How does a poem come to you?

It is very difficult to say. It is very different. Sometimes, it comes from my reading, not necessarily poetry, perhaps an idea germinates while I’m reading prose, recollecting a memory, or traveling abroad, for example, in Mexico or in the United States. A poem will often come to me when I am here, in this very chair, collecting my memories, and then later I will write it. For example, after I’ve just returned from a trip abroad, I will sit here and soak in the spirit of the trip, but not write about it right then. At first, I don’t write, but, of course I know I will. I need a certain amount of time to pass so that I can return there in my mind. But that is personal, isn’t it? Other poets write in cafés, or while they are traveling. It really is personal and different for each poet.

…writing must above all include concrete experience, whether real or imagined … Writing poetry really comes from a reaction our hearts and our memories have to something concrete.

For me, writing must above all include concrete experience, whether real or imagined. It could be, for example, about a huge expanse of sky or about tiny leaves in a tree, but it must be something concrete which strikes me. Writing poetry really comes from a reaction our hearts and our memories have to something concrete. I also get ideas for my poems from entomology. Naturally I studied entomology, and very often it will be entomology which will strike me, and inspire me to write. For example, the word tulipe, you know, the flower, comes from the same word as turban. Entomology is something that can be very useful in writing poetry. To connect a word to its entomological derivation can be very revealing in terms of meaning, and a poet can articulate that kind of connection of meaning very well. The fact that two different French words come from the same root word allows them to be taken in different ways. A poem that uses words in all their possible meanings is a better and more deeply felt poem. As a poet, it is very interesting to see the proximity of silence and speech that entomology reveals. You see, the words mot (word) and muet (mute) have the same entomology. At any rate, after I writing a poem, I may find language in it that I didn’t intend, of course, so after a certain amount of time, I revisit it. I spend a few days writing by hand because I still need my body to participate in the poem, and then, after two or three weeks pass, I type it into the computer and revise it once again, because it looks different on the printed page, or what will be the printed page, and I might still seek other things to change in order to improve how it looks on the page. Therefore, it is a job that requires all sorts of things, all sorts of concrete things of memory and of the movement of the heart. You know, I often find myself listening to make sure I can hear the beating of my heart.

Hearing the beating of your heart reminds me of one of my favorite of your poems, “Suite to the Moon-God.” Can you talk a little about it?

(Reading the poem) “Time eludes wrist-watches.” Time measures in a Cartesian manner, equal to, but having nothing to do with the interior time by which we live. “where the blood clearly pulses compelled by the heart” because it is carried there to the wrist, where you can see the pulse. “A finger presses.” Like when I do this (holds her finger to her wrist, under her watch). “We always end by opening the drapes.” Because I imagine the watch close against the skin and the finger which presses like this to be sure the heart beats, that it beats well. “Our face / faintly reflected in the windowpane / pledges allegiance to the millennia.” We look at ourself in the windowpane to be sure that we have the same face, that we are still alive, and that another face hasn’t replaced ours. “Pledges allegiance to the millennia” because behind our face there are the faces of all the people who have lived before us and who might also have looked at their reflections in a windowpane or a mirror. Therefore it is a concrete way of expressing these thoughts. It is also a poem about time: about the materiality of time, the time we have in our lives, of the pulsing of our blood, and the time of all lives in actuality.

I think that images in poetry are a way of feeling what others feel, the same feelings, the same thoughts, the same movements.

I think that images in poetry are a way of feeling what others feel, the same feelings, the same thoughts, the same movements. Sometimes, though, I use concrete imagery to express something different — like in a poem which imagines that I rid myself of my flesh and that I leave my flesh just like that in a cafe. I go out with just my bones. I am very relieved, very light, and I imagine that it is all like this and at the end of the poem, it is suggested that everyone rid themselves of their flesh. For me, it is a relief. But there are people who read this in the poem, and find it terrible. After reading the poem, some readers have felt the need for the flesh to be reunited with the bones. On the other hand, there are people who read the poem as a poem against racism. Because, very simply, obviously, there is no longer black or white or yellow skin, and so on. But I didn’t think of it this way. I simply was thinking of the flesh that we all have, and not particularly of race. But that is the way some have interpreted the poem, and, after all, nothing in the poem bans this interpretation, so, it must be allowed.