Certainty is the cage that keeps us safe from curiosity. I've been released from the cage. I am the songbird and I am flying for the window. I know it's closed but I plan on breaking through. – Charlie Coté, Jr. (1987-2005)

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Thom Ward Interview, Part VI

In this last part of my interview with Thom, he talks about the poet and madness, his work as an editor, why it’s so hard to finish a poem, and two tricks to keep a poem going. He finishes up by reading a poem in tribute to the late Al Poulin.







Saturday, September 24, 2011

Thom Ward Interview, Part V



Thom reads another poem from his collection and discusses the meaning of etcetera, among other things:

Friday, September 23, 2011

Thom Ward Interview, Part IV



Thom discusses his loopy and lucid method with Etcetera's Mistress, shares a review written by Kurt Brown, and reads more poetry from the collection.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Thom Ward Interview, Part III



Thom talks about the "How, What, Why, Where, When Bone" section of his collection and reads the poem "Anticipation."

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Thom Ward Interview, Part II



Thom reads "Rumpus, Cohesion, Mess" and discusses his lyric associative mode of writing, what he calls Loose Sonnets in his latest collection of poems, Etcetera's Mistress.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Thom Ward Interview, Part I

This is the first part of an hour long interview with poet and editor Thom Ward. We talked about his newest collection of poetry, Etcetera's Mistress (Accents Publishing, 2012), as well as poetry in general.



From his publisher: Thom Ward is sole proprietor of Thom Ward's Poetry Editing and Proofreading Services (thombward@gmail.com). Ward's poetry collections include Small Boat with Oars of Different Size (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000) and Various Orbits (Carnegie Mellon, 2004). Ward's poetry chapbook, Tumblekid, winner of the 1998 Devil's Millhopper poetry contest, was published by the University of South Carolina-Aiken in 2000. His collection of prose poems, The Matter of the Casket, was published by CustomWords in 2007. Ward teaches creative writing workshops at high schools and colleges around the country, tutors individual poetry students, and edits poetry manuscripts. He is a faculty and advisory board member at Wilkes University's Graduate Creative Writing program in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Thom Ward lives in western New York with his girlfriend Jennifer and their cat Phantom.

Here's what Thomas Lux has to say about Thom's latest book: "Reading Thom Ward is to enter a brilliant and restless imagination – sometimes poignant, sometimes crazy-with-a-purpose, but always with a deep lucidity in the logic of its illogic. His poems remind me how much we need language and how much the language needs us."

Thom has been my poetry teacher/editor and friend since 1996, when I took his class at Writers & Books.




In Part I, Thom talks about his process for writing a poem: