Interview with 3Po3try NYC Poet Audrey Dimola - July 31 Summer Poetry Extravaganza

Audrey Dimola will be one of the featured poets in Hot House: A Summer Poetry Extravaganza on Thursday, July 31 @ Organic Modernism in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, produced by 3Po3try NYC (https://www.facebook.com/3po3trynyc).

Infinitely curious and hell-bent on painting her world in the brightest colors possible, Dimola is a proudly born-and-raised Queens writer/poet/curator, cross-genre collaborator, and ever-intrepid literary explorer. She is the author of "Decisions We Make While We Dream," a poetry and prose collection spanning 2000 to 2012, guerrilla sticker poet of the Compass Project, and founder of reading/live writing series Nature of the Muse. A crusader for Queens culture since her college years, Audrey organized the first ever Queens Literary Town Hall at Queens Council on the Arts, bringing together the brightest literary lights in her home borough, and has curated arts events for Queens Museum and LaGuardia Performing Arts Center. She is one of the hosts of the Inspired Word's Wednesday night open mic @ COFFEED in Long Island City, Queens, and is currently finishing up work on her second book, "Traversals," set for release in Fall 2014.

Find out more about Audrey @ http://audreydimola.com and follow her on Twitter @ audreydwrites and Instagram @ audreyleopard.

The following is our quick interview with Ms. Dimola (who, like a lot of poets, eschews capitalized words and is particularly playful with punctuation):

What’s your definition of poetry?

poetry is the heart speaking – and the heart doesn’t always work with logic, with rationale, within limits. poetry – it’s mesmerizing, it’s lyrical, it’s useful, it’s abstract, it’s mystical, it’s profound. revelatory. poetry is trying to put the infinite onto a page. convey the ache, the joy, the longing.. break a shaft of light into a series of words. remember a summer evening. a first kiss. a last embrace. play with form, play with meaning, play with possibility. that’s the thing about it i love most – you can PLAY.

What one word describes your writing style?

"electroluminescent" - luminescence produced electrically! which for me translates to two hugely important forces in my world, my being, my work: light and energy! that, or just straight-up "ache" - because ache is intensity of FEELING, both beautiful or terrible. unbearable - you can ache for what's lost or ache from pure joy..

Does your poetry have a central theme? And if so, what is it?

it’s definitely the immortal in the mortal frame. there is a mysticism about it but it’s always tied to emotion. longing, ache in every sense of the word, nostalgia, freedom. tangling with god, with the beyond, with limits, with our memories. it churns out in images.. the natural world is always a mirror for me.

What's your idea of the perfect poem?

an explosion in the heart.. a dead-on suckerpunch and a sloppy, lingering kiss afterwards. ha! honestly - it's something you can't forget. it's something that hits you hard, lifts you up, makes you thankful you read it, or wish you could be that brave - something people from all backgrounds can appreciate and grasp onto, not just poetry fans or lit lovers. i love flowery words and visceral images, but also poems that are deceivingly simple but profound - something you can take with you, something you can USE.

What's your best writing moment? What's your worst writing moment?

best is letting it flow. the words that come over me like a mystic sensation - that just tumble out of me, and i let them be. i feel like they're coasting off from the current of the universe..

worst is trying too hard, judging myself.

If you could steal one line from any poem, what would it be?

such an amazing and difficult question! the line i have in my email signature is from kabir: "if you don't break your ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?" wow.

What’s your favorite place to write?

writing always comes out of restlessness for me. either an excitement bursting out of bones, a shock of resonance from the universe, a sense of ennui i can’t shake. it’s always coming out of that motion – either pacing the sidewalk with no shoes, scribbling on the train, sprawling in the grass, lurking in the memory of someplace somewhere else. i love writing outside or against a window. i love physically writing on everything (vandalism, shhh) – but i always come back to a good ol’, battered up, sticker-covered notebook. you always do, with a mind that never stops. i find that movement informs my writing – words come to me while doing yoga, riding my bike, swimming.. i have to stop and find ways to capture the words before they dart away!

What's the weirdest place you ever wrote?

honestly i don't think any place is weird, necessarily - writing is like breathing and it happens all the time, everywhere.. in bed next to your sleeping lover, in the car, in the bathroom! i CAN tell you a strange place some words of mine ended up - stuck in the form of a poetry sticker (from my compass project http://tinyurl.com/compassproject), on a bulldozer!

