“I can be black magic Or boring as hell.” PoetryMagicPoemBoringBlack MagicBeing Boring Author:Alex Lemon
“Poetry needs to be alive, unabashedly, and, for me, that entails seeing its complexity, the grit and grimness and jubilance and beauty.” NeedsAliveSeeingComplexityGrit Author:Alex Lemon
“The world comes to us in fragments and shards. Whatever stories we shape from our days, we're always dealing with gaps, blank-spots, and blackouts - and in handling all these breakages, we are, at all times, so incredibly intimate with sharp edges, the unending knife-like moments of failure and joy in our lives.” WorldMomentsStoriesJoyOur LivesShapesEdgesSpotsAll TimeIntimateGapsKnivesBlankFragmentsUnendingBlackoutsSharp Edges Author:Alex Lemon
“Poetry does need a bit of ferocity. The only way to attend to the fractured world is to write a ferocious kind of music, to sing that volatility.” WorldWayNeedsWritingKindDoeBitsVolatilityFerocity Author:Alex Lemon
“Being deeply aware of fragility and ecstasy seems to me an essential part of being alive and living fully - and there's no way for me to separate this from my poems.” WaySeemsAliveEssentialsEcstasyFragilityLiving Fully Author:Alex Lemon
“I think of my best poems as vessels that I can or hope to fill with everything I have.” ThinkingI CanVesselBest Poem Author:Alex Lemon
“I see the relationship sincerity/humor differently. Instead of seeing a balance between them, I see them more inextricably linked, as if one is the hard candy shell that gives to the other, or one is the apparition, the ghost-image that invokes the other.” IfsGivingHardSeeingBalanceGhostSincerityShellsLinkedCandyInvokeApparitionsHard Candy Author:Alex Lemon
“My poems and prose are not often in direct conversation with each other, but there's so much crossover - everything that comes out of that crucible of language - that working in poetry and prose is energizing - to me as a writer and to the work itself.” LanguageConversationDirectProseCrucibleCrossoverEnergizing Author:Alex Lemon
“I've never thought of my poems as violent. Violence, to me, has so much negativity attached to it - maybe that's my trouble with the word. But ferocious - indeed, I'll take it. And yes, poetry does need a bit of ferocity. Poetry needs to be alive, unabashedly, and, for me, that entails seeing its complexity - the grit and grimness and jubilance and beauty.” ViolenceTroubleViolentComplexityNegativity Author:Alex Lemon
“I think of my best poems as vessels that I can or hope to fill with everything I have. I try to give to them all of the electric complexity. Each one fails at this, of course, but I keep trying - adoring each of them, loving the process, the ebb and flow of it - and each time, the failures fail a bit better.” ThinkingGivingTryingFailingComplexityElectricVessel Author:Alex Lemon
“I found it incredibly challenging to write clear prose that had the dynamism that I wanted.” WritingChallengesProse Author:Alex Lemon
“The more prose I wrote, the more the pendulum swung back toward the middle, merging some poetic sensibilities with the more fundamental elements of creative prose.” CreativeProsePoeticSensibility Author:Alex Lemon
“Well, we're all going to die, so mortality is a part of writing and life.” WritingMortality Author:Alex Lemon
