Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.
We don’t expect an elevator pitch from a poet, but can you tell us about your work in 2-3 sentences?
I
tend to write my way through challenges – both internal ones and external ones
– so a lot of my poems have to do with questions of identity and purpose as
well as with navigating complicated relationships. My recent work also concerns
parenting a young adult son, helping him find meaning in the world when I
struggle to do so myself. I like to play with form, so a lot of my poems adhere
to formal constraints of some kind.
Which poem/s did you most
enjoy writing? Why?
I
had a lot of fun writing the gloses. This is an obscure Spanish form that takes
four lines – a “cabeza” - from an existing poem. Those lines then each become
the final lines of four 10-line stanzas. Lines 6, 9, and 10 rhyme. In general,
I enjoy working in form – it takes me out of my emotional brain and puts me in
that logical, puzzle-solving brain. I think this is good for creating some
distance from the subject, allowing me more objectivity. The form also encourages
a dialogue with the poem from which the cabeza is taken, and I loved spending
time with those works.
Tell us a bit about the highs
and lows of your book’s road to publication.
The
publication process for The Sky Will Hold took longer than expected.
Initially, Alan Squire Publishing was going to release this collection in March
2025. They published my first two collections and we were excited to work
together on this one, but for various reasons in the spring of 2024, ASP decided
to go on hiatus. I was disappointed and discouraged and spent a few months
convinced that I would never find a publisher, but ultimately Riot in Your
Throat took the book. The delay allowed me to add a few poems to the manuscript
that I think make the collection stronger, so it all worked out in the end.
What’s your favorite piece of
writing advice?
The
older I get, the more I appreciate the advice that many of my teachers have
given over the years – and that is simply to have fun with it. I’ve been
writing for long enough that I see little reason to continue unless it brings
me joy, so I have been trying to get back to that original sense of discovery
and wonder that made writing appeal to me in the first place.
My favorite writing advice is
“write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of
this book?
I
don’t think of myself as a very optimistic person, but I increasingly believe
that my purpose in writing is to highlight the beauty and connection I see in
the world. When I read through the collection, I am surprised and pleased to
see that many of the poems are actually pretty hopeful.
How did you find the title of
your book?
Rose Solari, a fabulous poet and teacher and the publisher of my first two books,
came up with the title. She was helping me with the order of the poems, and we
were chatting about title options, and she suggested The Sky Will Hold.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it was the right title.
*****
READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: Elizabeth Hazen Official – My WordPress Blog
READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: The
Sky Will Hold by Elizabeth Hazen - Riot in Your Throat Press
ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR
STACK: The
Sky Will Hold by Elizabeth Hazen - Riot in Your Throat Press
READ A POEM FROM THIS BOOK, “Approximations”:
Elizabeth
Hazen "Approximations" — THE SHORE