What's the weirdest thing you ever wrote on? 

this immediately makes me think of writing all over everything with sharpie. the world is my notebook! just the other day i wrote on a broken lamppost.

What comes easy to you with poetry?

sometimes nothing! ha. i like that it’s a dance. it’s an entanglement. it’s mind and word and pen swirling and marveling at how they resolve. sometimes it’s a fight from beginning to end, and other times it all spills out and i don’t edit at all. it’s strange, how inspiration blesses and damns us! the process is an exhuming, an excising, a breaking open and bringing out into the light. often, it hurts.. always, it’s necessary.

What time of the day do you mostly write? 

all times. words usually start flowing when i'm doing other things - i'm constantly inspired, soaking up everything.. when the muse strikes, you have to catch it - whether that means getting out of the shower to grab a pen, recording it onto your phone, scrawling it in the dark as you're falling asleep, squeezing out your notebook on a crowded train, or using WHATEVER is around to write on - receipts, napkins, etc.!

What do you do to get into your writing sessions? 

my writing sessions are always organic - they just happen. sometimes it feels like just giving myself over to something greater - trusting in it, letting it take over. i'm writing all the time, whether it's journal-style entries, quick observations, poems, prose - or with sharpie all over the place. strangely, as i'm going through life, i kind of know what's going to end up in a piece - i feel that ZAP of inspiration, almost like i'm watching a movie, taking silent notes of every detail.. i'll notice some incredible expanse of sky, or the way the light hits someone's face, or the way it feels to ride my bike in the street at twilight - and i know, oh man - THAT's going to be a piece, sometime soon.. there ARE times when i sit down and say "okay, time to write" - but they're much rarer. no matter what, i do love being in some kind of environment that opens me up.. and i LOVE the feeling of pounding out words on my old underwood typewriter - everything about it just feels right.

Do you have any writing superstitions?

i used to get really hung up on the inspiration going dry, or the muse leaving me - if i was in a groove, scribbling fervently, there would always be this voice in the back of my head - when's it going to stop? how am i going to finish this? or, in times when writing was difficult for me, i would often compare myself to the writer i "used to be" - the way it once flowed, seemingly so much more easily. either that, or comparing myself to others - my peers, the greats, everyone and anyone else who had a stronger voice. what did i have to SAY? and why couldn't i put it together? there was a period towards the end of high school and into early college in which i either wasn't writing at all, or writing about the fact that i COULDN'T write. i was stabbing into the dark - and it was devastating and bewildering to me, like i was suddenly robbed of all purpose.. looking back, now i know - i was just holding on too tight, stifling myself. how often we get in our own way..

How do you deal with your writing superstitions?

it took some time of existing in those fears, pushing through them, beginning to share my work again, and peeling back my own anxieties, expectations, guilt, conceptions, comparisons.. and realizing that - i am a writer. i will always be a writer. and, like with so very many things in life - i just have to LET. GO. it came out in the intro to my book, "decisions we make while we dream," when i self-published it in 2012 - "whether i write with wild abandon or through gritted teeth, this is what i do - it will always be mine." when it comes to creativity, the muse, being brave enough to expose yourself and your feelings - there has to be this intense level of trust. you have to trust yourself, you have to trust the craft, you have to trust the universe - live your life wildly and with gratitude, enjoy everything, learn from everything, FEEL everything - and your work will come. even if it's not always easy, even if you think it's awful as it hits the page, or it won't make sense to anyone but you.. keep going. keep trying. keep writing. it will all reveal itself. at the end of the day - this is the love of my life. i've been writing for as long as i can remember, and i know in my blood and bones - this is what i'll always do. this will always be HOME.

What book changed your writing forever?

"the great gatsby" is the first book that brought me to my knees. i've read it over and over since 8th grade and my god, every time i marvel at it. fitzgerald is just so skilled at what he does - the kind of sentences, images he comes up with.. timeless. and the definition of "ACHE"! aside from that first love - emerson is my all-time favorite writer. in college when we started reading his essays, i felt one of the first of many SHOCKS of resonance from the universe. he was writing about michel de montaigne and said of his writing: "cut these words, and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive." i can't remember anything hitting me so hard. from that moment on i knew THAT's what i had to devote myself to - to write in that way, to KEEP writing in that way.

