Robert Mezey Interview on Poetry International

Hi readers and writers,

Robert Mezey kindly took time out from his schedule to do an interview with me for my internship at Poetry International.  It has just been posted online and you can read it here (click or go to this address): http://pionline.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/an-interview-with-robert-mezey/

In addition to writing poetry and collecting the poems of major figures such as Thomas Hardy, Robert Mezey, along with his colleague in English and Comp Lit at Pomona College, Richard Barnes, translated Borges' poetry.  Some of the interview is about how he thinks about translation of poems.  It's very thought-provoking! It might be that the translator has to write a whole new poem.

Also, my friend Vicki selected some interesting quotations about Robert Mezey by famous authors.  Take a look, enjoy!

cheers,
Laura

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