re generally the ones that are most effective from the podium. I’m not a “humor” poet, like Collins, but I get off a zinger now and again. That wasn’t your question, though. You wanted to know about crying. So, yes, I’ve written a couple of pretty damned serious poems – not among the ones I might consider my best – which I simply cannot read out loud without choking up.
I also have a small handful of poems that make other people cry. Invariably. One is titled “The wake,” which is especially potent. Makes me feel like I’ve picked someone’s pocket when she starts to tear up. But, again, that wasn’t your question. You wanted to know if it’s been me crying from a poem I’ve written. And candidly, yes, I have:

My best friend Dave was this supremely elegant motherfucker, great dresser, dashing, very funny, superb impressionist, nice clean Irish features, a charmer, ran a major graphic design studio in our city – Baltimore – rolled around in the best sports cars, played racquetball with me several times a week, lunched with me at all the hot spots. Almost every day. We were still relatively young, we were both pretty well-to-do, we were girl magnets. Especially David.

This was some years back, back at the start of the millennium, just to give you a time frame.

Anyway, gradually David couldn’t get to the ball anymore; I was trouncing him on the court every time. I started to lay up, hitting it easy. But he’d developed these minor tremors in his hands. He couldn’t move right. This went on for some months. Then he couldn’t walk without reaching out for something. Then he needed a cane to walk. Doctors didn’t have a clue.
Point is, he fell ill, and his life literally collapsed, totally collapsed like a shack in a shit storm. Some sort of palsy, I never got the answer. Then he got the shakes, for real. Real bad. He couldn’t work. Couldn’t get out of bed. Lou, his business partner was a sweet, fine guy, but enough was enough. The business fell apart.

David lived on a horse farm with his wife and daughter. Wife was a horse trainer. Tight. They had this dressage horse for which they’d been offered six hundred large by a German conglomerate. The horse came up lame. Offer withdrawn. Financial disaster. Wife pissed, because she’d wanted to sell, and Dave had held back.

By this point Dave couldn’t work, couldn’t walk. Then his wife threw him out. God’s honest truth, she just abandoned him. Nice girl, huh? Real class act. Anyway, David and I weren’t talking by this point, because he’d gone into seclusion. He just wasn’t around . And I had a life to live. I tried once or twice, then we more or less fell out of contact after that. Ugly story, I know, I could have been a better friend, should have been. So like I said, we fell out of contact.

When I finally – finally! – reached out, got him on the phone, I was mortified. He didn’t sound right. Not at all. I had no idea of the hell he’d fallen into, but I told him I was coming out to see him, and I did, I went to visit him, and – maybe for moral support, I don’t know – took along my new best friend, Michael.

Anyway, David had gone to live with some crusty uncle, a rat’s ass Bawlamer low class scum bastard living in exactly the kind of rotting old ramshackle house that the city has so many of, in so many rotting old ramshackle neighborhoods. David was wheelchair bound by this point, creaky rusted wheelchair about two hundred years old, no one looking in on him. He was living in this moldy basement room. Like an animal. Out of his mind. No sense of reality. Unwelcome, unloved, basically forgotten by everyone.

I’d expected that it would be bad, but I had no fucking idea. Dave had very little food. His legs were bloated and purple, just hideous, thick red rivers running all over them. He was disoriented. His speech made no sense. He was alone, no way to bathe, much less get out. He couldn’t get the wheelchair into the bathroom, over the sill, so he had to throw himself out of it, just crawl in there, and god knows how he got up to the toilet, or off, but then he had to crawl back out to his chair, drenched with his own piss, fouled with his own shit, just this poor skinny man crawling across the filthy tiles of the old bathroom. The stench in there. On him. He was pretty much crazed, insane, like I said. And who wouldn’t go nuts from a life like that? It was pathetic.

Mike and I offered to help pull him out of the ash heap by building him a wheelchair ramp. We really meant to do it. But over a year passed. Mike was busy, always busy, and he was the handy one. Give me a hammer, I’ll give you a sore thumb. Then one day, remorseful as hell, I got around to it, and called for some measuring information. I got the uncle on the phone. Surly, suspicious. He didn’t want to talk. I explained that I was Dave’s old friend, that I wanted to help.
He told me that I was three months too late.

So I wrote a long poem about David, just laying it all out, the whole story . . . wretched recompense, I realize, for our long friendship. Lousy response to a real world calamity.

And then, not long after, I was a featured reader at the Baltimore Literary Arts Festival, or whatever the damned thing is called, a big tent, some big names, a lot of people sitting in there, folks coming and going, milling, no one really all that happy to be there, hot day, humid, and I started in reading this very straight-up, honest, colloquial poem that I’d written. Very conversational poem, no punches pulled. And the crowd grew still, and my voice was filled with regret and shame because I had been such a shit rag, and I had to stop several times because I was crying. Really crying. I choke up easily, so I probably should have known better than to even try. A lot of long pauses. A lot of strained silences as I tried to get a grip on myself. But I got through it, finally. I was embarrassed.
And then they applauded. Can you imagine? I can’t tell you how many folks came up to me afterwards and said “Great poem! It really moved me.”

Do you know how guilty that made me feel?

Anyway, the question was, have I ever cried when reading a poem.
Yes.

3. Your psychologist says your poems are:

I’ve never had a psychologist, but if I did, he or she would just read the answer to the preceding question and then proceed to take about ten thousand dollars from me for further analysis.

4. Your new poem is about a circus. Which character takes center ring?

A. Clown
B. Elephant
C. Lion Tamer
D. Ring Master
E. Other: please tell us which and why:

I actually have a circus poem. An old one. I hadn’t looked at it in years, not before this morning, and only upon the advent of your question. Abandoned poem. But I just dug it up . . for the one and only appearance it is ever likely to make:

The circus of what we do

Give me the fat lady
bending over backwards
until she can lick her heels,

give me the camel girl,
the lobster boy who dandles
the half-headed zebra, give me
the lion faced man, the human
unicorn, the living skeleton,
give me the giant
bald as a one-eyed baby,
shredded lamb shanks
lying about his feet.

Gimme the barker
and gimme the crowd,
the master soaring above the masses,
swaying up there behind his pulpit,
singing the gospel of the one-of-a-kind,
singing with his trousers down,
singing monster, singing freak, singing
blood-red, punch-drunk, six-legged geek.

Of all toads to be found
squatting upon this earth,
The Largest.

Of all the world’s magicians,
The Most Adept.

Give me the hunger artist
whose whimpering tattoo barks
feebly from his shriveled bicep
like a starving fox.

Devil take it,
what sort of divinity might invent
a butter-breasted innocent
whose coarse black hair
flowers from her chinny chin chin,
much less the gamahouching dwarf
who slips from her tent at daybreak?

But that’s okay.
Just give me my turn
in the tent.

O, let me in!

Yes, you’re right,
I do like a bit of sin
with my gin. Like you,
I like it out of the box. And so
it goes, Ladies & Gents.

Like you, I like
the small and pied bouquet
of pickpockets and touts
slipping like seals from town to town

– “And where it stops,
nobody knows!” –

fleecing the virgins
and fiercely smooching
the nobjobbers passing
for Keystone Kops.

Now this
try line

it shimmies
it shakes
it crawls on its belly

(just like we do)

just like a snake.

5. You have options: Go back in time to hear your favorite dead poet read (who? and what is she or he reading?), Go back in time to hear Abraham Lincoln recite his Gettysburg Address, or Go back in time and visit with a relative whom you’ve never got to know.

First off, I would like to hear a living poet read. Stephen Dunn. I want to hear him read his wondrous long masterwork titled “Loves.” Check it out. It’s on Poetry’s website. Totally worth your effort. Except that after you read it, you might never write anything again. Ever.
Anyway, dead poets. I was thinking it would be Plath. Or Bukowski. Or Auden. Visiting the Globe and watching Shakespeare strut the boards would probably top them all. But then, before I finalized my answer, I went up to breakfast. And when I came back down here, back down to my keyboard, I had my answer. It surprises me a little. I would go back in time to hear Abe Lincoln. (And if you had given me the option of ghosting the Continental Congress, the First, the Second, sitting in on some of those amazing sessions, sharing the air with those astonishingly brave and curiously varied individuals, that would have been my first answer.) Just for the record, my two top “I am an invisible witness” fantasies:

The last days of Jesus; and 2) The sixth floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository.

I was going to add, Where is Lee Oswald now that we really need him? But that would have been in poor taste.

Bruce Sager of Westminster, Maryland was awarded the 2014 William Matthews Poetry Prize, selected by Billy Collins. The Indulgence of Icarus, a book-length poem, was recently released by Echo Point. Sounds scary, but it’s a quick read. A prior book, Famous, won the Harriss Poetry Prize, judged by Dick Allen, Connecticut Poet Laureate, who wrote, in his generous introduction: “A tour de force . . . these poems are outstanding and moving, crafted in order to reward us with new senses of perspective – as only exceptional poetry can do. Just twice before, in the many times I’ve judged poetry contests, has a poet’s work stood out as strongly as Sager’s. One of those winners is now a major American poet.” (Icarus and Famous are both available through Amazon.) About half a million years ago, The Pumping Station – now largely unreadable – won the Artscape Literary Arts Award, judged by William Stafford, U.S. Poet Laureate. Collins, Allen, Stafford . . . poets laureate all. Cock-a-doodle-doo! Four new volumes – one of semi-hilarious short stories, three of poetry – are forthcoming in 2017 via Hyperborea Publishing and BrickHouse Books.

DECEMBER 2016

Denise Duhamel

1 Have you written a poem about the time you lost your virginity?

Yes, indeed. The poem is called "Happy Ending" and it's published in The Star-Spangled Banner (SIU Press, 1999)

2 Name the most important poet writing today and why?

Sharon Olds. She writes about a woman's sexuality honestly and provocatively. In her poems the female speakers are always subjects and never objects.

3 Write the first five lines of an anaphora poem:

Tell me what is in the vegetable drawer of your fridge.
Tell me if you don't have a fridge, and I will get you one.
Tell me the color of your bedsheets.
Tell me if you don't have a bed, and you can borrow mine.
Tell me how you sleep at night, knowing all you know.

4 You have the one and only Muse Wand, which has the power to inspire anyone to write a poem. Choose one non-poet friend or relative to sprinkle the magic on. Why him/her?

I'd love to read a poem by my mother, as long as it wasn't about her regret to have children. On second thought, that would be fine too.

