Sunday, December 4, 2011

Check Out Poet Ellen Bass

Dear writers and readers,

This semester, I've been an intern at Poetry International literary journal from SDSU.  One of my enjoyable tasks was to interview poet Ellen Bass for our blog.  You can check out my blog post here: http://poetryintlreports.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/ellen-bass-interview/ and hear how Ellen Bass views the role of courage in a writer's life.  For a long time, I found it puzzling that so many writers talked about courage.  Then I found the vein of powerful writing rooted in personal experience, fiction or nonfiction, and I suddenly understood what they were talking about.  Ellen Bass spoke at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference I attended a few years ago, and her words about courage and writing really resonated with me.  Take a look at the PI blog to see more, some quotations from Ellen, a short video of her reading one of her poems.

best, Laura

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice interview, Laura. I loved Ellen Bass reading that poem in the video, In which a deer... What a stitch!
Minna

Anonymous said...

Ellen Bass is phenomenal. I love her poetry. Kudos to you, Laura, for getting this interview. It's inspiring to read her thoughts on courage.
Beth R