"Poetry, Difficulty, and a Very Annoying Word," by Mark Doty from The Best American Poetry blog, is an interesting response to Charles Harper Webb's recent essay in The Writers Chronicle. Plus, you get to experience (through Doty's description) what his walk home was like.

I was happy to read Doty's response, because he did not attack accessibility in poetry while defending complexity. Many poets seem to slide over to one corner or the other. Of course, variety is the spice of life and there should be room at the table for everyone and why can't everyone just get along, etc.

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"Poetry Slam," by James M. Hohman from the Mackinac Center, argues against wasting Michigan taxpayers' money on a unpaid state poet laureate position. With new state and city poet laureates popping up all over the country, it is interesting to hear a voice arguing against the post.

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Check out other Poetry News.

Poet Valerie Nieman is a self-professed tomboy, who "fished for everything from native brook trout in the small streams of western New York, where I grew up, to cod and haddock by hand-lining on a head boat out of Eastport, Maine." In fact, Nieman has a bit of an adventurous streak within her that helps inform her writing.

As far as poetry, Nieman's published a couple chapbooks and a full-length collection titled Wake Wake Wake (Press 53) in 2006. But she's also published two novels and a collection of short stories. Plus, Nieman, who now teaches writing at North Carolina A&T State University, spent several years as a reporter for a small daily paper, covering everything from school board meetings to murders. At almost 50 years of age, she received her MFA in 2004 from Queens University of Charlotte.

Nieman recently set aside a little time to share a little about herself and her writing process.

You've mentioned homesteading a West Virginia hill farm and working as a reporter for a small daily before getting your MFA and moving into teaching. Can you elaborate a little on these occupations (and/or others you've had)? Have they helped inspire or shape your writing? If so, how?

I started out with a journalism degree and a job writing for a small West Virginia daily.  That was a lucky and/or inspired choice (also one necessitated by money).  Journalists, especially the jacks-and-jills-of-all-trades at small newspapers, are well placed to see and hear and do the things that find their way into stories and poems: You get the people, the stories, and especially the details--the mud that clings to the lugs of your Red Wings. A curious and at least moderately adventuresome journalist (and there shouldn’t be any other sort) can get a taste of so many other lives.

I’ve been three miles into the mountain in a longwall coal mining operation when a machine hit a methane pocket and the power went out for 20 minutes as the explosive gas was cleared. (You don’t know the sound a mountain makes until the machines stop, and you hear it groaning against the hydraulic shields.) I’ve watched the playing out of power and avarice in the most immediate way, not by watching CNN but by seeing small-town leaders manipulate and threaten to protect a small financial scheme. I’ve slipped on a man’s blood on the street running to a murder scene, heard the first bird (indigo bunting) sing in the pre-dawn dark on a breeding bird survey, watched a volunteer firefighter learn that his son was a passenger in a Corvette that left pieces of itself for a half a mile down a fence line.

It’s not virtual; it’s not research. It’s experience, like that hill farm--shaping a hayfield into a small farm, breaking the ice on the watering trough for cattle on bitterly cold mornings, feeling angry yet having to admire the beautiful rapacity of blue jays that pecked holes in the Lodi apples just ready for picking. I treasure all of it. Much of it has found its way into my writing, providing plotlines, stories, characters, settings, the quirky details and sensory moments.

You've published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Is there one you prefer over the others? If so, why? Do you feel working in one form helps develop skills for the others?

I started as a poet, writing in college--even earlier, a poem published in an anthology when I was in sixth grade. But then I can claim a handwritten spy novel in junior high, so both threads were there early. I’ve always toggled back and forth among genres. Each tests a somewhat different part of the writing mind, like cross-training. For me, it feels physically different when I write a poem compared with a short story or a novel. I’ve never tried to write a play or screenplay, but maybe someday. I believe that working in various genres eliminates the dreaded “I can’t think” or writer’s block--because if one thing isn’t flowing, you can work on something else. At least in theory.

While many MFA students seem to go straight from undergrad to grad study, you waited until your late 40s to pursue your MFA. Why did it take so long? Also, what made you decide to go back to school to get it?

I truly enjoyed being a journalist, and didn’t see a problem with a two-track life (three counting the farm). And it gets difficult to go back to school the longer you are away. But over time, I began to wear down--journalism is demanding. It stimulates the imagination, but leaves little time and energy for writing--like wine that provokes desire and takes away the act. The pressures of the daily story push away the time for reflection and revision. I moved into editing, and then into teaching part-time. I completed the low-residency MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte, and that opened doors so that I was able to begin teaching full-time. Of course, teaching has its own mental and physical demands.

Who are your favorite poets? Why?

