Mike Dockins interviews 2013 Atlantis Award winner Lisa Summe. This is a great interview that addresses style, publishing, and what fuels poetry just to name a few. Here is an excerpt from the Lisa Summe interview on writing and technology:
“It feels necessary to discuss what a poem is and what sets it apart from technology and social media, but instead I’ll be lazy and quote A.R. Ammons: “I can’t tell you where a poem comes from, what it is, or what it is for: nor can any other man. The reason I can’t tell you is that the purpose of a poem is to go past telling, to be recognized by burning.” What I think Ammons is getting at is that the primary function of poems isn’t just to tell us things; it’s more than that. Poems provide information, of course, but good poems provide the burn Ammons is talking about. This “burn” might be a beautiful image, a narrative we can relate to, a description of something we hope to find or feel or achieve one day, whatever. Poems make us think, and therefore make us smarter. TV and Internet often make us stupid.” ~ Lisa Summe
Read the full interview here, or read her poem Pilot You.
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