What poet, dead or alive, would you like to be friends with?

my 2 "r's" - rumi, because of his ecstatic experiences of the divine, of mad love.. i feel so close to his words.

and rilke because he captures the beauty and terror of this existence - because he pretty much seems to have "channeled" the duino elegies and sonnets to orpheus from the universe, from some kind of greater power. that feeling - it's thrilling, humbling - and the kind of magic that happens with this craft, when you crack yourself open and let it all pour out.. blood, guts, divinity.

What are you hoping to accomplish with your poetry?

to remind everyone that they have a voice. that every voice is worth hearing. everyone can do this, everyone can try. that there are things we should look at again, things we should be thankful for, things we should release back out into the world in our own way. my favorite writers always help me feel like i’m not alone – they make me see so clearly the mystic beauty in everyday life. they make me look again. they make me feel familiar even when i feel out of place. i hope so much to bring that to my readers or listeners. to comfort them, to hit them hard, to do justice to these memories i can’t honor in any other way.

To purchase advance tickets to Hot House: A Summer Poetry Extravaganza, go to http://3po3trynycsummer.eventbrite.com.

Photo credit: Jay Franco (http://jayfranco.co/).

10 Questions with...NYC Poet Alessandra Francesca

Alessandra Francesca will be one of the featured poets in Raining Words: A Spring Poetry Extravaganza on Saturday, April 12 @ The Pomegrante Gallery, produced by 3Po3try NYC (https://www.facebook.com/3po3trynyc).

Born in Boston, poet Alessandra Francesca has been inspired by a range of artists, from T.S. Eliot to Humphrey Bogart, and her family feared she would run off to New York since before she could walk. She can be found mumbling poetry to herself on the L train and her work will strike you with its raw honesty and lasting poignancy. Her blog can be found @ http://ilsaseeksrick.com/. She lives in Brooklyn.

The following is our quick 10-question interview with Alessandra.

What's your idea of the perfect poem?

One that so begs to be read aloud it is eventually banned from libraries.

What was your best writing moment?

When I wrote my mother’s eulogy.

What was your worst writing moment?

Middle school. Studies show that 100% of Americans who dislike poetry cite
“That annoying girl in my 7th grade class” as the primary cause.

If you could steal one line from any poem, what would it be?

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. (from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock)

What time of the day do you mostly write?

Obscenely early in the morning or maddeningly late at night.

What do you do to get into your writing sessions?

Fall in love, drink bourbon, or some combination thereof.

What's the weirdest place you ever wrote?

In a hotel room in Venice. The story starts with a tomato and ends with a fig.

What's the weirdest thing you ever wrote on?

My bedroom ceiling.

What book changed your writing forever?

Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk.

What poet, dead or alive, would you like to be friends with?

Neruda, so I could catch his cast-offs on the rebound.

To purchase advance tickets to Raining Words: A Spring Poetry Extravaganza, go to http://3po3trynycdebut.eventbrite.com.

Photo Credit: Jay Franco (http://jayfranco.co/)

Interview with Inspired Word Host/HBO Def Poetry Star Gemineye

RARE 1962 Interview wiith Poet Slyvia Plath

Sylvia Plath is interviewed by Peter Orr of The British Council, Oct. 1962.

Poet Paul Muldoon's Advice for Young Poets

Exclusive Interview with Nelson George

Nelson George, Writer, Author, Screenwriter, Filmmaker, Historian

One of the great chroniclers of African-American life in the past two decades, Nelson George has done it all. He’s been a journalist, screenwriter, historian, filmmaker, and novelist. The New York Times Book Review once said of him: “As a critic, Mr. George is an intelligent informed insider; as a storyteller he presents fascinating characters.”

He’s authored several influential books, including: “The Michael Jackson Story,” which made the New York Times paperback bestseller list; “Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise & Fall of the Motown Sound,” which won the ASCAP Deems Taylor award; “The Death of Rhythm & Blues,” which won the ASCAP Deems Taylor award and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award; “Elevating the Game: The History and Aesthetics of Black Men in Basketball,” which won an American Book Award and an Amateur Athletic Association award; “Buppies, B-Boys, Baps & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Culture;” “Hip Hop America,” which won an American Book award and was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle award; “Blackface: Reflections on African-Americans and the Movies.”

