Bloodroot is committed to a rotating editorial team. This year we welcome the celebrated poet and teacher Sara Biggs Chaney. Sara’s been a Lecturer at Dartmouth since 2005. She teaches writing and writes in the time left over (what there is of it). She has two chapbooks and a full-length collection in search of a publisher called Hagia Animalia. It’s about the relationship between women and animals, especially in the Catholic tradition. Sara’s poems have recently appeared in Whiskey Island, Hotel Amerika, RHINO, The Normal School, The Superstition Review, and elsewhere.
1. Who are you reading right now?
Right now, I am reading Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Composition and Cornel West, by Keith Gilyard. In terms of poetry, I’m always reading new work by contemporary poets… a few of my favorites are Solmaz Sharif, Maggie Smith and Kaveh Akbar. I also look forward to every new issue of Waxwing, Muzzle, and Blueshift. These online magazines are, in my opinion, publishing some of the freshest and best work around.
2. Do you write on paper or use your computer to generate a first draft?
Either/or. Usually paper first, and I’m not sure I’d even call it writing—more of a jotting of notes, fragments, relevant vocabulary. Those notes might become a hand-written draft (usually written really fast…I often feel as though I have to outwrite my mind or I’ll never write at all) that later becomes a draft on the computer.
3. What books/authors do you keep coming back to?
I’m sort of embarrassingly narrow in my poetry loves. The first will be the last. I am forever going back to Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris. I’m dimly aware that it’s not too cool to love Glück these days, but love her I do.
4. Are you working on a larger project right now?
I am trying to expand a collection of poems inspired by iconic scenes from film noir. But to be honest, the recent election has me thrown into uncertainty about what to write and for whom. I’m trying to think more about where I can be of most use. I’m thinking that maybe I should try my hand at essay writing, along with other forms that could reach a broader audience.
5. What inspires you?
Weird & magical bits of information. Like, one time I decided to learn about bioluminescence and I learned that one of the enzymes responsible for bioluminescence is actually called LUCIFERASE. I mean, the mere fact that such a word exists is cause for a celebratory poem! Another time, I learned all about dragonfly eyes and *wow* that was nightmarishly cool. I’ll tell you, my science education was mediocre at best, so when I discovered what a compound eye looks like my world was pretty much transformed. Visual images are a great inspiration to me. An complex or unfamiliar image helps me write because it helps me surprise myself.
