“Surprised by What Emerges”:
Two Granite State Poets Discuss
New Books
& What It Means to Work in
Poetic Form
A Conversation with Midge Goldberg and Kyle Potvin
Interview by Kateri Campbell, Jack Caravallo,
Mary-Kate DaCosta, Natalie Fenoff, Mae Fraser, Lindsey
Kugler, Cassidy O’Connor, Arianna Scoppettuolo, & Marina White
On October 7, 2021, New Hampshire poets Midge Goldberg and Kyle Potvin met with Salem State University students enrolled
in Craft of Poetry, a course taught by state poet laureate Alexandria Peary. In
a socially distanced auditorium with students and professor masked-up and with
Midge and Kyle cast by Zoom onto the big screen, the poets gave an afternoon reading from
their newest books, both published in 2021, this Year of Our Pandemic—Midge from
To Be Opened After My Death,
published by Kelsay Books and Kyle from Loosen,
published by Hobblebush
Books. The reading was followed by a Q & A in which the students asked a range of questions about the authors’ experience
working in poetic form.
Midge Goldberg is the recipient of the 2016
Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award and the 2015 Richard Wilbur Poetry Award for Snowman's Code, (University of
Evansville Press), which was chosen as the 2016 New Hampshire Literary Awards
Reader's Choice Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. She is also the author of
Flume Ride and the children’s book My Best Ever Grandpa. Midge holds an
M.F.A. from UNH and lives in Chester, New Hampshire.
Prior
to Loosen, her debut full-length
poetry collection, Kyle Potvin published a chapbook, Sound Travels on Water, which won the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award.
She is a two-time finalist for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. Her poems have
appeared in Bellevue Literary Review,
Tar River Poetry, Rattle, Ecotone, The
New York Times, and other places. She is a peer reviewer for Whale Road Review. Kyle lives on the
seacoast of New Hampshire.
CO’C:
What brought you to poetry as opposed to another genre of writing? What other
genres do you write?
Midge Goldberg: I took a writing class which was focused half
on short stories, half on poetry, but I really was more interested in writing
short stories. We went through half the semester and then switched to poetry.
The instructor put all these books on the table. I thought, “Oh, do we have to
switch?” but then my hand fell on Rhina Espaillat’s book, which I picked up and
fell in love with it and with formal poetry.
Kyle Potvin: When
I was in my twenties, I took a continuing education class at NYU on short
stories, and of course, I wanted to write fiction. So I would write my short
stories, and they were all terrible because I can’t do plot, and I can’t do
dialogue. In every one, there’d be this chunk in the middle that would be
really lyrical, and my classmates would say, “oh my god, that’s so good!” So I
finally realized, darn it, I’m a poet.
Midge Goldberg: So
I mentioned the thing about the short stories. I do enjoy writing fiction as
well. A while back I wrote a poem about a person at an inn, and recently I
wrote a mystery, and the woman in the poem became a character in the mystery.
KC:
Did your formal education in school help you further your poetry, or was it
more a self-discovery, a “I learn as I go” kind of thing?
Midge Goldberg: I loved English in school, but I didn’t major
in it. For me, it was mostly self-discovery. I guess I do have a MFA--I enjoyed
that for learning about poetry, about the Romantics, about Latin poets,
especially Ovid. So for me it was learning on my own and also learning with a workshop
group. There’s a group of formal poets, The Powow River Poets, out of
Newburyport, MA, and I learned a lot by working with them and attending their
workshops.
MF: What appeals most to you about writing in form?
Kyle
Potvin: I’m surprised by what emerges:
it’s kind of a puzzle. If there’s something lacking in a particular free verse
poem, I find that sometimes I can enhance it by bringing it into form.
Midge
Goldberg: The meter is another layer that
gives cues on how to read it. The form can also contribute to the meaning—the
repetition of a villanelle or the logic and contradictions inherent in the
sonnet form add to the meaning of the poem.
