What brought you to poetry? Do you have memories or experiences to reflect on?
What are you working on now or what is your current obsession or inspiration?
What are the best ways for someone to engage with poetry?
Who are your favorites?
Do you have any new publications or recognition?
One of my passions has been Poetry of Witness, or Poetry of Extremity. I believe the relationship between reader and poem is always political in that even the most lyrical poem can implicate its reader in the experience and truth it renders. Poetry can make us think and feel in powerful and articulate ways. It can bring us to action. As Rilke’ s poem“ Archaic Torso of Apollo” demonstrates, art can penetrate human consciousness to the point of epiphany and permanent change. The poem’ s last line is a charge of responsibility:“ You must change your life.” I believe poems refuse the disingenuous and inauthentic. The term“ Poetry of Witness” itself suggests a conception of poetry that is deeply ethical, calling upon the poem and the reader to bear the responsibility of human connection and truth. Today’ s students’ feelings about the present and future have been irremediably altered by school shootings, the war in Syria, the refugee crises around the world, our own current struggle to humanely enact border policy, and the devastation of the earth’ s health and sustainability. This study of world poets brings not political rhetoric and tribalism to the seminar table, but individual voices of men and women, landscapes, rivers and seas, history, memory, children, and doubt and faith.
What brought you to poetry? Do you have memories or experiences to reflect on?
One of my best childhood memories is of being in the children’ s section of the Portland Library. Several years ago, I visited it again, expecting from an adult perspective that it would seem smaller, less majestic. I sat in one of the small chairs and perused the bookshelves. The space was every bit as magical and majestic. While I loved stories and narrative, I was most powerfully drawn to the image. I took many art classes as an undergraduate, and art has continued to take up a large place in my life. The connection between these two passions led me to this poetry writing life.
What are you working on now or what is your current obsession or inspiration?
This season inspires me! Tomato growing becomes serious business; I check the garden( calling it a garden is a stretch) every day for the joy of seeing everything bigger, blossoms transforming into peppers and tomatoes. The dog gets even more spoiled, which is perfectly fine with me!
What are the best ways for someone to engage with poetry?
Read. Read outside your comfort zone. If you love Spoken Word poetry, read the American poets of the 50’ s and 60’ s. If you love the American and British romantic poets of the 19th century, read Shakespeare’ s sonnets. Go to Auntie’ s Bookstore and pick up an anthology of contemporary poetry. There is so much available in translation: the poems of Wyslawa Szymborska, the Polish poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996, speak brilliantly through time to the world’ s present tensions and conflicts.
Who are your favorites?
Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest minds of the 19th century, is a poet and figure who challenges me as few other poets do. I teach a Dickinson / Whitman seminar that is a great joy and challenge. The poets Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Wyslawa Szymborska, Yehuda Amichai, and Paul Celan have been deeply important to me, as well as the American poets Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Valentine, Mark Strand, Adrienne Rich, Jorie Graham, and Michele Glazer.
I am a fan of The Literary Review, Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture, North American Review, Ploughshares, The Boston Review( for current political and cultural conversation as well as poetry), J Journal: New Writing on Justice, Willow Springs, Plume Poetry Journal, and others. Every year I try to add a few new journals to my reading. As with volumes of poetry I return to again and again, my favorite journal issues are well-worn.
I always have many poems at various stages of drafting. I’ m working with what may be the genesis of a series with a political and global focus. I am putting a manuscript together with work from the last five years or so; by early fall I hope to share it with my writing group for their critique.
Do you have any new publications or recognition?
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