5 Choose one of the following that best fits your personality:

A Lyrical poem
B Narrative poem
C Formal poem
D Prose-poem
E Flash fiction
F Performance/spoken word

B. Narrative poem. I love to tell stories.

PHOTO CREDIT: Amira Hadla

Denise Duhamel’s most recent book of poetry is Scald (Pittsburgh, 2017). Blowout (Pittsburgh, 2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other titles include Ka-Ching! (Pittsburgh, 2009); Two and Two (Pittsburgh, 2005); Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (Pittsburgh, 2001); The Star-Spangled Banner (Southern Illinois University Press, 1999); and Kinky (Orhisis, 1997). She and Maureen Seaton co-authored CAPRICE (Collaborations: Collected, Uncollected, and New) (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). Duhamel is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenhiem Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The guest editor is for The Best American Poetry 2013, she is a professor at Florida International University in Miami.

Deborah Denicola

1 Have you written a poem about the time you lost your virginity?

No. I am still a virgin or consider myself one.

2 Name the most important poet writing today and why?

W.S. Merwin. At 89 he is still writing and writing the most gorgeous poems without any punctuation. I have read him for the last 40 years and find his wisdom so deep, a truly enlightened spirit. He sees all the tragedy of our world and celebrates whatever is as part of what he is, part of what we are along with him. He has spoken of the environment, the animal world, the deplorables (lepers), the love that all of us are connected to and how we are connected to each other without knowing it. “We are asleep with compasses in our hands.”
And his poem “Thanks” expresses the depth of his heart . . .

. . . with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is”

3 Write the first five lines of an anaphora poem:

Tell me…the garden growing within me is fragrant with blooms
Tell me…the kittens are feeding off their mother
Tell me…the world’s waters are plentiful and pure
Tell me…the wars that continue to ravage the planet have sheathed their swords for tonight
Tell me…the man I love is joyous with another woman and I am joyous for his joy
Tell me . . the gods are inside not above us.

4 You have the one and only Muse Wand, which has the power to inspire anyone to write a poem. Choose one non-poet friend or relative to sprinkle the magic on. Why him/her?

My sister who has the biggest heart for animals and takes care of the lonely and homeless and who always is serving someone other than herself, and herself is ill with an incurable disease that pushes her back into bed after feeding the cats and raccoons at her doorstep, and even to pick up the pencil to write her poem demands enormous strength.

5 Choose one of the following that best fits your personality:

A Lyrical poem
B Narrative poem
C Formal poem
D Prose-poem
E Flash fiction
F Performance/spoken word

I would have to say I am all of these except formal poem. Although I’ve written sestinas and pantoums and sonnets, I am not “formal” in any sense of the word. I’ve got quite a few styles and tricks up my sleeves. I’ve told long stories in my poems, I’ve cut brief pieces out of the sky that is hiding poems behind the clouds, I’ve ridden the written word that is heard only when driven by sound, I’ve flashed and mooned, teased and hammered. And I do think of my readings as performance.

Deborah DeNicola is the author of six books. Her most recent publication is her poetry collection, Original Human, from WordTech Press for which she received her fifth Pushcart Nomination. Her spiritual memoir, and Amazon Best Seller, The Future That Brought Her Here from Nicholas Hays/Ibis Press reached #1 is Psychology and Social Sciences on Amazon.com in Sept 2009 and won an Honorable Mention at the Los Angeles Book Festival in 2013. In 2007 Finishing Line Press published Inside Light, a chapbook. Deborah edited the anthology Orpheus & Company; Contemporary Poems on Greek Mythology from The University Press of New England, and in 2008 won the analytical essay award from Packingtown Review and The Santa Barbara Poetry Award, the first place award from Briar Cliff Review Poetry Competition in 2006 and Carpe Articulum’s first place in their 2010 Poetry Contest. In 2013 her short story won The Carol Bly Short Story competition and is featured on writersrisingup.com. She was awarded a Poetry Fellowship in 1997 from the National Endowment for the Arts, William T. Foley Award from America, The Barbara Bradley Award from The New England Poetry Club, and a Special Mention from The Pushcart Prizes 1992. She also the author of Where Divinity Begins (Alice James Press) and three other chapbooks, Harmony of the Next (2005) which won the Riverstone Chapbook Award, Psyche Revisited (1992), which won the Embers Magazine Chapbook Contest, and Rainmakers (Coyote Love Press ). Deborah received a Special Mention from Pushcart Prize 2002. Her poems and reviews have been published in many anthologies and journals such as The North American Review, The Antioch Review, Crab Orchard Review, Fiction International, Nimrod, The Journal, The Boston Book Review, Prairie Schooner, Runes and Orion among others. A Bread Loaf Scholar, a recipient of fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Centrum Foundation, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and The Vermont Studios, she teaches writing and dream image workshops in South Florida and served as Poetry reviewer for The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. She is a freelance editor and works off her website is www.intuitivegateways.com, and teaches at Broward College.

Maureen Seaton

1. Have you written a poem about the time you lost your virginity?

With a man, no. With a woman, yes. One time I wasn’t a poet yet. The other time I was.

2. Name the most important poet writing today and why?

At an outdoor festival in Santa Fe one May, a young man stood at the mic and said: “Each and every one of you has the power to save my life.” Although I’ve forgotten his name (if I ever knew it), I would say that line is the most important poem I have ever heard. So if he’s still alive, I say him.

3. Write the first five lines of an anaphora poem:

Tell me what the poet meant when she said: “Esta bien lo que está.”
Tell me what the poet meant when he said: “I think I shall praise it.”
Tell me what the poet meant by “the hour of plumage.”
Tell me what the poet meant by “If a pinhole appears, what then?”
Tell me what the poet meant when he warned us: “No utility belts, magic words, latent genetic mutations, or white horses allowed beyond this point.”
(Quoted poets: Dulce María Loynaz, Robert Hass, Lynda Hull, Jennifer Tseng, Jason McCall)

4. You have the one and only Muse Wand, which has the power to inspire anyone to write a poem. Choose one non-poet friend or relative to sprinkle the magic on. Why him/her?

The One And Only Muse Wand In The Entire World? Well, I’d use it on the entire world, of course, and I would start at the Publix down the street in the snack aisle and Miami would write its poems first and eventually the entire world would be doing it. That could work.

5. Choose one of the following that best fits your personality:

A Lyrical poem
B Narrative poem
C Formal poem
D Prose-poem
E Flash fiction
F Performance/spoken word

When asking a Libra to choose (especially something that fits her personality) (especially in the realm of poetry) (especially in the very week of her birthday), one should understand that the disappointment one might feel as a result of the impossibility of such a task, is a fraction of the unsettledness that plagues a poet born under the sign of justice, beauty, love, caprice, uncertainty, and perfectionism. So: all of the above. Okay, all except F. Maybe.

Maureen Seaton has authored numerous poetry collections, both solo and collaborative— most recently, Fibonacci Batman: New & Selected Poems (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and Caprice: Collected, Uncollected, and New Collaborations (with Denise Duhamel, Sibling Rivalry Press). Her awards include the Iowa Poetry Prize and Lambda Literary Award (both for Furious Cooking); the Audre Lorde Award (for Venus Examines Her Breast); the Sentence Book Award (for Sinead O’Connor and Her Coat of a Thousand Bluebirds, with Neil de la Flor); and an NEA fellowship. Her work has been honored in both the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry. Her memoir, Sex Talks to Girls, also garnered a “Lammy.” She teaches creative writing at the University of Miami, Florida.

November 2016

Jordi Alonso

1 You’ve been invited to a masquerade ball with a literary theme. Who are you?

Byron’s Don Juan

2. Have you ever asked a poet for their autograph?…

Oh, yes. Who hasn’t? I ask for one every time I meet a new poet. Mostly in the form of a signed book. but I’ve had bookmarks signed as well.

3. Looking at your body of work, is there any one characteristic that stands out?

A fascination with the intersection between sensuality and language, often by way of food––a crossroads I explore in Honeyvoiced.

4. If you could share an underrated, unknown poet with the world who would it be?

E. Kristin Anderson, who, through her work, has taught me more about the poetics of erasure and pop culture, than anyone.

5. Self-publishing is frowned upon. Agree or disagree?

I agree. At the risk of sounding stodgy, I believe that good work will always rise to the attention of publishers––and the great editors that come with them––so self-publishing, to me, seems like a vain thing to do.

JORDI ALONSO graduated with an AB in English from Kenyon College in 2014 and was the first Turner Fellow in Poetry at Stony Brook University where he received his MFA. He is a Gus T. Ridgel Fellow in English at the University of Missouri where he is a PhD candidate. He’s been published or has work forthcoming in Kenyon Review Online, Noble/Gas Qtrly, Roanoke Review, Fulcrum, and other journals. Honeyvoiced, his first book, was published by XOXOX Press and his chapbook, The Lovers’ Phrasebook, is forthcoming from Red Flag Poetry Press in 2017.

Alexis Rhone Fancher

1 You’ve been invited to a masquerade ball with a literary theme. Who are you?

Orlando - aka Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, (9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West. A successful and prolific novelist, poet, and journalist, she is also remembered as the inspiration for the androgynous protagonist of the historical romp Orlando: A Biography, by her famous friend and admirer, Virginia Woolf, with whom she had an affair. Vita has always fascinated me.

2. Have you ever asked a poet for their autograph?

I once asked Lou Reed to sign my left breast.

3. Looking at your body of work, is there any one characteristic that stands out?

Brutal honesty. No one skates in my poems or my fiction, especially me.

4. If you could share an underrated, unknown poet with the world who would it be?

Ronald Baatz, a poet from Troy, NY whose work (and humanity) always knocks me out. I’ve published him twice in my poetry feature for Cultural Weekly. Here are the links, if you’re interested: http://www.culturalweekly.com/ronald-baatz-four-poems/ http://www.culturalweekly.com/what-is-left-just-enough/

5. Self-publishing is frowned upon. Agree or disagree?

Agreed. My first book, explicit was self-published as a pillow book in 2010. I never sent it out to publishers; I wanted complete control. It’s a beautiful book I’m quite proud of. But my books since then have not been self-published, nor will they be in the future. Although it has become more accepted (to self-publish), most writers still think of it as a last resort.

