ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com
Poetic Profile
Michelle Taransky
General Questions
1) Where were you Born and what was your Formation?
I grew up in two small South Jersey towns, both of them situated between Walt Whitman’s house in Camden, NJ (where I was born) and America’s first shopping mall in Cherry Hill.
William Steig’s CDB! (a book that uses letters to indicate words) is one of my first memories of reading/word play.
When I started keeping a daily journal in the fourth grade. I recorded one piece of found language per day. The majority of my early collection was metaphors from my parents’ library: Richard Brautigan, Mark Strand, Philip Roth, and later as I moved into adolescence, Beatles lyrics, Franz Kafka and George Orwell.
2) What are your Poetic Influences?
Gertrude Stein, Susan Howe, Louis Zukofsky, Michael Palmer, Wallace Stevens, Charles Olson, Lorine Niedecker, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, Robert Creeley, Lyn Hejinian,
Denise Levertov’s essay on the function of the line, and Stephen Burt’s ideas about elliptical poetry.
The generosity of these poets/mentors: Dan Beachy-Quick, Srikanth Reddy and Matthias Regan.
3) When did you realize you were a poet?
During my freshman year at The University of Chicago, when I saw Eric Elshtain read his poem "The 8th Intention of St. Bangled Banner,” which he began with a Jay-Z epigraph. That’s when I saw potential for carefully organized language.
4) What type of class has proven most useful for your development as apoet/writer?
Like Paul Carroll said, “If you write poetry, it will teach you.” Both the communities at U of C, and the larger Chicago, are literary-minded, and this is tremendously reassuring to the practice of poetry. Writing poetry in these contexts has helped me write better poetry.
5) Favorite Team or Sport?
Philadelphia 76ers, and after Charles Barkley was traded, the Phoenix Suns, and then the Houston Rockets. My very early work was mostly odes and epistles to Sir Charles.
6) Food? Pizza
7) Vacation Spot? Jersey Shore, camping with my family
8) Swear Word? Crap, as in “cut the crap”
9) Are you working on a book?
I'm working on two series: Six Letters to Small Dogs and Proud Parent of A. The first is shorter poems for recitation while walking small distances and the second plays with parents’ readings of their child's successes.
Craft Questions
1) How do you write a poem?
It’s different every time.
2) Is poetry a synthetic or organic process for you?
I can’t distinguish between those two.
3) Where do you write? Is ambience important for you?
I prefer boisterous settings. Coffee shops frequented by children where I can also watch dogs. My couch while watching terrible TV.
4) Is there a poetic setting that is interesting for you to write in?
Maybe more of a set-up than a setting: writing on random pieces of paper (the lip of an envelope, a post-it, a receipt from 7-11) I like the challenge of fitting a poem onto a fixed field.
Lit bio—
Michelle Taransky ‘s poems appear in can we have our ball back? La Petite Zine, DIAGRAM and Drunken Boat.
Links
http://canwehaveourballback.blogspot.com/2005/07/no-matter-suits-you-labored-over.html
www.thediagram.com/4_5/taransky.html
www.lapetitezine.org/Michelle.Taransky.htm
