The prose I’m reading is Linda Gray Sexton’s memoir about growing up with her mother Anne, Searching for Mercy Street. Poets I’m reading: Ai, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, and Maggie Nelson.
I’m wary of poets that can only write from their own positioning, particularly in the first person. Lots of poetry is purely first-person narrative these days. I’m beginning to be drawn much more to the imaginative realm of persona—it offers a break from the exhaustiveness of only telling your own story. Also, everyone is writing unrhymed couplets.
If I’m telling the truth: Harry Potter. If I’m being more pretentious: Simone Muench’s Wolf Centos.
My least favorite trend is using the field of the page when it seems less purposeful; put the poem into regular lines and you’ll often see it doesn’t have much substance. The white space deceives us into thinking there’s more there. My favorite “trend” (is this a trend?) is rewriting/reimagining various mythologies.
I would tell my younger self to take revision more seriously. And that writing my identity will become less important as time goes on. Focus on craft, focus on beauty, and think about the longer aims of your work.
Paige Quiñones is the author of The Best Prey (Pleiades Press, 2021). She has received awards and fellowships from the UH Center for Mexican-American Studies, the Academy of American Poets, and Inprint Houston. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Crazyhorse, Lambda Literary, Orion Magazine, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.