Los Angeles poet, ALEXIS RHONE FANCHER, is the author of How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen and other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), and Enter Here (forthcoming in 2017). She is published in Best American Poetry 2016, Rattle, Slipstream, Alyss, Nerve Cowboy, Rust+Moth, streetcake, San Pedro River Review, Hobart, Cleaver, Public Pool, H_NGM_N, Fjords Review, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere. Her photographs are published worldwide. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of The Net nominee, Rhone-Fancher is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly, where she also publishes a monthly photo essay, “The Poet’s Eye,” about her on-going love affair with Los Angeles. Visit her at www.alexisrhonefancher.com

October 2016

Peter Adam Salomon

1 Have you ever written a poem while listening to a stranger’s conversation? What was the conversation, and the poem about?

Great question. To be honest, I’ve likely done this far too often, especially since I had a tendency to write during classes, and meals, and parties in high school and college. I always felt most comfortable observing the world around me, and watching/listening to people is a tremendous source of inspiration. I can’t remember any particular conversation, though I was always looking for paper to write on. As I’ve saved all of the poetry I wrote down long hand (before writing most poems on the computer), I do have poems on the back of placemats and napkins. My favorite, however, was on a flight from New York City to Paris where I asked a woman I didn’t even know for paper. She handed me a prescription. It wasn’t until working in a pharmacy years later that I realized she’d given me her own birth control prescription. No clue why. But it had all of her contact information on it and everything. I still have it.

2 Your new poem will be made into a Hollywood film. Give us the Title, Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Director, and who scores the music?

So much of my recent poetry has been angstian/dramatic, so they’d likely make great sappy movies. The title is pretty easy: “Someday Is Dark”. As for actor and actress, I’m a huge fan of Hugh Jackman thanks to his roles in “Oklahoma”, “Les Miserables”, and “The Boy From Oz”, in addition to his “Wolverine” action side. And Anna Kendrick, of course, for pretty much the same range, from “The Last Five Years" to "Camp”. As for the music. Well, that’s an absolute: Lin-Manuel Miranda. If you’re going to get to choose anyone, go with the genius behind “Hamilton”.

3 Magically, you wake up at Gertrude Stein’s apartment in Paris. The usual suspects- the famous Ex-Pats- are all there waiting for you to read a poem. Multiple choice: You-

A: Hide under the bed
B: Read someone else’s poem, not yours or
C: Bravely and confidently read your poem

I’d likely read my own poem from under the bed. I’ve never been comfortable reading other people’s poetry out loud. Not that I’m comfortable reading my own, but if I’m given an opportunity like that, I’m not spending the rest of my life regretting my choice. I’ve enough regrets, already.

4 Do you have a favorite sex poem? If so, what is it and who wrote it?

One of my favorite contemporary horror poets is Stephanie Wytovich, and her latest collection, Brothel, is a fascinating look at the intersection of horror and sex. It’d be difficult to choose my favorite poem from the book, so just read the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did. As for me, I’ve written a number of poems that touch on sex obliquely, and some that dwell on the subject in depth. Those will, most likely, never be published.

5 Taking a word or phrase from a poem and also using it as the title is not a good idea. Agree, or disagree? Why or why not?

Some titles are clues to the themes of a poem. Some aren’t. Some titles are obvious. Some aren’t. Some titles suck. Some don’t. Some titles are meaningless. Some mean everything. I agree with all of the above. Depends on the poet, and how they want to use the power of the title. For me, most of my titles are from the poems themselves, very rarely the first line since I just get the feeling that the reader just read the title, they don’t need to read the exact same line immediately. But, that’s just me. Some of my favorite poets only use the first lines as titles. It’s all personal preference. If the last two paragraphs were to be published as a (really boring/bland/bad) prose poem, I think I’d title it “Title” I suppose.

PETER ADAM SALOMON is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Horror Writers Association, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, the Science Fiction Poetry Association, the International Thriller Writers, and The Authors Guild and is represented by the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. His debut novel, Henry Franks, was published by Flux in 2012. His second novel, All Those Broken Angels, published by Flux in 2014, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Young Adult fiction. Both novels have been named a Book All Young Georgians Should Read by The Georgia Center For The Book. His short fiction has appeared in the Demonic Visions series among other anthologies, and he was the featured author for Gothic Blue Book III: The Graveyard Edition. Salomon was also selected as one of the Gentlemen of Horror for 2014. His poem “Electricity and Language and Me” appeared on BBC Radio 6 performed by The Radiophonic Workshop in December 2013. Eldritch Press published his first collection of poetry, Prophets, in 2014, and his second poetry collection, PseudoPsalms: Saints v. Sinners, was published in 2016 by Bizarro Pulp Press. In addition, he was the editor for the first books of poetry released by the Horror Writers Association: Horror Poetry Showcase Volumes I and II.
Salomon served as a Judge for the 2006 Savannah Children’s Book Festival Young Writer’s Contest and for the Royal Palm Literary Awards of the Florida Writers Association. He was also a judge for the first two Horror Poetry Showcases of the Horror Writers Association and has served as chair on multiple juries for the Bram Stoker Awards. He lives in Naples, FL with his wife Anna and their three sons: André Logan, Joshua Kyle and Adin Jeremy.

Monalisa Maione

1 Have you ever written a poem while listening to a stranger’s conversation? What was the conversation, and the poem about?

I did. I wrote a tiny, deadly little poem called "epitaph" after I eavesdropped on a couple in a restaurant disagreeing firmly about their marriage. They were both frustrated about the other's expectations, obligations, wants and needs, and were really laying into each other, quietly, but, sharply, both refusing to budge. Listening to it made me uncomfortable and sad for them, but, it was impossible (for me) not to listen. It was a movie scene unfolding next to me and the volume and anger were escalating. Finally, the woman threw her poison dart, ending the conversation abruptly with, "And you have not fucked me for at least a year!" All of those elements were brought into my little nine-line poem which is center justified, as if on a gravestone. It is an epitaph to their marriage.

2 Your new poem will be made into a Hollywood film. Give us the Title, Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Director, and who scores the music?

My autobiographical dramatic-comedy-art film is called, "Coming of Age in America in the '80's." I star as the lead (give me a break, it's my fantasy), with my feminist posse including Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer (because they seriously look like my girlfriends from high school). My love interest is Lenny Kravitz. AND Chris Hemsworth. AND any one of the Franco brothers. I need more than one love interest because, I was "that girl" in high school, if you catch my drift. Jodie Foster, Tina Fey and Marina Abramovic direct in order to get the right balance of Drama-Comedy-Art in there. I think it is TOTALLY doable. Green light this baby!

3 Magically, you wake up at Gertrude Stein’s apartment in Paris. The usual suspects- the famous Ex-Pats- are all there waiting for you to read a poem. Multiple choice: You-

A: Hide under the bed
B: Read someone else’s poem, not yours or
C: Bravely and confidently read your poem

I live in Paris, and, I’ve been arrested a few times for waking up in Gertrude Stein’s apartment. I would confidently read one of mine, which, would be easy after a bottle of 1928 Krug Collection Champagne. Then, I would probably read another one (it's a VERY good bottle), and then, go hide under the bed.

4 Do you have a favorite sex poem? If so, what is it and who wrote it?

Hands down: Bernadette Mayer, 1968, "First, turn to me..." That poem, plus the volume of Germaine Greer essays my Mother gave me, were extremely important in stoking the early sparks of my feminism when I discovered them at about 16 years old. I was stunned that a woman could use a poem to express such explicit thoughts, which also revealed so much intimacy and fear in their relationship. It showed me that one of the magic qualities of poetry is that it allows a poet to say almost anything they want. Poetry elevates all subjects. It still makes me reach for a man every time I read it.

5 Taking a word or phrase from a poem and also using it as the title is not a good idea. Agree, or disagree? Why or why not?

I had this conversation with my editor recently and we agree that titles are difficult. I'm terrible with titles, so, I'm not really that critical of them, except for "Untitled." If a poem is untitled, it's not finished, that's my only rule about titles. When my daughter (who was published in the Rattle Young Poet’s Anthology when she was nine and never misses an opportunity to lord that over me) was four, she wrote a very emotional poem after getting stitches in her foot about the pain, the crying, the ER, then, very confidently titled it "Salamander.” So, sometimes using a creative title isn’t always the best idea either.

MONALISA MAIONE is a Pushcart-nominated feminist poet who has believed for 25 years that every poem she writes is the last poem she will ever write. Her poems are found in 30 Years of the SLO Poetry Festival, The Long Islander, I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand, Cultural Weekly L.A., among others. She has work forthcoming in The Fem and B O D Y. Maione is an accomplished reader, featuring at San Francisco’s Beat Museum, Beyond Baroque, Venice Beach, The San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival, Culture Rapide for Paris Lit Up, and Au Chat Noir Spoken Word in Paris, France, where she also resides. She lives with a brain injury and the resulting synesthesias which inform her life in difficult, beautiful and mysterious ways. Poetry is her constant companion.

Nick Romeo

1 Have you ever written a poem while listening to a stranger’s conversation? What was the conversation, and the poem about?

Yes, so many times. My latest piece is more of an essay/prose piece than a poem. Two women sat at a table hashing out wedding plans. That piece wrote itself, I simply held the pen. Another time, an older couple was on a date at the local diner. It was beautiful to see a certain vibrant appreciation they still had for life, and their desire to share it with each other. I remember him saying many years ago he was able to “run on stilts.” This was my favorite conversation that I overheard, and that became a song on a “Surviving the Odyssey” album (one of my bands).

2 Your new poem will be made into a Hollywood film. Give us the Title, Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Director, and who scores the music?

I imagine Rhythms would be interesting. It’s about a woman who has a heart attack in the bubble bath and dies. Her cat resuscitates her by pushing the radio into the water, causing an electric jolt which brings her back to life. Actress: Esther Baxter. Director: Me. Score: TommyT of Biomechanical Degeneration.

3 Magically, you wake up at Gertrude Stein’s apartment in Paris. The usual suspects- the famous Ex-Pats- are all there waiting for you to read a poem. Multiple choice: You-

A: Hide under the bed
B: Read someone else’s poem, not yours or
C: Bravely and confidently read your poem

‘C’ – that would be too much fun. I could get some critiques or two. For that occasion I would have to write one special just for Ms. Stein. Maybe a poem where she gets abducted by aliens. They perform tests, then turn her into a cyborg death-bot, and send her back to destroy humanity. After she accomplishes her mission, she gives birth to alien-human-cyborg hybrid creatures to repopulate Earth. I believe she would like that one.

4 Do you have a favorite sex poem? If so, what is it and who wrote it?

Haha, no, I have more than a few favorite ex poems…. Check out Alice Notley and Kim Addonizio.

5 Taking a word or phrase from a poem and also using it as the title is not a good idea. Are, or disagree? Why or why not?

