An Interview with Paula J. Lambert & Juan Rojas: On Translation, Collaboration, and Community

With Winter Wheat just around the corner, we asked our guest readers, Paula J. Lambert and Juan Rojas about their work, what they will be reading, and about their Winter Wheat experiences to share with our readers and participants.

Lambert and Rojas were asked to respond to the following questions via email and what follows is their written descriptions depicting the beautiful working relationship they have developed to produce their works of translation and the importance of their communication and understanding of each other.


Can you share with us a little bit about what you will be reading? 

Paula & Juan: We’ll be reading poems excerpted from Juan’s full manuscript El camino que lleva nuestros nombres / The Path that Carries Our Names in the original Spanish and the translated English. The last section, as you know, was published in MAR as a featured translation chapbook, so we expect to finish the reading with that last section of the book in full. We also look forward to discussing the translation process itself, as time allows—how it unfolds, and the key elements that shape it.


Your work is a work in translation. Can you speak to the process of translation? 

Paula: For us, the work was as much a process of editing as it was translation, as Juan came to me when he’d finished the first draft of the manuscript, and the poems needed quite a lot of work. I’m a very good editor, and many of the poems that were quite long and rather confusing were edited down to something far more concise. Additionally, some of the poems had already been translated to English by another poet who was not a native English speaker, and though that should have made things easier for me (I actually don’t speak or read Spanish) it actually made some things more difficult, as we had to sort out what was problematic from the original words Juan wrote and what may have been a problem with an inaccuracy in the first translation. So, ours was a sitting-side-by-side process, with me asking him over and over, “Is this what you really mean? Is this what you intended?” Sometimes that led to him realizing the drafted poem was not very clear, and sometimes it meant there was something in the language or the cultural references that I was not yet understanding. And of course once we got through all the individual poems, all translated fully and clearly into English so that I had a much clearer understanding of the overall story being told, we had to take a look at how the poems were working together—where there were redundancies, for example, or how some parallels needed to be highlighted.

Juan: The translation process involved four essential elements: excellent communication—between poet and poet, poet and editor, and poet and translator; a willingness to explore new creative possibilities; trust in our instincts and in the original poetic essence; and the courage to embrace transformation.

For me, it was crucial to truly listen to Paula—not only as a translator, but also as a poet and editor in her own right. I wanted to ensure that what I originally intended to “chant” could be creatively reimagined through translation. After all, every translation is its own new creation.

I made a point to reflect on the changes Paula suggested—not simply agreeing or disagreeing but engaging in meaningful discussion. Dialogue has been essential throughout—before, during, and even after the translation of the manuscript—especially as we’ve shared this work together in multiple conferences and literary festivals.


How did you come to collaborate and what was that process like collaborating?

Paula: We’ve been friends and colleagues for many years. I’m not honestly sure where we first met, but I’d heard him read on the local poetry scene and, as I was hosting Peripatetic Poets here in Columbus and a show called “Celebrating the Night Sky” at Perkins Observatory in Delaware, I invited him to read. When he read at the observatory, he brought his two children, very young at the time, who played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on the violin as he read his poems over their music. It was magical. When that event evolved into the Sun & Moon Poetry Festival, I invited him to take part in the Haiku Death Match. It was fascinating watching audiences respond to his performances. People literally swooned over his tiny, powerful poems. So, I invited him to do a little chapbook for Full/Crescent press, and that turned into De caña de maíz y miel: 12 haikus de Ohio / On Cornstalks and Honey: 12 Ohio Haiku. Haiku are very hard to write, and the original poems he gave me needed a lot of work, so the process was similar. “Is this really what you mean? Why did you use this image?” And so on. I was not yet his translator, but we found through that process that we worked very, very well together as poet and editor. It turned into a gorgeous little pocket-sized, hand-stitched chapbook with a cover that was just beautiful. And it sold out almost immediately. When he found himself in need of a new translator a few years ago, he told me he had a new manuscript and asked if I might like to try working together on that, to ensure the work was solid in both languages. And here we are. We’re co-workers and friends, able to be very honest with one another. I’m able to tell him when something is not working—and of course, when it’s working incredibly, beautifully well. He’s able to tell me that something needs to be a certain way and can’t be changed. It’s very give and take and very rewarding for both of us.

