The Poetry Chain Gang (Volume 2) | Suzanne Frischkorn

The Black Telephone has five fast questions for poet Suzanne Frischkorn.

BT: There are some poems I wish I had written or I feel I could've written. For instance, I wish I had written the poem "Mood Indigo" by William Matthews. Is there are poem you wish you had written or feel you could've written?

SUZANNE: The Matthews poems is breathtaking, thank you for sharing it, I hadn't read it before. One of the poems I wish I had written is "A Color of the Sky" by Tony Hoagland. You can read it here.

Hoagland makes it look so easy and it certainly seems like I could have written it, but I did not, and can only wish I had. I love that poem.

BT: I consider myself a logophile (a lover of words). Is there a word you're in love with at the moment?

SUZANNE: I’m in love with plateau and seeing clamor on the side.

BT: Novels get turned into movies; short stories do, too. Is there a poem that you could see as a movie or inspiration for a movie?

SUZANNE: I have always thought that "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has a cinematic quality. Hasn’t a movie already appeared that was inspired by Prufrock? It seems to me that it has, if not, then someone should really get started on that.

BT: When Sam Rasnake suggested I interview you next, he called you "very gifted" (and I agree!). Is there a poem you've written that you feel represents you best as a "very gifted" writer?

SUZANNE: Sam Rasnake is incredibly generous with his praise, and many thanks to you both. I don’t think artists are the best judge of their own work. It would be quite impossible for me to even consider myself ‘gifted’ let alone select a poem that I wrote that showcases a ‘gift’. The real gift is Rasnake’s reading and responding to my work.

I’m currently working on my third full-length manuscript and the poems from my chapbook American Flamingo (MiPO, 2008) will appear in it – these are the poems that I am excited about right now, isn’t that always the way? Publisher Didi Menendez released an online edition of American Flamingo yesterday and it can be read for free here.

I wish I could pick just one poem from the chapbook, but I am most excited about how they work as a whole, and the way my new poems converse with those poems.

BT: I'm trying to start a chain, a chain of poets, sort of like a chain gang of poets. Can you please suggest a poet I should ask five fast questions to next?

SUZANNE: Wendy Wisner.

Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of Girl on a Bridge (2010) and Lit Windowpane (2008), both from Main Street Rag, and five chapbooks, most recently American Flamingo (MiPO, 2008).