Parting Shots
As a twenty-first century poet, I am well aware that poetry and the planet are changing rapidly. I want to be part of the global discussion.
Although I sometimes work in forms (sonnet, villanelle, couplets, et cetera), most of my poetry is in free verse. I resist being part of any “school” of poetry, except iconoclastic.
I grew up with a dictionary in the dining room where it was often used at meals. Words, derivations, pronunciation, and everything else related to words mattered a great deal to my parents, as did the issues of the day.
I am intensely interested in how other art forms (painting, dance, film, multimedia) influence poetry, and how the internet will influence poetry. I am even more intrigued with how poetry influences other art forms and how it could influence the internet in the future.
My favorite poets change over time but now they include Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, William Shakespeare, Wislawa Symborska, Dylan Thomas, and W.B. Yeats. I think poets like Dorothy Parker and Ogden Nash are important and hilarious. Chinese poetry is wonderful. I am intensely interested in sound as well as meaning. I am fervent that humor or at least wit, as well as depth, is essential.
While some people seem to think that poetry is dead, it seems to me that it has never been more alive. I speak as both a poet and as an editor and publisher.
Thanks for visiting,
Karen Braucher