Ahh, rules,,, I hate rules. Just ask my buds at the workshops that I attend: Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and The Hour After Happy Hour. Just don’t capitalize the ‘P’ in polish, if you want "polish" to mean a substance used to give something a smooth and shiny surface when rubbed in.

NICK ROMEO is self-taught, and always strives to absorb and learn from his surroundings. His venture into the art scene began at 10 years old when he invented, wrote, and illustrated his own comic books. From there, he entered into the field of technical drawing. Now he utilizes this technical background to create his art, whether it’s generated in a digital form on the computer or assembled from recycled technology into sculpture. His main forms of expression are photography, 3D digital renderings, poetry, music, and fractal generations. Romeo lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife and cat, Megatron. He has won awards for his visual art and photography, and has displayed his work in a multitude of galleries. As a member of the bands Surviving the Odyssey, The Simulation Hypothesis, and The Odd Endeavor he had the opportunity to perform for audiences in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and venues around the Pittsburgh area. Romeo’s music is featured on compilations and radio programs. Electronic Saviors, Industrial Music to Cure Cancer Vol 4 Digital Bonus, is the latest compilation to feature his music. He was honored to remix a song and write lyrics for the band Diverje. Romeo is a member of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange and The Hour After Happy Hour writing workshops. His writing has been published in a variety of blogs, literary magazines and anthologies. One of which, The Brentwood Anthology, by Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange, was named Anthology of the Month by Washington Independent Review of Books in November 2014. He was interviewed for the Pankhearst Fresh Featured poet of the month, The Daily Poet Site, and he received press by Featuredpoet.com. Romeo’s main goals are to get his chapbook published, rock out, create art, and be surrounded by a vast array of adorable animals in a country home far away from civilization. Visit him at www.pittsburghartistregistry.org/accounts/view/nickromeo www.instagram.com/nickromeoarts The Daily Poet Site interview: https://thedailypoetsite.wordpress.com/2016/02/15/interview-with-nick-romeo-multidisciplinary-artist/ Pankhearst interview:https://pankhearst.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/fresh-featured-december-poet-nick-romeo/ Music http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/SurvivingTheOdyssey

September 2016

Trish Hopkinson

1. You are a member of the Poetry Police. You have given a ticket to a poet because… why did you give the ticket?

There is no such thing as poetry police and if there were, I most certainly would not be a member. I’d like to see a poetry cop try to give me a ticket.

2. How old/young were you when you wrote your first poem and why did you write it?

I remember writing a poem for one of the leaders at church when I was very young, probably five years old. I think I wrote it as a gift and it also included a crayon drawing. Prior to that I used to make up my own nursery rhymes, but I don’t think I wrote those down. I probably still know 100 nursery rhymes by heart. I loved them!

3. Write a short poem no longer than 10 lines- right now- that must include these words- Temperature, Fiasco & Jewelry

Proposal

After spending all day at the jewelry store,
my hands cooled to room temperature and
nervousness dampens my palms
as I stare at you and wait.
This birthday cake was a fiasco.
I couldn’t decorate it
from all the shaking.
The candles nearly melted completely
before you finally said ‘Yes.’

4. You hear a story on the radio. You think you’ll write a poem about it. What was the story? (use your imagination)

There’s a hidden cavern filled with ancient writings and mummies beneath an old temple in Arizona. The mummies don’t appear to be human beings. The writings are in a language never before seen. Could this be proof of extraterrestrials?

5. You go back in time and meet Frida Kahlo. She wants to collaborate with you. She wants you to choose one of her paintings and write a poem about it. Which painting?

I’m most intrigued by The Broken Column and its interpretation of her physical pain and injuries. So many of her works are packed with symbolism and seem so personal, it’s really hard to choose. Her work and life has always fascinated me.

TRISH HOPKINSON has always loved words—in fact, her mother tells everyone she was born with a pen in her hand. She has two chapbooks Emissions and Pieced Into Treetops and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including Stirring, Chagrin River Review, and The Found Poetry Review. Hopkinson is co-founder of a local poetry group, Rock Canyon Poets. She is a product director by profession and resides in Utah with her handsome husband and their two outstanding children. You can follow her poetry adventures at http://trishhopkinson.com/.

David Lawton

1.You are a member of the Poetry Police. You have given a ticket to a poet because… why did you give the ticket?

As a poet who is performance oriented who also hosts open mics, I have to call out poets who have to explain their poems, and especially when they "footnote", stopping to give the definition of a word they use or a reference. Poems exist because they are the only way that you can express something. Let the audience experience it. If they want to look up a word they don't know, they will. But they also may give it meaning that is even better than what you intended. But you still get the credit.

2. How old/young were you when you wrote your first poem and why did you write it?

Although I feel like I must have written some dumb poems when I was a kid, the first poem I specifically remember is a love poem to my college girlfriend. When she met my family, she was so different, so dramatic (and sexual), it helped express that I wanted different things than them.

3. Write a short poem no longer than 10 lines right now that must include these words- Temperature, Fiasco & Jewelry

Gold medallions swinging on the Coney Island boardwalk
Cocoa butter slathered on a barrel house chest
Temperature as steamy as a porno Turkish sauna
The flip side of those medals smells like mole chicken breast

Hot mess jewelry fiasco
Reflected radiation all around is felt
Even Reverend Sharpton had to shade his peepers
Just as he wondered whether gelt could melt.

4. You hear a story on the radio. You think you’ll write a poem about it. What was the story? (use your imagination)

Roy of the famed animal trainer team of Siegfried and Roy, who has been confined to a wheelchair for the last twenty years due to an attack by their tiger Manticore, feels well enough to challenge the ancient beast to a race. A sort of grudge match. I'm thinking lots of "O" sounds to simulate the wheels spinning, and some fluttering from where Siegfried has clipped baseball cards to the spokes.

5. You go back in time and meet Frida Kahlo. She wants to collaborate with you. She wants you to choose one of her paintings and write a poem about it. Which painting?

I would go with Frida's Self-Portrait With Monkey. Like in a lot of the portraits, there is symbolism which refers to her physical trauma from the horrible bus accident she was in as a teen, in this case a red ribbon of fabric the monkey spirals around her neck. But the monkey appears very protective of Frida, and content. Suffering as guardian angel?

DAVID LAWTON is a poet, actor and singer, originally from Woburn, Massachusetts. His poetry collection, Sharp Blue Stream is available from Three Rooms Press. He currently has a poem in the fine anthology Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books). David is also an editor with greatweatherforMEDIA. He likes dogs, trees, and bananas.

Laura Peña

1.You are a member of the Poetry Police. You have given a ticket to a poet because… why did you give the ticket?

John Berryman, you have been issued a ticket for disrupting the staid and uneventful course of poetry. No longer are poets able to write simply about flowers, trees, water, and pretty horses. Now, poets feel the pressure to dig deeper into their subconscious and write provocative lines that will have people scratching their heads. You make people uncomfortable, Henry outright disturbs the general public, and newbie poets feel they will never measure up. John Berryman you’re a brilliant poet, but readers are scared of you.

2. How old/young were you when you wrote your first poem and why did you write it?

I was eight years old and in third grade when I wrote my first poem. It was for a class writing assignment. I wrote it in my spiral notebook and it was about my cat named Gaido. I remember I made the whole thing rhyme but I have since lost the poem and can’t remember exactly what I wrote. The ironic thing was my mother never allowed us to have pets so the whole thing was made up. Later, I had to dodge questions from the teacher about my cat. I became good at storytelling after that.

3. Write a short poem no longer than 10 lines right now that must include these words- Temperature, Fiasco & Jewelry.

Palacios, Texas Pirate Festival

June summer in full heat
temperatures in the 90’s
pirate festival in full swing that weekend
seven women pirates walk into the plaza
for a costume contest but what a fiasco

costume contest is the next night
Lusty Wench Pirate buys a whole set
of labradorite jewelry for fifty dollars

Sea Mermaid Pirate says “You robbed that vendor
blind.” Lusty Wench replies, ”I am a pirate after all.”

4. You hear a story on the radio. You think you’ll write a poem about it. What was the story? (use your imagination)

The story I hear on the radio is about the plight of immigrants coming over across the border and the dangers they face trying to get to the United States. This is a poem I wrote focusing on just one part of the journey.

Immigrants

in this bare-bones room the
air is stale, a baby has a fever,
women crowd the young mother, sweat trickles
from her face, she’s sick too, and
I want to breathe fresh air, my mother stiffens
in her chair, shakes her head in
my direction, means stay quiet, my
lungs can’t take the stench of my smelly hair

5. You go back in time and meet Frida Kahlo. She wants to collaborate with you. She wants you to choose one of her paintings and write a poem about it. Which painting?

The Broken Column, 1944
I am not sick. I am broken. But I am
happy to be alive as long as I can paint. – Frida Kahlo

My back is useless
But I can paint
I paint the bones
Grinding to dust inside
My body day by day
The pain is excruciating
My eyes on canvas
shed the tears that my
real eyes refuse to do
because what’s the point
My hair, glossy and black
Is thick and beautiful
I paint it loose in the wind
It’s the only thing about me
That moves joyously

LAURA PÉNA was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. Currently she is a bilingual elementary school teacher. She has been published in di-vêrsé-city, Boundless, Houston Poetry Fest anthology, The Bayou Review, Harbinger Asylum, Illya’s Honey, The Red River Review, and The Texas Poetry Calendar. Laura has read in venues around Houston and Austin. Laura is past president and current recording secretary of Gulf Coast Poets, is a member of The Poetry Society of Texas and Academy of American Poets. She is also part of the critique group Poetry Works Workshops and credits them for the many achievements she has reached thus far. Laura organizes Poetry Out of Bounds each year which is the official kick-off event for Houston Poetry Fest.

August 2016

Rick Lupert

1 It’s been said Thomas Lux rewrites a poem at least 15 times before considering it finished. How many rewrites do you typically do before the poem is done?

It’s also been said that Thomas Lux has a mighty mane of long hair that has a life and career of its own. I rarely completely re-write a poem. I’m not sure that I “subscribe” to Allen Ginsberg’s declaration of “First thought, best thought” but I certainly have it in mind before I make changes to a piece. Much of my work is “in the moment”, responding to a particular experience or idea. So, for me, the further away I get from that experience or idea, the less involved I am with the writing of a poem about it. Most of my editing takes place during the initial writing of that poem. If I feel a poem isn’t working, it’s very likely that I just won’t come back to it.