Juan: My collaboration with Paula has developed alongside our friendship. Not long ago, translation was often limited to the works of deceased authors. Today, the translation of contemporary poetry is increasingly common—and vital. Many poets now see their work published in multiple languages and take part in international festivals, a trend that reflects the global reach of poetry.

When a poem is translated, the process depends greatly on the poet’s involvement. If you know the language, you work closely with the translator. If not, you trust that the translator will remain faithful to your voice and vision. I feel very fortunate that Paula and I have spent countless hours together on this project—reviewing, discussing, and fine-tuning every line until we both felt completely satisfied.

I always know when Paula is truly moved by a poem—she gets goosebumps. That’s when I know we’ve done something right.

Paula: (Yeah, that goosebump part is absolutely true.)


As past participants, how does it feel to be coming to Winter Wheat as a reader this year? How might that experience feel different for you?

Paula: Well, I can say for myself that I’m thrilled, as I last read in Prout Chapel as an MFA student in 1995 and 1996. I was focused on fiction at the time and read both years with poet Tania Runyan, who is still a close friend. So to come back as an invited guest reader, and as a poet, and as part of a translation project, is deeply meaningful. It’s an honor to have been invited back to read, and it’s humbling to think of all the ways my work as a writer has changed in nearly 30 years!

Juan: It’s an honor—one I will always cherish—to have been invited to Winter Wheat. It’s a meaningful opportunity to engage with both regional and national writers, to learn from their work, and to share my own.

As a poet who writes primarily in Spanish, my mother tongue, I’m aware that language can sometimes limit access to new readers. But translation changes that. It opens doors, allowing English-speaking readers to connect with and appreciate my poetry.

I was genuinely thrilled to learn I’d been invited as a guest reader, alongside my friend, poet, and translator Paula J. Lambert. It feels like a living testament to the idea that poetry—shared across borders and languages—can make the world a better place.

Winter Wheat offers a moment to connect with other poets, to explore new paths, and to feel welcomed by the vibrant Ohio poetry community.


Can you speak to your experiences at Winter Wheat? What have you encountered/experienced? What has kept you returning? 

Paula: I’ve heard so many extraordinary writers at Winter Wheat! Tyehimba Jess was a favorite, when Leadbelly was brand-new. That was a favorite poetry collection for so many years. Carl Phillips was just lovely, as was Camille Dungy. Allison Joseph…so many great writers and readers. For a while, several years after I graduated from the program, I came back to BGSU to teach, so it was easy to attend, and it always felt like a reunion of sorts, as many former students and faculty would come to town for it. In recent years, I’ve tried to come up more often again and though I recognize fewer attendees each time, it’s always great to meet new people, and it’s interesting to see what the current MFA students especially are interested in and wanting to teach. And of course it’s been a chance to think through whatever new project I’m working on, as when Juan and I together taught a workshop on the long poem. At the time, I was writing very, very long poems, and Juan and I had just started working on his manuscript, which is made up of short poems but together tell a single, long story. Teaching is always a wonderful discovery process as, if you’re going about it right, it makes you think hard, in explaining to someone else, about what exactly you’re doing and why. And of course you learn so much from your students in the questions they ask and what they share of the projects they’re working on. I think all writing, ultimately, and even all teaching, is at its core collaborative. It’s a discovery process for everyone.

Juan: Paula and I first participated in Winter Wheat two years ago. At that time, we presented some of our initial translations and reflected on the fresh, unfolding experience of co-creation. It is a true joy to return as invited guests—to share what has happened since, how the manuscript has evolved, and what we envision for the future of El camino que lleva nuestros nombres / The Path that Carries Our Names.

