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
The Neural Lyre: An Interview with Richard Kenney by Amy Beeder
The Neural Lyre: An Interview with Richard Kenney by Amy Beeder Reader, I present to you Richard Kenney’s elegant, sharp and amusing meditations on musical poetry, the audible palette of rhyme, the “Celtic fringe”, and more― AB: I was first introduced to your work several years ago, by the poet Hailey Leithauser. We were discussing what we felt to
Daisy Fried: On Jesus, Uncertainty, Risk, and Imagination. Interview by Amanda Newell
Daisy Fried: On Jesus, Uncertainty, Risk, and Imagination Interview by Amanda Newell AN: On social media recently, you said that you’re close to having a new manuscript of poems—or maybe more accurately, that you had written enough new poems for a manuscript. There is a difference! Can you talk about your new work, and what readers can expect from
Jim Daniels interviewed by Amanda Newell
Jim Daniels Interviewed by Amanda Newell I was delighted to speak with Jim Daniels for this month’s issue about American Patriot, his ongoing collaboration with the photographer Charlee Brodsky—how the project has changed over time, the voices that emerge in the poems, and his love for working across various genres and mediums. AN: The poems we’re featuring this month
Maurice Manning interviewed by Amanda Newell
Maurice Manning: Railsplitter I had the pleasure of speaking to Maurice Manning about his forthcoming collection, Railsplitter: Reflections on the Art of Poetry Composed in the Posthumous Voice of Honest Abe Lincoln, former Pres., U.S. (Copper Canyon, October 2019). AN: I am interested, first of all, in the title of Railsplitter, subtitled, “Reflections on the Art of Poetry Composed
Amit Majmudar interviewed by Nancy Mitchell
NM: In many of your online interviews, you’ve said something to the effect of when I want to tell a story I write prose, and when I want to make sound (or joyful noise) I write poetry. Last summer I attended a presentation by a musician about how the cerebral cortex will immediately defer to the sound of words
Dorianne Laux, interview by Hélène Cardona
photo by John Campbell Dorianne Laux’s most recent collection Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected (W.W. Norton, 2019) has been hailed by Kwame Dawes as “a tour de force, a work of striking beauty and humanity—a work for its own time.” The Washington Post writes that “Laux shows us how to endure hardships without losing humanity and
