Back Draft: Javier Zamora
April 3, 2023
The memoirist on the politicization of children, Salvadoran slang, and repressed trauma.
Ben Purkert
Back Draft: Charif Shanahan
February 13, 2023
The poet on ancestral homelands, Blackness in the Arab world, and living with poetry in your bones.
Back Draft: Antoine Wilson
October 24, 2022
The novelist discusses airport lounges, post-revision regret, and what it means to save someone’s life.
Back Draft: Ada Limón
July 18, 2022
The new US poet laureate discusses the myth of individualism, the climate crisis, and what makes a “core poem.”
Back Draft: Corey Van Landingham
June 6, 2022
The poet discusses the risks of false comparisons, objectification, and the need for distance.
Back Draft: Meghan O’Rourke
March 1, 2022
The memoirist talks about the limitations of “the traditional illness narrative” and what healing really means.
Back Draft: Hala Alyan
January 31, 2022
The novelist discusses the strain of translating herself to others, and explains why she enjoys brainstorming more than editing.
Back Draft: Sterling HolyWhiteMountain
July 23, 2021
The fiction writer discusses Native art, breakup phone calls, and the line between politics and propaganda.
Back Draft: Bianca Stone and Ruth Stone
June 22, 2021
The poet discusses Emily Dickinson, strip clubs, and grieving over the loss of her grandmother.
Back Draft: Clint Smith
May 3, 2021
The writer and poet talks about novelistic nonfiction and why he thinks of his grandparents as monuments.
Back Draft: Lisa Dillman
January 13, 2021
The translator on selecting her subjects, discovering the work of Andrés Barba, and the dangers of cultural hegemony.
Back Draft: Danez Smith
December 3, 2020
The poet on a hard year for books, getting a rise out of an audience, and “Frankensteining” your archives.
Back Draft: Rachel Eliza Griffiths
August 3, 2020
The poet on radical revision, our reflections, and photographing poets.
Back Draft: Emily Wilson
February 24, 2020
The translator on being drawn to Homer, and the timelessness of toxic masculinity.
Back Draft: John Murillo
October 21, 2019
The poet discusses chasing butterflies, and the perpetual relevance of political verse.
Back Draft: Martín Espada
August 12, 2019
The poet discusses his relationship with the late Donald Hall and the power of art, incarnate.
Back Draft: Edward Hirsch
April 5, 2019
The poet discusses insomnia, civility (or the lack thereof) in cities, and losing his sight.
Back Draft: Natasha Trethewey
February 26, 2019
The acclaimed poet discusses a devastating fire, and the painterly in poetry.
Back Draft: Catherine Barnett
November 27, 2018
The poet discusses the separation of mind and body—literally and figuratively—the transformation of influence, and imagining an audience.
Back Draft: Cedar Sigo
September 28, 2018
The poet on escaping the confines of academia, striving for imperfection, and moving back home.
Back Draft: Cynthia Cruz
August 23, 2018
The poet on perfectionism, surrendering control, and a poetry that reflects the practical realities of American life today.
Back Draft: Heather Christle
July 11, 2018
The poet discusses the spark of life in a poem and the intersection of the imaginative and the political.
Back Draft: Carl Phillips
May 3, 2018
The inaugural installment of a new series about the revision process in poetry. First up: Carl Phillips.
An Inspired Time for American Poetry
October 19, 2017
Fifteen debut poetry collections that define the cultural moment.
Raising the Dead
September 27, 2017
An author’s visitation seems, in my students' eyes, a resurrection.
