Enjoy the old Q&As! Maybe we'll do this again one day, soon. 

Poet(s) currently taking questions: None.

Archives:

Announcement: 16th Annual Beullah Rose Poetry Prize Results

We are pleased to annouce the winners of this year's Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. All poems appear in Smartish Pace, Issue 27.

First Prize: “Pawnshop” by Daisy ... [ read more ]

Announcement: 19th Annual Erskine J. Poetry Prize Results

We are pleased to annouce the winners of this year's Erskine J. Poetry Prize. All poems appear in Smartish Pace, Issue 27.

First Prize: “After the War” by ... [ read more ]

Eric Smith, Smartish Pace & 32 Poems reading

Eric Smith reading for Smartish Pace & 32 Poems at Topics Cafe, Chicago, March 1, 2012.

Interview with Aaron Poochigian

Traci O’Dea (Associate Editor, Smartish Pace): How has translating Sappho affected your own poetry?

Aaron Poochigian: I had always wanted each line of my poetry to be songlike and ravishing. Now, after having lived with Sappho for about two years, I have a better sense of what that means. But I should be more specific about her influence. Many of Sappho’s poems give the reader the impression that he or she is eavesdropping on a private conversation, as in the following fragment:As you are dear to me go find a youngerBed as your due.I can’t stand being the old one any longer,Living with you.I now readily slip into the conversational mode in my own work. Sappho, in fact, is credited with pioneering the “personal” in poetry, partly because she gives the reader this window into the intimate. She also makes frequent use of what I call “choral” expression—that is, the speaker as a first person plural “we” representing a group of people. I now often write poems in “group voices.” Perhaps the poem “The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis” is the best evidence of her influence on my work.     The Marriage ... [ read more ]

James Longenbach: The Iron Key

James Longenbach’s collection of poetry, The Iron Key, follows two previous collections, Threshold and Fleet River.  Of Fleet River, I am most familiar.  That being said, while I have studied literary criticism with the poet, I have not studied the writing of poetry with him, though I have read his work and heard him read, certainly.  In that light, this review will examine the book, The Iron Key, in a way that ... [ read more ]