Please tell us about the making of “Confessional.”
“Confessional” is pretty explicit about its own making and its anxiety about its own making and existence. Imagine a seven-year-old kid who not only introduces herself by saying her name and age but by sharing comprehensive details about her conception and birth and a catalogue of specific worries about whether or not she should exist at all. In plainer terms (and if you really needed plainer terms after reading the poem maybe get that checked out): I was worried about all the poems I’d written in the confessional tradition that named names and revealed details about my own life and others’ lives, and I decided to promise someone (wouldn’t you like to know who??) that I would stop writing confessional poems forever, but I had a reading coming up the very next day with beloved rockstar poets Jason Schneiderman and Wayne Koestenbaum and wanted to write something new to read at that reading so I wrote this (my last EVER (not)) confessional poem about being about to promise never to write confessional poems again and then I read it in public and felt terrible/wonderful, sorry/not sorry. (I just read this answer to my husband and he said “but weren’t you also being sort of ironic about Confessional poetry?” I have no idea what he means by this but maybe I was being ironic.)
What annoys you about your writing process?
Pretty much everything, especially how annoyed I always am with myself.
How do you go about titling poems?
Some of my titles attempt the elegance and refinement of a title my father suggested—“What’s Bugging Kafka?”—for an essay I wrote on The Metamorphoses in high school. More often, my titles arrive (literally or in spirit) from advice my mother gave me when I was about sixteen and writing ardently angst-ridden love poems to my high school “love-of-my-life”: cut your last line and make it a title.
Do you workshop drafts with other poets?
I LOVE to read my poems aloud almost immediately after writing them. A poem doesn’t feel done until I’ve read it to a friend. I am especially driven to read my LONG poems immediately after suspecting they are done, and this can be a drain on my poet friends who all have busy lives. I’m extremely lucky, therefore, to have several (rather than just one or two) poet-friends who almost always answer my bat signal and (this is important) who live in different time zones and have different sleep schedules! I also have poet friends who read my written poems (I always think they are finished, not drafts even though 99% of the time a “finished poem” gets revised many, many times) and full manuscripts. I’m deeply grateful for these brilliant, supportive writers who have been reading or listening to me for decades; such attention is a form of love.
If you could wake up tomorrow a genius in another art form, which would you pick and why?
Being a genius is totally overrated. Have you ever met a nice genius? A generous genius? An ethical genius? Oh wait, I know one! Daniel Shiffman. So, OK, I guess, I’d like to wake up as Daniel Shiffman.
“Confessional” is pretty explicit about its own making and its anxiety about its own making and existence. Imagine a seven-year-old kid who not only introduces herself by saying her name and age but by sharing comprehensive details about her conception and birth and a catalogue of specific worries about whether or not she should exist at all. In plainer terms (and if you really needed plainer terms after reading the poem maybe get that checked out): I was worried about all the poems I’d written in the confessional tradition that named names and revealed details about my own life and others’ lives, and I decided to promise someone (wouldn’t you like to know who??) that I would stop writing confessional poems forever, but I had a reading coming up the very next day with beloved rockstar poets Jason Schneiderman and Wayne Koestenbaum and wanted to write something new to read at that reading so I wrote this (my last EVER (not)) confessional poem about being about to promise never to write confessional poems again and then I read it in public and felt terrible/wonderful, sorry/not sorry. (I just read this answer to my husband and he said “but weren’t you also being sort of ironic about Confessional poetry?” I have no idea what he means by this but maybe I was being ironic.)
What annoys you about your writing process?
Pretty much everything, especially how annoyed I always am with myself.
How do you go about titling poems?
Some of my titles attempt the elegance and refinement of a title my father suggested—“What’s Bugging Kafka?”—for an essay I wrote on The Metamorphoses in high school. More often, my titles arrive (literally or in spirit) from advice my mother gave me when I was about sixteen and writing ardently angst-ridden love poems to my high school “love-of-my-life”: cut your last line and make it a title.
Do you workshop drafts with other poets?
I LOVE to read my poems aloud almost immediately after writing them. A poem doesn’t feel done until I’ve read it to a friend. I am especially driven to read my LONG poems immediately after suspecting they are done, and this can be a drain on my poet friends who all have busy lives. I’m extremely lucky, therefore, to have several (rather than just one or two) poet-friends who almost always answer my bat signal and (this is important) who live in different time zones and have different sleep schedules! I also have poet friends who read my written poems (I always think they are finished, not drafts even though 99% of the time a “finished poem” gets revised many, many times) and full manuscripts. I’m deeply grateful for these brilliant, supportive writers who have been reading or listening to me for decades; such attention is a form of love.
If you could wake up tomorrow a genius in another art form, which would you pick and why?
Being a genius is totally overrated. Have you ever met a nice genius? A generous genius? An ethical genius? Oh wait, I know one! Daniel Shiffman. So, OK, I guess, I’d like to wake up as Daniel Shiffman.