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PLEASE EXCUSE THIS POEM at the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS!

With Rob Casper of the LOC, poet Jennifer Chang, PETP co-editor Lynn Melnick, Viking Books senior editor Sharyn November, and poet Mark McMorris.

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Q & A with Matthew Shenoda

Matthew Shenoda is the author of the poetry collections Somewhere Else (winner of the American Book Award), Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone Tahrir Suite. He is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Associate Dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Columbia College Chicago. Twitter: @matthewshenoda

* * * First poems you read or loved: The Book of Psalms and the lyrics of Bob Marley Favorite poems or book of poems: Far too many to name, but I love contemporary poetry written by people who are struggling with what it means to be human in the 21st century. I like work that is both visceral and intellectually challenging. What was the last book of poems you read: The Promise of Hope: New and Selected Poems by Kofi Awoonor Your favorite motto / quote: “Those of us who love justice, refuse simplistic binaries.” --bell hooks Your favorite occupation / hobby: Reading, writing, teaching, walking Your idea of happiness: Being home with my family. Your idea of misery: Being with people who hate to read and think Your favorite virtue: Honesty What you appreciate the most in your friends: Good sense of humor Your favorite prose authors: James Baldwin Your favorite artist or musician: Bob Marley The natural talent you would most like to have: Playing a musical instrument What is your present state of mind: Busy and inquisitive What can’t you tolerate: Liars What is your favorite food or drink: Water and fresh fruit What is your least favorite word: “Like” What is your favorite word: Justice --questions answered February 3, 2014

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Q & A with L. Lamar Wilson

L. Lamar Wilson's Sacrilegion was chosen by Lee Ann Brown for the 2012 Carolina Wren Press Poetry Series and received the Independent Publishers' bronze medal in 2013. Wilson has received fellowships from Cave Canem Foundation, the Callaloo Workshops, and the Arts and Sciences Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is a doctoral candidate in African American and multiethnic American poetics. * * * First poems you read or loved: Excerpt from Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha,” “Ego Tripping” by Nikki Giovanni, Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking” Favorite poems or book of poems: Yusef Komunyakaa’s Magic City, Lucille Clifton’s The Book of Light and Blessing the Boats, Rita Dove’s Mother Love, Claudia Rankine’s The End of the Alphabet, Jean Toomer’s Cane What was the last book of poems you read:  King Me, Roger Reeves Your favorite motto/quote:  from Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me”: “come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed” Your favorite occupation/hobby: Tennis. Your idea of happiness: Anything, especially singing, with my family Your idea of misery: Being misunderstood and mischaracterized Your favorite virtue: Longsuffering, loyal friendship What you appreciate the most in your friends: Unadulterated honesty rooted in deep love and respect Your favorite prose authors: James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, Joan Didion Your favorite artist or musician: Nina Simone and Donny Hathaway (I can’t pick just one) The natural talent you would most like to have: Perfect pitch What is your present state of mind: Deep sadness. Four women in my church died in a house fire on New Year’s Day. What can’t you tolerate: Mendacity. A person lying with malevolent intent against an innocent soul. Being used by someone who is so self-absorbed and dogged in his/her pursuit of his her goals. What is your favorite food or drink: These days, raw almonds. What is your least favorite word: No. What is your favorite word:  Yes.

--questions answered January 4, 2014

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Q & A with Robyn Schiff

Robyn Schiff is the author of two collections of poems, Revolver and Worth, and the chapbook Novel Influenza.She is a co-editor at Canarium Books, and teaches poetry at the University of Iowa. Originally from Metuchen, New Jersey, Schiff now lives in Iowa City, Iowa with her husband, the poet and filmmaker Nick Twemlow, and her son. * * * First poems you read or loved: My earliest experience of loving poems as a young child was discovering Emily Dickinson’s work on my grandmother’s bookshelf. She kept her books in a breakfront, and when I opened the glass doors I was overcome with the smell of old paperbacks, which I’ll never forget. Later in my childhood I discovered Gary Snyder’s quartet “Four Poems for Robin,” in an anthology for young people and felt a personal connection with it because of my name. Favorite poems or book of poems: My favorite books of poems are by Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop. I read them constantly, along with my other favorite, the book my husband Nick Twemlow wrote, Palm Trees. What was the last book of poems you read: Same as above. Your favorite motto / quote: “Repeat, repeat, repeat; revise, revise, revise.” --Elizabeth Bishop Your favorite occupation / hobby: Reading and museum-going with my family Your idea of happiness: The life I live. I am very lucky. Your idea of misery: Impoverishment of all kinds Your favorite virtue: Generosity What you appreciate the most in your friends: Imagination Your favorite prose authors: Virginia Woolf; Thomas Mann; Fanny Burney; Marcel Proust; Anthony Trollope; and Eula Biss Your favorite artist or musician: Hiroshi Sugimoto The natural talent you would most like to have: Story-telling What is your present state of mind: Patience What can’t you tolerate: Cruelty What is your favorite food or drink: Warm chocolate chip cookies and sweet, strong coffee What is your least favorite word: Hate What is your favorite word: Time --questions answered January 2, 2014

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Q & A with Danielle Pafunda

Danielle Pafunda’s books of poetry are Natural History Rape Museum (Bloof Books), Manhater (Dusie Press Books), Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi Press), My Zorba (Bloof Books), and Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull Press). A chapbook When you Left me in the Rutted Terrain of Our Love at the Border, which I Could Not Cross, Remaining a Citizen of This Corrupted Land is forthcoming from Birds of Lace. She’s also a professor, a mama, a partner-in-crime-&-love, a friend and confidante. Her knuckles say L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E ‘cause life is filled with contradiction and the body is a strange space in which to be human.

