Get to Know the Poets: Rebecca Hazelton, November 3

Rebecca Hazelton attended The University of Notre Dame for her MFA in poetry and completed her PhD at Florida State University.  She completed a fellowship year as the Jay C. and Ruth Hall Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Creative Writing Institute. A nominee for Best New Poets 2010, she currently teaches at Beloit College in Wisconsin.

We asked Rebecca a few questions in anticipation of her reading with Hadara Bar-Nadav on November 3--here's what she told us:

Do you have a favorite book that people who know you or your work might not expect you to like?

I feel like most of my reading choices show up in my writing -- my circular obsessiveness and overriding concern with love very much stems from an early exposure to Marguerite Duras, whose book The Lover (as well as The North China Lover,  and The Ravishing of Lol Stein) had a huge effect on my ideas about love and about writers (probably to my detriment). I read lots graphic novels, I read comic books, fantasy novels, blogs on science fiction, Victorian novels...none of that is terribly surprising because elements from that show up in my work (apocalypse, transformations, concerns with sexuality). I suppose the surprising thing might be that I have a soft spot for male writers who write in an aggressively macho way--Frederick Seidel, John Updike, a little Henry Miller here and there--the kind where it's not clear whether that attitude is a sort of posturing or an uncompromising honesty. 

Is there a poet whom you wish more people would read?

Frederick Seidel -- he doesn't need your financial help, but he's a fascinating read and just as worthy for how he might aggravate you as for how he might please. I'm in awe of Inger Christensen's Alphabet, and I think that's a poet a lot of American readers aren't aware of. I really like what I've seen of Angela Vogel, whom I first ran across as an editor at The Southeast Review.

If you were holed up during an Iowa blizzard and you could choose only one person with whom to ride out the storm, who would it be and why?

I need more parameters. Do I have food? Do I have shelter? What's the warmth situation? If we're talking some sort of cozy bungalow deal, that's one thing, but if it's dire, I want a survivalist. Someone who is going to know how to make a shelter out of sticks and discarded Cheeto bags. Who always has fire at the ready. Who can kill animals I don't find cute. Whose skill at survival is only exceeded by his need for a good woman who understands him.

To what do you aspire in your writing?

For someone to read the whole poem. Seriously. I want to write lines that compel the reader to go forward, either out of curiosity or for sheer enjoyment of sound. Then I hope to god they have a desire to reread. That sounds so basic, but I think if we boil it down, that's what most writers want -- to be read, to be read with attention, to be remembered. Not to be speaking to indifference.

What drives you and/or your poetry?

The poems I write are usually a result of me trying to tease out what I think about things. I find verbal communication difficult. People who have met me might find this a strange statement -- I'm pretty talkative and social -- but to actually convey feelings, thoughts, and not just be funny, entertaining, pleasant? Really damn hard. My mouth sometimes cannot even shape the words. The more I care about someone or something, the less I can speak. I don't think in words, I mostly feel, which is a hard way to live, for me.  So poetry is a way to find language for those things I can't say out loud, to articulate the roaring in my ears when I am upset or the flush on my cheeks when I am embarrassed or ashamed. Many of my poems take contradictory positions, and in those I am often trying on different scenarios, to see which one feels "true" to me. 

If you weren’t a poet, what would you be?

This is a terrifying question.