Brian Culhane Recommends...

“I write to solo piano music (recently I’ve been listening to Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces). Then I pick up something close to hand and see what strikes me.

For instance, ‘At Wallace Stevens’ Grave’ was sparked by a detail in Paul Veyne's History of Private Life describing ancient Romans chatting about what they'd like on their own funerary bas-reliefs, and by other reading about early motion pictures and about Wallace Stevens’s last years. All three strands melded into a poem. You can’t force such serendipitous alignments, but you can find a desk, close the door, and put on beautiful music.”  
—Brian Culhane, author of The King’s Question (Graywolf Press, 2008)