When I was writing this poem I was interested in how we free ourselves from the past, and how we choose what to remember. I wanted the past to come very close to overwhelming the speaker without actually doing so. A lot of my work is about isolation, and I wanted to show a peopled past, a past in which friends—no matter how far they are from you now—are real, and moving, and beside you.
Jackson Holbert on "Poem with a Smoke Cloud Hanging in It" |
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Forward Prizes Add Award for Performance
“The performance category is a much-needed addition to the literary prize....Historically, spoken word artists have been ignored by the poetry establishment, and this prize means that is no longer possible. It signals that spoken word and performed poetry is as valuable, dynamic and exploratory as published works."
via THE GUARDIAN |
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What Sparks Poetry:
Jody Gladding on René Char's The Brittle Age and Returning Upland
"There are other more comprehensive volumes of Char’s work in translation....But this one offers a wonderful bookness. There’s an integrity to the object, the physical form with the page as its basic unit, the short poems set in that space, nothing to distract me as I turn the page, or don’t. It fits in the hand, rests on a shelf, travels in a pack." |
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