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Marianne Boruch’s poems delve into the quirks and oddities of our daily lives. We caught up at the end of a busy semester (or maybe it was the start of a new one) to talk about how poems happen, how books come together, and the quiet rituals of her begging bowl and hospital rounds.
Eileen Pollack’s stories are smart, big-hearted, and thought-provoking. We recently caught up via email to discuss the differences between novels and short stories—and how changes in society can help novels find their audiences.
Monica Youn’s poems are precise, sharp-edged and fleet-footed; they always seem to be moving in three different directions at once. She is the author of three books of poems: Blackacre, Barter, and Ignatz, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. A former attorney, she now teaches at Princeton and in the MFA program at Warren Wilson. We caught up via email at the start of the new year to talk about the similarities between poets and lawyers, her latest book, and what might be her next one.
The poems in Allison Joseph’s recent chapbook Mercurial are wise and clear-eyed, charting moments of tenderness and emotion in everyday life. Her work encompass a number of different themes—from personal and family history, to self-image and style—and embody formal approaches as well as conversational yet musical free verse.
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.
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 in—and out—of love.
Ciaran Carson’s poems explore the risky territory between the personal and the political. They are grounded in the local, yet outward and upward tending—toward the larger truths he inspects with a sharp mind and a wary eye.
Naoko Fujimoto’s lyrical, musical poems are written across distances—whether it’s the personal distance between the poet and the personas she adopts, or the psychological distance of writing from the U.S. about the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Wendy Wisner writes from the heart about parenthood, from pregnancy and childbirth to the joyous hard work of raising children. In her poems and prose, she evokes the wonders and struggles of daily life as a mother in language that is clear and sharp, tender yet honest about the complications of our connections across generations.
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