Luisa A. Igloria, currently a daily contributor to Via Negativa, joins me and Kristin Berkey-Abbott as our second guest in Via Negativa’s informal Poetry Month book club for a discussion of (among other things) her next-to-most recent volume, Trill & Mordent — see response posts by Kristin, Dale Favier, and Rachel Barenblat, as well as my own.
Luisa’s presence on the web is a little diffuse, but do check out her official website (especially the page, “Why Lizards?” — a topic which Kristin and I tragically forgot to ask about), her Blogspot blog, her photo blog, and her Twitter stream, as well as her Wikipedia page and the page for ODU’s MFA Creative Writing program, which she administers.
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Theme music: “Le grand sequoia,” by Innvivo (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike licence).
I just finished listening to the interview, and I feel like I know more about whence Luisa’s poetry comes. Her responses are eloquent and honest, even those about cooking, eating, and herbs. Luisa and I share the same attachment to a birthplace (Baguio City) and quite a number of my images in my own poems still reflect the ethos of that place. I can see where she is coming from in her images, when I read her place-based poems.
My “Return Mails” to her “Letters to…” in Morning Porch bear witness to this poetic kinship which seems to have been reinforced by this interview.
A bonus, of course, is realizing that from the comments and questions of Dave and Kristin, I have somehow gained an insight into what animates their poetry. Now, when I read those meditations, I will not be able to divorce them from the Penn-mountain nuances (which I also find mnemonically alive in my responses). I must read more now of Kristin’s work.
I won’t hazard a critique. Suffice it to say that your voices have given me a broader dimension of the trio of poets in the conversation. Somehow, from Luisa’s pictures on FB, I know she would sound that way — mellow and quite authentic in her voice. Somehow, this interview has even made me pin down her poetic voice. It is urgent.
Thank you for this contribution to the poetic landscape. Bravo.
Dave, thanks for investing time and reading Trill & Mordent, along with Kristin, Dale, Rachel, and other poets and bloggers. It’s great that you let me contribute to Via Negativa.
Thanks, all of you!
Such a joy listening to this after reading Luisa’s poetry here for a while now. It’s also flat-out amazing how good these poems are. Her drafting this material in the comment space and getting most or all of it done in a half hour should be all I need to hear about the value of keeping one’s hand in on a regular basis. (But it won’t be.) So it’s the practice, not the polish? This is a theme I’m hearing in the quiet spaces when I dare to poke a flashlight in them. And it was so good for me to hear how busy a life she leads. She still manages to turn out delightful poetry on a regular basis.
Fun, too, to hear how her beliefs, culture, and love of cooking feed her poetry.