A Writer's Moment: From fragments to powerful feelings

A Writer's Moment: From fragments to powerful feelings:   “The kinds of things that poetry can offer are timeless - mainly the kind of compression it offers of powerful language, powerful feelings...

From fragments to powerful feelings

 

“The kinds of things that poetry can offer are timeless - mainly the kind of compression it offers of powerful language, powerful feelings and images, and, you know, the inner experience becoming outer.” – Brenda Hillman

 

Born in Tucson, Ariz., on this date in 1951, Hillman is the author of 11 collections of poetry, including Bright Existence; Practical Water, for which she won the LA Times Book Award for Poetry, and Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which earned her both the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Northern California Book Award for Poetry.  Her most recent book is 2024’s In a Few Minutes Before Later.

 

A “writer” of poetry since age 9, Hillman is known for poems that draw on elements of found texts and documents, personal meditation, and observation on everything from geology to spirituality.

 

Recipient of the 2025 PEN Oakland "Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award," she also serves as the Olivia Filippi Chair in Poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California and is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.  

                                              

“The techniques of contemporary poetry are probably the techniques of your daily life,” she says.   “I don't know a single person who goes into the grocery store and thinks in complete sentences.  We often think in fragments, we think in little lists, we think in non-sequiturs, we think in feelings that may not match up with each other.”

A Writer's Moment: How to 'express almost inexpressible feelings'

A Writer's Moment: How to 'express almost inexpressible feelings':   “People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There...

How to 'express almost inexpressible feelings'

 

“People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas.” – Erica Jong

 

Born in New York City on March 26, 1942 Jong is a satirist, poet and novelist, best known for her novels Fear of Flying, which has sold nearly 40 million copies worldwide, and the award-winning Shylock’s Daughter. 

 

Jong earned degrees from Barnard and Columbia, where she majored in English Literature, and started writing for magazines and journals before trying her hand at fiction.  Fear of Flying was her first effort and catapulted her into a successful lifelong career, authoring 11 novels, 8 nonfiction books, and 7 books of poetry.  Her body of work has earned her the United Nations’ Award for Excellence in Literature.

 

Jong said that despite her great success with fiction, she enjoys poetry best.  Her most recent book of poems is The World Began With Yes.  

 

“In poetry you can express almost inexpressible feelings,” she said.   “You can express the pain of loss; you can express love. People always turn to poetry when someone they love dies; when they fall in love.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Revealing whatever you might find'

A Writer's Moment: 'Revealing whatever you might find':   “Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching pe...

'Revealing whatever you might find'

 

“Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately.” – Kathryn Harrison

 

Born in Los Angeles in March of 1960, Harrison earned degrees at both Stanford and the University of Iowa, where she first studied in that school’s famed Writers’ Workshop.  Her debut novel, Thicker Than Water, was an instant success and paved the way for a career that (to date) includes 8 novels and 9 nonfiction books, including one about true crime.  Her most recent nonfiction work is On Sunset.

 

Almost as well known for her essays, which have been included in many anthologies and magazines like Harper's, The New Yorker and Vogue, she also is a regular reviewer for The New York Times Book Review.   And, she teaches memoir writing in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at New York’s Hunter College. 

 

“I admire writers who succeed at what I consider the first demand of art,” she said.  “(And that is) that the artist vivisect himself without pity, without hesitation, determined to reveal whatever he might find.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we go on'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's how we go on':   “A good novel is an out-of-self experience. It lifts you off the ground so that you have the sensation of flying. It says, 'Look at th...