He also wrote the highly popular column, “Native Son,” for The Village Voice from the late 1980’s through the early 1990’s; worked for Billboard, Record World, and Playboy; co-wrote the Russell Simmons autobiography “Life and Def;” won a Grammy Award for contributing to the liner notes of James Brown’s boxed set, “Startime;” co-wrote and produced the feature film starring Chris Rock, “CB4;” co-wrote the feature film starring Halle Berry, “Strictly Business;” worked as a consulting producer for HBO’s “The Chris Rock Show;” directed a made-for-TV movie for Black Entertainment Television titled, “One Special Moment,” and was an associate producer for the critically-acclaimed “Just Another Girl on the IRT.”

His short film, “To Be a Black Man,” featuring Samuel L. Jackson, played in film festivals in New York, London and Amsterdam, as has his documentary, “A Great Day in Hip Hop.” Nelson also created the online film project, “Blacker,” a look at racial identity through poetic short films

In recent years, he’s taken his genius to fiction, publishing “Urban Romance,” “Seduced: Life & Times of a One Hit Wonder,” “One Woman Short,” “Show & Tell,” ”Night Work,” and “The Accidental Hunter.”

Here is my exclusive interview with Mr. George:

Mike: What writer influenced you the most growing up?

George: Without question, Ernest Hemingway. Far and away. From the time I read “Our Time” at 14, then later with all his brilliant short stories, which still hold up. He influences me to this day. His purity of prose is amazing. That brevity—I’ve kind of modeled myself after that. I’m not a long-winded writer. I tend to write concisely, picking only the right details. In describing a person, a scene, or articulating an idea, some writers write everything. I’m more like a microscope, going straight to the heart of things. That focus crosses through all my writing, taking the reader straight to what’s most important.

Mike: Do you write easily or are you what they call “a bleeder”?

George: Easy. I can write anywhere and all the time. I carry a notebook or pad everywhere I go, and I’m constantly writing.

My whole theory about people getting blocked: They’re probably thinking about one thing too much and not letting their subconscious mind work for them.

If I’m having problems writing my novel, let’s say, I’ll stop working on that for awhile and go write a journal entry, or go to my blog, or work on a magazine piece. In other words, I never stop writing. I just change what I’m writing.

That’s big, in my opinion: You should never ever stop writing. Once you stop and give into that sense of impotence, you open yourself up to all kinds of bad psychological stuff about sitting down at the table and you’re screwed.

Trust me, if you keep going, keep at some sort of writing, it’ll all come to you.

Mike: So, are you saying that writing has never been painful for you?

George: No, it really never has been. I love writing. In fact, there have been times that I wish I didn’t have to do anything but write.

I don’t know what I’d do without it. I have no idea. I’d be in bad shape. It means that much to me.

Mike: How did you get your start in writing?

George: I worked as an intern for both a black newspaper called the Amsterdam News and Billboard, while I was still in college.

Mike: So I assume you recommend internships.

George: Absolutely. They’re crucial. Basically, at the beginning of your writing career, you need to be willing to be a slave for awhile. You also need to know what it is to be a professional. By the time I graduated college, because of my internships, I had so much experience and all these clips and contacts. It was a great advantage over other writers my age.


Mike: What’s the best strategy for breaking through at the start of a writing career?

George: Find a niche. Become a specialist. For me, I always loved reading the back of record albums as a kid. I wanted to know who produced the album, wrote the songs, things like that—the story behind the album. So I got into both reading and writing record reviews. Then I realized that nobody was writing about the type of music that I was interested in. The popular black music. So I became an expert, reading every book, every magazine and newspaper article, on things like Funk and R&B and Jazz and Blues.

Whatever it is that you have a passion about, hang your hat on that expertise and then later, if you want, expand out of it.

Mike: Did you learn how to write from writing books or some other way?

George: Well, I never read any writing books until recently, when I wanted to know how to do screenplays. I learned by reading great writing, especially literary criticism and music reviews. And later on, when I started working professionally, I learned from good editors. They taught me how to construct them to make them work better.

Mike: Are you good about being edited?

George: Yes, I am. I never had a big ego about that.

Mike: What are your writing habits?

George: I’m a binge writer. I like the feeling of the subject matter building inside me, but without writing. While I’m preparing and researching the story, I’ll think about it wherever I go, whether it’s to the movies or playing basketball or whatever. Then, when my gut tells me I’m ready, when the critical mass of the stuff becomes overwhelming in my head, I’ll attack it. I’ll write intensely, virtually day and night, for three, four straight days. I’ve learned over the years to trust my subconscious. Which means that if I’m thinking about a piece on, say, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, I’ll allow my mind to percolate on it for awhile, to make the connections internally. I might make a note or two, but I wait patiently for the ideas, the major themes, to start coming, before I start writing.

