This month, Sarah Sloat talks to Joyce Nower, who won an honorable mention in Desert Moon Review’s latest contest. The poem, The Lot Next Door, appeared in Crescent Moon Journal.

Moon Notes: What is the first book of poetry you remember reading?

Joyce Nower: It was a book of poems for children which, since I can't find it, must have disintegrated into dust a while back. Some of the poems were "There Are Fairies in the Bottom of My Garden," "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer, "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley, and a choral poem "I Saw a Proud Mysterious Cat." I won an award in 7th grade for reciting "Invictus." Goldarn, that was a long time ago!

At Middlebury College, as an English Lit major ( was there any other major?), I studied the history of English poetry - Chaucer, Spenser, Donne, Pope, A.E. Housman, et. al. and loved it. But the first entire books of poetry that I studied in depth (in graduate school) were by Wallace Stevens.

MN: Name three of your favorite books of poetry.

JN: How about five books? My most worn books of poetry are Selected Poems by Wallace Stevens (there's a rubber band around this one) ; The Golden Hind, an anthology of Elizabethan Prose and Poetry (W.W. Norton & Co.); Seventeenth Century Verse and Prose (Macmillan), and the one I carry around with me to Discount Tires and to the doctor's office and elsewhere, Joseph Brodsky's Collected Poems in English. Brodsky did most of the translations himself, and so they are his Russian poems in English! And let me slip in a fifth - The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats.

MN: What appeals to you about these books?

JN: I love the traditions of poetry in English that these books represent: the varied forms that are either pre-set or devised for the occasion; the bag of techniques that can be used, free verse included (after all, do contemporary musicians and composers ignore diatonic and pentatonic scales, trills, ABA sonata forms, recitatives, preludes, etc.?); and the diverse modes of writing other than lyric and confessional/autobiographical. Knowledge of the tradition releases me from writing in one particular manner. Of course, whether I am successful or not is another story. (The poem that received an Honorable Mention from Desert Moon is unusually autobiographical for me.)

MN: What do you think you’ve learned from them?

JN: I try my best to write with their clarity and density, and I always try to challenge myself in my subject matter and presentation. The Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who wrote fluently in Russian and American English because of his circumstance as an exile, stretches my mind the most.

MN: Who are some of your favorite poets whose language is not English?

JN: I love the ancient Chinese poets - Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Han=shan, Lu Yu, and so on - as found in the Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. I also love Lattimore's translations from the Greek of Archilochos, Simonides, and others. Do I like the Roman Lucretius (physics in poetry! and why not?), and Catullus (you gotta love someone who starts a poem with "O what toilet paper!") Yes! I like the intensity of Pablo Neruda and the wit of Wislawa Szymborska , and many others. There's a world of poetry out there, ancient and modern.

MN: Which poetry-related internet publications do you read regularly? Why do you like them? Which print publications do you regularly buy or subscribe to?

JN: I read Octavo ( the literary zine at The Alsop Review), the Women's Studio Center's Vernacular, Del Sol Review, and whatever else is recommended by the staff at The Alsop Review's "Gazebo." (I write a column called "Intersections" at The AR and have come to trust Staff recommendations.) I'll add Desert Moon Review to this list. I like these publications because they give me an overview of what's going on in quality poetry today. Print publications include The Raven Chronicles, Common Ground Review, Poetry, and Grasslimb, a coffeehouse newspaper. The gap in quality between internet and print poetry has, I feel, disappeared over the past decade. This has been an interesting trend to watch.


Joyce Nower
Homepage: http://www.joycenower.com/
Intersections: http://www.alsopreview.com/columns/col_intersections.htm

As poet and critic, each of us comes with a growing batch of opinions and assumptions that are present and influential when we open a new poem to pen or to eye. Most of those opinions rise from the experience of reading poetry, or having poetry read by others.

A pair of our fine poets - Yolanda Calderon-Horn and Christopher T. George - have agreed to the interview. Hopefully, they will invite the thoughtful reflection of our readers.

