Poets in Six Questions

In anticipation of the Poets Forum (happening NOW in New York City), BOMBLOG is featuring brief interviews with poets, asking the same six questions of each.

The interviews touch on the writing process, reading habits, how to deal with the great timesuck that is the internet, and more. So far, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Cate Marvin, Matthew Dickman, Evie Shockley, Ilya Kaminsky, and Cathy Park Hong have all weighed in. Here's Hong, on her changing notions of poetry:

I always believed that poetry is capable of being anything and prefer to keep that question open-ended. It’s more that my ideas have changed about what poetry should do. When I was younger, I used to be more idealistic about poetry’s function in society—that political action and intervention were possible via restructuring of language. But now, I think maybe it’s enough that poetry can nourish individual consciousness or, to put it another way, maybe it’s enough that poetry’s primary purpose is to make people feel things. Then I change my mind.

Find all six interviews here.