Winter Wheat has become, for us, a kind of homecoming—a return to the wellspring of language and creative energy. Like going back to the well to draw water, we return in search of poetry—expecting it, welcoming it, dreaming it.

There’s a poem in the manuscript that speaks to this feeling:

“Wandering my Dreams, I Find Direction”

We’ll drink water from the well.

We’ll meditate.

We’ll meditate within these dreams,

     unraveling mysteries not yet revealed.



Paula J. Lambert and Juan Rojas’ translation chapbook, The Path that Carries Our Names, a collection of poetry written by Rojas translated from Spanish by Lambert, was published in the most recent issue of The Mid-American Review. Rojas is a Mexican-American transborder poet, essayist, and scholar.  He currently serves as the President of the Hispanic Ohio Writers Association. Lambert is an alumna of Bowling Green’s MFA program and author of five full-length poetry collections. Lambert owns Full/Crescent Press, a small publisher of poetry books and broadsides, through which she has founded and supported numerous public readings and festivals that support the intersection of poetry and science. You can read our guest readers’ full bios here.

Featured Writer: Amorak Huey + Interview

On Thursday, February 29th at 7:30 pm, Poet and writer Amorak Huey will be reading some of his work for the Spring 2024 Prout Chapel Reading Series at Bowling Green State University. The reading will be held in the Prout Chapel on the BGSU campus. The event is open to the public.

Amorak Huey, a poet and writer, has authored four poetry collections, including Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021) and Seducing the Asparagus Queen (Cloudbank Books, 2018). He co-authored Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024) and won the Diode Editions Chapbook Prize for Slash/Slash (Diode Editions, 2021). Currently a Professor of English at Bowling Green State University, Huey hails from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and has a rich literary background.

Assistant Editor, Ahmad Bilal interviewed Amorak Huey for the blog.

Ahmad Bilal: You’ve had a fascinating journey from journalism to poetry. How has your experience as a journalist influenced your approach to poetry, and vice versa?

Amorak Huey: I have a couple answers for this question. The first one has to do with language: my years as a copy editor were spent considering the sentence. How efficient is this sentence at delivering information? How does it connect to the sentence before, the sentence after? What work does each word here do? Are they necessary, and if they’re not necessary, are they important in some other way? I think (hope) this practice has shaped my poetry.

The second answer has to do with audience, purpose, the larger world. When you’re writing or editing at a newspaper, you have a very clear sense of audience and purpose with every story, every image, every headline. You’re communicating in a very real sense with a very real and very local audience: the 65,000 people in the Tallahassee area who subscribe to this paper or grab it from a newspaper box because they care about what’s happening in their community, for instance. So, you always have them in mind. I hope this practice, too, carries into my poetry: a sense that I’m writing to a real, human audience interested in what I have to say about the world, in how I make sense of the mess that is the human experience. 

AB: Your poetry often combines humor and social commentary, as seen in titles like Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy. How do you perceive the impact of this blend within your poetic work?

AH: I don’t know if I think deliberately about the effect or rhetorical outcome of blending these things, humor and commentary. At least not when I’m writing a poem; if I were writing, say, a newspaper column or a speech, it would be different. But in a poem, for me, it’s more about how we’re always operating at multiple levels of language. Think about code-switching, how we’re all using different diction and vocabulary for different facets of our life. Poems are looking for layers of meaning, right, like, instead of code-switching it’s code-layering — all the versions of yourself can be present at once in a poem. We contain multitudes, etc., so yeah, sometimes the joke-making self and the grief-drowning self and the self with something important to say about the planet (among myriad other selves) — in a poem, they can converge, coexist, contradict each other. 

AB: In your poem “BROKEN SONNET WITH CLIMATE CHANGE AND OFFICE HOURS,” how effective do you find the use of dialogue in addressing intergenerational perspectives on climate change?