Off the top of my head, Mary Oliver, Gerald Stern, Wendell Berry, Jane Kenyon, both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Thomas Lux, James Harms, Joseph Bathanti, Susan Meyers, Robert Hayden, Jeff Mann, Irene McKinney, Betsy Sholl. Shakespeare, Hardy, Millay, H.D., Stevens, Rilke, Whitman. Springsteen and Emmy Lou Harris and Paul Simon and Tom Petty. Ancient Egyptian texts and the Book of Isaiah. Scientists’ and explorers’ descriptions. Read Scott Huler’s Defining the Wind for a gorgeous look at the Beaufort Scale and how it illuminated the economic and cultural and scientific life of the 19th century. I love detail, writing about nature--love to learn and to hold new names in my thoughts.

I open a journal and am sometimes just blown away by someone--I just read a long poem by Joseph Hutchison in an issue of Divider that’s been sitting around the bookshelf.

I’ll name a couple of friends and longtime inspirations: Timothy Russell, for seeing the living world inside the steel mill, and Sarah Lindsay, for her intriguing blend of science and geography with delicious fantasy.

When do you know a poem is ready for submission to a journal? How do you choose where to send your poems?

I think I send poems out too soon, or I just tend to tinker too long. I get angry with myself for sending something to a place I admire, getting it back, and seeing where I need revisions that I should have made six months before--but that can go on for a long time.

I send to journals that I admire, of course, ones that are beyond my reach and to ones where I have made a connection in the past, or that are looking for something on a theme where I have been working. You get to know the ones that have a similar aesthetic.

There are also places that I know just won’t be possible for my kind of poems.

What is the most surprising thing someone has said about your poetry? How did you feel about that?

Fred Chappell commented on a kind of moral force--“stout of heart”--in my work, and I had not thought of myself as showing a particular philosophical or moral stance. But I do recognize a kind of stubborn persistence in some of the poems and the people who inhabit them, a refusal to back down or give up.

Do you have any special writing routine?

I am a very bad role model. I do not have a set routine. I tend to write poetry when I need to scratch an itch, something has been triggered and I need to study why. A novel demands more slogging, and I am way too good at avoiding that--I have two in progress and have set aside one so that I can amp myself up to get the other moving ahead.

If you only had one piece of advice to give other poets, what would it be and why?

Keep the old stuff. I’m working now on a series of poems, a book, from pages of notes that I put on the computer years ago--tying together some existing poems with fragments and ideas for new ones. I set it all aside as I worked on a novel. Maybe it was spending weekends at the lake, maybe it was moving to a new house where Canadian geese fly over every morning--but I am working seriously on that book now. It pulls on threads that go back to childhood, to trout fishing and woods walking and reading Jack London and my father’s outdoor magazines. And it has a lot in it of friendships that led me to haiku and Basho, and to recent experiences such as taking up sailing--all coming together now. 

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To read Nieman's bio, go to http://www.press53.com/BioValerieNieman.html.

Here are some of her poems I was able to hunt down online:

* Adam and Eve as Fire and Water, from Blackbird Archive

* Eager, from The Pedestal Magazine

* Elaine the Fair Accuses Lancelot, from the Camelot Project at the University of Rochester

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If you're a publisher or poet interested in being interviewed in a future post on Poetic Asides, go here to get more information.

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Check out other Poet Interviews here.

And they picked Robert Bly.

I remember watching Bly read back in the 20th century when I was attending the University of Cincinnati. He was a funny and engaging reader. Minnesota made a great choice in picking someone named Robert. (In fact, I'm rather partial to anyone with the initials R.B.)

Here are some pieces covering last week's big announcement:

* "Robert Bly named Minnesota's first poet laureate," by Associated Press

* "Greg Sellnow: A cluttered mind yields random thoughts," by Greg Sellnow

* "A Poet Laureate for Minnesota," by The New York Times

Interestingly, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty actually experienced a change of heart on creating a post for the state poet laureate. In 2005, he actually vetoed a poet laureate bill fearing it would lead to more frivolous state appointments. So hooray for flip-flopping on the issues, I suppose.

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Here are some Bly poems I could find online (for those who've not read his work):

* "A Dream of Suffocation" (and other poems)

* "Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter"

* "Gratitude to Old Teachers"

* "The Moon"

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Check out other Poetry News.

Cover the windows! Dim the lights! But not too much, because you need to get writing today and into the night (late, late, late at night). After all, today is an extra day that you only get once every four years. If you don't write today, you won't be able to write on February 29 again until 2012.

2012!

Seriously, can you really live without writing for 4 years?

Of course you can't!