2 Is there a subject too offensive, too outlandish, too beyond the pale that you simply will not tackle in a poem? If so, will you tell us one or two?

Subjects themselves are not offensive, outlandish or beyond the pale. It’s more one’s perspective on that subject. One person’s taboo is another person’s afternoon delight. I don’t have a prohibition about writing about anything in particular, but I also don’t typically sit down to write a poem about a subject. My ideas tend to come from my own experiences or observations. They often begin with a single image or thought…they often end there too. I might write about something taboo, but not for the sake of doing so…more because something about that taboo has occurred to me. I rarely attempt to write a definitive piece about an entire subject and I think often when poems attempt to do so, they’re not as successful as one’s that focus on something smaller. I used to work with teenagers in Jewish settings teaching a unit about the Holocaust. For years I would ask them to write poetry in response to what they were learning and would tell them to “not try to get the entire Holocaust into a single poem.” It’s the stories of the individuals that are comprehensible to us…that give us the real picture of the larger subject.

3 If your poetry were a car, what make, model, color and year would it be? Optional- Why?

My poetry would be a clown car. On the surface, funny. Crossing the lines of what’s possible as more and more clowns exit the vehicle. (Where are they all coming from?!?) But look closer at the faces of the clowns and you see the undercurrent of sadness. You see a whole world of fear and depth they cover up with painted on smiles. This is the river my poetry runs through.

4 Are you brave enough to tell us the name of a “Famous” poet that everyone seems to love, but you just do not like? Name that poet!

I’m almost that brave. A lot of the classic poets who wrote in what feels, to me, like an English language from another time, I don’t enjoy so much. Poetry started speaking to me when I saw it in the plain (but still sometimes elevated) language of the mid to late twentieth century. I don’t mean to write off (haha “write”) all classic poetry. I’ve studied it. When I do the work I find things to embrace and enjoy. I recognize that anything we do in poetry today is supported on the backs of those who came before. But I’m a fan of accessible language and imagery with a modern sensibility, which I don’t find in the works of old so much.

5 You are the editor of a popular literary magazine. An editor of another popular magazine who has published you recently, sends you work that you really don’t like. What do you do?

I’m not sure if this is a hypothetical, or if you actually regard Poetry Super Highway as a popular literary magazine. If so, thanks! In my world, regardless of the popularity of Poetry Super Highway, this is not a hypothetical but an actual occurrence that has been repeated a handful of times over the years. I publish work that I like, or, even if it’s not my particular cup of tea, that I think is great work, regardless of who wrote it. I love getting and publishing great work from other editors, and I view it as a professional acknowledgement when one editor regards Poetry Super Highway as a worthy enough place to send work to. But I definitely won’t publish it if I really don’t like it.

Two-time Pushcart Prize nominated poet RICK LUPERT has been involved in the Los Angeles poetry community since 1990. He was awarded the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center’s Distinguished Service Award in 2014. He served for two years as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets, a non-profit organization which produces readings and publications out of the San Fernando Valley. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, literary journals, and anthologies including The Los Angeles Times, Rattle, Chiron Review, Red Fez, Zuzu’s Petals, Stirring, The Bicycle Review, Caffeine Magazine, Blue Satellite and others.
He edited the anthologies Ekphrastia Gone Wild - Poems Inspired by Art, A Poet’s Haggadah: Passover through the Eyes of Poets, and The Night Goes on All Night - Noir Inspired Poetry, and is the author of nineteen poetry collections: Professor Clown on Parade, Romancing the Blarney Stone (Forthcoming later this summer on Rothco Press), Making Love to the 50 Ft. Woman, The Gettysburg Undress (Rothco Press), Nothing in New England is New, Death of a Mauve Bat, Sinzibuckwud!, We Put Things In Our Mouths, Paris: It’s The Cheese, I Am My Own Orange County, Mowing Fargo, I’m a Jew. Are You?, Feeding Holy Cats, Stolen Mummies, I’d Like to Bake Your Goods, A Man With No Teeth Serves Us Breakfast (Ain’t Got No Press), Lizard King of the Laundromat, Brendan Constantine is My Kind of Town (Inevitable Press) and Up Liberty’s Skirt (Cassowary Press). He hosted the long running Cobalt Café reading series in Canoga Park for almost 21 years between early 1994 and the end of 2015, and is regularly featured at venues throughout Southern California. Rick created and maintains Poetry Super Highway, an online resource and publication for poets (PoetrySuperHighway.com), Haikuniverse, a daily online small poem publication (Haikuniverse.com), and writes and occasionally draws the daily web comic Cat and Banana with Brendan Constantine. (facebook.com/catandbanana) He also writes the weekly Jewish poetry blog “From the Lupertverse” for JewishJournal.com Currently Rick works as a music teacher at synagogues in Southern California and as a graphic and web designer for anyone who would like to help pay his mortgage. He lives in Van Nuys with his wife Addie who he loves more than everything in the universe, their son Jude, and more cats than his wife would prefer.

Francine Witte

1 It’s been said Thomas Lux rewrites a poem at least 15 times before considering it finished. How many rewrites do you typically do before the poem is done?

Certainly, I have poems that I have spent hours, days, or weeks on. Rewriting for me can be anything from changing one word to re-examining the entire concept. I've written poems that came out almost fully formed in the first or second draft. Other poems are stubborn, and I will keep fiddling with them and tuning them. I've had poems that I started and finally had to admit I just didn't know where they were going and had to put them away. I will rediscover these poems later, and the distance has allowed me to finish them very quickly. I would say five rewrites is an average for me. When the poem sings, I know it's done. I like reading new poems at open mics for this reason. You can hear the wrong words just fall to the floor.

2 Is there a subject too offensive, too outlandish, too beyond the pale that you simply will not tackle in a poem? If so, will you tell us one or two?

No personal anger poems, no making fun of anyone. No hate poems. I also would never tell someone else's story and pass it off as my own. My basic rule is, if I wouldn't say it to your face, I shouldn't hide behind saying it in a poem.

3 If your poetry were a car, what make, model, color and year would it be? Optional- Why?

I would like to think my poetry is a '65 red Ford Mustang. Clean, sharp lines and able to cut through the air on a cross-country highway. Clean lines with sharp detail and flow are what I strive for in a poem.

4 Are you brave enough to tell us the name of a “Famous” poet that everyone seems to love, but you just do not like? Name that poet.

I've never liked William Wordsworth. I had to read him in a college survey course, and just didn't get him at all. My professor, on the other hand, thought he was the best poet who ever lived.

5 You are the editor of a popular literary magazine. An editor of another popular magazine who has published you recently, sends you work that you really don’t like. What do you do?

I would just say "I love your work, and i would love to see more of it before I can make a selection." If they send me more work I don't like, then I would be honest and tell them in a very tactful way that it wasn't working for me. Integrity is very important.

FRANCINE WITTE is the author of the poetry chapbooks Only, Not Only (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and First Rain (Pecan Grove Press, 2009), winner of the Pecan Grove Press competition, and the flash fiction chapbooks Cold June (Ropewalk Press), selected by Robert Olen Butler as the winner of the 2010 Thomas A. Wilhelmus Award, and The Wind Twirls Everything (MuscleHead Press). Her latest poetry chapbook, Not All Fires Burn the Same has just won the Slipstream chapbook contest and will be published in summer, 2016. Her poem “”My Dead Florida Mother Meets Gandhi” is the first prize winner of the 2015 Slippery Elm poetry award. She has been nominated seven times for a pushcart prize in poetry and once for fiction. Her photographs have been featured in Anti Herion Chic and Cactus Heart Literary Review She is a contributing editor to the Poetrybay.com Facebook blog. A former English teacher, Francine lives in New York.

July 2016

Howard Camner

1. If you had to choose a nom de plume - a pen name - for your poetry- what might it be?

As far as a pen name, I wrote under the name of "William Shakespeare" for many years until people accused me of being the Earl of Oxford, so I stopped that. There are many publications who only want women writers, because they hate men (which is understandable), so I have written under the name "Wren Mack" which in some twisted way is "Camner" spelled backwards. I describe Wren as a black lesbian militant midget. She scares me, so I don't use her much. Other than that I could never forsake the Camner name by using a pen name. The Camners are like the Kennedys, the Barrymores, and the Clampetts, except we're more like carnival people that escaped from a sideshow.

2. What is your favorite poem of all time, name the poet, and please excerpt some it here--

My favorite poem is probably "If" by Rudyard Kipling because when I was a kid my grandmother gave me a handwritten copy of it (her handwriting, not Rud's) and she told me to always keep it and to look at it throughout my life whenever things go south...and these days that's where the compass points a little too often. I still have the copy she gave me in a box on my nightstand next to Larry the Lion who has been with me since 1962. And if Dr. Seuss counts, just about everything he wrote.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise...

3. Did you watch the second inaugural of President Obama and if so, what did you think of Richard Blanco’s poem for that occasion?

I attempted to watch President Obama's second time in, except that I have Comcast, and naturally, it wasn't working very well; sort of blinking on and off. However, i did catch glimpses of a frozen Richard (yeah, I know) and what I was able to hear, I thought was pretty good. I thought the White House was wise to reject his first offering which was too personal and alienating. He needed to write something most everyone could relate to, which he did. That said, I (and most of America) believe that you (Lenny) and I (me) should do a conversational poem for the next inaugural. starting with "Two poets walk into a bar..."

4. To whom does the speaker in your poetry typically speak to?

The "speaker" in my poetry typically and always speaks to himself. He doesn't give a rat's tail who overhears him, but if people do, they do.

5. Do you read fiction, and if so, what are you reading now? Does any of your reading trickle down into your poetry?

I've only read two books in my life: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
I did try to read my autobiography once, hoping it was fiction, but sadly it wasn't, and I quickly threw it down.
As far as anything trickling down...If anything, Seuss...But I don't consider that fiction.

HOWARD CAMNER is the author of 17 poetry books including the Pulitzer Prize nominated Poems from the Mud Room and the acclaimed autobiography Turbulence at 67 Inches. Camner was the featured performer with New York’s West End Poetry Troupe and a founding member of the Literary Outlaws. His works are housed in prominent literary collections worldwide including historical archives in the U.S. and royal libraries throughout Great Britain. Camner’s work has appeared in anthologies and literary journals internationally. He has received several awards for his work including the MiPo Literary Award, the Fine Arts Press Poetry Award, and was named Best Poet in Miami in the New Times 2007 “Best of Miami” readers’ poll edition. He was nominated for Poet Laureate of Florida in 1980, represents the U.S. in the Poet 2000 Sculpted Library, and was inducted into the Miami Dade College Hall of Fame for Literary Arts in 2014.

