Heather Sweeney : part five

How does a poem begin?

A poem begins with attention to a moment.  To an inner momentum.  A memory.  A pause, a pulse of something you need to articulate.  Like the intersection of ash and willow.  Wilting fog.  Mist and pine.  It begins with a door. With hunger.  With a song humming in the shoulder blade. With surrender.

Heather Sweeney : part four

What other poetry books have you been reading lately?

Lately, I have been reading Dust and Light by Joseph Braun, and Certain Magical Acts by Alice Notley.  Needless to say, both are stunning.  I am also re-reading Lyn Hejinian’s The Language of Inquiry, which I am always learning from.

Heather Sweeney : part three

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

I find that I write poetry to understand myself.  I cannot express myself the same way in fiction or other genres.  It feels so full of possibilities.  You catch yourself inside a line of poetry and are transported.  A poem is a constellation.  A poem is a fractal.  A seed.  A cell.

Heather Sweeney : part two

How do you know when a poem is finished?

This is a tough call.  I think it’s finished when the poem stops keeping you up at night.  When it stops being annoying.  When it stops breaking your heart.  When it can live on its own without you.

Heather Sweeney : part one

Heather Sweeney’s chapbook Just Let Me Have This was published this year by Selcouth Station Press.  Her newest chapbook, Same Bitch, Different Era:  The Real Housewives Poems is forthcoming by above/ground press.  Her poetry appears in recent issues of the tiny, A Velvet Giant and Goat’s Milk.  She lives in San Diego where she writes and teaches.  You can also find her at https://heathersweeney.net/

What are you working on?

I have a chapbook forthcoming from above/ground press, Same Bitch, Different Era which is based on the reality television show, The Real Housewives of New York; so I am finalizing ideas about the cover design and the acknowledgments.  I am also working a series of prose-ish poems that center around ethereal states of being and ethereal materials—charcoal, mist, clouds.  I have been working closely with slowness and integration.  I am allowing myself to take more time with these poems and not get so hung up on the finished product.