AH: Effective within the confines of that particular poem? No idea. That’s a question for a reader, not the poet. But as a reader, I do have a fondness for dialogue in poetry. There’s something about the use of quotation marks that changes the poem’s relationship to truth; the quote marks are a kind of promise that what’s inside them is what a person (perhaps an imaginary one) actually said, though certainly a poem has no obligation to keep that promise. And of course, dialogue is a great way to explicitly give a poem multiple voices, to explore contrast and juxtaposition. 

AB: You’ve also published several chapbooks. What draws you to this shorter form, and how does your approach differ when writing chapbooks versus full-length collections?

AH: For me, a chapbook happens when I have something I’m interested in exploring for 10-15 poems or so. A chapbook is the perfect container for something like this. As a reader, I prefer chapbooks that stand alone, that aren’t just a bunch of loosely connected poems that will eventually also be published in full-length. As a writer, I’m not really a project poet, not enough to fill out a whole collection. My attention span, my willingness to listen to myself go on the same topic — it tends to cut off after a chapbook’s worth of poems. I can’t imagine writing 48-60 or however many poems that are as tightly connected as a chapbook allows. I would bore myself way before that point. I’ve said before that I don’t write books, I write poems, which can cause problems late in the process when it’s time to assemble my poems into a manuscript. So, I tend to have to write double or triple the number of poems a book needs before finding the ones that speak to each other, that coalesce into some larger form: the book. 

AB: Co-authoring a textbook on poetry is a unique endeavor. How did you and W. Todd Kaneko approach creating Poetry: A Writers’ Guide and Anthology? What insights did you gain from collaborating on this project?

AH: Our process began by spending a lot of time talking and thinking about what we wanted the book to be like, what sections and ideas we wanted to include. Helped that our offices were right across the hall from each other at the time (again, the value of local community). Once we had a rough outline, we just each drafted the chapters and sections and dumped them into a Google folder; once we had everything drafted, we went in and edited each other’s work. Because we trusted each other, because we knew we were on the same page about the direction of the book, it was easy to set ego aside and know that the other’s edits were always about moving the project forward, helping it find its final form. We learned a lot about our own writing process and about trust. After we finished that first edition, we also collaborated on a collection of poems about the rock guitarist Slash, following virtually the exact same process. Because we’d done the textbook that way, we had the kind of trust you need to let someone else mess around in your creative work, right? By the end, these were not Todd’s poems or my poems, but our poems, which is kind of magical place for a project to end up. The chapbook is called Slash/Slash, and diode editions published it. 

AB: As a professor and an active writer, how do you engage with the literary community? What advice do you have for emerging poets seeking to connect with other writers and readers?

AH: My advice is: find your people and hold onto them. Make cool shit with your friends. Share your work with people who are excited about what you’re doing. Don’t think of it in any kind of mercenary or reciprocal sense—what can I get out of this—but because you value the kind of connection, the kind of relationships that art makes possible. It’s not about collecting followers on social media or networking on LinkedIn or whatever, it’s about finding people who value what you value, people you can talk to about reading, or writing, or the beautiful messy chaotic work of shaping our lives into and around art.

––Ahmad Bilal, Mid-American Review

Featured Writer: George Looney + Interview

On Thursday February 1st at 7:30pm, Poet and writer George Looney will be reading some of his work for the Spring 2024 Prout Chapel Reading Series at Bowling Green State University. The reading will be held in the Prout Chapel on the BGSU campus. The event is open to the public.

George Looney has nourished a decades long career as a successful writer, editor, and educator; his career has produced several collections of award-winning work: including, 13 collections of poetry and 4 collections of prose.  

Looney’s work has been published in countless literary journals and anthologies such as American Writers Review and Mid-American Review in 2023 with his book review, Review of Wendell Mayo’s Twice-Born World: Stories of Lithuania and many, many more esteemed publications. His new short story collection The Visibility of Things Long Submerged was published by BOA Editions, LTD in 2023.

