What I love most about poetry is the sheer vastness of what it can be, what it can hold. It’s an immense pleasure to read the work that is often held closest to the writer’s heart. I’m so excited to be charged with your breakables, your heartwork, your tiny pieces of soul.
It’s hard to identify what I look for in poetry because what I crave are the poems I never could’ve conceived of. The writing lesson that has stuck with me most is a simple one: “Don’t be boring.” In undergrad, my professor would come into workshop, sigh, shake her head, and say, “Y’all are boring me again!” Now, I better understand what she meant. It’s not about content or tone or image or lineation; it’s about how all those aspects interact to become something new.
Let’s take the example of a song. I used to be so jealous of music. A song can use tools that speak to us implicitly; the key tends to set an emotional tenor and—along with the pace and instrumentation—curates a vibe and atmosphere before a single word is sung. I wanted so badly to be able to create a feeling before a single word was read. Unfortunately for me, a poem is not a song. Lately, I’ve been thinking of the poem as a body. Though endlessly extendable, I’ll limit this metaphor to three key factors of the poetic body—head, heart, and bones.
Head: all my favorite poems make me think. I’m not talking this was written to make the audience feel dumb and the poet feel smart poems. What I mean is that the poem should illuminate the subject in a way the audience hasn’t considered. I want to read poems with images so bizarre the topic seems brand new. “Head” can also refer to voice. I like reading poems that sound like the poet, that reflect how the poet thinks and speaks. I don’t want to read a poem that attempts to mimic someone else’s voice.
Heart: the heart is arguably the most important organ in the body but is definitely the most important organ of a poem. Look, poetry can be so many things. But all my favorite poems have just one thing in common—they’re able to access my emotions. I believe the core of all poetry is an attempt to capture the particular ethos of its era, the humanity that’s so often on trial. These days, it can sometimes feel like poems were written for the specific audience that’s judging them—lit mag editors, publishers, peers. I firmly believe poetry is for the people, and I want to see that heart reflected in your work.
Bones: it’s all well and good to have a thoughtful poem with an emotional core, but without the bones, the poem will never be able to stand on its own. The structure and shape play an important role in accessing the poem’s meaning. I love when I see intentionality in the lineation, the stanza breaks, the structure. And let me be clear: Free verse is an intentional structure. If you let it, the poem will tell you exactly what it wants to be.
That was all pretty hypothetical and MFAish, so let me finish by saying this. Send me the weirdest poems in your catalogue, the boldest truths you have to offer, the poems that only you could write. Send me the poems that are a living, breathing, carnal creature. I can’t wait to read them.
—Hannah
