Author Asks

1) In Making the New Lamb Take, a number of poems could be described as persona poems—that is, poems with a first-person speaker who is clearly not the poet. What effect does this have on the collection? How varied in fact are the voices? Do the speakers, taken as a group, help convey an overall arc for the book?


2) A related question: Other people’s stories—among them those out of history, literature, and myth—are an undying muse for me and for the poems in this book. Sometimes these sources are obviously labeled in the poem titles, while other times they are couched in what might be considered more autobiographical pieces. How do poems that are expressly about others interact with poems that are not? Does one category of poem feel more central to the book?


3) What are the pleasures and the pitfalls of writing/reading poems that use mythological or biblical stories as sources?


4) In looking back through the book, I see that I’ve used certain archetypes, recurring figures and symbols that may somehow stand for more than themselves. What are some of these archetypes? What might they represent?


5) As a whole, would you say that these are formal poems?


6) Is Making the New Lamb Take a hopeful book?


7) When a poem is chosen to be the title of a book, it becomes an emblem. What does the title poem emblemize? Is it the right title?


8) A number of poems in the book come from biblical stories. Does this make the book religious?


9) If you aren’t familiar with, say, the story of Cain and Abel or the myth of Demeter and Persephone, are you alienated from the poems about these figures? How important is it to be familiar with this sort of source material? If it is important, should the book contain more elaborate notes explaining the roots of the poems? Is it incumbent on a literate reader to research these things, if he or she is interested?


10) What is the most essential unit of organization in these poems? The line, the stanza, the sentence—something else?


11) In a general sense, Making the New Lamb Take was written with a seasonal arc. The book begins as summer moves to fall and concludes with various efforts at rebirth. How evident was this? What sort of role do the seasons play, literally and metaphorically?