George Looney currently serves as a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and English at Penn State Erie where he also serves as the Editor of the literary journal, Lake Effect. Looney founded the BFA in Creative Writing Program at Penn State Erie. For eight years, Looney served as Editor-in-Chief of Mid-American Review after receiving his M.F.A. from Bowling Green State University; Looney now serves as the Translations Editor for Mid-American Review. We are incredibly lucky to have Looney back in Bowling Green this week; he will be reading from both his new book of stories, The Visibility of Things Long Submerged (BOA Editions) and his new collection of poetry, The Acrobatic Company of the Invisible (Cider Press Review).

To find out more information, visit George Looney here:

https://georgelooney.org/

Assistant Editor Elly Salah conducted the following interview with George Looney via email.

Elly Salah: You’ve mentioned that some of the places you write about in your fiction are real places. How do you decide what to fictionalize when drawing from real memories? 

George Looney: None of the places in The Visibility of Things Long Submerged are actual places from my memory, places I have been and am remembering. But some of the places, like Rome, GA and Subligna, GA are real places that I had to use for various reasons. For instance, I needed a small town near the Chattahoochee National Park, as that National Park is a good place to find scarlet snakes, which was important for the story. I did quite a bit of research for both of these towns, because I wanted to have a sense of the places to fit the story to the place and to use the place to create the story. Research is always a two-lane highway in the creative process. 

ES: In The Visibility of Things Long Submerged, your characters go through journeys where they question the role of faith in their lives. Would you mind sharing a little bit about how these character’s conflicts come to be: Does a character’s struggle come before the other elements of a narrative or does the narrative somehow shape the character’s struggle?

GL: In my estimation, plot is the least important element of fiction. Plot is just “this happens then this happens then this happens, etc.” The real question is, So what? And that comes from the interactions within and between characters. Putting characters in a setting and establishing conflict—or at least tension—is for me the genesis of story. 

ES: How do you see poetry and prose influencing the ways in which we interact and create spaces of faith? 

GL: Religion and faith are of course not the same thing. Art—all art, not just literature—no matter how nihilistic, has faith at its core. To make art is a positive act; it implies a faith in there being someone to “read” it, to experience it, to share the experience of it. 

ES: Could you discuss a little bit about what it’s been like serving as an editor in the literary world and also a successful writer? Do those two “roles” ever conflict? 

GL: I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to be an editor, first with Mid-American Review for many years and now with Lake Effect for many years. To get to participate in the shaping of contemporary poetry and prose—which is what literary journals do—is an honor. Editors say, this deserves to be read, this deserves an audience, this deserves to last. As for any conflict between being an editor and being a writer, the only conflict is the struggle for time. Reading the work of other writers—both good and bad—informs constantly my own skills as a writer. The two roles complement one another more than they conflict. 

ES: What was it like to create the Bachelor’s of Fine Arts program at Penn State Erie? What motivated you to start the program?

GL: I was participating in one of those “retreats” to formulate a five-year plan for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Penn State Erie, and I, sort of jokingly, suggested we should start a BFA in Creative Writing program. I had already revamped the BFA at BGSU before I left there to take a tenure-track position here (something I was never going to get at BGSU due to the attitudes of a particular Dean), and since we already had a well-funded reading series and a track in the English BA for creative writing, it seemed like a logical possibility. Then it turned out that the Chancellor loved the idea (thinking it would bring more females to a college dominated by males), and so I then had to spend a lot of time and energy creating the program, which I based on the work I had done at BGSU but trying to improve upon what I had done at BGSU. 

ES: Seeing as you are accomplished in multiple genres, would you mind sharing how your process might change when approaching a collection of prose versus a collection of poetry?

