Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Poemeleon: The Blog moved to the Poemeleon website

Dear Readers:


In the interest of consolodation, ease of navigation, and my own belief that simpler is better, I have decided to move Poemeleon: The Blog over to the Poemeleon website and will be consolidating the NewsBlog with The Blog, all in the interest of efficiency and in concert with some other organizational changes we've made. Bear with us while we continue to streamline our operation.


The old NewsBlog will remain archived on the site indefinitely; look for a link on The Blog's index page. Any new entries for the NewsBlog will appear on The Blog under the NewsBlog category heading.


And of course, we will be continuing our Habitual Poet interview series. Look for new Habitual Poet Interviews with Jessy Randall, Lesley Wheeler and Penelope Scambly Schott in the coming weeks.


Sincerely,

The Editors

Friday, January 22, 2010

The Habitual Poet: Grace Marie Grafton

Installment #18

: : :

The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate copy & paste the Q's from below and e-mail your answers to: editor@poemeleon.org.


: : :


Reading

Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?

The library.



Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?
Between 100-200. I’ve read parts of all.


Q: When, where and how do you usually read?(i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)
Off and on, all day every day, in the kitchen, in my bed/workroom, at work, usually in bits and pieces, only novels cover to cover.


Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?
I’ve read in: Lorca’s Collected Poems, Merwin’s Book of Fables, the current copy of Edgz, The Penguin Book of Sonnets, Bin Ramke’s Tendril.


Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?
The SF Chronicle, C. Myss’ The Anatomy of the Spirit, Benioff’s City of Thieves, Hazzard’s Transit of Venus. Almost every day I look at various books of art.



Writing


Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)
I write almost every morning during my meditation because I’m “empty” and can “hear” the poem come in. I write in a notebook, longhand because the sound and action of the pen soothes and encourages my mind.


Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?
Three or four per week, so ten or twelve per month.


Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?
Three to twelve months because I need to emotionally separate from the poem to critique it.


Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?
I don’t know when a poem is done. Is it ever done?

Q. Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?
There are many times I prefer to write alone than to socialize.



Publishing:


Q: What is your system for sending out work?
I don’t know if I’d call my submissions process a system; it’s sporadic. I send out more in the summer because I’m not teaching. I try to familiarize myself with a publication’s bent before I send, and when I send, I keep track on index cards.


Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?


I received an acceptance yesterday and it was expected. However, this past week, I’ve received four rejections and I can’t say I didn’t expect them.

Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?
I have poems in print and online. I like both. With print, I have it in hand and can muddle through the pages, at breakfast for instance. Plus it’s easier for me to read on paper. Online I like because more of my friends (fans?) can easily access the work. I can more easily and cheaply find out an editor’s preferences online.


Q: What is the worst (or weirdest, or best) experience you’ve had with a journal/magazine/press & its editor(s)? (No names, please!)
The responses I like best are when editors include a comment about what they like about my poems; that’s happened infrequently. Once I got a phone call from an editor who said my work was “astounding.” I floated on that a few days. I have a lot of trouble with the “dropped into the void” rejections when I never hear back at all. Snarl.


Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?
I get the most positive feedback from readings I give. This past year I got an interesting query via email. A professor who had set up a course composed of poems to art contacted me in regard to my ekphrastic book which he was using in his course!



Practical considerations:


Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?
I teach kids to write poetry and it enhances my own writing. Kids’ responses to poetry are always fresh. Keeps me on my poetic toes, coming up with inspiring lessons for them. Encourages me to be playful in my own poems. The down side is that I often spend a lot more time on others’ creative process than I do on my own.


Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?
It helps to support me, so I don’t have to teach full time.


Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?
From the time I left university, through the years I taught high school then had two babies, I did no creative writing. When my kids were both in school, I began seriously writing poetry and fiction. I’ve written consistently since then.


Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?
I’d call my daily life a poetry budget. When I began writing, I also returned to teaching, but only half-time so I’d have time to write. My budget is to endure making a poverty level income.


Q: Have you ever suffered (or made someone else suffer) in the name of your art? (i.e. picked up your kids late from school so you could finish a poem, forgone lunch to buy a book, left a relationship because the other person just didn't understand, etc.)
I guess I could say I’ve made myself and my kids “suffer” economically so I could write. We’ve never gone hungry or cold but I could have made lot more money had I worked full time or in a different profession.



