Christopher Chambers

Inter / Views: Poems, and a Correspondence Christopher Chambers

These poems boldly appropriate lines from interviews with famous and infamous artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers and architects, and with these found lines construct small literary objects with something new to say. The pattern of intense repetition creates an incantation in which shifts in meaning occur as the repeated lines are slightly revised and given a new context. The sampled lines reverberate between stanzas, creating echoes that slow us down, providing startling sonic views. Mark Strand and Eavan Boland in The Making of a Poem, call the pantoum a "perfect form for the evocation of a past time." This mash-up of that ancient form with the interview offers unexpected glimpses of the creative process that are nearly perfect for these strange times now.