Interviews Archive
Whose America? A Conversation with Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib on poetry after Trump
In the two weeks since Donald Trump's election, people from around the country, and from all walks of life, have been debating each other online. How exactly did Trump get elected?
A Transformative Act: Words Become Music—An Interview with Composer Eric Moe
Eric Moe is a pianist with a penchant for eclectic harmonies, provocative rhythms, melody lines that curl and cling to the listener’s ear. He’s also developed, over the course of a rich career, a kind of perfect pitch for incorporating text to music.
“Ways of Being Attentive”: An Interview with C. Dale Young
C. Dale Young's poems explore themes of personal transformation and self-discovery, delving into what binds people together and pulls them apart. His carefully crafted poems balance strong emotion with formal precision.
Visible Worlds : An Interview With Invisible Publishing’s Leigh Nash
Originally founded by Robbie MacGregor, Megan Fildes and Nic Boshart, Invisible Publishing released its first fiction titles in Spring 2007, and “has come to include works of graphic fiction and non-fiction, pop culture biographies, experimental poetry, and prose.” Formerly the managing editor at Coach House Books, Leigh Nash joined
Poet Activist Spotlight: Lynn Melnick
I could not be more grateful for an excuse to escape into rereading If I Should Say I Have Hope. Situated in another of time, I might write praising the wondrous lyricality in Melnick’s poems, how lush her language, how slick her line breaks are, how skillfully strange and
FLOUNDERS: an interview with Shira Dentz
Shira Dentz is the author of three books, black seeds on a white dish, door of thin skins, and how do i net thee (forthcoming), and two chapbooks, Leaf Weather and FLOUNDERS, newly available from Essay Press. Dentz is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets’ Prize, the
What Is The Most Underrated American Poem?
I conducted short interviews with a group of hotshot poets, scholars, and critics to help out. I invited them to nominate an American poem they think is underrated—a poem they wish more people loved and taught, a poem that might be for many an unknown unknown.
What Does Your Liberation Look Like?: In Conversation with Liz Mputu and Justin Phillip Reed
In a blog series for Ploughshares, I interview a poet and a non-poet. This time, digital media artist Liz Mputu and poet Justin Phillip Reed. I want to talk about how to manage the expression of violence, feeling of violence, portrayal of violence and also, anger as a thing
“A Way I Could World-Build in Poetry”: An Interview with Margaret Rhee
Margaret Rhee’s poems use the what-if of machines falling in love as a springboard to launch us into a strange, beautiful, unforgettable new world that is all her own. Earlier this year, we had the chance to talk about poems, robotic realities, and whether someday machines might really fall
The Care that Goes into Translation: An Interview with Lisa Hayden
A central theme of the novel Laurus is that time is a spiral. Events and themes recur throughout history, but each time with a slight variation. The structure of the work, by Russian author Eugene Vodolazkin, mirrors that premise. Scenes and pages reference and reshape each other constantly. Though