Random nonsense:


Q: Do you have any superhuman abilities? (i.e. can you tie a cherry stem in a knot20with your tongue, or write a double sestina with both hands tied behind your back?)
I think all my abilities are astounding because I am human.


Q: You write a scathing poem about your mother and she learns about it. You:


a.) Move to South America and leave no forwarding address
b.) Delete the poem and insist it never existed
c.) Show it to her (she’s already written you out of the will anyway)
d.) Do none of the above; instead you:
I’d probably tell her she was free to read the poem but she wouldn’t like it and why not read these other two I’ve written that she would like? My mom was pretty good at avoiding what she thought she wouldn’t like.


Q: If the best medical specialists in the world told you that20if you didn’t give up your poetry habit today you would die in six months, would you get your affairs in order or would you leave that up to your family?
If I were going to die in six months, why would I stop writing (joyful) to attend to petty details (annoying and boring) that my kids could also ignore should they so choose?


Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?
I’d be an “I” because it is often in the middle, but frequently, when at the beginning or end, it significantly alters the meaning of the word.

Q: Finally write a couplet for a collaborative ghazal using the following kaafiyaa and radif: “said the poet”.


A drink of water is not a crow’s blather.
A crow’s blather will pave the way to heaven, said the poet.


_______________________________________________________


Grace Marie Grafton’s poetry won first prize in the annual Bellingham Review contest, was a finalist for NIMROD’s Pablo Neruda Prize, and was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her chapbook, Zero, won the Poetic Matrix Press contest. Her book, Visiting Sisters, was published by Coracle Books. Poems recently appear in The Modern Review, Ur*vox, good foot, Spoon River Poetry Review, and may be viewed at poetrymagazine.com (also under G. M.Grafton).


Thursday, December 31, 2009

The Habitual Poet: Robert Krut

Installment #17

: : :

The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate copy & paste the Q's from below and e-mail your answers to: editor@poemeleon.org.


: : :

Reading:

Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?

Los Angeles has a lot of great independent bookstores—Skylight, Vroman’s, Stories, Book Soup—I buy at those as much as possible. When I’m at work, up in Santa Barbara, I love Chaucer’s. I do also use Amazon, but mostly when I have a gift certificate or something along those lines.


Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?

I'm terrible with numbers, but we have four bookcases full in our place. Optimistically, I'd say I've read about 50% cover-to-cover; the rest, I've at least read some...none are entirely untouched.


Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)

Any time I have a moment and/or the mood strikes, really. Often I will read before I go to bed. I also like to read between classes—UCSB is on the beach, so it is a perfect setting.


Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?

A friend loaned me The Courtesy, by Alan Shapiro, which I’m really liking. Also, I’ve been reading a new (to me) Tu Fu collection my brother sent my way. I’ve also been re-reading some recent books that tend to get me worked up and wanting to write, like Beckian Fritz Goldberg’s Book of Accident and Matt Hart’s Who’s Who Vivid.


Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?

It seems like every summer I find myself going through Philip K. Dick again; I’m partial to his collected nonfiction writings. I’ve got a book about the Songlines in Australia on the nightstand. Online, I’ve been catching up on a lot of journals. And I just read a great article about the 25th anniversary of Purple Rain.


: : :


Writing:


Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)

Most frequently, in the early, early morning. On work days, I leave for school at 4:30 am, so I’m up before just about the rest of the world and everything is quiet. I may write before even getting in the car, but usually, after driving along the Pacific Ocean for an hour (I take the 101 from LA to Santa Barbara), I’m ready to write when I get to my office. This is not always the rule, though—last month I was in jury duty and wrote three drafts (of wildly varying quality) sitting in the courthouse lobby.


Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?

It varies pretty drastically. I’d love to say seven in a week—one a day, but that’s not realistic. I have some weeks where I might surprise myself with eight or nine, and some where I don’t hit two. I think the norm is 3-4. I should point out that I’m using “draft” loosely here—those 3-4 are not always formed poems as much as starts, sketches, images, and such.



Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?

Two minutes.


Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?

I don’t believe in eternal revision, but at the same time, I do tend to revise up until someone takes it away from me.


Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?

