I'm actually a little obsessed
with poetry; like Dr. Frankenstein
in the old horror move: "IT'S
ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE."
Jennifer: What made you first
start expressing yourself through
writing? Did you always love to
write?
Brod: I wrote my first poem when
I was in third grade, a poem to say
"I love you" to my mother when
she was very sick. (She got better.).
Then I wrote a few poems in high
school, but my college years were
the real beginning.
It's hard to say what got me started. I think
deep-down inside I'm a lonely person, and with
poems, I can communicate my thoughts and
feelings to someone else, which makes me feel
a little less alone. So for me, it's not just about
expressing myself, it's about expressing myself
in a way that touches someone else and
produces a response: thoughts, laughter, tears,
and sometimes all three.
Jennifer: You are known for your wonderful,
fun poetry. What other types of writing have
you done?
Brod: I've tried to write prose fiction, but I'm never satisfied with the results. I tend to keep
rewriting, trying to improve the natural rhythm of the language, structuring the flow of sound so that it feels good to say out loud, looking for ways to use concrete objects and specific actions so as to communicate a universal truth. In other words, I keep trying to turn it into poetry. So poetry is pretty-much what I end up doing. Sometimes the poems appear as monologues, dialogues, or even short plays, but it's all poetry.
A Brilliant Break with Brod Bagert
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