First, from Yolanda Calderon-Horn:

How important is it to guard against rapid assumptions in reading/critiquing a poem?

Very. My mood can sometimes adapt to a poem's message. When I don't understand, connect or particularly care for a poem, I go back to it several times. There's been quite a few, that after returning to them, I feel I've gotten a better idea of the poem's message and I'm better abled to comment.

In reading, how important is it to note the techniques used - the way lines work, and breaks (especially ones generally considered unorthodox or just plain wrong), enjambments, cadence, metaphor, sonic use, sentence structure, and the like - work in a given poem?

I welcome poems that do not follow any orthodox techniques. The risks put a poet in a category of their own. It opens ideas, and makes me excited about the possibilities yet to be revealed. They are the poems I remember best.

Does the careful reading of another's poem help you grow as a poet, bringing an awareness of how things work in the other's poems toward an intuitive touch in your own?

Absolutely. I read Neruda or Olds and take some of the poems that affect me most, line by line and feel as if I received the day's education. But their voices are so brilliant that to breathe their style into my work would be a horrible mockery. So I think of a mood they've created and work with my voice. It happens with unknown poets I admire as well.

What is the value of assumed extra-textual information to a poem? Is an allusion beyond the boundaries of a poem, one that is crucial to understand the poem at any level, viable in a public work?

Poems with allusions left up to the reader to arrive to meaning are wonderful if done well. But what is "done well"? Personal opinion: certain poems are powerful because a hint or suggestion is its heart beating long after the words have ended.

Then, from Chris George:

How important is it to guard against rapid assumptions in reading/critiquing a poem?

I think there is always the danger of shortchanging a poet by reading their poem too quickly or reading it only once. I have often found that repeated readings of a poem reveal nuances not suspected on the first reading, or a point of view taken by the poet which went undetected when the poem was first read. I have also found it to be the case that the poet will often reveal their intentions for the poem in responding to the critique, and that is often helpful to the critiquer in aiding the poet to improve the poem. Workshopping, needless to say, is an ongoing process which can be rewarding to the poet and to the critic alike.

In reading, how important is it to note the techniques used – the way lines work, and breaks (especially ones generally considered unorthodox or just plain wrong), enjambments, cadence, metaphor, sonic use, sentence structure, and the like - work in a given poem?

It is vitally important to note the devices, i.e., the line breaks, enjambments, cadence, metaphor, sonic use, sentence structure, etc., used by the poet. All these things are, as with a clock, the wheels and gears that make the poem work. In terms of line breaks, I usually single out breaks on "and," "but," or "the" as being poor breaks. In my own poetry, I try to break on a verb, as in "the eagle soared / into the sky" or an adjective, as seen in "the brilliant plumed / peacock strutted."

Does the careful reading of another's poem help you grow as a poet, bringing an awareness of how things work in the other's poems toward an intuitive touch in your own?

Serving as a monitor at Desert Moon as well as editor has exposed me to some fine poetry. I enjoy seeing how a poet such as Guy Kettelhack will employ internal rhyme as well as end rhyme, coming up with a controlled but witty contemplation, or how Laurie Byro weaves myth and legend into narratives of her everyday life. Being exposed to what is being posted by the talented poets at Desert Moon has been a learning experience for me. Thus, I have been using more internal rhyme as a result of studying Guy's poetry, and I can say that I can only strive to do what Laurie does - her work is a constant inspiration!

What is the value of assumed extra-textual information to a poem? Is an allusion beyond the boundaries of a poem, one that is crucial to understand the poem at any level, viable in a public work?

Poetry relies on allusions and metaphors. They are what make a poem work. Every reader brings their own experiences to a poem so they are likely to get from a poem much that relates to their own experiences. I do think that it is part of the duty of the poet to work toward employing extraordinary and unusual metaphors and to bring in allusions to artwork, literary references, and so on. Good poems are usually rich in such devices. I also think that it is not outside the purview of the poet to use unusual words and to educate the reader to their use and meaning. Literature should be an educational experience.

Thanks to Yoly and Chris for their thoughtful reflection on these questions of our art.

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