Sure. Now that I have a somewhat more regimented writing routine, though, the two don’t tend to intersect as much. No one’s calling to go out at 4:30 in the morning…


: : :

Publishing:


Q: What is your system for sending out work?

I try my best to be organized, using a single document to track submissions. I always have a list of places I’d like to send, and/or have been encouraging in the past.


Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?

Most recently, I was asked to send in some poems for a new online journal, which looks like it will be an exciting one. Aside from that, I received a rejection in the mail the same week.


Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?

A mix. I really have no preference…like a lot of people, I still love holding a book/journal in my hands, but there are so many great online journals out there that I just see it all as ways to get work out in the world. Back in 2003 when Blackbird published Norman Dubie’s The Spirit Tablets at Goa Lake, a long poem serialized over two issues, the power and possibility of online journals became really clear to me, as a reader.


Q: What is the worst (or weirdest, or best) experience you’ve had with a journal/magazine/press & its editor(s)? (No names, please!)

I’ll just focus on “best” experiences…I’ve had a couple of journals that really went out of their way to work with me through a series of submissions to find the exact right piece for their pages, sometimes through a number of encouraging correspondences. The Mid-American Review comes to mind, as does the previously mentioned Blackbird.

And, of course, I have had a great experience with BlazeVOX Books, which chose to publish my book. It’s such a huge undertaking to get everything in place—anyone who takes that publishing path has an immense love of poetry.


Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?

A couple of years ago, one of my poems was posted on a stranger’s MySpace page. I got a kick out of that.


: : :


Practical considerations:


Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?

I teach at the University of California at Santa Barbara, in the Writing Program. Even though teaching has so many responsibilities, I do find that it affords me an opportunity to fit in writing in a way that a 9-5 job would not. And, I really do love teaching, and working with students.


Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?

My significant other is an actress, so we both work in the arts—even if they are very different forms, we have a mutual understanding of the attempt to create something. As a fringe benefit, she is a hilarious comedic actress, and that helps keep me (sometimes) from taking myself too seriously. On the most recent season of the show she’s on, her character read an “emo” poem, which I thought was the perfect crossover of our artistic lives.


Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?

Sure.


Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?

I don’t really think about it, to be honest. If things are financially lean for a bit, I might cut back on books or submissions, but rarely. Back when I was sending my manuscript out, I sent to a lot of contests, which adds up, of course. I’m grateful that so many journals (and even some book contests) are now taking submissions online, which reduces cost so much, and, of course, saves some trees.


Q: Have you ever suffered (or made someone else suffer) in the name of your art? (i.e. picked up your kids late from school so you could finish a poem, forgone lunch to buy a book, left a relationship because the other person just didn't understand, etc.)

I’m not sure I’d use the word “suffering”—I’ve obsessed over a line, labored over a piece, etc. but even in those moments, it doesn’t really feel like suffering as much as the overall process of putting a poem together. As for other people, I hope I haven’t caused any suffering…inconvenience at times, surely, but hopefully not suffering.


: : :


Random nonsense:

Q: Do you have any superhuman abilities? (i.e. can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue, or write a double sestina with both hands tied behind your back?)

I can drive for extraordinarily long periods of time—I’ve driven across the country a number of times. One of those times, I drove for 21 hours straight, through the heat of New Mexico, past thunderstorms in Texas, and into the humidity of Louisiana.



Q: You write a scathing poem about your mother and she learns about it. You:

a.) Move to South America and leave no forwarding address
b.) Delete the poem and insist it never existed
c.) Show it to her (she’s already written you out of the will anyway)
d.) Do none of the above; instead you...

laugh that the only “scathing” thing you could say about your wonderful mother is that she hasn’t learned a way to ship a tray of lasagna across the country.


Q: If the best medical specialists in the world told you that if you didn’t give up your poetry habit today you would die in six months, would you get your affairs in order or would you leave that up to your family?

In the corner of that room, there’s a nurse no one’s talking to. While everyone else is discussing the prognosis, she calls me over, hands me a vial with an antidote and I sneak out the back after writing a haiku on the paper towel dispenser.



Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?

U


Q: Finally write a couplet for a collaborative ghazal using the following kaafiyaa and radif: “said the poet”.

Love echoes—graffiti on an empty apple crate—
I won’t make this a poem, said the poet.