* * * First poems you read or loved: “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg Favorite poems or book of poems: Four-way tie between Sylvia Plath’s Ariel; Mina Loy’s Lost Lunar Baedeker; Joyce Mansour’s Screams; and everything Emily Dickinson. What was the last book of poems you read: Lara Glenum’s Pop Corpse, Shane McCrae’s Blood Your favorite motto / quote: I felt a funeral in my brain --Emily Dickinson. Your favorite occupation / hobby: Slurking around thinking terrible things Your idea of happiness: All the people I love around the biggest dining table eating, bickering, smooching, and knowing the world beyond is finally, finally secure. Your idea of misery: Is too grim to pronounce in prose Your favorite virtue: Compassion What you appreciate the most in your friends: Their excesses Your favorite prose authors: Includes Kathy Acker, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Kate Bernheimer, Kathryn Davis, Simone de Beauvoir, Matthew Derby, Roxane Gay, Natsuo Kirino, China Mieville, Audrey Niffenegger, Alissa Nutting, Rainbow Rowell, Marjane Satrapi, Timothy Schaffert, Can Xue, etc. Your favorite artist or musician: Frida Kahlo & Camille Rose Garcia The natural talent you would most like to have: Singing What is your present state of mind: Vexed, urgent, unsatisfied, animated, desirous, clanging What can’t you tolerate: Waffling What is your favorite food or drink: Chocolate and coffee What is your least favorite word: I like all the words What is your favorite word: Fuck --questions answered December 2013

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Q & A with Cate Marvin

Cate Marvin’s first book, World’s Tallest Disaster, was chosen by Robert Pinsky for the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize. In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. She co-edited with poet Michael Dumanis the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. Her second book of poems, Fragment of the Head of a Queen, for which she received a Whiting Award, was published in 2007. Marvin is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. In 2009, she co-founded the nonprofit organization VIDA: Women in Literary Arts with poet Erin Belieu. Her third book of poems, Oracle, is forthcoming in 2015. * * *

First poems you read or loved: Stephen Crane, “Fast Rode the Knight” Tennyson, “Tears, Idle Tears” Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” Favorite poems or book of poems: Poems: Emily Dickinson, “I Started Early – Took my Dog” Sylvia Plath, “Lesbos” Jon Anderson, “Preparations for Travel” Les Murray, “The Cows On Killing Day” Carlos Drummond de Andrade, “Don’t Kill Yourself" Books of Poems: Denis Johnson, The Incognito Lounge Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems Josh Bell, No Planets Strike Adélia Prado, The Alphabet in the Park (trans. Ellen Doré Watson) What was the last book of poems you read: Adélia Prado's Ex-Voto Your favorite motto / quote: “Fuck that shit.”   --Suburban Maryland Curse “I have no ambitions and no desires. To be a poet is not my ambition. It’s my way of being alone.” --Alberto Caeiro (heteronym of Fernando Pessoa, trans. by Richard Zenith) Your favorite occupation / hobby: Writing and reading. I read everything. The newspaper, gossip rags, short stories, books of poems, letters. I write emails to people I love, I write poems, I write in my journal. I run a women’s literary group with a bunch of other writers that focuses on working toward gender parity in publishing. It’s called VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. I spend a lot of time talking with and writing to other women writers. This reminds me that I’m not alone in the problems I face and the anger I experience at being diminished as a female writer and a woman by our culture. I enjoy keeping tropical fish, having cats, and taking care of houseplants. I am also an avid needlepointer. I have many pillows in my home that I stitched myself, and I just finished my daughter’s Christmas stocking. I love needlepoint because it is a very focused craft and allows me to think a lot about my life while I’m doing it. Your idea of happiness: Not being afraid of being yourself. Knowing someone gets your jokes. Your idea of misery: Spending time around superficial people of any ilk Your favorite virtue: Honesty What you appreciate the most in your friends: Their candor and humor. Their willingness to help see me through personally troubling times. Your favorite prose authors: (In no particular order) Franz Kafka Jennine Capo Crucet Angela Carter Cheryl Strayed Henry James Sylvia Plath Zora Neale Hurston Denis Johnson Susan Steinberg Walker Percy Toni Morrison Your favorite artist or musician: Lou Reed Leonard Cohen Blonde Redhead The natural talent you would most like to have:  To be able to sing well What is your present state of mind: I’ve been feeling at the end of something and at the beginning of another thing: in-between being terrified and terrifically happy. What can’t you tolerate? People who automatically assume they are “right” about everything. Such persons tend to be biased, annoying, somewhat hateful, and all too frequently dangerous. What is your favorite food or drink? I require an iced Americano with milk and sugar to start my day.  I adore all shellfish: raw oysters, steamed clams, lobster, and crabs. What is your least favorite word: It’s a tie between “flow” and “essence.” Because both of these words mean nothing, and people often use them when trying to discuss poetry. People use “flow” to attempt to discuss the movement of a poem. People use “essence” in an effort to act as if they are getting at the heart of something, when they are only fronting. I despise abstractions. Talking about poetry is difficult, to be sure, and both of these words serve as crutches. What is your favorite word: “Us” You’ve got to admit, this tiny word does a lot of work. It binds. And it is beautiful. I feel it every day, when speaking with my daughter, thinking of my reader, as I make my way through the ever-changing world that is, whether we like it or not, “ours.” --questions answered January 13, 2014 & January 8, 2015