GL: The process doesn’t change, exactly. The focus is perhaps different. I agree with Ezra Pound, who argued that good poetry must be at least as well-written as good prose. The sentence is the basis of all good writing. Understanding how sentences function is essential in both poetry and prose. The only difference is in poetry you also have the line, which allows you to manipulate the sentence in an additional way. This does not include prose poetry, of course. But I realize you asked about producing collections of poetry or prose. Every book—whether prose or poetry—determines how it comes to be. The Visibility of Things Long Submerged started from one story—the first in the book—which was written as the result of a challenge like that which led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein. There were three of us—myself and two graduate fiction writers—sitting in a bar on Main Street drinking and waiting for a pool table to open up, and I said, in response to something, “Jesus is a shell game,” and one of the other two said someone should write a story with that title, so we all agreed to write such a story, and I was the only one who apparently was sober enough to remember. That was the original title of “What Gives Us Voice.” The editor of New England Review requested the title change. All the other stories came out of the feeling that the characters in that story had more to do, more to say, more to discover, more to reveal. 

ES: As an expert in both poetry and prose, could you share with us a bit more about your process? This week you’ll be reading to us from both your collections of poetry and prose. Do you have any preference when it comes to reading your work? 

GL: I have no preference between giving readings of my fiction or my poetry. But I should admit, even though I’ve published a novel, a novella, and two story collections, I consider myself a poet who has written some fiction. I love reading good fiction as much as I love reading good poetry, and I have fiction writers I feel as passionately about as I feel about my favorite poets. 

ES: Reflecting on your time as an educator of creative writing, what is the single most important thing a creative writing student can take away from a course with you?

GL: A passionate love for language. And the recognition that—as Whitman declared about American poetry—the challenge is to create/discover language to express the inexpressible. To strive for anything less is to cheat yourself and, more importantly, to cheat the art of literature. 

ES: Last question, what was your favorite place to hangout or thing to do when you attended Bowling Green State University for your MFA?

GL: There are several places and things I did, much with my best friend of 35 years who sadly died 5 years ago, Douglas Smith. Playing pool and ping pong at Howards, especially after workshop nights. Playing racketball at 2 or 3 in the morning after writing in Hanna Hall for hours in a court that used to be under the stadium and was always open, and then going to Frisch’s for breakfast, and then going home to sleep. There are others, but I’ll stop there.

***

––Elly Salah, Mid-American Review

Winter Wheat Writing Festival Is Back to BGSU!

We’re thrilled to announce that Mid-American Review’s twenty-third Winter Wheat Writing Festival is back to BGSU from November 9th to November 11th. This year’s festival boasts an exciting lineup of over 45 in-person and online workshops covering fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and more. The full workshop schedule can be found here.

We’re honored to introduce our distinguished keynote speaker, Faylita Hicks, renowned for their critically acclaimed poetry collection, HoodWitch. Additionally, we’re excited to feature one of BGSU’s faculty members, Sharona Muir, the author of the story collection Animal Truth and the novel Invisible Beasts.

Winter Wheat is also featuring not one, but two exciting open mic nights on Friday and Saturday evenings. Friday’s open mic will take place at Howard’s Club in Downtown Bowling Green, and will be followed by a music performance by Zack Fletcher + The Toro Quartet, By the Willow, Chloe and the Strings. The event is co-hosted by Pella Felton and Bea Fields (THEYDAR). Our second open mic night will take place in Prout Chapel at the BGSU campus. Attendees are encouraged to attend both events and to share their own work with the audience! 

More information on our website. 

Winter Wheat is open to the public and free of charge. To register, visit our website: www.bgsu.edu/winterwheat.

To individuals with disabilities, please indicate if you need special services, assistance or appropriate modifications to fully participate in this event by contacting Accessibility Services at access@bgsu.edu or 419-372-8495. Please notify us prior to the event.

––Mays Kuhail, Winter Wheat Coordinator

Featured Writer: Charles Fort + Interview

On Thursday October 26th at 7:30pm, Poet Charles Fort will be reading some of his work for the Fall 2023 Prout Chapel Reading Series at Bowling Green State University. The reading will be held in the Prout Chapel on the BGSU campus. The event is open to the public.