: : :

Robert Krut is the author of The Spider Sermons (BlazeVOX, 2009). His work has appeared in Blackbird, Barrow Street, The Mid-American Review, and more. He has been a poemeleon contributor twice, in the Form and Humor issues. More information can be found at his website.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

The Habitual Poet: Ann Fisher-Wirth

Installment #16

: : :

The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate copy & paste the Q's from below and e-mail your answers to: editor@poemeleon.org.


: : :


Reading


Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?


I get my books from lots of places. In Oxford, MS, where I live, we have a fantastic independent bookstore, Square Books, and I always like to buy books there. But also I have a lot of friends who write, so by now I have acquired a lot of books either at readings or conferences, or by
trading with them.



Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?


I still have all my poetry books from college and graduate school, and from nearly thirty years of teaching, as well as all the books I have acquired in connection with my writing, so they number in the hundreds. By now they are double-stacked in my shelves both at school and at home, and are sneaking into the kitchen and into piles on the bedroom floor. Dire! What percentage have I actually read? Well let's say I am saving things to do in my eventual retirement. Sometimes they proliferate faster than I can get to them. But I try at least to read a bit of each of them. And some, I've read dozens of times.


Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)


I have just bought a really comfortable chair -- an ambition for years. So now I will be able to say I read sitting up. But in the past I have tended to read in bed, or on the floor while doing yoga. I usually do not read cover to cover, for two reasons: I'm really busy, and I'm really impatient. I have trouble sitting still. But I am, on the other hand, reading constantly.


Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?


Brenda Hillman's Practical Water, Bob Hass's Time and Materials, Bill Stobb's fine book the title of which I am forgetting, Claire Keyes's Questions of Rapture, several books from Tupelo Press, and -- because I was teaching an upper division summer school course in 20th Century American Poetry -- various parts of David Lehman's Oxford Book of American Poetry.



Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is a very cool mystery recently translated from Swedish. Lester R. Brown's book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, which can be downloaded free from www.earthpolicy.org and which EVERYBODY SHOULD READ. And various books that I'll be teaching in the fall: Little Women, Huckleberry Finn, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, Black Like Me. As far as magazines, the main two are Vogue and Yoga Journal. And I am obsessively involved with Sunday Times crossword puzzle books.



: : :



Writing


Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)


I wish I found it easier to write. Recently I broke a long spell of not writing any poems, by going to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers poetry workshop, where everyone writes a new poem every day. It was fantastic. Usually I free-write in a journal, jot down little things on scraps of paper, and so forth, and then eventually I read them over and see if anything begins to coalesce as a possible poem. Often, too, I write in my journal with my nondominant hand; sometimes this works to surprise me with language I am not conscious of. Sooner or later I begin to shape poems on my computer; I never actually write poems longhand because that handwritten process does not give me a sense of their shape.

Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?


Which week? Which month? For months the answer would have been zero. Last week the answer was eight.

Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?


Again, that varies wildly. I fiddle with poems until they feel done to me. Then I send them by my wonderful online writing group, which consists of seven or eight Wom-Po poets with whom I've worked for several years. Eventually I send them by my colleague and friend Beth Ann Fennelly. Sometimes I am dissatisfied with them for years; other times, they feel right the first time out. I'm still trying to find the second stanza for a dynamite first stanza I wrote more than thirty years ago...and I think I never will.



Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?


Well, I tend to think they're done before they're done. Then I un-think that, once I give them a little time and look at them again with a jaundiced eye. I am sure that some of the ones I've published are not actually done -- but that is because I could now do them better, or at least differently. Eventually, though, most of them reach a form that feels complete.



Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?


Absolutely.



: : :


Publishing:

Q: What is your system for sending out work?


I used to keep records on little cards but I got tired of that, so I just write things down on sheets of paper, all of which are clipped together and kept on my second office desk -- the desk that has been my own personal possession for decades. Periodically I get mobilized and send things out, sometimes in response to requests for work, sometimes to contests, sometimes just to journals I admire. When something is rejected I draw a line through the entry and when something is accepted I circle it and write YES. It's very primitive but very efficient.



Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?


I am delighted to say, two acceptances of poems -- one for an anthology, the other as 2nd place in a journal contest -- and a contract for a book. Expected? No. But I didn't not expect it, either. I have worked hard on letting go of expectations; that way I am happy when work is taken and much less dejected than I used to be when it is turned down.



Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?


At this point I publish in print and online and in anthologies. I don't really have a preference, as long as the journal or collection is one I really admire.


Q: What is the worst (or weirdest, or best) experience you’ve had with a journal/magazine/press & its editor(s)? (No names, please!)


Both my worst and my best experiences publishing are connected not with a journal or magazine, but with the long-ago process of publishing my scholarly book on William Carlos Williams. It's too long a story to tell here. The short version is, after various catastrophes and acts of carelessness on the part of three university presses, which ate up much of my tenure clock, I was so demoralized about trying to publish this book that I -- literally -- got drunk and held my one and only manuscript over an incinerator, ready to dump it in and light a match. In the days before computers this would have been the end of my chances for a book and therefore of my academic career. My husband persuaded me to try just one more press, so I did. One month later, the press got the first peer review, which said, in essence, "Don't change a word; publish it." The editor wanted to get one more peer review, so he sent the manuscript out again. Two days later he got the second peer review, which said, "I read it last night and I read it again this morning just to make sure. It doesn't need a thing. Publish it." And that is why I am here today. I will forever be grateful.



Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?

Yes I have received fan mail and it is such a wonderful experience to know that people I've met and people I've never met, long-lost friends and total strangers, have been moved by my work.



: : :



Practical considerations:

Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?


I am a Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. I love my job but it keeps me WAY too busy, as I teach all levels of classes from freshman seminars in the Honors College to graduate workshops and seminars; I also direct the Environmental Studies minor on our campus. So, my job affects my writing by making it nearly impossible to find time and psychic space and solitude for poetry. But it also affects my writing in that I am constantly exposed to good or great writing; I live with the great literature of the past daily, and I'm lucky to be part of a vibrant ongoing community of writers.



Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?


My husband also teaches English at the University of Mississippi. He knows more poems by heart, and knows more about poetry and poets altogether, than anyone else I know. I'm incredibly lucky in his companionship, support, understanding, and knowledge. I'll expand this question a little to add that I'm also very lucky to have a poet daughter. (And four other wonderful children too.)


Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?


Oh yes. I didn't write any poems for ten years, for instance. This was for complicated and multiple reasons, but once I started to write again I made a vow to myself that no matter what, I would never quit. I've kept this vow though I do have periods of struggle.



Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?


I put the money I earn for readings and selling books in a special savings account, and I use some of it occasionally. Mostly, I'm just saving it. Also I have built up a faculty development account that gives me money for travel; for instance, it enabled me to go to the workshop at Squaw Valley. But budgeting in our household is extremely informal.



Q: Have you ever suffered (or made someone else suffer) in the name of your art? (i.e. picked up your kids late from school so you could finish a poem, forgone lunch to buy a book, left a relationship because the other person just didn't understand, etc.)

Yes I have. How, when, and why are woven into my books.



: : :



Random nonsense:

Q: Do you have any superhuman abilities? (i.e. can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue, or write a double sestina with both hands tied behind your back?)


'Fraid not, though I can bite my toenails.



Q: You write a scathing poem about your mother and she learns about it. You:

a.) Move to South America and leave no forwarding address
b.) Delete the poem and insist it never existed
c.) Show it to her (she’s already written you out of the will anyway)
d.) Do none of the above; instead you: _____


My mother is dead and I have not an iota of scathing feeling about her. So I will transform this question, and say that it's scary to write things that other people might be hurt or shocked by. But I have found to my great joy that the people in my life whom I care about are willing to love and accept me, and that taking this chance -- as I have done in my books -- has ended up being a profoundly healing experience.


Q: If the best medical specialists in the world told you that if you didn’t give up your poetry habit today you would die in six months, would you get your affairs in order or would you leave that up to your family?


I'd probably just go around hugging everyone in my family all the time, and getting hyper-emotional, and trying to write really good poetry. Getting my affairs in order would take way too much time.


Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?


I'd be A. I'm used to it, being an Ann.



Q: Finally write a couplet for a collaborative ghazal using the following kaafiyaa and radif: “said the poet”.


Paradise is jagged, Eden comes slowly, and we know it --

But peaches today at the farmers' market were lush with rain and summer,

said the poet.


