francine j harris Interviewed by Amy Beeder
francine j harris’ third book Here is the Sweet Hand, with which she “fully emerges as one of the best and most relevant contemporary poets,” (Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR) is recently out from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. In our following conversation, which took place over six months (April to September 2020), harris lends us her thoughts on Covid, protests, the
Ranjit Hoskote interviewed by Leeya Mehta
Chronicler of a Blue Planet: An audio interview with Ranjit Hoskote by Leeya Mehta Ranjit Hoskote has lived, for most of his life, in Bombay, on the shores of the Arabian Sea. He has been fascinated, ever since he was a child, by the presence of water, with its transcultural histories and legends retold in several languages. In his mind,
Reginald Dwayne Betts: On Art, Poetry, the Particular Fucked Up Parts of Incarceration, and the Multitudes of I — Interview by Amanda Newell
I had the pleasure of interviewing Reginald Dwayne Betts in a conversation that ranged from poetry, race, and erasure to Dunbar, Du Bois and Mos Def. We talked about prison, the language we use to describe it, and what happens when we frame the narrative of incarceration as being singularly “rooted in the experience of black men.” AN:
Ladder, Facts and Rungs—Dancing on the Train Tracks with Fleda Brown Interview by Nancy Mitchell
NM: These eight prose poems in “Treatises” speak with the authority of well-documented research and claim the same authority of the self, of the “facts” therein. Is it this authority that allows for shifts from exterior to interior, the acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of each to each? FB: I guess age confers some authority, but honestly, when I wrote these
Christopher Salerno interviewed by Nancy Mitchell
NM: I’m struck by the shifts of perspective within these featured poems, including human to non-human— in “SPORTS NO ONE FOLLOWS” we see the shift from the them of the bumblebees to the some of us, the distance between collapsed by the image of big as eyeballs; in “DAYLIGHT SAVINGS” We put mud on our faces, got beyond/being human, said
5 Under 35 Plus
5 under 35 Plus JN It is with deep honor I introduce the second installment of this feature. Below are twelve startling poems by six exceptional poets. I learned so much not only through their work, but through their insightful answers to the interview questions. In this feature you will find a fabulous array of poetic approaches by poets
Engraved Phrases on Open Seas: Poems and Notes on Translations of Khal Torabully
Engraved Phrases on Open Seas: Poems and Notes on Translations of Khal Torabully By Nancy Naomi Carlson Few books have had as great an impact on the course of my literary translation career as The Parley Tree: Poets from French-Speaking Africa & the Arab World, edited and translated by Patrick Williamson. This wonderful anthology introduced me to French-language poets
On Poetry and the Necessity of Aimless Wandering: An interview with Alan Shapiro by Amanda Newell
I had the pleasure of interviewing Alan Shapiro for this month’s feature, and we talked about everything from the prose poem and syntax to the necessity of aimless wandering and how humor and grief often coexist in poetry, as they do in life. At this year’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference, Shapiro will be honored for his
