Where craft meets courage

An Interview with Jodie Hollander

In light of her forthcoming collection Nocturne, we spoke to Jodie Hollander about her work that’s inspired and deliberate all at once—like music. Growing up with musician parents, Hollander developed an ear for sound that resonates now in her poetry. As she shares in this interview, “Coleridge remarked that adding music to poetry is like adding fine wine to an animated conversation. Sure, you could still have a great conversation without the wine, but why not make it even more enjoyable?” Even within her classical influences and attention to formal elements, Hollander pushes the bounds, bringing each poem to its ultimate expression: fierce, succinct, and true.

Could you describe your journey as a poet? Where did it begin and what have been its pivotal moments?

As a child, I used to sit by the window and write poems about the moon, trees, and animals outside. Without any training or really knowing what I was doing as a young girl, I was already aware of a strong inclination towards written expression. In 8th grade, I had an excellent English teacher who introduced our class to the work of Frost, Levertov, and Wordsworth. I remember loving those poems, and re-reading them on my own, circling words or images that evoked strong feelings in me. In that same class, I wrote a poem about a dream of being trapped inside a green pepper. I described the dark, muggy interior, the walls of the pepper, and the panic of getting lost in the seeds. Writing that poem was the first thing I recall doing in school that I truly loved. 

As a teenager, I read quite a bit of poetry. I’d sit in the back of our local bookshop and read the work of Olds, Plath, and Heaney. I think it was around that time I thought about a career in poetry. I talked through this with adults and mentors and remember many of them warning me about the challenges of earning a living as a poet. That summer I applied to the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop in fiction. A few weeks later, the program director called saying she was pleased to offer me a place in the program. “But” she added with a pause, “we’d like to accept you into the poetry track – we think you’re a poet.”

Another pivotal moment came during a visit to Pomona College while I was still in high school. I walked into the office of the resident poet, Robert Mezey. I wasn’t aware of his reputation for being a strict formalist with very high standards and a sharp tongue, and I eagerly handed him my work. Bob read through a few of my poems and looked up at me from under his glasses: “Well,” he said, “you have no idea what you’re doing, but I see talent; I hope you come to school here.” Even before I was a student at Pomona College, Bob began sending me poems in the mail with instructions to study the meter and try and copy the verse. I don’t think I fully understood the poems, nor did I come anywhere near writing something to his standard, but I was thrilled to be working with Bob. At that time, I had no idea that my relationship with Robert Mezey would grow into a strong mentoring relationship that would continue until his death in 2020.

After college, I applied to several MFA programs in poetry and was rejected by all of them. Feeling lost and in a need of a job, I decided to pursue an academic career instead. After receiving a master’s degree in English Literature, I began teaching high school English full time, and continued doing so for a decade. Another pivotal moment came when a visiting poet taught a workshop to my English class; that evening, I felt something inside of me shift. Shortly after, I applied to creative writing programs in England, and soon after I enrolled in the MA in poetry at Bath Spa University. This is when the next phase of my poetic journey began in earnest. Since then, I have published a pamphlet, a full-length collection, and have been able to make a (nearly) full-time career out of the dream I had as a little girl. Today, in addition to my writing, I’m very grateful to be able to lead workshops in National Parks and botanical gardens, give readings and presentations at art museums and schools, and teach online poetry classes.

In your book My Dark Horses, we see incredible attention to elements of formal poetry. Can you tell us how your poetic training informs your work?

Anything I’m able to do successfully with meter and form I credit to my mentor, Bob Mezey. When I arrived as a student at Pomona College, Bob was adamant I learn to write in meter. In fact, he said he wouldn’t work with me unless I was willing to learn the basics of verse. He believed that, like a musician learning scales, a poet needed to master the fundamentals of verse before striking out in their own artistic direction. Meter was difficult for me, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to really learn it. Thankfully, Bob was patient, spending hours with me, scanning poems, and having me listen to the work of some of his favorite metrical masters. In my own time, I would listen to recordings of Robert Frost reading his own work until I slowly began to familiarize myself with the sound of meter. I sent countless attempts of what I thought were metrical poems to Bob, most of which he sent back saying, “this is not poetry; there’s no beat in here; try again.” I think many people would have run away from his style of strict and prescriptive teaching. But I trusted in my mentor and saw glimpses of what Bob was describing in the work of the poets that I loved. Eventually, Bob’s response to my work evolved into “not bad,” or “most of these lines are metrical.” I think the final response I received from him before his passing was, “pretty good…only a few lines in here I might quarrel with.”

Diving further into poetic form, how does sound play a role in your poetry? 