_______________________________________________________


Ann Fisher-Wirth is the author, most recently, of Carta Marina (Wings Press, 2009). Her chapbook Slide Shows is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. With Laura-Gray Street she is coediting an anthology of contemporary ecopoetry, to be published by Trinity University Press. She teaches at the University of Mississippi, and will spend two months next spring teaching at Fribourg University, Switzerland.


Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Habitual Poet: Andrea Potos

Installment #15

: : :

The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate copy & paste the Q's from below and e-mail your answers to: editor@poemeleon.org.


: : :


Reading


Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?


At local bookstores, preferably an independent bookstore or good used
bookstore.



Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?


I must have anywhere from 350-500, and I have read SOME of all of them.


Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)


Anytime I can! By the lake, on my "fainting couch" in my room. . .


Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?


The Mind-Body Problem by Katha Pollitt, Open Heart by Stanley Plumly,Quiver by Sarah Busse, School of the Arts by Mark Doty.



Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?


Novels and memoirs: The Help, Persepolis 1 and 2, Heaven's Coast, Unconditional Life (Chopra); and am now reading Angela's Ashes.



: : :



Writing


Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)


Mornings, in cafes or outside by the lake, or in my 3rd floor garrett. Always in longhand first!


Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?


1-3 per week.



Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?


I hardly wait at all! I'm too eager to finish and get on to the next poem!



Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?


When it feels the "rightest."



Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?


yes!



: : :


Publishing:

Q: What is your system for sending out work?


I try to send out work 4-5 times per month.



Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?


Recently, I've received nothing at all! Where are all these responses???


Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?


A mix; I am starting to really like online publishing, because the poems are seeming to reach a wider audience than they would otherwise.


Q: What is the worst (or weirdest, or best) experience you’ve had with a journal/magazine/press & its editor(s)? (No names, please!)


Long ago, in my early writing days, one contest judge wrote this on my poem: "This poem starts out promising and goes nowhere fast. . . " What a meanie!



Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?

Yes, fan mail, particularly for my book "Yaya's Cloth." No hate mail yet!!



: : :



Practical considerations:

Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?


I am fortunate to work part-time at local bookstore, and also as an editorial member for a small press. For that, I read manuscripts on my own
time, at home or wherever. So, I am usuallly able to carve out that morning writing time, particularly when my daughter (now 12) is at school.



Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?


In that it makes it possible for me to work part-time, I guess it helps a lot. Also, my husband is a scientist and a very interesting
person to exchange ideas with.


Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?


No. William Stafford would say (I like to remember this), if you can't write, it must mean your standards are too high!



Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?


No.



Q: Have you ever suffered (or made someone else suffer) in the name of your art? (i.e. picked up your kids late from school so you could finish a poem, forgone lunch to buy a book, left a relationship because the other person just didn't understand, etc.)



Not that I'm aware of!



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Random nonsense:

Q: Do you have any superhuman abilities? (i.e. can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue, or write a double sestina with both hands tied behind your back?)


I can remember what underwear I wore on June 13,
1973!!!!



Q: You write a scathing poem about your mother and she learns about it. You:

a.) Move to South America and leave no forwarding address
b.) Delete the poem and insist it never existed
c.) Show it to her (she’s already written you out of the will anyway)
d.) Do none of the above; instead you: _____


say a mantra and use it as a chance to talk to her.

Q: If the best medical specialists in the world told you that if you didn’t give up your poetry habit today you would die in six months, would you get your affairs in order or would you leave that up to your family?


Probably both.


Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?


A-- I like the crisp, versatile, friendliness of this vowel. . . .



Q: Finally write a couplet for a collaborative ghazal using the following kaafiyaa and radif: “said the poet”.


(To be filled in at a later date -- check back soon!)


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I am the author of the poetry collections Yaya's Cloth (Iris Press) which won at Outstanding Achievement Award in Poetry from the Wisconsin Library Association, and also The Perfect Day (Parallel Press). My poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, including Poetry East, Calyx Journal, Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Women's Review of Books, Claiming the Spirit Within (Beacon Press), Beloved on the Earth (Holy Cow! Press) and many others. I have a great love for English authors and have a book-length manuscript of poems exploring the lives of the Bronte sisters. I am also working on a chapbook about John Keats. I live in Madison with my husband and daughter.