Questions to Ask a Poet
Questions for a poet about craft and working life, covering where poems start, form and revision, sound and imagery, writing about real people, publishing and money, and what they are reading now.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
What drew you to poetry rather than another form?
Most poets can name what prose could not do for them, often something about compression or sound. An answer about self-expression in general usually means the real answer is further in.
- 2
How did you find your way in, a teacher, a book, an open mic?
Entry points shape a poet's whole sense of audience: a workshop trains you to write for readers on the page, an open mic trains you to write for a room. It also tells you whether they came through formal study or found it alone.
- 3
Do you have a writing routine, or do you write when it arrives?
Working poets tend to be unglamorous about this, describing early mornings or a notebook kept for fragments. Watch for whether they distinguish drafting time from revision time, since those often need different conditions.
- 4
Where does a poem usually start, a line, an image, a rhythm?
The starting unit determines what the poem can become. A poet who starts with rhythm builds outward from sound, while one who starts with an image is often solving a problem of arrangement.
- 5
How do you decide between a set form and free verse?
Ask for a specific poem where the choice changed mid-draft. Poets often describe reaching for form when the material is too painful to handle loosely, which is a more interesting answer than a preference.
- 6
Do you read aloud while you're drafting?
Almost all do, and what they are listening for is specific: a stumble, a syllable too many, an unintended rhyme. The answer opens onto how much of their line-breaking is decided by ear rather than by eye.
- 7
How do you choose which details make it in?
Selection is most of the craft, and the useful answer describes a detail cut for being too explanatory or kept because it resisted meaning. If the answer is only that they trust instinct, ask what instinct told them last time.
- 8
What does revision actually look like for you?
Practices range from dozens of full retypings to changing three words over a year. Ask how they know a revision made the poem worse, because that is the part nobody talks about.
- 9
How do you know a poem is finished?
Many poets say abandoned rather than finished, and the honest version involves a deadline or a book. Ask whether they have changed a poem after publication, since some do and it says a lot about how they hold their work.
- 10
Are you writing for a reader, or for yourself first?
The answer changes over a career and often mid-book. A poet who says purely for themselves is worth asking why they publish, and the reply is usually more thoughtful than the question deserves.
- 11
Which poets shaped your ear, and which did you have to get away from?
The second half is what makes this worth asking. Influence that goes unresisted turns into imitation, and most poets can name the voice they had to write their way out of.
- 12
What have you tried to write about and failed?
Failed subjects are more revealing than successful ones, and the reasons are specific: too recent, too obviously moving, no available form. Nearly every poet has one and rarely gets to discuss it.
- 13
How do you handle writing about people who are still alive?
A real practical problem with no settled answer: some ask permission, some change details, some publish and take the consequences. Ask whether anyone has recognized themselves and what happened.
- 14
What role does place play in your work?
Landscape, a city, a house, a language spoken in one country and written in another all show up here. Look for whether place supplies imagery or supplies the actual subject, which are different things.
- 15
How do you feel about reading your work out loud to a room?
Poets differ enormously, from performers who write for the voice to writers who find readings a duty. The answer also tells you whether the poems on the page are the finished object or a score.
- 16
How does the publishing side actually work?
Journals with months-long response times, contests that charge reading fees, chapbooks, small presses, and almost no money. Ask plainly rather than assuming, since most poets are frank about it and few readers know.
- 17
What do editors change, and when do you push back?
Poetry editing is often a fight over a single line break or a comma. The example they give shows you what they consider untouchable in their own work.
- 18
Has a poem of yours been read in a way you didn't intend?
Every published poet has this story, and it is where the question of authorial control gets interesting. Notice whether they were annoyed by the misreading or came to prefer it.
- 19
Who are you reading right now?
The most practical question you can ask, since you leave with names. It also shows whether they read their contemporaries or mainly the dead.
- 20
What are you working on, and what's hard about it?
The difficulty is the interesting half, and it is usually structural: a manuscript that will not order itself, a sequence missing its middle. Ask this last, after they can see you have been listening.
Talking with a poet
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Read something first
Read something first
- Two or three poems is enough to change the entire conversation, and poets can tell immediately whether you have read any.
- Come with one line or image that stayed with you. Ask what was happening in the poem at that point, not what it means.
- If you found their work in a journal or anthology, say where. Poets rarely know how readers reach them.
- Do not pretend to have read a book you have not. Say you have read a few poems and want to know where to start.
Asking about a specific poem
Asking about a specific poem
- Offer your reading before asking for theirs. "I read this as being about your father, is that wrong?" is a real question; "what does it mean?" is a request for a summary they cannot give.
- Ask about a decision rather than an intention: why the poem breaks where it does, why it stops where it stops.
- Ask what the poem looked like in an earlier draft. Poets remember, and the discarded version is often the most interesting thing they will tell you.
- It is fine to say a poem confused you. Say which part, and you will get a generous answer.
What tends to close things down
What tends to close things down
- Treating every poem as autobiography, or asking which parts really happened.
- Calling form and craft merely technical. Line breaks, syntax, and sound are where the decisions live.
- Comparing them to a famous poet unless they raise it first.
- Asking whether they can make a living at it in a tone that already assumes the answer.
- Handing them your own poems on a first meeting. Ask if there is a better way to get feedback.
At a reading
At a reading
- 1Arrive early enough to hear the whole set. Questions from someone who came in for the last poem are obvious.
- 2Write down one line while you listen so you have something concrete to ask about afterward.
- 3In the signing line, keep it to one question and let others through. Ask the longer one over email.
- 4Buy the book if you can. For most poets, sales at readings are a large share of what a collection earns.