Charles Fort has preserved a decades long career that has produced 16 full-length books and chapbooks of poetry which include: The Town Clock Burning (St. Andrews Press) and We Did Not Fear the Father: New and Selected Poems (Red Hen Press). Fort’s poetry has appeared in countless literary journals and anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2001, 2003, and 2016 and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors throughout his career. During his time as a professor of poetry and creative writing, Fort held the Reynolds Endowed Chair of Poetry at the University of Nebraska-Kearney where he is now Distinguished Emeritus Endowed Professor. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University.

Fort’s poetry becomes a response to his lived experience and at times seemingly addressed to someone specific, as if the epistle is holy, or, perhaps, he makes it the holiest form in which his poetry can love. In “Prose Poem for Claire Fort” from The Town Clock Burning (St. Andrew’s Press), Fort addresses his daughter, remembering her birth. The poem opens with the date and time placing us into his world at 3:23am. Fort writes, “Winter brings my wife a child and your birth arrives with the morning tide like wings alive in a jar.” Fort’s poems feel like song, like something that must be taken care of, protected. A theme throughout many of Fort’s poems is family or parental figures. In his poem “We Did Not Fear the Father” from The Best American Poetry 2001, Fort explores a more complex relationship to parenthood and family dynamics. In the final line, Fort writes, “We did not fear our father until he stooped in the dark.” His work examines the complex nuances of these relationships and peels back the layers to understand each as honest and complete as any great poet does.

To find out more information, visit Charles Fort here: https://www.poetcharlesfort.com.

––Tyler Michael Jacobs, Blog Co-Editor

Assistant Editor Christopher McCormick conducted the following interview with Charles Fort via email.

Christopher McCormick: You famously wrote 300 villanelles. What was it that drew you to the form? Can you share any insights or discoveries you made while completing this project?

Charles Fort: I have now completed 500 villanelles. I believe I am finished. I started writing them 10 years ago. The subjects include: Stravinsky, Hendrix, Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Van Gogh, Beatles, Motown, Miles, Coltrane, Pinter, Manson, Charlie McCarthy, Robert Johnson, Woodstock, Coleridge, Little Black Sambo, Knucklehead Smith, Bergman films (complete catalogue) the Inferno, the ancestral Fort journey on the ship Golconda––A Villanelle Vérité Redoublé––On May, 14, 1868, the ship Golconda set sail from Savannah, Georgia to Liberia. The journey of 7 generations of Fort ancestors starboard…There is a city named Fortsville, Liberia, Stephen Hawking, others…

I was a member of a well-known weekly workshop in West Hartford, Connecticut (via Northampton, Mass. and Cape Cod) led by the former President of The Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens, once called the friends of Wallace Stevens until one member noted his scarred writing/comments on race. I credit Stevens for allowing me to disregard Ashbury and the Ashbury Jr’s that walked the halls of Bowling Green in 1975-1977. I introduced a new villanelle to workshop each week for years. The group nearly asked for reparations.

CM: “We Did Not Fear the father” is driven by two seemingly contradictory emotions: love and fear. Does contradiction play an important role in the shaping of poems?

CF: Was it Vonnegut who said writers observe the terror and absurdity in the world. I might add beauty to that paraphrase. Love, fear, and the fear of love. In an early draft of “We Did Not Fear the Father,” I called my father the scaremonger! I changed it to the honorific term: our provider.

CM: “Prose Poem for Claire Fort” begins and ends with the image “wings alive in a jar.” In fact, repetition appears throughout your work in very interesting ways. How does repetition factor into your creative process?

CF: I want repetends to dissolve the rivets of poetic forms. No matter the form, I want to alter tradition in subversive-hidden ways. At times, I create a narrative thread that allows for a contemporary sensibility inside a vessel overflowing—shipwrecked with coal and precious stones.

CM: Some of your poetry touches on personal loss, most notably your wife, Wendy Fort who passed from Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. What does it feel like to release such intimate work into the world?

