James Pollock on Honest Reviewing, Anthologies and the Power of Poetry
James Pollock\xa0is the author of\xa0Sailing to Babylon, which was a finalist for\xa0the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award in Poetry, and\xa0You Are Here: Essays on the Art of Poetry in Canada, a\xa0finalist\xa0for the\xa0ForeWord Review's\xa0Book of the Year Award for a collection of essays. He is also the editor of\xa0The Essential Daryl Hine, which made\xa0The Partisan's list of the best books of 2015. His poems have been published in\xa0The Paris Review,\xa0AGNI,\xa0Poetry Daily, the\xa0National Post,\xa0and\xa0other journals\xa0in the U.S. and Canada.\xa0
I met with James in his home in Madison, WI to talk about You are Here. Topics discussed include blindness to Canadian poetry, the importance of anthologies, bad poetry, meter, rhyme, Robert Frost, argument, philosophers, poet-critics, autobiography in poetry, myth, Adam Kirsch,\xa0authenticity versus technique, rhetoric, poetry in totalitarian regimes, Michael Lista, Carmine Starnino; constructive, honest reviews, Eric Ormsby, and the need for a great anthology of Canadian poetry.\xa0