She has won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and an American Academy of Arts and Letters award for her poetry. A former MacArthur Fellow, Berlin Fellow, and Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book made a difference in the way I thought about writing poems--writing a book became the project rather than the continuous, but incidental, practice of simply writing poems. This is my seventh book of poetry and since The Forest each book has had a particular relation to understanding the past. In that book, I explored the notion from psychoanalysis of generational haunting and addressed the accounts I had of family life before my birth; in Columbarium I wanted to rethink the genre of the georgic from a perspective of doubt and an acknowledgment of the indifference of nature; in Red Rover I thought about the medieval dream vision and forms of play as spheres of the imagination. In this book I turned to Mandelstam's use of the octet and the Biblical psalms as models for countering emergency and expressing grief. Considering the phenomenon of the bramble I hoped to learn something about the potential of natural symbols.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I have written poetry from childhood. I also like to work as a scholar. But I have never been successful at writing fiction. I don't seem to have a strong narrative sense.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I am a very slow poet with only a few exceptions of poems that have come to me as I awakened in the night. Usually I have a phrase or concept in mind, or perhaps an image or memory, and I begin to make the poem. I write drafts on long sheets of paper usually. And then I have to stop and put the poem away for quite a while--often months. Then I go back to it and try to resolve whatever seems unfinished to me.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
see above
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy doing readings in the rare periods when I have a new book that is finished. I always read my poems aloud to myself as I am writing them, but when I read in public I have a better sense of how they sound.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Yes, I have many theoretical concerns. That is why I have written a number of scholarly books about poetics and aesthetics. I believe the most pressing question for poets of our time is the fate of both the senses and the imagination at a moment when we are surrendering our will to technologies largely in the service of greed.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Our job is to keep thinking and beauty alive and to pass on those values to future generations.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I don't think of this practice in terms of ease--it's more of a necessity for me. My poems and criticism are nourishing to one another and I practice translation not as a "professional," but as a means of friendship and helping English language literature be less parochial.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I don't follow a routine, for my life is too complicated for that--but I do go for a long walk and work in my garden almost every day.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
My writing doesn't become stalled because I don't have a schedule for it.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
honeysuckle
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
yes, all of those forms are an influence...and I often enjoy collaborating with composers and visual artists.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I have been so fortunate to spend my working life teaching the history of literature, art, and philosophy to young people and learning from others in university settings. Although I now have retired from teaching, I read in these fields every day and I don't feel a gulf of any kind between my work and the life outside my work. My family life is also very much tied up with these worlds: and for all of us issues of social justice and citizenship have only increased in intensity under the current U.S. regime.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Walk freely at night in any neighborhood of my city and know that no one suffers from hunger, witness the success of local public schools and the flourishing of the liberal arts and humanities in U.S. colleges and universities, see my family, friends, and neighbors able to afford the health care they need and certainly deserve, watch the collapse of the military-industrial complex, enjoy clean air and water and know it can be found anywhere on the planet...you get the idea.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I don't know. As I applied to college, women could not have their own financial accounts and many universities were not open to women. I have been fortunate to be able to write my way into an existence that has been fulfilling and in my private life I have been so lucky in many ways.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The most recent great book I've read--this past week--is Jay Wright's beautiful Párodos. The recent film I have most enjoyed is Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I have just published three books: Bramble, Poetry: Four Lectures, and Last Stops of the Night Journey, a co-translation of two recent books by Milo De Angelis. I am finishing, with Patrizio Ceccagnoli, a translation of Antonella Anedda's Geografie, the companion volume to her Historiae, which Patrizio and I recently brought out with New York Review Books. So now, free of deadlines, I have the luxury of figuring out what I want to do next.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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