Poets on Words With Writers. Photos by Marissa Bell Toffoli.
Happy National Poetry Month! To celebrate, here are interviews with poets from the archives. Cheers!
Barry, Sebastian (2011)
Behm-Steinberg, Hugh (2010)
Bell, Virginia (2013)
Budbill, David (2012)
Day, Lucille Lang (2014)
Doyle, Caitlin (2011)
Drewes, Steffi (2010)
Duggan, Patrick (2012)
Flowers, Arthur (2011)
Foerster, Jennifer Elise (2013)
Harmon, Elliot (2011)
Hirshfield, Jane (2011) Read the rest of this entry »
Lucille Lang Day. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2013).
An introduction to writer and editor Lucille Lang Day. She is the author of eight poetry collections, a number of short stories and creative nonfiction pieces, and the children’s book, Chain Letter. Her latest book, Married at Fourteen, won the 2013 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in the category of memoir. Day holds an MA in English, an MFA in Creative Writing, an MA in Zoology, and a PhD in Science/Mathematics Education. She’s also the founder and director of a small press, Scarlet Tanager Books. Read the rest of this entry »
Jennifer Elise Foerster. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2013).
An introduction to Jennifer Elise Foerster, author of the debut poetry book Leaving Tulsa (University of Arizona Press, 2013). In a discussion of how and why she writes, Foerster described the magic of writing: “The mind is a great labyrinth, and when I write I feel like I’m in the labyrinth.” Foerster holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has received numerous fellowships and was Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Foerster’s poems have been anthologized in Sing, New California Writing 2011, and Turtle Island to Abya Yala. Read the rest of this entry »
Aaron Shurin. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2013).
An introduction to Aaron Shurin, whose latest poetry collection is Citizen (City Lights Books, 2012). Shurin is the author of over a dozen books, both poetry and essay collections. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Gerbode Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the California Arts Council. He cofounded the Boston-based writing collective Good Gay Poets and was the director of the MFA in Writing program at the University of San Francisco.
When asked if he has a philosophy for how and why he writes, Shurin answered, “Poetry is attention, and it is the means of attending experience. Attention is the key word both for what it requires and what its nature is.” And that sense of attention comes through when you read his work. One of the pleasures of Shurin’s poetry is the focus on sound and rhythm. It makes for a powerful experience to hear him read. He doesn’t rush the words—each phrase has its own breath, deliberately chosen to add meaning, and momentum builds throughout the poem. Shurin graciously read some poems exclusively for this interview. Read the rest of this entry »
Virginia Bell. Photo by Ben Blustein.
An introduction to Virginia Bell, author of the poetry collection From the Belly (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). Bell is a Senior Editor with RHINO Poetry and an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago, where she particularly enjoys teaching courses on Women in Literature, Early American Literature, and Nationalism and Literature. Her poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and are forthcoming in Spoon River Poetry Review. Throughout 2013, her poems will be heard on WGLT’s Poetry Radio.
When asked about the title of her new book, Bell shared that it “allowed me to group seemingly disparate poems together: ekphrastic ones and ones about the body generally, as well as the ones about food or the mother’s body. I think I liked the idea, too, of the belly as gut, as the place where poems come from.” Indeed, her poems are a gutsy, unflinching exploration of what it means to grow up, to be a woman and a mother, to remember, to tell stories—to live.
David Budbill. Photo by Joshi Radin (2011).
An introduction to David Budbill, author of the book Park Songs: a Poem/Play (Exterminating Angel Press, 2012). Happy Life, his most recent book of poems, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2011. Two other Budbill books have also been published by Copper Canyon Press, While We’ve Still Got Feet and Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse. His latest play, A Song for My Father, premiered at Lost Nation Theatre in Montpelier, Vermont, in the spring of 2010 and will be produced again in Salinas, California, at The Western Stage in 2013. Budbill’s prizes and honors include The Vermont Arts Council’s Walter Cerf Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, a National Endowment for the Arts Play Writing Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and The Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award for Fiction. When asked about the role of humor in Park Songs, Budbill said, “All I know is, I can’t live my life without humor and neither can my characters.” Read the rest of this entry »
Mick Stern. Photo by Lucy Kehati.