This is an extra day--24 hours that shouldn't even exist. Make sure you take advantage of this little gift, this little extra bit of February.

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Here's a challenge. Why not try writing a leap year poem? Either write your poem into the comments below, or send to my email (robert.brewer@fwpubs.com). If I get one or two that knock my socks off, I'll feature them (and the poets who wrote them) in a future post. Plus, I'll get working on one myself.

As I’ve mentioned on this blog previously, I have a Facebook account under my full name (Robert Lee Brewer). And as I’ve mentioned previously, I’m all about playing online Scrabble at that account as well. And one of my more consistent opponents is none other than poet Dorianne Laux, who’s authored several collections of poetry and co-authored an instructional text (mentioned below) with Kim Addonizio.

Dorianne will be the first of what I hope will be many poet interviews conducted for this blog. I will categorize all these interviews under the totally misleading title “Poet Interviews.” ;)

So, let’s get started!

What are you currently up to? Any thing new coming up in the near future?

When I’m not playing Scrabble with you on Facebook, I’m packing to move to North Carolina where I’ve accepted a job at NC State.  We’re also trying to sell our modest little Cape Cod style house in Eugene so we can buy a modest little Cape Cod style house in Raleigh.  In the midst of all this I’m still teaching at UO (Oregon) until the end of the winter term and at the Pacific University Low Residency Program, so, there’s little time for new projects.  I am lucky in that I have two new books out. 

My first book, Awake, was reprinted in January by Eastern Washington University Press.  They did a beautiful job and I like knowing it will have a second life.  http://www.ewu.edu/ewupress/poetry/awake.htm 

And Red Dragonfly Press just put out Superman: The Chapbook, a gorgeous letterpress edition that contains six new poems.   http://www.reddragonflypress.org/

I have a jumble of new work I can’t wait to get to and revise.  This summer my husband and I are going to spend 5 fabulous weeks in May at VCCA, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where we hope to write new poems, the Muse willing. I’m going to be culling and reviewing the last few years of poems and see if I can’t cobble together a working manuscript.  

Joe and I will both be teaching a workshop this August at Truro Center for the Arts near Provincetown.  It’s a beautiful spot and there are a bunch of wonderful classes and teachers there including Mark Doty and Paul Lisicky, Tony Hoagland, Eleanor Lerman and Martin Espada.  http://www.castlehill.org/workshops_writing.html

I’ll also travel to Guatemala in the beginning of July where I’ll join Joyce Maynard and Ann Hood to teach a poetry workshop.  Joyce has a home in San Marcos on Lake Atitlan and has begun to invite a poet and a fiction writer to join her there for a mini-lit fest. I’ve never been to Guatelmala and am aching to go.   http://www.joycemaynard.com/writing-workshops/lake-atitlan.shtml 

I’m collecting tennis shoes and writing materials to give to the children.  It’s a place where paper and pencils are luxuries.  I hope to bring poems back from the 10 days there. 

Right this minute, I’m working on a series of poetry columns for Writer’s Digest, short essays with model poems and an exercise, much like what’s in The Poet’s Companion.  The first one should be out this June. 

In The Poet’s Companion, which you wrote with Kim Addonizio, you mention that poets should write what they know. Could you explain this concept a little and why you feel this way?

As I get older, I become more and more sure that I know absolutely nothing.  I thought I knew about love, about death, about motherhood, men.  I know nothing.  I can only guess how much less I’ll know 10 years from now.  But, I do know my backyard, my street, the way light bounces off a car windshield in summer, how frost glazes the roses when they are fooled into bud in February.  I don’t know who we humans are or why we’re here or where we’re going, but I want to.  I think those eternal questions continue to be asked, in spite of their mystery, because of their mystery.  I explore those questions by looking deeply into the things I do know, the visible, touchable world. So often young poets try to speak to those mysteries directly, and unless they happen to be Rilke, they more often fail.  It seems to me that the world is a pathway, a conduit, to the invisible, the unknowable, and helps us translate what we feel through the bodies we touch and that touch us. 

In a review of Facts About the Moon, Robert Pinsky singles out the poem “Little Magnolia” and points to how the tree and man in the poem can be rooted and homeless at the same time. I’m often struck by how your poems are very accessible on one level, but have a lot going on beneath the surface. Do you think poems should try to be both accessible and layered?

I love that Pinsky chose that poem.  It’s a small poem, one that could easily get lost in a book of longer, flashier poems.  It’s a quiet piece, but yes, there’s more there if you take the time, slow down, look closely.  I remember going to one of my teachers to ask about a poem I wasn’t sure I fully understood.  She said, “Slow down.”  I said, “You mean read it more slowly or slow down in my life?”  And she said, “Yes.”  Any good poem is asking you simply to slow down and, as Stanley Kunitz said so beautifully, to live in the layers. Do you know that poem?  The final lines are:

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

"Live in the layers,

not on the litter."

