Angela Voras-Hills on The Social Distance Reading Series
Angela Voras-Hills’s debut poetry collection, Louder Birds (Pleiades Press) was selected by Traci Brimhall for the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Best New Poets, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. She lives with her family in Milwaukee, WI.
Brought to you by The Vermont School and Green Mountains Review
In the wake of book event cancellations due to COVID-19, this pop-up series is designed to offer poets a platform for launching new collections of poems. Stay tuned for a new reading each Wednesday and Sunday.
Here’s Angela reading from her new book LOUDER BIRD just out from Pleiades Press.
“The idea/ of heaven is ridiculous and comforting/ and full of misdirection,” Angela Voras-Hills writes, and in Louder Birds the idea of America is similarly complicated. The America of this book feels Upper Midwestern—a place of cornfields, casseroles, bake sales, and ice fishing, yes, but also a place where we find the “sweet nesting of storks/on the phone-pole beside the landfill,” a place where birth and decay are inextricably linked. Reading Louder Birds—inhabiting its landscapes, both external and internal—reminds me of what poems can do.
—Maggie Smith, author of Good Bones
Angela Voras-Hills’ Louder Birds is a wondrous book, one that draws us, irresistibly, into a world where we confront the tangled consequences of yearning and innocence. Rarely is such a close and careful watching of the world coupled with such a hungry willingness to “tear into it like bread.” Just as ice fishermen hoist “pike up through icy holes—their shiny bodies struggling as they are pulled by their lips into sky,” so too do these fierce and fecund poems tug me, palpably, toward transcendence. I’m reminded of the ache and splendor of living as a body in this world, that the only heaven we’re promised is the one we have here.
—Michael Bazzett, author of The Interrogation
How do you begin a new piece of writing? What conditions help your writing process?
It usually begins with an image or memory I can’t shake, then moves into language. I was a mom before I was a writer, and I generally have only had little bursts of time to write. So, I collect snippets as I walk or drive or fold clothes, then find longer pieces of time to connect the snippets. Sometimes, a whole poem will miraculously come out in a sitting, which is my favorite thing, but it rarely happens.
· What was an early experience that taught you language has power?
Louise Gluck’s “The Drowned Children” was the first thing I remember reading and thinking, “Yes! It is possible for something to be terrifying and tragic and still beautiful.” I felt so many contradictory things simultaneously (beauty and terror, happiness and guilt, etc.), which was so real to me. That a short poem could bring me so swiftly into the heart of what makes me human blew my mind.
What poets or writers do you continually go back to?
Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Jane Hirshfield, Laura Kasischke, Wislawa Szymorska, and Matthew Olzmann. I love a poet who speaks plainly and still surprises me. The not-poets: Angela Carter, Jane Austen, and EB White are in heavy rotation.
What is your favorite childhood or adolescent book?
Richard Scarry’s Best Mother Goose Ever! I’d memorized it by age three. Also, when I was in high school, I found two books of poetry by Rod McKuen in my school library. I stole them, ripped out poems I didn’t like, and collaged around what was left while chain smoking and drinking bottomless coffee at a local truck stop—super formative. (I wrote an essay on my appreciation of him for the Poets on Growth anthology.)
What are your thoughts/experiences on social distancing?
My book tour has been cancelled, so that stings, but I’ve been impressed by the way the lit community has rallied around new books! The way people help each other in times of crisis makes me so hopeful about life. I’m hoping we all end up on the good side of this, understanding ourselves better and more mindful about how we want to live (like, “Am I really the guy who buys all the toilet paper?” “Do I really need this on my calendar?”)
Where can we find you? Link to your blog or website:
The Social Distance Reading Series
Brought to you by The Vermont School and Green Mountains Review
We’re thrilled to host The Social Distance Reading Series, a collaboration between Green Mountains Review and The Vermont School poets. In the wake of book event cancellations due to COVID-19, this pop-up series is designed to offer poets a platform for launching new collections of poems. At this point, we are focusing on collections by poets whose book events have been cancelled between January through May 2020.
Stay tuned for a new reading each Wednesday and Sunday.
Thanks,
–Didi Jackson, Major Jackson, Kerrin McCadden, and Elizabeth Powell, series curators.
–Kylie Gellatly, editorial assistant, interviewer.