SENTENCES

Sis moved back and forth from Cheetos to M & Ms.

Lil talked a blue streak, sucking from her baby bottle between sentences.

Little Ro showed up without pants or a diaper.

What’s that dick smell, Sis asked.

That’s when the goat showed up.

Diane Seuss at Poetry Foundation

Diane Seuss at Academy of American Poets

Matthew Thorburn interviews Diane Seuss

MT: How does a poem start for you, and what is your writing process like? And more specifically, how did "I snapped it over my knee like kindling" start?

DS: I almost always begin with a phrase, and often that phrase becomes the title. I had "I snapped it over my knee like kindling," and I knew "it" was desire, and what became the poem’s third line: "Yes, I snapped desire over my knee and arsoned it." I liked "arsoned" as a verb, that near-grammatical wrongness, which I think set up the poem’s tone. Aside from that, I’d rather know little to nothing about where the poem intends for me to go. I am oddly passive in my relationship to the Muse, who drags me behind her like the muddy train of a ravaged wedding gown. I was already fully immersed in the experiential and spiritual landscape this poem represents, so I wasn’t surprised when my junkie appeared. Ghosts usually accompany me through my poems, and I thank them for terrifying me. What strikes me about this poem, and about the process of my work generally, is the interplay between imagination and structure. When I sense the chewy denseness of compression is barely containing an imagination overflow, I know I’ve found my groove.