When poetry gets on my nerves, I cheat on it. Of course poetry doesn’t deserve that, especially after all we’ve been through. Often familiarity is our problem, especially if I’m revising a manuscript. When I feel too close to the work, so close I can’t see it, it’s time we take a break. And not only for the poems’ benefit, for mine as well. Poetry requires so much of my attention and desire. I care about the outcome of each poem, about the limitations of my work versus my ambitions for it. I become so weary of caring that I feel contempt. So I cheat on poetry with woodworking. I become a bookshelf artist. I devote myself to designing and building sculptural bookshelves. I know poetry has its merits, I do. But for me, woodworking is wholly—sensorily—consuming. For a while, I can see (and hold) what I’m making.
—Kwoya Fagin Maples, author of Long Eye (Hub City Press, 2026)
Photo credit: Robert Farley