AS:
Is there a specific meter that you like to write in? Is it a conscious or
unconscious decision for you?
Kyle Potvin: I tend to write in iambic pentameter more
because… I don’t know, it’s familiar. [Laughter] Midge is much savvier than I
am. It’s a starting point a lot of times where maybe a line will come to me and
it is iambic pentameter, and then I’ll just take off from there deciding if it
should be a sonnet, blank verse or something else.
Midge Goldberg: For me, it’s sort of similar to picking the
form, it has to match what I’m trying to say or how I’m trying to sound. Typically,
I use iambic pentameter if I’m writing a sonnet or blank verse because I want
it to sound more conversational. Tetrameter—four feet a line—or trimeter—three
feet a line—typically if I’m trying to sound a little more humorous, but
sometimes it’s humor with an underlining dark side. It’s nice because the meter
makes you think it’s funny and “hah hah,” but then you get to the dark thing,
and it’s the contrast between those two that make it more stark. And sometimes
when I need to just keep trimming and trimming and trimming is usually when I
write free verse.
My free verse tends to use really short, stark lines. I’ll
write something in pentameter, and then it just feels way too padded for what
I’m trying to say, and then it keeps going down. So, it depends on the mood I’m
trying to create in the poem.
MD: In your
poem “Circling,” you use the villanelle form. What came first for you? Was it
the form or was there a specific message you wanted to write in that specific
way?
Midge Goldberg: Usually, I have an idea
and then I try to figure out what form it should take. Sometimes I’ll even try
them in different forms, or I’ll start one and say, “No, that’s not right.” In
this poem I didn’t know the end when I started. I just started with the one
line, “The devil doesn’t need to use the door,” and then went from there, and
the obsessive nature of the message led me to use the villanelle form.
MD:
In your sonnet, “Sin,” you enjambed some lines, for example, “I used a stick to
write DAM HELL; then cleared / away the words.” What does enjambment do for you
as a poet? In using enjambment, do you want your poem to be read in a specific
way, or is enjambment simply a way to include your words and fit the standards
of a sonnet form?”
Kyle Potvin: In a sonnet, enjambment helps to bury
the rhyme and make it less obvious. This allows the poem to have a more natural
feel—conversational in this case. In general, choices about enjambment inform
the tone of the poem. A flowing sentence across multiple lines has a different
pacing than end-stopped lines.
Enjambment is a great tool to use if you
want to put a focus on a particular phrase that then takes a surprising turn in
the next line. For instance, in Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with
me?”, the first lines are:
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
That second line: what I have shaped
into — stands alone as a declaration of growth. Until you get to the next line and you
see the phrase is actually taking a different meaning.
MD:
In “Diagnosis,” you use the Abecedarian form, which is something I have never
seen before. What was your writing process like for this poem? Did the form
come to you first or the words/message?
Kyle Potvin: For this poem, I started with the idea
of diagnosis (several friends had recently died of different cancers). Trying
to find some distance, I decided to try an abecedarian.
I can’t remember exactly but I think I
lined a page with each letter of the alphabet and then came up with a line for
each. I continued to hone the piece from that initial draft. It’s a good form
for a medical poem because otherwise it’s a challenge to figure out a word for
“x”!
MW: When you think
of your favorite poets, do they tend to be free-verse poets, or poets that
write in form? Is there a difference between what you enjoy writing and what
you enjoy reading?
Midge Goldberg: I
would say that my favorite poets are poets who write in form: Richard Wilbur or
Edna St. Vincent Millay. I do like Jane Kenyon, who writes in free verse but
she’s got a lot of repetition so I can feel the meter even if the poems aren’t,
you know, completely in form. So I would say that I like free verse poets, but
my favorites are poets who write in form.
Kyle
Potvin: I have to say that my favorite poets are free verse poets. I
admire very much a lot of the formal poets and definitely there are poems that
I’m floored by. Formal
poets
like: Rhina Espaillat, Deborah Warren, A.E. Stallings, Midge, of course. But
the poems that really resonate for me are by Linda Pastan, Jane Kenyon, Wislawa
Szymborska, and others.