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

“Though I lack the art to decipher it.” That’s an important line.  He’s not sure what it all means, but he trusts the voice speaking to him.  I don’t think we can bend a poem to our will, or that layers can be consciously engineered.  Poems that try to do this usually come off as tedious and self-conscious, overwrought, but we can be fully present while writing it and hope that the complexities fold themselves into the words, that the passion we feel for our subject engenders a natural layering.  It’s simply not a conscious process and so it’s hard to take credit for it.  That said, yes, I want my poems to be accessed by everyone, anyone, as many as possible given the limitations of poetry. I grew up in a neighborhood of military brats, kids who didn’t give a damn if you could read the back of a cereal box let alone a book.  I think I often write to those kids, the ones I never fit in with because I wasn’t quite tough enough.  I write to the girls with ratted hair and denim skirts, the boys with butch cuts and torn T-shirts.  I want to reach them.  I also want to give them something beautiful and complex, something they can read again and again.  It’s what I want as a reader.

For me, the best poems are the poems I can read and understand.  On the other hand, if I understand everything in the first sitting, it’s merely information.  I think of a line I love from Li-Young Lee’s poem “One Heart.”  He says:  “Look at the birds, Even flying is born out of nothing.”  That’s a simple line anyone can comprehend on first reading, and yet each time you read it or say the line aloud, the more you think about it, the more it dissolves into mystery. 

Do you have any pet peeves with poetry?

The only thing I can’t abide is dishonesty.  I don’t care if you’re smart or stupid as long as you tell the truth.  That’s all I want to hear.  It’s what we all long to hear.  

You are married to poet Joseph Millar. So, I’m wondering what it’s like being married to another poet? Do you steal each other’s ideas? Do you share early drafts of poems? Did poetry play a role in bringing you together?

Oh we steal from one another all the time.  It’s impossible not to.  But then we steal from every great poet we know.  It’s all a pastiche.  We do share our drafts, though we’ve learned over the years to hold off as long as possible for fear of boring the other to tears with draft after draft.  We met in a poetry workshop.  I was teaching night classes for adults at an independent bookstore in Mill Valley.   He was a student, though it was more like a group of us who got together to share our work.  We knew each other for a couple of years before we began a relationship.  

So yes, poetry brought us together, and it has played a role in keeping us together.  We find that when we can’t agree on anything, or are pissed off at each other for one reason or another, one of us will bring up poetry.  He’ll say, “Hey, did you read that poem in APR by Tony Hoagland,” or I'll say, “Do you want to hear a new Lucia Perillo poem,” and that’s the white flag, the common ground, the fight is over and we can talk again. 

You’ve put together 4 collections up to this point (Facts About the Moon; Smoke; What We Carry; and Awake). Do you think about how collections might come together as you’re writing single poems? Or do you work solely on a poem-by-poem basis? Or is it some combination?

I simply write poems.  If I was good at the long view I’d be a novelist and make much more money and have a shot at the movies.  Not that I care so much about the movies.  I think I do, sometimes, but when I go deep, I realize that I am most happy when I’m writing a poem, or revising a poem, or putting a book of poems together.  I may be frustrated, but it’s a fruitful, soul-making frustration.  At my poetic best, I’m asking a question I have no hope of answering and making something that has little chance of being read by more than a handful of people.   And that’s fine with me.  I prefer it even. I'm at my best when I’m at my most anonymous, when I am one grain of sand hidden among the many, making my single pearl.

My books have always found their own way into being, poem by poem.  When the time comes that I have too many to keep in a binder--an irritation--I know it’s time to make a book.  I take them out and spread them on the floor to see what I have.  Each time, I’ve found a thread that holds them together.  We humans do this.  It’s in our nature to make connections.  But it’s also a frame of mind.  Each of us has a question that haunts us and we pull our poems up over and over, like buckets of water, out of that dark well. The poems may seem on the surface to be a jumble of our days, but they all spring from the same source.   

If you could share just one piece of advice with other poets, what would that be?

I once had a dream in which the poet Jack Gilbert came to me in a white room and sat down in a white chair at a white table. We made soup together and his had blueberries in it.  I asked him if he had any advice for me as a young poet and he said, “Yes.  Don’t write sissy poems.  And don’t be in collusion with your own poems.”  It’s still the best advice I ever got. 

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Note to publishers and poets, if you'd like to set up an interview for the Poetic Asides blog, feel free to check out the interview guidelines available here: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/Call+For+Poets.aspx