blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

NONFICTION

ELLEN BRYANT VOIGT

A Conversation With Ellen Bryant Voigt

On November 3, 2006, Ellen Bryant Voigt offered a question and answer session to students and faculty in the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University. The evening before, she had given a reading from her then forthcoming Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006. A few in attendance had the privilege of reading the galleys. 

Naturally, the subject of how to arrange and how to select such a volume was an important part of the conversation, which ranged widely nevertheless, covering the lyric sensibility, the nature of the elegy, the challenge of the long poetic sequence, the difficulties of constructing poems with narrative elements, the relationship between music and poetry, the essential purpose of poetry, and more.  end of text