Geffrey Davis Talks to Poets & Writers About Night Angler

Poet Geffrey Davis answers 10 questions posed by Poets & Writers about his second poetry collection, Night Angler, out this week from BOA Editions. "The book," writes the staff, "is both a love letter to a son and a meditation on parenthood, family, race, and loss." From the interview:

3. Where, when, and how often do you write? 
My writing practice tends to be pretty unpredictable, pretty sporadic, and is usually dictated by a particular image, observation, question, etc. seeming louder or more urgent than the general noise of the day—or than the night. Lately, I’ve been writing more often in the middle of the night.

4. What was the most unexpected thing about the publication process? 
That the ending of it rang so clear—to me, anyway. With my first book, Revising the Storm, although I was submitting it to prizes, I still felt like someone had tapped me on the shoulder while in the middle of working and asked to publish it. I was so grateful to Dorianne Laux, who selected it for the 2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, and to BOA Editions for inviting me to recognize that book’s doneness. Who knows what would have happened to its shape and voice had I been allowed to keep at it like I was prepared to!? Because I deeply needed that collaboration the first time around, I wasn’t expecting to feel the ending of Night Angler for myself, and definitely not as unmistakably as I did.

Read it all at Poets & Writers.