Shane McCrae and Timothy Donnelly in Conversation at BOMB

Shane McCrae interviews Timothy Donnelly about his new book, The Problem of the Many (Wave), for BOMB this week. "Invariably, I exit a Donnelly poem wondering how what I have just read could possibly have covered so much mind space, so much world space," writes McCrae in his introduction. From their ensuing conversation:

SM Ariana Reines’s recent book, A Sand Book, is a little over two hundred pages long. Sharon Olds’s new book, Arias, is almost two hundred pages long. Richard Kenney’s new book, Terminator, is a little over two hundred pages long. Robert Hass’s new book, Summer Snow, out in January, is almost two hundred pages long. The Problem of the Many is a little over two hundred pages long. Only a few years ago, one hundred pages was considered long—or at least long-ish—for a book of poems. Generally speaking, what do you think is driving this increase? What has driven it for you?

TD You could add Tyehimba Jess’s Olio to that list, too, which is over 250 pages, but from what I can see, long books of poetry are still pretty much the exception, although it’s true that there seem to be more of them—maybe binge-watching Game of Thrones has lengthened our attention spans. But a quick scan of my stacks tells me most new books remain on the short side: under 100 pages generally, with few running longer than 150 pages. Of course there are innumerable factors that determine how long a poet’s book will be, or should be, yet I wouldn’t be surprised to find that most people who publish longer books like to stay in the zone of creation and tend to put off collecting and “finalizing” what they create, which calls for a very different mindset, while poets who write shorter books might already have a rough sense of their book’s shape even before they begin writing it or shortly thereafter, perhaps also a relatively straightforward sense of what belongs where and what doesn’t...

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