What Sparks Poetry:
Robert Pinsky on David Ferry's "Johnson on Pope"
"Tell all the truth but tell it slant—. The moment I begin saying to myself Emily Dickinson’s first line, my tongue flicks rapidly to the roof of my mouth for the first sound in the first word 'Tell.' The same exact little movement happens at the end of the line’s last word, 'slant.' In this pre-industrial, bodily way the reader becomes the poet’s instrument. In a way, it is as though they were one. But in another way, the bodily nature of the line enacts the double solitude: the reader’s body absolutely itself, utterly separate from the equally solitary poet who made the line: solitaria. Ferry’s poem is about the empathic loneliness Johnson’s prose suggests but cannot embody." |
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A Conversation between Elina Katrin and Sofija Popovska
"As this project was coming together, I was thinking about the curiosities and complexities of language—its beauty, pliability, and failures. Language is what ultimately connects us, it’s the center of any relationship, no matter what shape or lack thereof that language takes. I wanted to explore that in If My House Has a Voice, so I’m delighted to hear this chapbook reads like a homecoming."
viaASYMPTOTE |
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