In a tongue-in-cheek way in “Sonnet Against Form,” you address the position that writing in form is obsolete. In fact, we rarely see formal poetry submitted to our magazine. What is the value of form in terms of facilitating the articulation of your specific aesthetic?

Interesting question, and one that’s very important to me!  I’ll say first, though, that I’m astonished that you haven’t had many submissions of formal poems.  I teach classes and attend conferences where the writing of relevant, edgy poems in the traditional forms is practically a “given”—and my fearless forecast is that more of these will be heading your way soon.

Regarding “Sonnet Against Form”—yes, it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, making a little mild fun of what I can only call lingering prejudices against writing in forms.  Everyone realizes, of course, that over the centuries meter and rhyme have given poetry much of the grace and the musicality that it wouldn’t otherwise have.  But far too many people do not realize that these same formal devices, used with freshness and originality, are still doing remarkable things for poetry.

I’ll cheerfully acknowledge that there’s a tendency sometimes, especially among younger readers and writers, to equate formal poems with all that is old-fashioned, quaint, and clueless.  Exceptions are always made for performers of hip-hop, for poetry-slam participants, and certainly for songwriters, all of whom use rhyme, meter, and repeating patterns—but not for the many of us who write poems “for the page”, i.e. for print or on-line publication, with the expectation that the poems will be read rather than heard.

But I’ll go further out on a limb here (revealing pretty obviously where my own proclivities lie), and tell you that I consider such assumptions about form totally, but totally, erroneous. If you need proof, simply check out the edgy, often astonishing work of Kim Addonizio, Moira Egan, Molly Peacock, Jennifer Reeser, Jill Essbaum. And from the male contingent, Andrew Hudgins, Thom Gunn, Eric McHenry, Tom Disch, Michael Donaghy—among many, many more formalists  who couldn’t be more contemporary and cutting-edge.

In much of your writing is a levity that accompanies difficult, or more serious, subject matter. I also get the sense that the language and phrasing in these poems is, at least at times, close to your spoken voice or to the spoken voice of the speaker of each poem. Is this sense of levity-mixed-with-seriousness related to the kind of language and phrasing you choose? Can you speak to these ideas about the voices and tones that you’ve crafted?

It’s a relief to know I’m not the only one who finds some of my poems funny!  Thank you for acknowledging a bit of levity here and there, and also for noting the seriousness that underlies much of it.

Regarding the phrasing and the language I tend to use:  some of my poems, particularly the lighter ones, were written as dramatic monologues—but I realize that my own speech habits tend to influence these fictional voices to some extent. I think that this “blending” of my real self and my characters is probably not dissimilar to what an actor does on stage, i.e. she assumes the persona of another character, but not without bringing some of her own sensibilities to the role.

Of the poems published here, I think “A Commencement Villanelle” best illustrates what I mean. The speaker (i.e. the mother in the poem) is not me, even though she expresses herself much the way I would on a day when I’m feeling particularly sardonic. Even better examples occur in my most recent chapbook, Going Wrong, which includes a “crown of sonnets” in which each of the seven connected sonnets is spoken in the voice of a different woman. I found it enormous fun to usurp their attitudes and personalities, and become “them” for as long as it took to write another fourteen lines.

The downside of all this is that the less experienced reader of poetry is apt to assume that all of the first-person women in my poetry are actually me, Marilyn Taylor. This is emphatically not the case, any more than Robert Browning “is” the arrogant Duke of Ferrara in “My Last Duchess,” or that John Lennon really was a walrus.

Your poem “Three Lies: A Glose” addresses certain liars in the following way: “You’re at the crux of everything humanity admires, / you great impostors.” This could be interpreted to be a somewhat bleak outlook on humanity. The narrator of “A Commencement Villanelle” seems to admire moderation more than “Three Lies” might indicate, though it also speaks of the instinct to hide carnal desires. I’m similarly interested in your use of the name “St. Galimatias Church” in “Three Lies” since “galimatias” means “gibberish.” Can you speak to these ideas?

“Three Lies” is probably the most ambiguous poem I’ve written in recent years, and I’m not sure I entirely understand it myself. My intention was to use the glose —an old Spanish form that has a complex rhyme scheme and several mandatory repetitions—for a poem on a theme that is also pretty complex. (There’s a good explanation of the form itself in Lewis Turco’s The New Book of Forms, which I find indispensable.)

What I had in mind was to “expose” artificiality and pretense, using three disparate examples: (1) ballroom dancing, which could be seen as highly stylized sex; (2) duck hunting, which can be viewed as a sport, but it’s all about killing; and (3) organized religion, which many view as a bastion of intolerance and twaddle (hence my invention of a Saint Galamatias). Although I am not nearly as fixated on these matters as the poem might imply (I find ballroom dancing to be totally harmless, for example—even fun!) I really do think that none of these three activities are quite what they seem. I think the poem makes all of this clear enough, though, and to try to paraphrase it would only supply literal emphasis where it doesn’t belong.

I must add that the satisfaction I experienced while writing “Three Lies” had less to do with content than with the exhilaration of using this very complicated form.

What are you most proud of doing as Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate, and what do you have planned? What does your position entail? In what ways should we encourage the reading and writing of poetry in our communities? What successes have you seen in this regard?

I’d say I am most proud of the feedback I’ve received from audiences, which tells me I’ve reached people for whom poetry has never really been part of their lives. It has been a joy to travel all over the state of Wisconsin, to meet and mingle with people of all ages and all stripes—and to bring them poems to enjoy, and possibly to think over after they’ve gone home. Many of these folks—especially older folks from the rural areas—come to readings thinking that poetry can be very pretty, like “Trees”—or funny, like “Casey at the Bat”—or sad, like “Invictus.”  The young people who come expect a few protest poems and a whole lot of confession, preferably sexy.

But when I get letters and emails afterwards, telling me how my readings and presentations have actually opened their eyes, that they’re reading poetry anthologies now, that they’ve discovered a few favorite poets who are still alive, and that they’ve even written a poem or two themselves—well, this is beyond gratifying.

I’ve always thought, and continue to think, that literature—particularly poetry, despite its relative lack of visibility in our society—is easily as important an art form as music, dance, and the visual arts. It reminds us of our universal humanity—and provides us with satisfactions that all of our technologies and Tweets and day-to-day discourse can never provide. And since, as Poet Laureate, I get to be the official spreader of that gospel—well, I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do.

Can’t Keep Warm Anyway

Sonnet Against Form

THREE LIES: a Glose

A Commencement Villanelle

Aunt Eudora On Having Outlived All of Her Friends