MPR’s Euan Kerr talks with St. Paul poet Jim Moore about collection "Invisible Strings." Moore reads from book.
In collection, Moore lays out complex human stories in just a few lines. He says he wanted the poems to deal with subjects often found in poetry: life, love, nature, and sadness. Yet he told Euan Kerr he wanted to deliver them with a twist.
SPEAKER 1: As I get older, I'm really more interested in those moments that do surprise or shock. And sometimes it is very funny and sometimes it's simply shocking. But the moments that interrupt the usual narrative or plot of our lives are the moments that I've been drawn to in recent years in my writing. So, yes.
As to the sadness part, the Buddhists say the first noble truth is that life is suffering. And I tend to agree with that. But what's interesting is what you do with that, I think as a poet or as any kind of an artist.
SPEAKER 2: I'd like to ask you to read one of the poems. It's called First the Good News.
SPEAKER 1: First the Good News.
The girls still wrap blue scarves
Around their long necks,
then step out into the December air, laughing.
SPEAKER 2: And the silence at the end of that is probably as important as the rest.
SPEAKER 1: Well, probably. And I'm smiling because there was a companion poem to this that was something about then the bad news. And I thought, you know, there's enough bad news already. I'll just do the first poem.
SPEAKER 2: But it is just such a wonderful moment captured there. And I think very identifiable to many or at least half the population. [LAUGHS]
SPEAKER 1: Well, yes, I imagine the other half has their version of it, too. But thank you.
SPEAKER 2: Where did this come from?
SPEAKER 1: I was sitting in a cafe. I like to write in public spaces. I'm really interested in public spaces anyway, where people gather-- piazzas, plazas, Facebook, church, waiting rooms. And I was just looking out the window, as is my habit when I'm writing and I saw this woman go out. And it just was such a beautiful little moment to be able to see. And so the poem.
SPEAKER 2: So it's, I don't know, less than 20 words. How long did it take you to write it?
SPEAKER 1: Well, it depends. My project for doing this book was to write seven poems a day for six years. So you could say it took thousands and thousands of hours, or you could say it took 30 seconds.
I wrote many, many, many poems and edited down. And so a poem like First the Good News works. But a lot of the little poems that I wrote didn't work. So I had to do a lot of editing out of poems. So it happened very quickly, the poem. But on the other hand, everything that led up to it, in a sense away from it when I did the editing, it took much longer.
SPEAKER 2: Let me ask you to read another one. It is called Gradually that Half Smile. And again, very short, but extraordinarily potent.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah. This poem is just two lines. And then the third line, which is also the title.
Gradually that half smile
my father so often wore as he got older takes me on as a project.
Yes, it's interesting as you get older, you begin to make these identifications with your parents that you never would have dreamed of or never even were really aware of when you were younger. And then suddenly, oh, yes, that little half smile. I remember that. And it sort of has entered your system as an adult child of that parent.
SPEAKER 2: It must have been marvelous to capture that whole sense in these three lines.
SPEAKER 1: It felt very good. Yes. Yeah, there's something miraculous about being able to move very quickly like that and to be able to capture a whole world. And often, you try to do it and it doesn't work. And then sometimes it does. And it really it's very satisfying. Yeah.
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