An introduction to writer and artist Mick Stern, whose most recent books include The Chicken’s Guide to Crossing the Road, Fifty Thousand, and Get Out of Town. Stern received a PhD in English Renaissance Literature from New York University (NYU). He has taught English at Rutgers (New Brunswick) and other colleges. For more than twenty years, he taught screenwriting at NYU’s film school.
Read the rest of this entry »
Katherine Chiljan. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2012).
An introduction to Katherine Chiljan, author of Shakespeare Suppressed: The Uncensored Truth About Shakespeare and his Works (Faire Editions, 2011), and two anthologies: Dedication Letters to the Earl of Oxford, and Letters and Poems of Edward, Earl of Oxford. In 2012, Chiljan received the Vero Nihil Verius Award for Distinguished Scholarship from Concordia University in Oregon. Chiljan has studied the Shakespeare authorship question for over 26 years, has debated the topic with English professors at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Mechanics’ Institute in San Francisco. She has written several articles for the newsletter of the Shakespeare-Oxford Society, was its editor, and is a former Society trustee.
In Shakespeare Suppressed, Chiljan examines the identity of the great author, presenting evidence that supports a somewhat unpopular but convincing argument that he was not the man who hailed from Stratford-upon-Avon, not the man commonly credited as the writer of masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet. Freed of the Stratford Man model, problems of dating plays, piracy, and more can begin to be solved, and a new exciting figure of the author emerges. The book explores why the man from Stratford was falsely credited as Shakespeare after his death, but the implications of Chiljan’s research extend much further and offer Shakespeare fans, students, and scholars fresh perspective on the most celebrated poet and dramatist in history. Read the rest of this entry »
Arun Budhathoki (Daniel Song). Photo courtesy of Arun Budhathoki.
An introduction to poet Arun Budhathoki (Daniel Song), from Kathmandu, Nepal. Founding editor of The Applicant, a Kathmandu-based journal of literature and art, Budhathoki is also currently working on his second book of poems and a novella. When asked about his writing process, and where he would most want to live and write, Budhathoki shared, “I do not want to live in one place. Boundaries and geographic restrictions restrict creativity, at least in my case. That’s why you find my poems based in different places.” Read the rest of this entry »
Hazel White. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2012).
An introduction to Hazel White, author of the poetry collection Peril as Architectural Enrichment (Kelsey Street Press, 2011). White holds degrees in philosophy and literature, and has also studied crop agriculture and landscape architecture. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from California College of the Arts. The author of 11 gardening books, Peril as Architectural Enrichment is her first book of poems.
These two pursuits of White’s were recently fused for a UC Berkeley Botanical Garden symposium in February 2012. White described the experience as “an enormous moment. I was challenged to integrate what had previously been two separate parts of my life: the experimental poetry, and my commercial writing about landscape architecture. I made a presentation that was a sonnet, and it was a collage of prose, poetics, and philosophy, all around landscape architecture.” For readers of Peril as Architectural Enrichment, White’s background as a garden and landscape author seems absolutely fitting. In her poetry, the natural world intertwines with an intellectual and philosophical world to create thoughtful tension as the narrator searches for balance and an understanding of her place in this space. Read the rest of this entry »
Bhuwan Thapaliya. Photo by Rehal Kharel.
An introduction to Nepalese writer Bhuwan Thapaliya, who works as an economist, and is the author of four poetry collections. Thapaliya’s books include the recently released Safa Tempo: Poems New and Selected (Nirala Publication, New Delhi), and Our Nepal, Our Pride (Cyberwit.net). Poetry by Thapaliya has been included in The New Pleiades Anthology of Poetry and Tonight: An Anthology of World Love Poetry, as well as in literary journals such as Urhalpool, MahMag, Kritya, FOLLY, The Vallance Review, Nuvein Magazine, Foundling Review, Poetry Life and Times, Poets Against the War, Voices in Wartime, Taj Mahal Review, and more. When asked if there is a quote that motivates him, Thapaliya shared these lines: “Luck lies in bed and wishes somebody to bring him his tea every morning when he wakes up after a long sleep. Labor wakes up from his bed and heads towards the kitchen to make his own cup of tea every day after a brief slumber in peace.”
Patrick Duggan. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2011).
