Sarah Suzor’s poetry collection The Principle Agent is gorgeous inside and out; we were so thrilled to accept it as the Hudson Prize winner in 2010 (and even happier to accept her forthcoming collaborative manuscript with Travis Cebula, After the Fox). This month, Sarah sat down with Derek Alger at PIF Magazine, and talks about loving California, who inspires her writing, and how The Principle Agent was written:
“As its author I’m completely intertwined in the back-story of each line in The Principle Agent, so when I hear words like “razor-sharp intelligence… unnerving sophistication,” although I appreciate the description very much, I don’t even know how to respond. My favorite lines from the book are: “The sun’s light hit the windowsill. / She looked up and said: not as sorry as I am.” I’ll never tell the truth about the origin of those lines, but I sure get asked a lot of questions about them. I’ve decided my answer to every question that deals with the content of the book is, “Yes.” For example, is the book commenting on the ecological state of the world right now? Yes. Is the book commenting on the economic state of the world right now? Yes. Is the narrator a woman? Yes. Is the narrator a man? Yes. Is the book just a bunch of words thrown together? Yes. Is the book intentionally hyper-deliberate? Yes.
See, that’s why I write poetry. I never have to tell someone, “No.”
Click here to read this entire lovely interview, and here to buy a copy of Principle.