There’s
something about them that just connects with me. But I read everything, very
experimental work, I read form, I read all kinds of free verse. There’s
something out there for everybody. Reading can help your writing, no matter
what, because it’s giving you ideas. You’re looking at everything. You’ve got
line breaks, you’re looking at syntax, you’re looking at these little,
interesting uses of language, and all of it can really help no matter what
style you’re writing in. You may be writing in both form and free verse. Some
things are perfect for form. Some, maybe, aren't.
MD: What
advice do you have for free verse writers who are interested in writing
meter?
Kyle
Potvin:
When I first started writing in form, I would have a model poem in front of me.
It might be Robert Frost or a more contemporary poet, but I knew it was a
strong example of rhyme and meter. I would build the outline, almost a diagram,
showing which lines rhyme, etc. – and follow it. Even now, if I don’t know the
form off the top of my head like a triolet, I’ll build that framework and then
write the poem. Keep reading too.
Midge Goldberg: I would recommend starting
by giving yourself a little assignment, a ballad stanza, or a sonnet. It
doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, but just try it and read it aloud,
that’s really important. Try to make it sound as natural as you can and then
keep practicing.
LK: As a poet, do you ever feel expected to touch on specific topics
(such as social issues)? If so, how do you handle that pressure?
Kyle Potvin: I'm always just writing whatever comes to me. In any poem,
even if not overt, there is often an undercurrent of what’s happening in the
world because you’re writing about the time that you’re in. People are drawn to
exploring different topics, and it’s important to go ahead and write about what
is calling to you, in your own way.
Midge Goldberg: Poets are different and some really
embrace writing about topics like that. I find that for me, I’m much better
when there’s a lot of distance and a metaphor. I feel like it makes a poem
stronger, so I don't feel pressured to write like that. But there are poets who
do it really well. What I think you should really do is not ever feel pressure
from anyone about what you should write about. You should write about what
feels important to you.
JC: Are there
specific locations, could be in New Hampshire, New England, or anywhere in the
world that you like to visit to draw inspiration?
Kyle Potvin: I actually find that I write the most when I'm on a long trip
by myself. So if I'm in the car and I’m driving for, say, four hours, I don’t
turn the radio on. Something about it just opens up my brain. I have a stack of
sticky notes and a pen, and I write with pad on my steering wheel as I’m
driving. It’s the same on a long cross-country airplane ride. I don’t get on
the wi-fi, well maybe a little bit! But I just let my brain go and that
silence, that time, unleashes thoughts.
Midge Goldberg: For me, it’s being somewhere quiet, especially in nature. Where
I live is pretty quiet, with woods and a pond. Sometimes it’s when I’m walking;
the rhythm of the walking will help. It’s being as close to nature as I can.
NF:
What is one thing you wish you could tell your past self about where you are
today in regard to your writing? What advice or encouragement would you give,
if any?
Midge Goldberg:
That’s a really great question. I think all I could say is if you’re really
serious about it, make it a practice for yourself. Sit down in the chair; if
it's every day or a certain number of days a week, sit down in the chair and
write. It doesn't matter if it is good or bad, just keep writing and you will
keep getting better. You will write stuff you don't like and then you will
write something you love, and you will just keep getting better. And keep
submitting, just submit and submit and submit. It doesn't matter how many
rejections you get, keep writing. And if you love it, the time will mean
something to you when you’re sitting there in the chair.
Kyle Potvin: I
would add too that at the same time, life happens. You may come to times in
your life where writing is not the priority, like if you’re in your career and add
family responsibilities on top of that. There might be times where writing is
just not happening. Don’t freak out about it; that spark is going to return to
you. Write as you can – even if it’s journaling or snippets of observations. I
published my first book in my 50s, so that should give you some incentive.
You've got plenty of time to go.
