Interview with Alice B. Fogel
Alice B. Fogel is the New Hampshire Poet Laureate, a five-year Governor-appointed position that enables her to promote poetry throughout the state and beyond. Alice has also published five collections of poetry and one guide to appreciating poetry even if you don`t “get” it. We share highlights from our recent conversation with Alice so our readers can hear about her many innovative poetry programs.
What is the mission of a Poet Laureate?
There are poets laureate in all but 5 states of the United States and additional positions in many cities. Our mission is to bring poetry to everyone regardless of age, education or status. I have free reign to imagine and implement programs, some of which I will describe for you.
Youth Poet Laureate
I’m excited to have initiated a 1-year position for a committed high school poet to write and advocate for poetry. The inaugural YPL is Portsmouth high school senior Ella McGrail, an avid writer and activist. This new position is supported by the NH Poetry Society, the NH Arts Council and the NH Writer’s Project. Ella will travel to schools and offer readings to students and teachers. http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20170424/phs-senior-nhs-first-youth-poet-laureate
Refugee Poetry Project
Along with some of my poetry friends, and an art gallery open mic, we raised money for the Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success (ORIS), which focuses on farming for immigrants and refugees in NH. The International Institute of New England for Refugees and Immigrants is hosting me and Portsmouth poet laureate Mike Nelson to offer creative writing workshops designed to give an opportunity for refugees to express themselves creatively and improve their English. Some of the countries represented by people resettled in NH through the IINE are Burundi, Nepal, China, Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Columbia.
Raining Poetry: Bringing poetry to the streets
In a collaboration between industry and the arts, we have identified a kind of concrete protector product that we’ll use to stencil poems directly onto downtown concrete. The product dries clear and invisible. When it rains, the poems materialize on the sidewalk, only to disappear again as the suns comes out. We are rolling the project out in rural Walpole, NH and have hopes of introducing it to many other towns in the state.
Gathering New England Poets Laureate
At the 2017 annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem, Mass, I convened a first-ever meeting of all the New England poets laureate. We read poems to each other and our audience, and discussed the projects we have initiated in our states.
Vermont: Chard deNiord
Rhode Island: Tina Cane
Maine: Stuart Kestenbaum
Connecticut: Rennie McQuilkin
(Note: There is no poet laureate in Massachusetts despite periodic efforts to establish a position.)
Published Poet Showcase: An Anthology of NH Poets
I collaborated with Sydney Hall, Jr., the owner of Hobblebush Books, located in southern New Hampshire, to collect and publish the first print anthology of living NH poets. The collection is 125 pages and represents a wide variety of styles.
Published my sixth book and fifth collection of poems: A Doubtful House
Bauhan Publishing has just released my most recent collection of poems. These poems are written in the voice of a house listening to its inhabitants. A Doubtful House explores what happens to boundaries–psychological, emotional, physical, even syntactical–when people live together for a long time.
“Challenging, wildly inventive, philosophical, as intense as it is intimate, A Doubtful House reveals and deepens our understanding of the strangeness within the ordinary… Her boundary-pushing syntax emphasizes the inevitable connects and disconnects of human beings in close proximity. A Doubtful House is ambitious and risk-taking, yet there’s a vulnerability in Fogel’s voice that humanizes and, yes, even celebrates that common struggle to remain ourselves while giving so much of that self to another.”
—John Sibley Williams, author of Disinheritance
Since this is a five-year appointment, I have completed other projects and have several more in the pipeline.
I have compiled a list of all living and recently deceased NH poets. This compilation of 100 poets is organized by town and county so that libraries and schools can invite poets to do programs and buy their books.
There is now also a list of all reading series around the state of New Hampshire. Many of these are ongoing series, and they are held in a wide array of venues including barns, libraries, meeting houses, coffee houses, and bookstores. Hundreds of people are going out to listen to poetry every month and this compilation will make it even easier for readers to find a venue in their area.Along with the NH Writers Project, I am developing a collection of ten poetry curricula for educators, with themes, readings, prompts and guidelines.
Along with the NH Writers Project, I am developing a collection of ten poetry curricula for educators, with themes, readings, prompts and guidelines.
The NH Chapter of the Women’s Caucus for Art is collaborating with me to develop a traveling exhibit of interconnected art and poetry, which will first show in 2018.
In my efforts to bring poetry to the widest possible audience, I have presented readings, talks, writing workshops, and programs to a variety of participants, including (but not limited to) prisoners, the elderly in retirement homes, the mentally ill, children, teachers as part of their professional development, and poets themselves at all stages of their writing lives.
Since you asked, here’s some advice for poets young and old
Be ambitious for your poems; make them as great as they can be.
Don’t give up on your poems too soon; keep pushing them to become more interesting and layered.
Don’t give up from rejection; it’s part of the writing life.
Alice’s Other Recent Books
INTERVAL: Poems based on Bach’s Goldberg Variations (2015)
This brilliant collection won the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music and Literature and the 2016 NH Literary Award in Poetry and was featured in O Magazine.
STRANGE TERRAIN: A Poetry Handbook for the Reluctant Reader (2009)
This warm and accessible resource is written for anyone wanting to learn more about how to read poetry.
Visit Alice’s website: http://www.alicebfogel.com/
Biography
Alice B Fogel is New Hampshire’s poet laureate. Her 2017 collection is A Doubtful House, and 2015’s Interval: Poems Based on Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” won the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature and the 2016 New Hampshire Literary Award in Poetry. Her previous book, Be That Empty, was a national poetry bestseller. She is also the author of the guide for readers and teachers, Strange Terrain, on how to appreciate poetry without necessarily “getting” it. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and other awards, her poems have been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Poet’s Choice, Poetry Daily, The Poetry Foundation, and elsewhere, and have been nominated nine times for the Pushcart Prize. She works one-on-one with learning-disabled students at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont, is an avid hiker, and lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.