Andrea Defoe: “I must’ve been about fifteen, in the middle of a forest, when I happened upon a gravestone inscribed, ‘Outward sunshine, inward joy: Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!’ I was amazed at how the right lines in the right place could elicit a gut response from me.”
Benjamin S. Grossberg: “More and more these days, I find it hard to write about one thing without writing about everything. In ‘It Kept Always Being Sunday,’ I tried to ride that impulse, rather than resist it. I’ve been writing poems for as long as I can remember, but the first time I was really transported by a poem was hearing a literature professor read ‘Lady Lazarus’ aloud in class.”
Marie-Elizabeth Mali: “Ten years ago after reading Neruda’s Poetry on a plane, I stood in the immigration line at JFK and vowed to dedicate myself fully to poetry. I left my Chinese Medicine practice shortly after and entered the MFA in poetry program at Sarah Lawrence College. I love how a poem can upend a person’s life.” (web)
Bill Garvey: “James Tate’s book, Absences, influenced me to write poetry more than any other thing I can remember. It was 1972. I was 17. He was no less a rock star to me than Mick Jagger. Thirty-five years later, I confronted Tate at an event in Brattleboro, Vermont, at the urging of my wife. He sat on stage before his reading. As I approached, he grimaced. I regretted my decision, but it was too late. Sheepishly, I made my request to interview him for a paper. His wife, Dara Wier, sensing his reluctance, said, ‘What have you got to lose?’ I gave Tate my phone number. I’ll never hear from him, I thought, leaving the stage. Less than a week later the phone rang at our home. My daughter answered. I had blocked out the event in Brattleboro until she said, ‘Dad, it’s for you. Some guy named James Tate.’”
David Kirby: “When I heard this week that Gordon Lightfoot had died, the first song of his that came to mind was ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.’ It’s one of those songs that’s both awful and fabulous at the same time: it’s the song you put on repeat to drive out those last drunk guests who won’t leave your party, but it’s also one that can move you to sudden, unexpected tears. The story of its composition addresses every artist’s fundamental challenge: do I stick to the facts or do I try to create a work that will last? Me being me, I precede the story of the composition of ‘The Wreck’ with other similar instances, but I get around to it eventually.” (web)
James Davis May: “I’ve always liked Czeslaw Milosz’s claim that ‘the purpose of poetry is to remind us/ how difficult it is to remain just one person.’ I’ll modify that quote, though, slightly: The purpose of poetry is, sometimes, to remind us how difficult it is to be a person. That is, by testifying what it’s like to be a person, poetry defends (both justifies and protects) that flimsy—some say mythical—thing the self.”
R.G. Evans: “In addition to writing poems, I’m a songwriter as well. There’s something exhilarating about the feeling of performing an original song for an audience and getting immediate, positive feedback—but that feeling is, as Emily Dickinson wrote, ‘How public—like a Frog—.’ Finishing and polishing a pretty good poem and at first (and maybe always) being its only reader is a wicked little pleasure I get to keep all to myself.” (web)
