Our MS in Publishing graduate assistant Chardonnae conducted an interview with Professor Romanello this month in honor of Poetry month where she shared her love for poetry and its transformative power! Here are her responses:
1. What first drew you to poetry? Do you remember the first poem you ever wrote?
My mother would sometimes recite Italian poems she had to memorize in school as a child in Italy. I don’t remember specific words, but I do remember that it felt like a song or chant, and I was always mesmerized. The first poem I was forced to memorize for a school play was “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” by Clement Clark Moore, and I wrote my first, bad poem around the age of twelve.
2. How does poetry help you express emotions or ideas that prose might not?
It’s much more compact, so the effect/impact is more immediate. The challenge is to create a feeling or mood with much fewer words.
3. Can you describe your writing process? Do you have any favorite places to write?
It helps to be in a quiet, meditative space but I’ve written poems while waiting for the train in Penn Station. When the inspiration or an idea presents itself, all you need is the notes app on your phone.
4. What themes do you find yourself returning to in your poetry?
My area of interest is ancestral memory. Objects and visual images from the past speak to me of relatives who are no longer present. I like to imagine what their relationship might have been with that object or image. For example, one of my poems, “Dowry,” is about my maternal grandmother’s linens. Another is about a bread basket. Olive trees recur quite a bit in my work because they are everywhere in Calabria, the region in Italy where I was born.
5. Who are your biggest poetic influences? Are there any contemporary poets you admire?
Too many to list here, but poetic influences include W.S. Merwin, Cesare Pavese, Edith Sodergran, Pablo Neruda, Erica Jong, Sylvia Plath, Stanley Kunitz and Elizabeth Spires. As for contemporary poets I admire: Naomi Shihab Nye, Diane Seuss, Maggie Smith, Kim Dower, Ada Limon, Marie Howe, Peter Covino, Rio Cortez, Annie Lanzillotto, Maria Mazziotti Gillen, Michelle Reale, Ocean Vuong, Ilya Kaminsky, Tracy K. Smith, and Maria Giura.
6. Do you think poetry has the power to create change? If so, how?
Absolutely! Poems can save a life. Through the process of creating a poem, you sometimes give words and meaning to unconscious thoughts you were not even aware were repressed. Once it’s on the page, you begin your own healing process. I recommend reading Poetry as Survival by Gregory Orr. It’s a lucid analysis of the powerful role poetry can play in confronting, surviving, and transcending pain and suffering.
7. What advice would you give to someone who wants to start writing poetry but doesn’t know where to begin?
READ. Read poets whose words speak to your soul, answer your unanswerable questions, quell your pain. Then start writing.
8. What’s a poem you wish more people knew about?
I can’t point to a single poem I’d want more people to know about but there are so many incredible poets whose work is not well-known or haven’t won major prizes, and I would encourage readers to seek those voices out, either through their own particular interests, recommendations or by attending local readings.