Stop this day and night with me and you will know the secret to poetry – Walt Whitman In 2019, months before the Pandemic began, my husband and I moved to Costa Rica to take a little sabbatical. After almost three years here the sabbatical has taught me more than…
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Why do we write, and who are we writing for? It is a theme that comes up over and over in our interviews. Tanaya Winder has some interesting thoughts that explain how her work as an activist, academic and poet informs not only the why of her writing but also…
I’ve always had trouble writing love poems. They can be so cheesy, so sentimental, so hard to make “real” or interesting. So when I read Meghan Sterling’s book These Few Seeds, I was amazed to find that Meghan had done what seems impossible to me. Not only had she written…
As a poet, and full-time poetry teacher from California, I sometimes take for granted that poetry is everywhere, that it is for everyone, and that it can be used to help us all communicate with one another during difficult times. Interviewing the brave, incisive poet Kai Coggin about her newest…
Brian Sonia-Wallace has one of the more unique writing careers of any poet I’ve ever known. At an age when most people are getting their first jobs, flipping burgers or interning at XYZ company, Brian parked himself behind his typewriter on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. He began busking for…
Making Use of the Worldview Narrative Does a book of poems need a narrative arc? Many poets naturally tend towards autobiographical work, and their themes are deeply personal. To a greater and greater extent, poetry collections center around organizing events, principles and, yes, narrative structures. Doing so can make…
It can be hard to define a poet like Lynne Thompson. Her work is rooted in autobiography, like so many poets, but often times they take off into the fantastic. They are obsessed with how language can jolt the imagination. It’s work of the intellect, but solidly work of the…
It is hard to overstate the effect that working with Kim Addonizio had on me as a poet. I was a lonely young adult. I had found the enthusiasm to write, but no technique, no structure. After work I sat in a bean bag chair in my one-room studio and…
“Even singing a sad song requires an absolute happiness.” – Galway Kinnel Can you make poetry fun, even when it is about serious subjects? I’ve been reading Cameron Morse’s sixth book of poetry, Far Other (Woodley Press, November, 2020). It focuses on the questions of mortality, spirituality, and the…
This month at The Poetry Salon we are focusing our attention on the work of Sonia Greenfield, author of Boy With a Halo at the Farmer’s Market, American Parable, and Letdown. Sonia is also the editor of Rise-Up Review, a journal that is self-described as “a landing site for the…