Writers Recommend

"The Lure of the Detour: five things that feed me plus the sixth that haunts them.

"(1) Silence: the body and the breath that haunts that house.

"(2) Sound: Alice Coltrane, Yoko Ono, David Lang, John Cage, Krishna Das.

"(3) Words, usually shattered. Books of poetry that will never leave me: Sappho's Gymnasium by Olga Broumas and T Begley, The Veiled Suite by Agha Shahid Ali, Arcady by Donald Revell, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969–1980 by Lucille Clifton, Selected Poems by Fanny Howe. Of course always Mahmoud Darwish. Always Jean Valentine.

"(4) Writers whose work provides a vibe for me—each time I read them I have to go write something: Bhanu Kapil, Nathalie Stephens, Richard Greenfield, Saskia Hamilton, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Sarah Gambito.

"(5) Pictures: Agnes Martin, Makoto Fujimura, Zhao Wou-ki, Hans Hofmann, Layla Al-Attar.

"The life and the art and the death of Layla Al-Attar. Feeds me and haunts me. Every day."

—Kazim Ali, author of Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009)

"Running takes me out of the city and into nature, which does something to me that most man-made stuff can't. I pass the Brazilian transsexuals, wave, pass the mean forest cops on their big horses, salute, pass that one old guy with the terry-cloth headband, wave. I stop next to that pond with those two nasty swans and I hang upside down and stretch until my head feels as alive and as heavy as an electric watermelon. I go home (everything in the city now looks like a concrete cartoon), shower, put on ugly clothes made of soft material, stretch my hands to the higher, hidden deities of the unknown universe, bow to them, wait for them to bow back, then I open my computer. Sometimes I feel like a big zero a-hole loser with nothing to say and that is when I put on some Irish music—anything with fiddles and flutes—or some Chinese stuff and this music says yes you are an a-hole but so what and sometimes I buckle down in silence and get as close to my characters as I can and these are beautiful moments that make me really tired. When things are bad, I get up and walk around talking to myself; when things are worse, I stop everything and put my head on my knees, close my eyes, watch the darkness inside my head swirling around, and wait until the feeling passes. Writing isn't easy for me."
—Nicola Keegan, author of Swimming (Knopf, 2009)

"Lately I've been writing poems on my iPhone. But I also like to write poems on Post-it notes and in my trusty sketchbook, too. Writing on various media, not letting myself get comfortable, is very helpful. I also like to send myself off into what I call coffee shop exile. Being in public spaces makes me a little edgy, which is good for my writing.

"Also, if I want to write but can't find a way in, often the best thing I can do is read any old John Ashbery book of poetry. I write almost nothing like him, but reading his work gets me leaping in interesting directions.

"Finally, recently, I've been listening to Jack Teagarden's jazz trombone music while I write. When I play his greatest hits through my headphones while I sip my latte, I can write like a madman."

—Frank Giampietro, author of Begin Anywhere (Alice James Books, 2008)

"I am very interested in cities and places, and in having conversations with them. Research and lists are big for me. Often, lists I make become poems unto themselves. Notes from my research make some of the strongest lines in my poems, I've found, or, like the lists, turn into poems of their own. I began my book The Straits in response to the sparse but lyrical narration in a Russian film, Palms, so I find listening for refrains and cadences—anywhere and everywhere—then responding to them highly evocative. It's not something I do deliberately, as some do by listening to music, but I always find myself tuning into certain rhythms when I'm out and about or in something I'm reading and later realize that it has entered my work."
—Kristin Palm, author of The Straits (Palm Press, 2009)