What inspired you to write “Dusk in March, 755, China, Civil War” and “Afternoon in theMeadow?”

Both of these poems were written at about the same time. My wife and I were in North Carolina visiting our first granddaughter.  We were eager to be with her and anxious about the world she would inherit. I nearly always travel with the poets of the Tang dynasty. Why?  Nothing  about their life and times was easy. War, famine, vindictive emperors, sickness and personal loss were commonplace and still these Chinese poets find daily consolation through friends, nature, memory, the next destination. They subscribe to a simple yet profound aesthetic that you also find in Whitman, Dickinson, Mary Oliver, Merwin, and dozens of other poets:  pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.  The poems that interest me the most are the ones where the world intrudes on some private moment and you find in these poems a blending of external force and internal power.  In that way, both of these poems, Dusk in March and Afternoon in the Meadow, attempt to engage the world as it is without turning away.

Was there anything unique or striking about the writing or research process?

I am always in the hunt for what I think of as observational oddities, like a tongue seeking the jagged tooth, what Camus called writing that’s “heavy with things and flesh.”

This hunt always includes looking at the derivation of words.  I never tire of learning that words often begin in one place and like stones gathering moss, end up in another world of meaning.This process alone provides for discovery and astonishment.

Have you read anything recently that you’d like to recommend to readers?

I read as much fiction as poetry.  Lately, I have discovered Irish women that I should have known about:  Jeannette Haien, Claire Keegan, Edna O’Brien.  I am always reading Linda Gregg who remains the most submerging of all contemporary poets.

Where we can learn more about you and your work?

I have been around a while.  I’m not that hard to find.  I have published two novels and seven books of poems.  More of me and what I’ve been up to can be found at jpwhitebooks.com