Featured Poet Rebecca Loudon in the new Galatea Resurrects

Tom Beckett interviews Rebecca Loudon & 3 poems

Poems begin for me from practice. When I am practicing my violin, when I am practicing drawing, when I am practicing writing. I used to write every day in notebooks. Not just poems, but anything I thought of. Then I switched to my blog to continue my daily writing practice. I believe that the mastery of any art comes from mastery of practice. It’s kind of weird. I don’t think many poets think in terms of daily practice. Maybe it’s from spending a lifetime as a musician. But we have these muscles, not even muscles—tissue, tissue memory. Practice strengthens that tissue memory. When I practice Bach every day then it’s my tissue memory that can perform Bach, not my fingers, not my brain. My brain just gets in the way of things, slows me down. It’s the same with writing. I’ve learned to have a notebook by my side pretty much all the time to jot down ideas. This is practice. This and reading.

John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews Loudon's Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home and Cadaver Dogs

Rebecca Loudon reviews Aase Berg's With Deer