M.J. Iuppa

1. If you had to choose a nom de plume - a pen name - for your poetry- what might it be?

If I had to choose, my nom de plume would be Claire Voyant.
And, as William Blake prescribes,
“To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower,/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.”
Sometimes, I wonder if my actual name is a nom de plume. I made the decision, years ago, when journals published a higher percentage of men (1970s) that I would use my initials along with my maiden name, which is difficult for some to say and spell. Considering this, and wanting my poetry to speak for itself, without gender bias, I adopted my initials as my first name. It worked. Now, when I am called by my first name, and it’s not by my family or close friends, I look around, trying to make sure I’m the one who should say, “Here— I’m here.”

2. What is your favorite poem of all time, name the poet, and please excerpt some it here--

“Meditation at Lagunitas” by Robert Hass. This poem makes me swoon. I return to it often. Hass’s Praise is a stunning poetry collection.
Here are my favorite lines:

   “All the new thinking is about loss.
   In this it resembles all the old thinking. (lines 1-2)”

          And

   “There are moments when the body is as numinous
   as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
   Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
   saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry.” (lines 28-31)


3. Did you watch the second inaugural of President Obama and if so, what did you think of Richard Blanco’s poem for that occasion?

Yes. Blanco’s poem “One Today” illuminates the American experience I believe in. It recognizes and gives voice to the many people who live and work to insure our dreams in a country that offers freedom and liberty for all. “All of us as vital as the one light we move through” means our people’s vision sees the importance of education—an education that encourages dreams and inventions. If we do not promote critical thinking, that is the ability to know the power of knowing when to say yes or no, then we are jeopardizing our future. If we eliminate the arts, we will find a culture that is void of empathy. If we don’t pay attention to our nation’s sorrows, then we will have more of the same. We need strict gun laws. We need to pay attention to Mental Health, and make sure that we have agencies that can help people who are suffering. Blanco is very pointed in addressing us as one. He is advocating for Civil Peace. I think Blanco captures President Obama’s vision. I voted for President Obama (twice), and would vote for him again.

4. To whom does the speaker in your poetry typically speak to?

My poems engage in an intimate conversation with you. You are helping me sort out the constant swirl of daily busyness, by stopping long enough to make sense of what is happening all around us.

5. Do you read fiction, and if so, what are you reading now? Does any of your reading trickle down into your poetry?

Yes, I read and write fiction. I’m currently reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn for an upcoming book discussion. I haven’t read this book in many years, and I’m finding Finn’s disposition appealing in so many ways. Maybe, I’m looking for the same kind of freedom. Earlier, in May, I read a collection of linked short stories, The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora. Acampora’s characters are socially privileged, and because of ennui, they are trying to make their lives meaningful. The stories are complicated, both comical and sobering, and they made me very thoughtful. Reading influences everything.

Since 1986, M. J. IUPPA poet and writer, has been successfully teaching poetry and creative writing workshops to students ages 8-89 throughout New York State. In 1996, she was the recipient of the Writers & Books Writing In Rochester Award, honoring a teacher of writing for adult students who has impacted the creation and appreciation of literature in Rochester, and in 2004, received the Writers & Books Writing in Rochester Award for an individual making a significant contribution to Writers & Books; and in 2015, received the Writers & Books Big Pencil Award for an individual who has made lifelong contributions to Rochester’s literary community. At St. John Fisher College, she has received the Part-Time Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence, May 2000; The Father Dorsey Award, 2000-2001 and 2002-2003, and a Certification of Recognition from The Monroe County Legislature, April 2003. She served as the poetry advisor for New York State Foundation for the Arts, 2007-2012. Over 800 of her poems have appeared in small press, university, and national publications. Her chapbooks are Sometimes Simply,(Foreseeable Future Press, 1996), and Temptations (Foothill Publishing, 2001) and Greatest Hits 1986-2001, (Pudding House, 2002) As the Crow Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008) and Between Worlds (Foothills Publishing, 2013); and her first full-length poetry collection Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003); second full length collection Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010) and her third full length collection Small Worlds Floating ,forthcoming from Cherry Grove Collections in August 2016. Her creative nonfiction is included in the collection: In Brief, edited by Judith Kitchen and Mary Paumier Jones, (Norton), Short Takes edited by Judith Kitchen (Norton) and Brief Encounters edited by Judith Kitchen and Dinah Lenney (Norton). Presently, she is Director of the Arts Minor program at St. John Fisher College and Lecturer in creative writing. She served as Writer-in-Residence at St. John Fisher College from 1999-2015. Since 2000, she has been a part-time lecturer in creative writing at The College of Brockport. She also teaches creative writing and poetry workshops at Writers & Books, Young Audiences (1996-2010), Project U.N.I.Q.U.E., V.I.T.A.L., Rochester City School District, Genesee Valley BOCES, Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES and BOCES 2. From January1990 to May 2006, she was curator of the Genesee Reading Series at Writers & Books . Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Award 1998, 2001, 2002, 2010, 2014; and in June 1998, her play This Heat was selected as one of the seven plays read in the American Voices Regional Playwrights’ Festival sponsored by GeVa Theatre and Writers & Books. She has a MA in Creative Writing SUNY Brockport, May 2000, and MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University, August 2006.

Jonathan Rose

1. If you had to choose a nom de plume - a pen name - for your poetry- what might it be?

William Lorca Blake or Randall Phillips

2. What is your favorite poem of all time, name the poet, and please excerpt some it here

RIMA XXI
—¿Qué es poesía? —dices, mientras clavas
en mi pupila tu pupila azul—;
¿Qué es poesía...? ¿Y tú me lo preguntas?
¡Poesía... eres tú!
RHYME XXI
What is poetry? --you say, as
Your blue eyes pierce mine through;
What is poetry. . . ? And you are asking me?
Poetry is you!
[Translation--Jonathan Rose 1990]

An extremely difficult choice. One of the Rimas by Gustavo Adolfo Bequer

3. Did you watch the second inaugural of President Obama and if so, what did you think of Richard Blanco’s poem for that occasion?

No. I'm kidding. I saw the inaugural with a crowded audience gathered at the Arsht Center in Miami. I thought it both personal and universal--exactly as it ought to have been.

4. To whom does the speaker in your poetry typically speak to?

Everyone, I hope. Yet no one in particular. Even when my poems speak to no one in particular, they tell stories, either short ones, or extremely pithy ones--terse verse--as I employ with my roses (variants of the clerihew).

5. Do you read fiction, and if so, what are you reading now? Does any of your reading trickle down into your poetry?

On occasion. Mostly, I read non-fiction: biographies, autobiographies, and histories (as well as poetry, of course). I recently completed a biography of Phil Spector, autobiographies of Burt Bacharach and Sissy Spacek (with co-authors), and an autobiography of Carole Bayer Sager, the lyricist who partnered with songwriters Marvin Hamlisch and ex-husband Burt Bacharach (and others) to create some memorable songs. I am currently reading (in an Advance Reading Copy) Of Arms and Artists: The American Revolution Through Painters’ Eyes by curator and international American art historian, Paul Staiti. My poetry is a reflection of all that I have seen, known, and experienced, so, in that sense, the answer would have to be yes to the trickle-down effect, though not necessarily consciously. There is a conscious effort, however, with my roses, which rely on biographical facts (most of the time).

Example:

OLD-FASHIONED

Puritan New England's Hester Prynne
In her day wore an "A" for unspeakable sin;
Now with sex extramarital, kinky, and group,
The fashion would be to wear alphabet soup.

JONATHAN ROSE, a bilingual immigration attorney, cultural activist, and South Florida's Cultural Correspondent, is an accomplished poet and writer published internationally. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2001, Rose has served as Program Director of the South Florida Writers Association for the past five years. He publishes the e-mail arts calendar CULTURAL BULLETIN, is Cultural Correspondent for DowntownMiami.com, and has moderated the Last Friday Poetry Open Mic Readings at Books and Books in Coral Gables since 1992. He has covered Miami Book Fair International, Miami International Film Festival, Art Basel and its satellite fairs, and other Greater Miami events. Rose is president of the non-profit Culture in the City, has served as a judge for local, national and international poetry contests, and received a Shining Star Award from the Arts & Business Council in 2008 "in recognition of extraordinary work as a mobilizer, a resource, and an innovator whose leadership skills enhance the quality of life in Greater Miami through the arts." He frequently curates multi-disciplinary events centered on poetry. From 2008-2014 he served as a panelist for the Community Grants Panel of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. He is the Official Poet of the Beethoven Society of Miami; as such, he composed a sonnet for European Union Day (May 9) 2010. He is co-chair of the American Immigration Council (AIC) Creative Writing Contest (officially recognized by Miami-Dade Schools) for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), South Florida Chapter. Rose was a former president of the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation.

June 2016

Donna Hilbert

The following is the first line in your new poem- write a second line, and if you’re feeling inspired write as many lines as you’d like: What if coffee is an hallucinogen...

And life is but a scramble in my brain?
Alas, I’ll let it be; I don’t drink tea.

2. If your poetry were fruit, what would it be?

I would like to imagine each poem to be a Honey Crisp apple: apple whose sweetness masks an inner tart, apple fitting comfortably in one hand, eaten in a single sitting, easily digested, but containing a bit of new knowledge. Always, I am looking for the perfect apple.

3. Do you journal, if so, do you mine it for poems?

I don’t keep a journal in the sense of recording daily activities, but I do keep a notebook in which I jot passages from my reading that seem especially smart or inspiring. Some passages will end up as epigraphs beginning poems or books. This would be a typical notebook entry: “Music is the electrical sod in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.” Beethoven. I also collect Latin phrases because everything is pithier in Latin: solvitur ambulando (it is solved by walking) true in poetry and often true in life. I use the notebook to mitigate the mess of post-it notes on my desk. I also copy the final handwritten draft of each poem into the notebook.

4. If the house of modern poetry has two supporting columns as some suggest - Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson- on what side of that house do you sit regarding your own poetry?

I pitch my little tent in the middle of the house. I appreciate both Whitman and Dickinson and have certainly learned from reading both, as I have learned from reading Stanley Kunitz, Jane Kenyon, Steve Kowit, Neruda, and many others. There is no finer teacher than the poem itself.
When I sit with my pen and paper, it is my own story I wish to tell in my own way—lyric or narrative—the content will decide the form.