CF: I wrote poems about my wife immediately after her passing into everlasting light. I felt guilty and torn between being a husband and father with two daughters. I was ashamed I was a poet. Had I taken advantage of such grief? I had to write about my experience and reveal it to the world.

CM: You seem to be equally comfortable writing in free verse, form, and prose. Are any of these favorites?

CF: In my Graduate Workshop and Seminar, in the first half of the semester, I introduced the sonnet, villanelle, sestina (using the six images within the line), prose poem, and a form I created I called a medievalist-echo-verse. The second half of the semester the students wrote whatever form or free verse they wished.

The aleatory nature of the creative process in the arts and sciences, the sullen craft. I paraphrase Stravinsky: The more one toils with the creative process, the more one is set free.

Typing poems was like playing my silver clarinet as a lad for ten years and a tenor saxophone for one. I remember the exact moment I went from writing in longhand in large artist sketchbooks to a computer. First drafts to eternal final drafts. One of my professors at Bowling Green spoke of the three conditions of language: Educated—job interviews, speaking to your parents, grandparents, asking for money: Colloquial—capturing the linguistic nuances of your birthplace: Jive—the polyphonic, street wise, warnings, and when to run fast. The writer might want to learn to master all three levels of language and write them into their work at the same time, following physics into the past, present, and future at the same moment.

CM: Do you approach writing free verse, form, and prose differently?

CF: No. I first begin all my writing in prose. As a lad, I wrote up to fifty pages on single-spaced 8 x 14 legal pads. I would capture the images, phrases, and lines that caught my eye, ear, and heart. The fifty pages might become one sonnet or many other forms. 

I write blues, jazz, poetry of witness, pastoral poetry, etc. I admire Hopkins and Etheridge Knight.

CM: What is the single most important attribute of a good poem?

CF: Tear away from the historical and cultural definitions of poetry until the center falls apart. There is good poetry and bad poetry. One needs an hourglass, compass, and the heart’s metronome to locate the best words in the best order.

CM: You have multiple poems that share the title “In a Just and Miniature World.” What is it about that title that captured your imagination? 

CF: If I may say so, I love its musicality and lyricism. I think of the child who walked into the wilderness and came upon a poem nailed to a birch tree. The poem was Loveliest of Trees. The child became a poet. I wrote In a just and miniature world decades ago in a poem titled “The Writer at His Desk” now called “The Writer”—the poem won the Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize judged by Fred Chappell. I read the poem outdoors wearing my father’s very old shark skin suit in front of the Jarrell or was it the O. Henry Sculpture? Maxine Kumin was the main speaker. I felt like Robert Frost reading trying to read against a strong wind. 

CM: Many of your poems combine images of the natural world with intimate scenes of family life. Does this suggest a special connection between the natural world and the human world?

CF: Yes! I attended the first Earth Day. As a lad, I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Observe and remove environmental racism! Save the birch trees! Save us from war!

CM: What role does American history, world history, and personal history play in your poetry?

CF: It is difficult to escape history. I try. Imagination is central to my work no matter the subject. Kafka knew there was no escape.

CM: You, along with your late wife, Wendy Fort, staged a performance, Afro Psalms: a Special Showcase in Ekphrastic History, with Charles Fort and Wendy Fort, that combined poetry with visual art and dance. How did you find these three mediums worked together to create an experience for your audience?

CF: I collaborated with my late wife with the dance she choreographed to my poetry. I wrote a libretto that was set to full choir and orchestra at Thalian Hall in Wilmington, NC. The poem went on to win the Poetry Society of America Prize for poem best set to music. I stayed at the Gramercy Hotel. The ceremony was hosted by George Plimpton across the avenue at the National Arts Club. Denise Levertov was the main guest. I sat in a rather elegant leather chair that once sat JFK. I sipped the rarest single blend scotch I could find.

I have read my poetry accompanied by nearly every instrument in the world. Violin to Piano to Double Bass to Saxophone. When the saxophonist was not available, I became the saxophone!

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––Christopher McCormick, Mid-American Review