Peter Balakian
Peter Balakian is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Armenian-American poet who teaches at Colgate University. His poetry has appeared in such publications as The Nation, Poetry, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, and Antaeus. He is the recipient of the PEN/Albrand Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Published 08/01/17
Published 08/01/17
Howl: What is your writing and editing process like?
Balakian: I doubt I'm different from many writers in that I work on poems and prose by working through many drafts. Through dozens and sometimes hundreds of drafts a poem gets to the place it needs to get to. Tell young writers they should think of writing as a layered process by which they write draft after draft and watch the work get tighter and more realized. They must learn to figure out when it's done. And having smart friends who are fellow writers and teachers who read their work will help with that.
Howl: What advice do you have for budding writers?
Balakian: My advice for young writers is to stay in love with the medium they are drawn to; if it's lyrical language and phrases and cadences--which is what poetry is made of--
then stay with it; read the poets who give you energy and a feeling about what
the poem can be in your view of the art; and write with a passion for language
and a sense that a poet (if that is your art--or a fiction writer or non fiction writer if that is your art) can transform human experience into something large and something that has both personal and private meaning for the writer and also a meaning for a wider world. I hope that young writers believe that the art form you are drawn to is an essential part of the meaning making process that human beings need in order to survive and that societies also need for cohesion and identity and for discovering joy and pleasure and some dimensions of the mysteries of life.
Balakian: I doubt I'm different from many writers in that I work on poems and prose by working through many drafts. Through dozens and sometimes hundreds of drafts a poem gets to the place it needs to get to. Tell young writers they should think of writing as a layered process by which they write draft after draft and watch the work get tighter and more realized. They must learn to figure out when it's done. And having smart friends who are fellow writers and teachers who read their work will help with that.
Howl: What advice do you have for budding writers?
Balakian: My advice for young writers is to stay in love with the medium they are drawn to; if it's lyrical language and phrases and cadences--which is what poetry is made of--
then stay with it; read the poets who give you energy and a feeling about what
the poem can be in your view of the art; and write with a passion for language
and a sense that a poet (if that is your art--or a fiction writer or non fiction writer if that is your art) can transform human experience into something large and something that has both personal and private meaning for the writer and also a meaning for a wider world. I hope that young writers believe that the art form you are drawn to is an essential part of the meaning making process that human beings need in order to survive and that societies also need for cohesion and identity and for discovering joy and pleasure and some dimensions of the mysteries of life.