Becoming Poet: Peter Cooley
“I think that period getting the first book accepted, the time right before it was accepted, when I kept getting ” almosts” from publishers was the worst. I was in my early thirties, so I could take it.”
Interview
Becoming Poet: Michael McFee
“To have a career as a poet is the opposite of darkness: what luck, to be a grown American man who has been able to keep writing poems, for so long.”
Becoming Poet: Philip Matthews
“When I was 17, I came out at a poetry reading through a piece I’d written, so for me, calling myself a poet has been tied up with being open and out as a queer person.”
Becoming Poet: Edward Hirsch
I had some dark moments in my late twenties when I didn’t think I would ever break through. It felt to me as if there were some invisible club that was trying to keep me out it. I was furious and determined. I tried to put my rage to work in the service of my art.
Becoming Poet: Kim Addonizio
“Trust the process. It’s okay not to write for a while, but don’t let that plant die for lack of water. If you want to be a writer, you have to keep that baby alive at all costs.”
Interview with Natasha Trethewey
Get prepared to dig into your mid-week longread: our friend Rowan Lynam got the amazing chance to sit …
Becoming Poet: Kazim Ali
“…there’s a lot of “dry spells” in my writing process but can you really call them purposeless? Things cross-fertilize. Richness arises without harbinger.”
Becoming Poet: Jane Hirshfield
“I grow lonely for poems, the way you would grow lonely for an absent lover. And then they return. Longing is the ladder we meet on.”
Becoming Poet: Victoria Chang
We’re honored to have had the chance to chat with the amazing Victoria Chang, author of four books …