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Interviews

"Lurking at a conversation's outskirts, I learned a thing or two about the human..."
— Heather McHugh

Poets.org currently features interviews with nearly 100 poets, with new articles being added all the time. Explore the work of these authors by finding out what goes on "behind the scenes" of their writing process.

Interviews with Poets

Elizabeth Alexander

Marvin Bell

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Rafael Campo

Billy Collins

CAConrad

Rita Dove

Martín Espada

Kenneth Goldsmith

Louise Glück

Albert Goldbarth

Jorie Graham

Matthea Harvey

Robert Hass

Brenda Hillman

Jane Hirshfield

Marie Howe

John Koethe

Yusef Komunyakaa

Li-Young Lee

Philip Levine

Nathaniel Mackey

Heather McHugh

Paul Muldoon

Harryette Mullen

Sharon Olds

Michael Palmer

Robert Pinsky

Susan Wheeler

Richard Wilbur

6 Poets, 6 Questions


	Gabrielle Calvocoressi "I really love the community Facebook affords and I like watching people perch on their virtual branch and tweet."

	Matthew Dickman "Most of the poems I write begin with a simple word or idea. I'll be drinking coffee and think 'I like coffee!' and then I'll start writing."

	Cathy Park Hong "When I was younger, I used to be more idealistic about poetry's function in society—that political intervention was possible."

	Ilya Kaminsky "If one isn't good enough to write something that Coleridge or Nabokov would find of interest, why bother? Of course one must be humble."

	Cate Marvin "Sometimes a poem comes over me like weather, feels like an itch or impulse. It's a near physical sensation."

	Evie Shockley "There is an emptiness on a page, a vacuum represented and magnified by the whiteness of the space, that goes until it ends."

Poets in Conversation

Dana Levin: Have your shifts in approach been a conscious aim?


	Louise Glück: I think the only conscious aim is the wanting to be surprised. The degree to which I sound like myself seems sort of a curse.

Laura Hinton: Do you see your work as a "hybrid" kind of text?


	Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge: Technically, my poems are collages. I don't like to call my work "hybrid," because I like to think of it as one surface, a continuum.

Elizabeth Alexander: How do you think African-American poetry is most egregiously undervalued or misnamed?


	Tracy K. Smith: I think that African-American writers are often discouraged from letting go of the truth and moving toward certain kinds of possibilities, and this discouragement is often very subtle, exerted from both within and without the black community.

Video Interviews

	Sherman Alexie lists his literary heroes and role models. Watch the video >
	Paul Muldoon discusses the uses of esoteric language. Watch the video >
	Rita Dove discusses the possibility of a post-racial literature. Watch the video >
	Jorie Graham reflects on how Europe has affected her work. Watch the video >
	Ed Hirsch discusses the prospects for contemporary poets. Watch the video >
	Robert Pinsky discusses his translation of Dante's Inferno. Watch the video >
	C. K. Williams discusses the difficulties of the writing process. Watch the video >
	Elizabeth Alexander reflects on the traditions of African American poetry. Watch the video >

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