5. Do you have a favorite line of your own poetry that you haven’t been able to use? Would you share it with us?

I have no un-used favorite line of poetry, but I have a favorite (as yet un-used) line from a dream: “If you are having trouble with this dream, please call our dream technician.”

Donna Hilbert has led workshops in varied venues in the US and the UK in conjunction with appearances at the Aldeburgh, Ilkley, and Wessex literary festivals. Other UK events include an appearance on BBC TV, the Sheffield Off the Shelf Festival and readings at The Troubadour in London. Her latest chapbook, The Democracy of Carbon, is collected in Swallow Dance, from Silver Birch Press. Earlier books include The Congress of Luminous Bodies, from Aortic Books; The Green Season, World Parade Books, a collection of poems, stories and essays, now available in an expanded second edition; Mansions, and Deep Red, from Event Horizon, Transforming Matter, and Traveler in Paradise from PEARL Editions, and the short story collection Women Who Make Money and the Men Who Love Them from Staple First Editions and published in England. New work is in recent or forthcoming issues of Chiron Review, Mas Tequila Review, and Nerve Cowboy. She is a frequent contributor to online journals including A Year of Being Here, ZocaloPublicSquare, Little Eagle’s Re/Verse, NewVerseNews, Your Daily Poem and every month as a contributing writer at Verse-Virtual. Her work is widely anthologized, including The Widows’ Handbook, Kent State University Press. Learn more at www.donnahilbert.com

Lynne Viti

1 The following is the first line in your new poem- write a second line, and if you’re feeling inspired write as many lines as you’d like: What if coffee is a hallucinogen?

If I Were Tripping on Joe
What if coffee were a hallucinogen?
I’d be in trouble, the way I slurp down
That primo mug of Costa Rican every
morning Delivered by my favorite barista,
the half Italian, one–quarter Portuguese,
one-quarter swamp Yankee-- It’s in the marriage contract,
he avers, this daily service. And if the stuff were psychotropic,
I’d hear The shower curtain call to me as it swayed
In the spring breeze, pretending to be Carmen Miranda
Dancing under her fruit-festooned hat, the shower
curtain might call my name, if I were startled it might
Ask me to dance with it, but first I’d have to
set down the blue mug that I got in New York
the time we went to the Met to see Manon Lescaut, or was it
the time we heard Mulgrew Miller at Dizzy’s Club?
If coffee were a hallucinogen I’d never get to class--
My students would be sitting around saying, how much longer
Do we have to wait for her before we can split?
They wouldn’t l know I‘m dancing with the white waffle cloth shower curtain,
Holding it gently by its hem in one hand, twirling carefully,
And in the other hand, my magic bean infusion.

2. If your poetry were fruit- what would it be?

A strawberry--not one shipped to the east coast from California or north from Florida, but a local New England Mid-June, ripened-on-the-plant and picked at its reddest and juiciest strawberry, in its prime, enjoyed not a moment before its peak.

3. Do you journal, if so, do you mine it for poems?

Not so much a formal journal as a running list of ideas--newspaper articles, observations during the day, comments someone makes to me or things I overhear.

4. If the house of modern poetry has two supporting columns as some suggest - Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson- on what side of that house do you sit regarding your own poetry?

That's an easy one: Whitman.

5. Do you have a favorite line of your own poetry that you haven’t been able to use? Would you share it with us?

Something like this: When someone you love deeply dies suddenly, it never stops hurting, though time has a sway of smoothing it over.

LYNNE VITI was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. A graduate of Mercy High School, Baltimore, Barnard College and Boston College Law School, she practiced law for twenty years in Boston. For the past two decades, she has taught in the Writing Program at Wellesley College, where her courses focus on law, media, and ethics. Her poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction has appeared in both print and online venues, including The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, Little Patuxent Review (forthcoming), BlazeVox, Paterson Review, Amuse-Bouche, In Flight Literary Magazine, Damfino Journal, Irish Literary Review, The Lost Country A New Ulster, Mountain Gazette, Grey Sparrow Review, and at a curated exhibit at Boston City Hall. She won an honorable mention in the 2015 Allen Ginsberg Poetry contest, and the Summer 2015 The Song Is Poetry Contest. She blogs at stillinschool.wordpress.com.

Rachel Galvin

1 The following is the first line in your new poem- write a second line, and if you’re feeling inspired write as many lines as you’d like: What if coffee is a hallucinogen?

I'm banging on the door and they won't let me in.
I'm looking at my watch, ready to begin
Getting up this early really is a sin.

I'm poised to start. I drank the elixir.
They asked me to attend this 7:30 mixer.
I'm not just standing around getting my kicks here.
Maybe I'll try to go in through the rear.

I try my luck and what do I find?
50 people having a good time.
And here I am about to lose my mind
thinking about adding this event to my daily grind.
....Sigh....caffeine just kicked in...

2. If your poetry were fruit- what would it be?

Cherries because they are often sweet, sometimes bitter and in the middle is a pit. You either spit out the truth in the poems or plant it in your mind to grow.

3. Do you journal, if so, do you mine it for poems?

Yes, but not for poems.

4. If the house of modern poetry has two supporting columns as some suggest - Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson- on what side of that house do you sit regarding your own poetry?

I think stylistically, my poems usually are more like Whitman -- a bit more free form and less rhymed (although not with poem above), but I am drawn to Dickinson visually.

5. Do you have a favorite line of your own poetry that you haven’t been able to use? Would you share it with us?

I have many favorite lines... but I have shared them... here is one -- No money in my pocket don't make me small, because I find myself answering a higher call...

RACHEL GALVIN was first published at the age of six. But her real professional career didn’t start until much later. Always an avid writer, Rachel has felt that she has a natural ability for the written word. In 1998, while working in sales at Talent Magazine in Los Angeles, she was offered the chance to become a theater critic. It was those few tear sheets that led her to the career she holds today. When the magazine closed, she held onto to her work and used it later when she moved to Florida in 2000. She had been pursuing acting in Los Angeles and wasn’t sure where to turn for acting work in a new state so she looked elsewhere for a career. Seeing the film “Almost Famous” inspired her to be a writer. She began by getting involved in poetry, writing her poems and reading them at Borders bookstore, Lumonics and Wallflower Gallery. She even wrote her own book called Poetik Pathways. Meanwhile, with her tear sheets in tow, she worked steadily for six months trying to convince someone, anyone to pay her to write. It began with one publication — Our Town and shortly after Neighborhood News. Then, a bigger publication, “The Forum,” associated with The Tribune, began using her work. Other publications she has written for include Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Illustrated, Cravings, Boca Raton Observer, New Times (as theater critic and entertainment writer), DUO Magazine (as film columnist) and more. She also became lead writer (“Editor”) for In the Biz Magazine, a publication about the hospitality industry. In 2001, she became involved with CitySmart Magazine as a writer. In 2004, she came on as Calendar Editor and in 2006 she went from overall Contributing Editor to Editor, where she remained until the magazine closed in 2008. She continued freelancing but found a new home base at Observer Newspaper where she currently works today. She began by working in-house as an assistant editor and also the schools reporter, and eventually became the editor. In addition, she was able to combine her work in front of the camera with her reporting by becoming the host for ObserverTV. Currently, she not only writes for and edits The Observer, but also for Cultural Quarterly, DUO Magazine, City News, among others. For the last year, she has been working on her own magazine, Independent Streak Magazine (www.independentstreakmagazine.com), which focuses on the film industry. Galvin began acting professionally in 1996, beginning in theater and eventually moving into film as she moved from Colorado to Los Angeles. There, she worked for a talent management company for kids. When she moved to Florida, in 2000, she worked as an actress in local independent films. She opened her own management company, taking on an intimate group of clients who she consulted and helped obtain work, and she became a booking agent for bands. She also ran a networking group for people in artistic fields. She has been interviewed on various radio shows and on videos, as well as in print, for her expertise in the industry and has had her own award-winning radio show (archives are still online– www.blogtalkradio.com/indiestreak). It won best web radio show in 2013 from Women in the Arts Miami. In addition, she has been the host for Observer TV, Artistic Times TV and elsewhere. She also gives talks about the writing and film industry.

May 2016

Bruce Weber

1. There has been much speculation about whom the poet might be in Denise Duhamel's poem Sex With a Famous Poet. Whom would you say it might be?

It’s T. S. Eliot. Obviously. She met him back in the early 1920s and they had a fling, Making love while Big Ben chimed. While Hitler was considering his options. While women tangled with masquerades. While the idiot in the sandbox laughed till he was hyperventilating.

2. You’re scheduled to conduct a poetry workshop in a week but haven’t prepared for it. You must decide quickly- what will your workshop be about?

The twigs on the lawn. The missing bagel. The irredescent girl. The peasant humming Let It Be. The egg yolk bursting across the steaming griddle.

3. You’ve been submitting what you believe to be one of your best poems to major lit mags but it keeps being rejected. Do you start sending the poem to what you consider to be second-rate publications?

I burn it on the roof of the Empire State Building. I shoo it away like an irksome flea. I break it into quarters and chew. I bathe in the ancient waters of the Euphrates.

4. What is the best poem you’ve ever written? If it’s not too long, would you share it here? (Please keep in mind if it’s not been published, there are many publications that will consider it a published poem if it appears here and may not consider it).

I never show my work in public, especially my best poems. They seed in the cabinets of my room. They simmer like a pot on the stove. They tremble in a gust of rain. They hide behind the lead door with a chunk of Kryptonite.

5. Choose one: Bukowski or Plath? Why?

I hate poetry. Always have. I particularly hate that loud mouth beer drinking guzzler Bukowski and that teary eyed bitch Plath.

BRUCE WEBER is the author of five published books of poetry, These Poems are Not Pretty (Miami: Palmetto Press, 1992), How the Poem Died (New York: Linear Arts, 1998), Poetic Justice (New York: Ikon Press, 2004), The First Time I Had Sex with T. S. Eliot (New York: Venom Press, 2004), and The Break-up of My First Marriage (Rogue Scholars Press). Bruce’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, as well as in several anthologies. including Up is Up, But So Is Down: Downtown Writings, 1978-1992 (New York: New York University, 2006), Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers (New Paltz, New York: Codhill Press, 2007), and The Unbearables Big Book of Sex (Autonomedia, 2010). He has performed regularly in the tri-state area, both alone and with his former performance group, Bruce Weber’s No Chance Ensemble, which produced the CD Let’s Dine Like Jack Johnson Tonight (members.aol/com/ncensemble). He is the producer of the 21 years running Alternative New Year’s Day Spoke Word/Performance Extravaganza. By day, Bruce is Curator of Paintings & Sculpture at the Museum of the City of New York, and splits his time between his homes in New York City and Saugerties, New York. He has also authored numerous publications on American art.