An introduction to poet and writer Patrick Duggan. Originally from New Hampshire, Duggan has studied writing and literature at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts and California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He is also a National Poetry Series finalist, and Duggan’s poems have appeared in Shampoo, Beeswax Magazine, 26 Magazine, Oranges and Sardines, Mirage: A Periodical, Monday Night, Noö Journal, Parthenon West Review, and The Inman Review.
Yon Walls. Photo by W A Moody.
An introduction to writer Yon Walls, who recently published a novel called Seeing Collette. Walls is a poet, diarist, and novelist originally from Kentucky. She’s lived in California since 1972. Walls holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College where she received the Zora Neale Hurston Writing Award twice. From 2000-2008, she taught college-level English and literature in the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley areas. In 2002 and 2007, she was a teacher and writer-in-residence in Hiroshima and Kofu, Japan. Since that time, she completed Island of Swallows, a collection of poems about Japan. Walls is currently a contributing editor for Tertuliamagazine.com. Read the rest of this entry »
Jane Hirshfield. Photo by Robert Hatch.
An introduction to poet Jane Hirshfield, author of the new collection Come, Thief (Alfred A Knopf). When asked whether the poems of Come, Thief reflect any particular concerns of hers, Hirshfield begins with, “One lifelong theme for me has been saying yes to what’s difficult.” Hirshfield is the author of six previous collections of poetry, a book of essays called Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, and four books collecting the work of poets from the past. Her accolades include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the Academy of American Poets, and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as three Pushcart Prizes, the California Book Award, The Poetry Center Book Award, and more. Her poems appear regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Poetry, and have been included in six editions of The Best American Poetry. Read the rest of this entry »
Sholeh Wolpé. Photo by Ken Pivak.
An introduction to Sholeh Wolpé, an award-winning poet, literary translator, and writer. Born in Iran, she has lived in England, Trinidad, and the United States. She is the author of Rooftops of Tehran, The Scar Saloon, and Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad—for which she was awarded the Lois Roth Translation Prize in 2010. Wolpé is a regional editor of Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East edited by Reza Aslan (WW Norton, 2010), and the editor of an upcoming anthology of poems from Iran, The Forbidden: Poems From Iran and Its Exiles (Michigan State University Press, 2012). Wolpé is also the contributing editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and poetry editor of the Levantine Review. Read the rest of this entry »
Sebastian Barry. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2011).
An introduction to Sebastian Barry, author of the novel On Canaan’s Side (Viking, 2011). Novelist, poet, and playwright, Barry lives and writes in Ireland. His plays have been produced in London, Dublin, Sydney, and New York. His novel A Long Long Way was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, as was The Secret Scripture, which was also a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award and the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction, as well as the Irish Novel of the Year. It was also selected as the Best Book of the Year by The Boston Globe and The Economist. Though not a stage performer himself, Barry possesses a talent for dramatic delivery that makes for a luxurious, mesmeric experience when he reads his work aloud.
Matthew Zapruder. Photo by Marissa Bell Toffoli (2011).
An introduction to the author of the poetry books Come On All You Ghosts, The Pajamaist, and American Linden. Poet, editor, and teacher, Zapruder does it all. When asked about why he writes, he concluded: “I think that people are most happy when they do things that are deeply connected and integrated with who they are, and that fulfill that need in themselves to feel connected to others and productive.” Zapruder is interested in communicating by harnessing the power of language to share thoughts and moments in beautiful ways, in talking to people about poetry and what poetry can do in the world. Read the rest of this entry »
Sue Johnson. Photo by Bob Woodroofe.
An introduction to writer Sue Johnson, author of the new novel Fable’s Fortune (Indigo Dreams, UK). A Home Study Tutor for Writers’ News Magazine, Johnson also organizes her own brand of writing workshops. She publishes Writer’s Toolkit booklets designed to help new writers. Johnson’s book on writing novels, Creative Alchemy: 12 Steps From Inspiration to Finished Novel, will be published by HotHive Books in October 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
My name is Marissa Bell Toffoli. A writer and reader, I spend lots of time with books, and then more time thinking about those books and the words that fill their pages. I am interested in what writers are working on, how they think about writing, and how writing fits ... Continue reading
Words With Writers 