Classical music was everywhere in my childhood. I’d wake up to my father, a concert pianist, practicing Rachmaninoff, or my mother, a cellist, playing Saint Saens. My older sister was a prodigy soprano, and my younger brother excelled on both the violin and the viola. A good portion of my childhood was spent lying underneath my father’s piano listening to my family perform together. People often asked why I wasn’t a musician, and I would joke that I was too busy playing tennis. But in truth, classical music was never really a passion of mine. Fortunately, my parents accepted my choice to pursue other interests, even though it meant I was frequently left out of family conversations and events. I recall entire evenings when my mother and brother discussed a performance of the Bach Double Concerto, or long weekends when my family did nothing but prepare for a musical performance. Looking back, I’m grateful to have been surrounded by such rich sounds: I imagine they had a significant impact on my poetic ear, and likely also helped me to learn to write in meter.

Human beings are hard-wired to enjoy music, and I often focus on teaching the art of creating poetic sound. In my workshops, I like to talk about meter and form, as well as cover topics such as assonance, consonance, alliteration, and effective use of repetition. Coleridge remarked that adding music to poetry is like adding fine wine to an animated conversation. Sure, you could still have a great conversation without the wine, but why not make it even more enjoyable? For me, sound is an important part of what defines a poem, it’s also what makes the experience of reading a poem more meaningful, and certainly more pleasurable.

If you were to write a magic formula (or today, maybe just build an AI generator!) for a great poem, what elements would you include and why?

I usually don’t know what I’m looking for in a poem until I experience it and feel that I’ve just read something very special. If I have a strong reaction to a poem or find myself wanting to return to it again, usually that’s a good indicator to me of its effectiveness. Also, the test of time is an important sign. We are still reading Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Dickinson, and other poets for good reason – they speak to universal truths about the human condition.

The poems I return to most frequently tend to have a few things in common. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I look for musicality in poetry, or poems that are ear-pleasing. I also gravitate towards poems that have strong emotional elements. Some confessional poets come to mind, but I also like poems where the emotions are a bit more distanced – I’m thinking, for example, of Cunningham’s “Montana Fifty Years ago,” or “The Snow Man” by Stevens. Lastly, I like a clear sense of a poetic project. I don’t mind complicated or experimental poems, so long as the poet has a deliberate reason for their decisions and is willing to meet their reader halfway. Some of the poems that I return to most frequently are Bishop’s “One Art,” Frost’s “Desert Places,” Justice’s ‘Here in Kathmandu,” and Richard Wilbur’s “The House.”

 I realize this didn’t answer your question, so if I was forced to give you one? I’d have the magic formula bring Robert Frost back to life!

What is the creation story of your collection My Dark Horses? How would you describe its evolution from start to publication?

The story of My Dark Horses had been living inside me for several years, and when I started my MA at Bath Spa University, the poems seemed to just pour out. It took some time to fully discover my voice and to learn certain skills, like knowing when a poem is finished, or paring down at the level of the line, but the process of writing the poems felt very natural from the start. At that time, I didn’t have a publisher and felt able write freely without pressure or deadlines. Once I had a manuscript ready, I sent it to publishers in both the US and the UK. When Liverpool University Press offered me publication I was thrilled – I had been following the Pavilion series since it began and enjoyed their roster of poets. Once I was under contract, the process was relatively straightforward.

My work has sometimes been described as “shocking” or “courageous,” which was a surprising thing for me to hear. As I saw it, I was just writing as honestly as I could about my life. The only poem that gave me pause was “Splitting and Fucking.” After finishing that poem, I hesitated to send it to journals, as I didn’t want people to think I was writing purely for shock value. In putting together My Dark Horses, I wondered if I should leave that poem out. But my editor suggested that I either cut the poem altogether or make the bold choice of leading the collection with it. I eventually opted for the latter, which earned the book a strong language and content warning! In hindsight, I’m pleased with the decision to include it, and have been happy to hear from readers that they feel it strengthened the book. The lesson I’ve learned here is that it’s important to write outside of our comfort zones; oftentimes those are the things that really evoke something meaningful in readers.

We’re so excited to read more from you. Can you tell us anything about your collection coming out in the spring?

After My Dark Horses was published in 2017, it was over a year before I wrote anything new. I kept trying out different ideas, but nothing seemed to stick. Over the years, I’ve learned that trying to force out a poem before it’s ready is the quickest way to ruin it, so I gave myself latitude to write when the mood struck. Over the next five years, I found my poems moving into new territory. I was still working with some of the themes from My Dark Horses, but also integrating nature poems, ekphrastic poems, and memory poems from travels abroad. I was surprised to find the island of Key West appearing frequently in my poems – it grew to be an important structural element of the book and framed the narrative in a surprising way.

With both of my collections, I struggled with settling on a title. After months of thought and trying out different ideas for the second book, I was listening to Chopin’s Nocturne in B Flat Minor and the title came to me. Given the nature of the themes discussed in both books, Nocturne felt like a nice sister title to My Dark Horses, while also maintaining its own identity. Compared to the first collection, I’d say it felt more challenging to write Nocturne. The structure is unlike anything I’ve attempted before, with a dream sequence and several surreal poems that were difficult to weave into the narrative. Ultimately, I’m very proud of the work and pleased with how it came out. It’s been a long journey, and I’m excited to see how the book lands with readers.