Elisa Albo

1. There has been much speculation about whom the poet might be in Denise Duhamel's poem “Sex With a Famous Poet.” Whom would you say it might be?

I can’t say. I won’t. It’s a poem. It’s fictionalized, as I assume all poems are to a larger or lesser degree. It could be a composite or completely fabricated. For me, as a reader, it doesn’t matter.

2. You’re scheduled to conduct a poetry workshop in a week but haven’t prepared for it. You must decide quickly- what will your workshop be about?

Digging for gold. One of my first lessons when teaching a college comp class is called “Invention & Discovery.” Writers—and unprepared workshop facilitators—need have no fear. We’re brim full of material we can work with via our memory, observation, experience, and research.
I (or we) can decide on one area to mine, say, memory—like childhood, “firsts,” milestones, lessons learned. For example, write a poem about a time as a kid or teen you did or got caught doing a rather adult action (to combine several ideas). Or free-write for a poem that begins with “I remember….” Or begin a poem with (part of) the first line of Silvia Curbelo’s “Birthday Song”: “The day I was born….”

3.   You’ve been submitting what you believe to be one of your best poems to major lit mags but it keeps being rejected. Do you start sending the poem to what you consider to be second-rate publications?

Yes! Although I don’t characterize publications that way. I admit I’ve sent to some of the biggies, but I love and support poetry and the arts wherever and however they may appear. It’s about sharing the work, exposure to varied audiences—whether it’s a poem of mine, the poems and stories of beginning or seasoned writers, the painting of a friend, a song, a video—that include children, college students, connoisseurs or strangers on a bus.

4.   What is the best poem you’ve ever written? If it’s not too long, would you share it here? (Please keep in mind if it’s not been published, there are many publications that will consider it a published poem if it appears here and may not consider it).

I have no idea. The last one? That’s one that breaks from my more usual narrative voice, uses food imagery—one of my fave subjects—and plays with music in form and content. So far—I endlessly revise—it’s called “Citrus Music” and begins
       Sprayed scent of tangerine, tangy zest on nail from pulled back
dimpled rind, each separation an undressing, a reveal…
It quickly segues to Keith Jarrett, how he

must have peeled and eaten one before he breathed
and jazzed those riffs on piano—how they rained on us
in college, along with Marley, smoke and ash.

However, if forced to choose a favorite, it might be “Cuba: A Geobiography” from my first chapbook. It’s too long to share but emblematic of another subject of mine, my family immigrant story. The first line, which still holds true—though that may change in the near future—captures the mystery of my origins that has informed my life: ‘I was born on an island I have never seen.”

5. Choose one: Bukowski or Plath? Why?

Plath. Read her and all of her confessional poet contemporaries like crazy in college in the early eighties, including her novel The Bell Jar. I’d been reading more classic and mostly male poets up until then. She did then what Sharon Olds did for me almost a decade later, provide a voice with which to create art from our most intimate and expert source, our very lives. (Between reading her and Sexton, though, it’s a wonder so many young women survived—literally—their college years!)

ELISA ALBO is the author of two chapbooks, Each Day More and Passage to America, now available as an ebook with a reprint forthcoming in 2016 from Main Street Rag Publishers. Born in Havana and raised in central Florida, her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies such as Alimentum, Bomb Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Stream, InterLitQ, MiPoesias, Notre Dame Review, Tigertail: A South Florida Annual, The Potomac Journal, and Irrepressible Appetites. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University and teaches English and ESL at Broward College. She lives with her husband and daughters in Ft. Lauderdale.

C.S. Fuqua

1. There has been much speculation about whom the poet might be in Denise Duhamel’s poem Sex With a Famous Poet. Whom would you guess it might be?

Not I, which is where my speculation ends. That sounds snarky, but I don’t mean it to be. Poetry about poems, poets, or writing don’t usually draw my interest. I prefer poems that explore experiences more common to most people. Just a preference, not a value judgement.

2. You’re scheduled to conduct a poetry workshop in a week but haven’t prepared for it. You must decide quickly- what will your workshop be about?

I’d adapt a presentation/workshop I’ve conducted several times in middle and high schools, one that explores poetry as story, examining several poems (a haiku by Bosho and poems by Nikki Giovani, Raymond Carver, Sylvia Plath, and Langston Hughes) for their use of imagery, word choice, and poetic structure to incorporate elements of short fiction writing, including characters, point of view, conflict, climax, and resolution. The presentation would include exercises throughout, culminating in a first-draft poem.

3. You’ve been submitting what you believe to be one of your best poems to major lit mags but it keeps being rejected. Do you start sending the poem to what you consider to be second-rate publications?

Rather than rate them, I gauge whether to submit to publications by the types and styles of poems published. I wouldn’t submit to a magazine specializing in lyrical poetry because it would waste the editor’s and my time since the majority of my work is free verse. Beyond types of poems published, I consider response time (in this age of electronic umbilical cords, a 3-month or longer response time is inexcusably ridiculous), batch size limitation, circulation, regularity, reliability, and general attitude toward contributors, based on available information from various sources.

4. What is the best poem you’ve ever written? If it’s not too long, would you share it here? (Please keep in mind if it’s not been published, there are many publications that will consider it a published poem if it appears here and may not consider it).

Best or worst anything is a subjective call. At any point in time, what I believe is my best work is usually rejected as worst by a dozen or more editors. I have favorites, however. “Studebaker" is one of those favorites. It’s been published in several journals, its first appearance in the now defunct Poet, and is included in White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems, available through most bookstores. The poem has elicited both praise and damnation. Shrug…

Studebaker

There, next to the polished Mercedes,
the yellow Studebaker,
rust holes in the fender walls,
paint-chipped hood,
worn seats—nothing like
the old man’s.
He kept his sparkling, let me tell you,
just like the Model T before,
and the Thunderbird, the ’56 Chevy,
and the entire freeway of cars
that sped through my youth,
but none was so striking
as that hand-buffed Studebaker
with its white walls,
its custom steering wheel,
its immaculate seats,

and that night,
coming back from Andalusia
when they thought I was asleep
in the back,
and he reached over,
grabbed her hair,
jerked her hard enough
to spin her head to the side.
I found two spots of dried blood
the following day,
and I remembered how the moon
had hung in the rear window
just below a cluster of stars
as he muttered, Christ,
why’d you make me do that?
And she had rested her head
back against that perfect seat
as the hum of new tires on asphalt
rose through the floorboard.

5. Choose one: Bukowski or Plath? Why?

Neither as a favorite, but certainly Plath over Bukowski mainly because Plath’s work, to me, is better crafted, getting the message across subtly—a scream underlying a well-voiced whisper—while Bukowski’s work makes damn sure the reader gets the poet’s message rather than gleaning something different based on personal experience. This is simply my preference and not a condemnation of Bukowski or his work, much of which I enjoy.

C.S. Fuqua has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, book editor, English tutor, ESL instructor, substitute public school teacher, janitor, respiratory therapy technician, gas station attendant (when such things existed), salesclerk, musician in a Mexican restaurant, and writing instructor. After graduating college in the late 1970s and a few stints as reporter for daily and weekly newspapers, Chris moved to Hawaii where he served as a magazine writer and photographer, both on-staff and as a freelancer. In the mid-1980s when he returned to the mainland, he became a full-time freelance writer, specializing in nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
From historical, musical, and social nonfiction to dark fantasy, science fiction, and literary fiction to poetry, children's literature, and recorded music, Chris's work spans a broad spectrum and has appeared in hundreds of publications worldwide as diverse as Bull Spec, Main Street Rag, Slipstream, Pearl, Bogg, Chiron Review, The Year's Best Horror Stories, Cemetery Dance, Christian Science Monitor, Honolulu Magazine, Naval History, and The Writer. His published books include Wolfshadow, Native American Flute Craft ~ Ancient to Modern, The Native American Flute ~ Myth, History, Craft, Trust Walk and Rise Up short fiction collections, The Swing: Poems of Fatherhood, Muscle Shoals ~ The Hit Capital's Heyday & Beyond, Cancer, White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems ~ Volume I, and Notes to My Becca, among others. Chris recently produced the WindPoem series of CDs, featuring Native American flute meditations, and an accompanying musical soundtrack to the novel Wolfshadow. He is also a craftsman of Native American flutes. A native Alabamian who grew up in Pensacola, Florida, Chris now resides with his family in New Mexico. For more information, please visit his websites at http://csfuqua.weebly.com and http://csfuqua.bandcamp.com.

April 2016

Lyn Lifshin

1.Your new collection of poetry, wildly applauded by friends and critics, is entitled “Like”. Give us the first five titles of poems in the book:

1. Like when the mad girl wakes, her first night in Istanbul, to the white birds against a cobalt sky and hears the bells of Hagia Sophia, the chanting under the minarets, flares falling thru the blue black sky like stars

2 Like the flame of the red mare dashing thru brambles and oak leaves as she moves thru ice crusted leaves on the way back from the fence near the metro

3. Like the woman at National Archives, sorting thru dusty drawers of paper who finds a letter written from a dying soldier who can only sign his name with X signed Walt Whitman

4. Like the young girl in Hanko Finland who books the ship in the Baltic across the Atlantic as the northern lights blister the sky

5. Like when the mad girl photographed sunrise over Nutley pond—the brilliant rubies, garnets, turquoise, tangerines and violets, hear the geese get louder and louder, mating, February, a month she used to see it getting lighter on the way to ballet

2. You can’t seem to find an ending strong enough for the new poem you’re writing. You feel it is the best piece you’ve ever written. What do you do?

I can only really remember how one of my strongest poems was greatly improved when the editor, I forgot who, cut the last two lines off TENTACLES, LEAVES---maybe it was good without it but definitely was better. I suppose cutting often can help.

3. Performance/slams have taken the spoken word to new levels of acceptance. Many people, especially young people now have a voice they did not have before. Some have achieved a certain kind of fame. Is this Poetry with a capital P, or is it a lesser god in the pantheon of writing?

I don’t know—I think it is something different—maybe not lesser, but different.

4. Are there any words you love that you haven’t been able to incorporate into any of your poems? Please tell us one or some of them.

I really can’t think of any—polysyllabic abstract words never seem right for me so I’ve neve