Field Recordings welcomes poet and indie author Joan Colby to the internet wilds. By “indie” Field Recordings means independent: working with small and regional presses, smaller imprints of large publishing houses, self-published, and e-published.
Name: Joan Colby
Most recent title published: Selected Poems
Where do you write? Anywhere and everywhere.
What are your rituals with regards to writing (ex: Must have tea, a cat on the lap, etc) I don’t have rituals, unless writing first drafts in longhand qualifies.
Describe your writing process: As I mention above, I write in longhand. When an idea or image comes into my head, I try to write it down before it can escape into the ether.
What do you when you begin to revise? What's the first thing you do during that process? I revise as I write. My drafts are covered with cross-outs, scribbles, insertions, etc. When I have something that seems finished, I type it into my computer. I may then have up to 5-6 additional versions.
When revising, how many drafts do you go through before you feel comfortable with the final product? That depends upon the poem. Some arrive fully fledged, as a given, and the trick is to recognize that and not wreck it. Others may average 2-3 drafts, keeping in mind that I revise extensively in the process of writing the first draft.
When arranging lines for your poems, what do you consider at the micro level-- about the line? (For example...I never end a line on the word “and” etc.) Recently, I’ve been interested in placing a stressor word at the start of a line rather than the end of one. I’ve also begun (over the past few years) capping the first letter of each line (something I never did in my earlier work) as I like how one can jolt a reader—maybe stop him in his tracks, rather than have the lines flowing along smoothly (and too often boringly).
As a poet, whose music, or voice, sometimes do you hear as you write or revise? I hear the voice in my head that dictates the poem—sometimes my own, sometimes that of a persona.
How would you classify your poetry? Are you a lyric poet? A Romantic? A Surrealist? I don’t like labeling myself, or limiting my output to a particular genre. While most of my poems are free-verse, I also like writing sestinas and sonnets.
What poets are you currently reading? At the moment, I’m rereading Neruda and Eliot. And tons of stuff in the many contrib. copies I get—I recently discovered the work of Martin Willetts Jr. and want to read more of his poetry.
What poets/poems do you strongly recommend a reader to discover? I would need about 100 pages just to begin. Start with Shakespeare and Donne. Whitman. Derek Walcott. Yusuf Komunyakaa, Ted Hughes “Crow”, Greg Orr’s “Gathering the Bones”. Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”…you get the idea.
The contemporary American poetic tradition is elegy, do you discover elegiac qualities among your own writing as a whole? Are you a poet of loss? Well, like most poets, I certainly write poems about loss, probably a lot of them. The two big subjects; Love and death.
Where does your inspiration come from (music, film, other books)? Whatever comes into my head. My background as a journalist makes me prone to noticing things.
What is your literary guilty pleasure? (trashy sci-fi adventures, bad romance novels, 50 Shades, fanfic, etc.) Karin Fossum’s Norwegian mysteries starring Inspector Sejer.
Explain how your local and regional environment influences your writing, your process, and your product (in other words, how does your reality intersect with the worlds that you create?):Since I live on a small horse farm , have spent years breeding, raising and training Thoroughbreds, and since I have for nearly 30 years edited the magazine Illinois Racing News, many of my poems focus on horses, the brutal realities of country life, the natural world, et al.
You have to invite three authors to dinner, who are they? Why? Mark Twain. Walt Whitman. William Faulkner. We would have a spirited conversation. Drinks too.
Favorite title (you wish you had come up with):Everything That Rises Must Converge.
Line(s) you wish you wrote: In the room the women come and go/talking of Michelangelo.
Book you did not read in high school but now have read and have an appreciation for: And why: Anna Karenina which I consider the world’s greatest novel.
Favorite words: Depends on the context.
Least favorite words: See above.
Advice you would like to pass on to other writers: Write., Read. Write.
What you would discuss with your pet if your pet could talk: Her obsession with catching the Kong.
Name: Joan Colby
Most recent title published: Selected Poems
Where do you write? Anywhere and everywhere.
What are your rituals with regards to writing (ex: Must have tea, a cat on the lap, etc) I don’t have rituals, unless writing first drafts in longhand qualifies.
Describe your writing process: As I mention above, I write in longhand. When an idea or image comes into my head, I try to write it down before it can escape into the ether.
What do you when you begin to revise? What's the first thing you do during that process? I revise as I write. My drafts are covered with cross-outs, scribbles, insertions, etc. When I have something that seems finished, I type it into my computer. I may then have up to 5-6 additional versions.
When revising, how many drafts do you go through before you feel comfortable with the final product? That depends upon the poem. Some arrive fully fledged, as a given, and the trick is to recognize that and not wreck it. Others may average 2-3 drafts, keeping in mind that I revise extensively in the process of writing the first draft.
When arranging lines for your poems, what do you consider at the micro level-- about the line? (For example...I never end a line on the word “and” etc.) Recently, I’ve been interested in placing a stressor word at the start of a line rather than the end of one. I’ve also begun (over the past few years) capping the first letter of each line (something I never did in my earlier work) as I like how one can jolt a reader—maybe stop him in his tracks, rather than have the lines flowing along smoothly (and too often boringly).
As a poet, whose music, or voice, sometimes do you hear as you write or revise? I hear the voice in my head that dictates the poem—sometimes my own, sometimes that of a persona.
How would you classify your poetry? Are you a lyric poet? A Romantic? A Surrealist? I don’t like labeling myself, or limiting my output to a particular genre. While most of my poems are free-verse, I also like writing sestinas and sonnets.
What poets are you currently reading? At the moment, I’m rereading Neruda and Eliot. And tons of stuff in the many contrib. copies I get—I recently discovered the work of Martin Willetts Jr. and want to read more of his poetry.
What poets/poems do you strongly recommend a reader to discover? I would need about 100 pages just to begin. Start with Shakespeare and Donne. Whitman. Derek Walcott. Yusuf Komunyakaa, Ted Hughes “Crow”, Greg Orr’s “Gathering the Bones”. Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”…you get the idea.
The contemporary American poetic tradition is elegy, do you discover elegiac qualities among your own writing as a whole? Are you a poet of loss? Well, like most poets, I certainly write poems about loss, probably a lot of them. The two big subjects; Love and death.
Where does your inspiration come from (music, film, other books)? Whatever comes into my head. My background as a journalist makes me prone to noticing things.
What is your literary guilty pleasure? (trashy sci-fi adventures, bad romance novels, 50 Shades, fanfic, etc.) Karin Fossum’s Norwegian mysteries starring Inspector Sejer.
Explain how your local and regional environment influences your writing, your process, and your product (in other words, how does your reality intersect with the worlds that you create?):Since I live on a small horse farm , have spent years breeding, raising and training Thoroughbreds, and since I have for nearly 30 years edited the magazine Illinois Racing News, many of my poems focus on horses, the brutal realities of country life, the natural world, et al.
You have to invite three authors to dinner, who are they? Why? Mark Twain. Walt Whitman. William Faulkner. We would have a spirited conversation. Drinks too.
Favorite title (you wish you had come up with):Everything That Rises Must Converge.
Line(s) you wish you wrote: In the room the women come and go/talking of Michelangelo.
Book you did not read in high school but now have read and have an appreciation for: And why: Anna Karenina which I consider the world’s greatest novel.
Favorite words: Depends on the context.
Least favorite words: See above.
Advice you would like to pass on to other writers: Write., Read. Write.
What you would discuss with your pet if your pet could talk: Her obsession with catching the Kong.
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