Mike: What do you think about outlining?

George: I’m a big believer in outlines. I outline all my writing, whether it’s a magazine piece, a book, or a screenplay. It keeps you from getting lost, especially with longer writings. I never did the index card thing, but I do it on pieces of paper. In fact, I won’t start something now until I have a good sense of the ending. Because when you’re writing a story, you’re building your case toward whatever particular ending you decide. Going back to the Miles Davis piece, I knew that my ending would have to answer the questions: Did Miles renounce his talent by going electric and plugging in his trumpet? Was that a terrible mistake on his part? Once I had that clear in my head, I was clearer on how to approach that story.

Mike: Do you write only at the computer?

George: No, I write by hand quite a bit. I see the computer as best only for the second draft. I’ve written just one book strictly on a computer, and I didn’t like the result. I read that book now and it reads too fast for me. Like I wrote it too quickly and didn’t think enough about the material. Looking back, I’m convinced I could’ve gotten so much more out of the material if I wrote it first in longhand. The process of going from paper to computer, I believe, slows me down just enough to make the writing better.

Mike: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten about becoming successful?

George: It came from Quincy Jones, while I was interviewing him around 20 years ago about Michael Jackson. I asked him what in his opinion made Michael so successful and he said, “Ass power.” He went on to explain that some singers will come in and give you a little lead vocal, a little background, and then call it a day, while Michael will “sit his ass in the chair” all day in that studio until the work is really done. He’ll knock out the lead and backing vocals, harmonize his backing vocals, and listen to the tracks over and over again trying to make it better and better.

What this all means for anyone looking to become a great artist is this: Do you have the ability to stay there with your art when your friends are out having a good time, going to movies or playing sports or going out drinking? Do you have what it takes to separate you from all the others?

You have to ask yourself those questions, because all great works of art are done inside and often in dark, small, ugly places. Are you willing to put the time in? Are you committed enough? Does it mean that much to you? Do you love your art enough?

Mike: What advice can you offer new writers about query letters?

George: Not much. I only wrote query letters very early in my career and I didn’t get much work, if any, from them. My advice is, develop relationships with editors. That’s more important than merely coming out of the transom.

Mike: What’s harder for you—fiction or nonfiction?

George: Fiction is easier. Not in terms of the writing, but the pure physical work. I’ve done a lot of nonfiction books, and to do a great nonfiction book you need to work so hard. It’s labor-intensive. You’ll have boxes of taped interviews and magazines and newspaper clippings. You’re never quite done with the research. It’s daunting. I know that when I embark on a nonfiction book, I have lots and lots of heavy lifting ahead of me.

In fiction, when you’re stuck, you just make something up. Which is obviously something you can’t do in nonfiction. So I find fiction liberating. It frees me from the burden, the real obligation of a journalist, to be factual.

Mike: Which do you enjoy more—fiction or non-fiction?

George: I’ll always be best known for my non-fiction. That’s how I started my career and it's what made my reputation. Still, my fiction is probably closer to my heart. I write non-fiction with my head, my fiction with my heart. It's an oversimplification but there's a lot of truth in that sentence nonetheless. I’m channeling emotional stuff in my fiction that I wouldn’t be able to mess with in any other way.

Mike: Why do you think you made it as a writer, while so many others didn’t?

George: I have an old-fashioned view of that. I believe in corny things such as determination and diligence.

Mike: What was it like doing your “Native Son” column?

George: Well, before I started it, I was a little nervous about doing it. I just felt that it was a lot of writing to do every two weeks. I wasn’t sure if I was that smart to have something to say that often. But my editor gave me some great advice that continues to stick with me. He said, “Describe as much as possible. Use the column as a vehicle to use your descriptive powers. The ideas will come out of it.” And that, I found, worked a great deal for me.

It actually helped me with my fiction later on, and eased the transition from nonfiction to fiction.

Mike: How about your transition to screenwriting?

George: That was the toughest. It took me a long time to write what I considered “good” screenplays. I’ve written screenplays professionally for 10 years, but in only the last three did I think I was any good at it.

The turning point for me was seeing screenplays as something similar to books, structuring scenes like chapters. Like Paul Schrader did so wonderfully with Taxi Driver. Once each scene had a name, I felt so liberated. I began attacking screenplays like any piece of writing.