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Q & A with Matthew Zapruder

Matthew Zapruder is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Sun Bear and Come On All You Ghosts, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He is co-translator from Romanian of Secret Weapon: Selected Late Poems of Eugen Jebeleanu. He has received a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, a William Carlos Williams Award, a May Sarton Award from the Academy of American Arts and Sciences, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship in Marfa, TX. An Assistant Professor in the St. Mary's College of California MFA program and English Department, and is an Editor at Wave Books. He lives in Oakland, CA. 

Twitter: @matthewzapruder

* * * First poems you read or loved: "The Song of Hiawatha"  by Longfellow, "Musée des Beaux Arts," by Auden, "I Heard a Fly Buzz," Emily Dickinson Favorite poems or book of poems: I love the poetry of James Tate, which is funny and serious all at the same time, and always surprising. What was the last book of poems you read: Brenda Hillman, Seasonal Work With Letters on Fire Your favorite motto / quote: "I keep my underwear up with a piece of elastic/ I've gotta bulls*t mic that's made out of plastic/ I send my rhymes out across the nation/ like Ma Bell I got the ill communication." MCA Your favorite occupation / hobby: Reading, writing, thinking, talking with my friends and family. Your idea of happiness: See above answer. Your idea of misery: Being around or in contact with people who are being cruel, to me or anyone. Your favorite virtue: Compassion. What you appreciate the most in your friends: A genuine effort to be a good person. Your favorite prose authors: Javier Marias, Haruki Murakami, Jose Saramago. Your favorite artist or musician: It's really hard to say, it depends on the moment. My favorite jazz musician: guitarist Jim Hall. My favorite classical musician: the accordionist Teodoro Anzelotti. Favorite bands: The Velvet Underground, Pavement, Beastie Boys, Guided by Voices, The Kinks, Tinariwen, Vic Chesnutt. My favorite songwriters: Stephen Malkmus, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Regina Spektor, Nina Nastasia, David Bowie, Tom Waits, Thane Thomsen. The natural talent you would most like to have: The ability to draw or sketch, at least decently. What is your present state of mind: Preoccupied and relatively happy and grateful. What can’t you tolerate: Being idle. What is your favorite food or drink: A Mutsu apple. Excellent sushi. Very good bourbon. What is your least favorite word: Death. What is your favorite word: Darkness. --questions answered January 8, 2014

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Q & A with Heather Christle

Heather Christle is the author of What Is Amazing (Wesleyan University Press, 2012),The Difficult Farm (Octopus Books, 2009), and The Trees The Trees (Octopus Books, 2011), which won the 2012 Believer Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in publications including Boston Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Best American Poetry. She has taught poetry at Antioch College, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Emory University, where she was the 2009-2011 Poetry Writing Fellow. A native of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, she lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Twitter:  @heatherchristle 

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First poems you read or loved: “The Tyger” by William Blake and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes--” by Emily Dickinson. Favorite poems or book of poems: This changes, of course, but at the moment I find sustenance in Alice Oswald’s Memorial, Alexander Vvedensky’s “Rug/Hydrangea,” (translated by Matvei Yankelevich), Aram Saroyan’s Complete Minimal Poems, Inger Christenson’s Alphabet, (translated by Susanna Nied), and W. S. Graham’s “Approaches to How They Behave.” What was the last book of poems you read: Throw Yourself into the Prairie by Francesca Chabrier. Your favorite motto / quote: I am without one. Your favorite occupation / hobby: Running while listening to radio shows about science and history Your idea of happiness: The ability to eat when hungry, sleep when tired, move when restless, and so on Your idea of misery: To be made a helpless witness to suffering Your favorite virtue: Empathy What you appreciate the most in your friends: Their wisdom, peculiarities, kindness, and jokes Your favorite prose authors: Renata Adler, Virginia Woolf, Lydia Davis Your favorite artist or musician: Emahoy Tsegué-Mariam Guebrù The natural talent you would most like to have: Handiness What is your present state of mind: Rainy What can’t you tolerate: Self-satisfaction What is your favorite food or drink: Pineapple What is your least favorite word: Palimpsest What is your favorite word: To                                                —questions answered December 29, 2013