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Hello All,
In honor of National Poetry Month I am taking part in Couplets: a multi-author poetry blog tour
and have been having the amazing fortune of getting to know some fabulous poets. Please check out the posts on the tour (they are listed below after the interview). I know you won’t be disappointed.
This week I am bringing you my interview with Renee Emerson!
1. Please tell me a bit about yourself.
I’m a born and raised Southerner, which makes its way into my writing. My husband Bryan and I have moved around frequently the past few years and are just now starting to settle down in Rome, GA, where I teach poetry and composition at Shorter University and where Bryan works as a music minister. We have a seven month old daughter who is a complete delight.
2. When did you start writing poetry
I wrote some poetry in high school, as high school aged girls are apt to do, but I did not seriously start writing poetry until around my sophomore year of college in 2005. Before then I’d wanted very much to be a fiction writer–a novelist–but the more I learned about writing, the more I realized that my talent and interests were truly in poetry.
3. On your blog you share stories about handling rejection as well as celebrating successes-what would you say is your publishing dream?
I’m currently working on a full-length manuscript of poems and having that published would be fulfilling a long-time dream of mine. I’ve published several chapbooks in the past, most recently “Where Nothing Can Grow” (Batcat Press, 2011), and in addition to my full-length manuscript, I am working on another poetry chapbook that I’m hoping to have completed sometime this summer.
4. What type of poetry do you enjoy writing the most?
I write free verse lyric poetry, and I most enjoy writing the type of poem that puts into words unnameable things. Which is to say, a poem that someone, anyone, can pick up and read and say “I’ve felt that way. I know what she’s talking about.”
5. Tell me about some of your favorite poets.
C.D. Wright, Charles Wright, James Wright–all the Wrights!–Louise Gluck, Carolyn Forche, Seamus Heaney, Rita Dove, Linda Gregg. I’m always looking for new “favorite poets”–I consider it a way to grow in my own craft, studying the craft of others.