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Q: Haste has been reissued! Congratulations! What is it like to revisit these poems?
A: In a very real way it’s like entering a time machine, to revisit not only the poems but, through memory, the circumstances of their making. The very specific memories of what it was like to be in the young motherhood years. The wildness, despite the reputation of domestic life as being tame and boring, of those years—of figuring it all out. The poems take me back to that, and immersively, but it’s also clear how the subjects the poems take up became threads I picked up again and again—how life and death and decay are all inextricably bound up with each other, how beauty and pattern and repetition and surprise are everywhere, and often all at the same time. I also am glad to see, in these poems, the poet—me—trying things, trying to grow and change as a poet, almost from poem to poem. I feel immense gratitude for these poems (as if they’re separate from me, which they both are and are not)—they are the beginnings of the proof I made for myself that I could be a poet, that I could make art.
Q: How did you get started writing poems?
A: I remember as a very young person loving the pattern and shape of poems. I had a book of poems from the Weekly Reader Book Club that I cherished, the title of which, I’m afraid, is lost to time. I loved reading it, I loved reading the volume of the set of Childcraft books we had that was devoted to poems and rhymes. I was lucky, in high school, to have a teacher, Mr. Kasper, who loved poetry and made sure we read it. By that time, I had fully committed: I wanted to be a poet, I was a poet. I had a Sunday school teacher who could see this about me, and gave me the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins to read. A book of his selected poems, and Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, were the first two books of poems I bought. I kept writing and writing, and was lucky enough to bump into poems, poets, and teachers who nudged me in a new direction. This is how I became educated in the art. Poetry itself—writing it, reading it, making community with other poets—was how I kept going.
Q: What, for you, makes a poem?
A: I love, in poetry, an intensity of language, and something that I do not expect. I love seeing words and lines make shapes on a page or a screen. I love the alchemy of language that makes words recombine, transform, combust. I love the poetry that resists being explained, but insists on its sounds and its exactness. These things, for me, are what make a poem.
Q: Congratulations also on your five-year appointment as Utah Poet Laureate. Tell us about this experience thus far. And what do you see yourself doing during your tenure?
A: So far, it has been really fun, and definitely an adventure. I've had events in Price, St. George, Ogden, and Salt Lake City. I'm working with some folks on poetry curriculum to celebrate women in Utah history. I'm working with the Salt Lake County Library system on some events for National Poetry Month (April, which T.S. Eliot rightfully pointed out as "the cruelest month"). I've worked with high schoolers and college students. I love seeing all the ways that poetry already matters to all kinds of people in Utah.
My poet laureate project is two-fold: I'm continuing development of the Utah Poetry Festival, which Paisley Rekdal, the most recent poet laureate, began. It has already proven to be a great gift to the community of poetry readers, teachers, and writers. I had the chance to help plan and contribute to the festival under Paisley's direction; now my goal is to continue it and to expand its outreach. I'm currently working with a wonderful group of poets from all over the state to plan it.
The second project is what I'm calling a mobile micro-press called Moon in the Rye Press. Here's what I've said about it: “Lisa Bickmore, during her term as poet laureate, will work with writers’ groups in Utah communities to assist in publishing micro-editions of chapbooks, broadsides, and perhaps other kinds of publications, collaboratively planned and devised. (A micro-edition is 10–20 copies; writers’ groups and communities will retain copies of the digital files, so that they can produce more copies of their publications, if they would like.) The publications will be digitally archived, as a kind of snapshot of the writing going on in Utah at this point in time. Publication is a meaningful part of artistic and creative life. The micro-press project will be highly collaborative—writers’ communities and groups will shape and define their publications, and Lisa and her team will connect writers with resources, support, and production, including layout/design, printing, and binding.”
Moon in the Rye Press takes its name from a poem, "Old Fences," by former poet laureate Ken Brewer, an esteemed and beloved poet and teacher:
Fences never kept the moon out of the rye,
and barbed wire never stopped a bull.
What’s a fence to crow or coyote?
Imagine water refusing to cross a line.
Imagine snakes looking for the gate.
Publication workshops will begin in early 2023. To inquire about the project or get on the list for a workshop, email moonintheryepress@gmail.com.
I also have a couple of chapbook manuscripts all ready, and a number of writers and writers' groups have expressed interest. I'm so excited to see how this develops!
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