Mike: What books did you read about screenwriting?

George: I actually read quite a few, but the one that hit me the hardest, the only one I really remember is, William Goldman’s “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” Awesome book. A must-read for anyone entering the film business.

Mike: Any last words of advice?

George: Remember that any great artist must live in the world. Make that your calling card and bring whatever expertise you have to your readers.

Please visit Mr. George’s Web site at:

http://nelsondgeorge.net
Click here

Interview with Spoken Word Artist Tommy Bottoms

Q&A with Poet Ai

Source: http://poetrycenter.arizona.edu

Several Poetry Center staff members collaborated to pose some questions to Ai, a poet (and a Tucson native) whose work will be on display in the Poetry Center Library through August 15th.

Your poems have been praised as "challenging." In each, an entire world―for lack of a better word―is created so that the reader is convinced that the way of thinking presented is the only way of thinking. Though the myriad voices in which your poems are written are one of their most arresting features, I don't think it is the voices alone that achieve this intellectually and philosophically challenging effect. Can you speak to how this is done?

Ai: I don't really know how to answer this question, I mean the part about "how this is done." I don't have a process that anyone else could follow and use to create their own monologues. The only method I use is THE METHOD. By that I mean that I admire Method acting/actors a lot. I think of my "voices" as characters. I think I am closer to a playwright in that way than a poet. When I write a monologue, I get to play all the parts, plus I am the writer and the director. I don't know why I never wrote plays instead of poems, but of course, my poems are dramatic monologues, and in a sense, they are mini-plays. The intellectual and philosophical effects are just part of my intelligence, I guess. I have a high IQ which has perhaps made it easier for me to incorporate such things into monologues. Of course, I am always trying to stay in character and not let my own personal feelings, etc. interfere with "the character." Some people think my monologues are masks for my own ideas and what not, but I disagree. They are not masks. That, I think, is a major distinction between what I am doing and simply writing personae poems. The dramatic monologue is a kind of bridge between poetry and drama. I am standing upon that bridge.

What physical aspect of Tucson has most influenced your writing? Or, if you prefer, have any physical aspects of Tucson influenced your writing?

Ai: I think the desert and the heat of Southern Arizona are almost characters in some of my early monologues. I am thinking of 'The Hitchhiker" which is in my first book, Cruelty. When that book came out, a lot of people thought I was writing about the Midwest, which surprised me as I always had Tucson in mind when I was writing. I also drew on my childhood on West Riverview and growing up Catholic, not to mention multiracial in Tucson, which used to have some Mexican/African American, Fillipino/African American and Native American/African American families with their own kinds of cultural identities that I don't think people know about, or remember, but I do as I am from one of those families. We also had Irish ancestry to go with Native American, African American and in my case Japanese. Tucson was an interesting place to live back then and in which to grow into an adult.

What do you like best in the poems you read?

Ai: I don't know that there is one thing I like best in the poems I read. I admire the skill the poets show in some poems, even if I don't like the poems that much. I remember a quote, "...my heart leaps up.." That's what I am looking for in a poem, something that says, "gotcha Ai."

How does your teaching inform your poetry?

Ai: I don't think teaching informs my poetry at all. They are pretty separate in my mind. I find teaching draining and don't do a lot of writing during the school year. I think real teaching takes all one's creative energy, although once in awhile, I am energized by a good workshop and re-inspired by what has gone on in the workshop. Just seeing how new and exciting everything is to my students makes me remember how it was for me when I was their age and makes me grateful I can still write a good poem/monologue.

Do you like watching films? Can you speak to any intersection between your work and the movies?

Ai: Yes, I love movies. I watch a lot of them and have a friend in Hollywood, who has been trying to break in for about ten years. I always talk to him about the latest movies. Sometimes, he gets to go to premieres and tells me all about the films before everyone else. Of course, now and then, his critiques ruin them for me. He'll just say, "don't bother going to that one." I was inspired to write my Aguirre poem after I saw the Herzog film, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, but that only happened once. I just enjoy them, but of course, the method actors I admire were people I saw in movies, not in plays, that is except for Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, whom I did see Off Broadway in American Buffalo. That was great. I was sitting in a seat (that had been described to me as being awful and the last one) so close to the stage that I could see spit flying out of his mouth.

Elizabeth Alexander on Poetry