Check out an interview with Michael H. Brownstein – one of the winners of our Postcard Competition!
Interview
1.What’s your name? Michael H. Brownstein
2.What’s your favourite colour? Any color that begins with M.
3.What’s your favourite animal? Cane Corso
4.What’s your favourite food? Nutritional yeast on everything.
5.What kind of hobbies do you like? Poetry, poetry and more poetry. Sometimes reading a novel. Always getting out into the great outdoors.
6.What’s your favourite time of year? September into October when everything cools off and you can go outside and not sweat.
7.Do you prefer tea, coffee or none? If I must, tea.
8.What’s your lucky number? 3
9.What would you say poetry is? An interaction between the colors in words and the images around them.
10.How long have you been writing poetry? 30 some years—maybe 50.
11.What inspired your winning poem? Waking up to a beautiful cloud storm and its intersection with dawn.
12.How do you normally find inspiration? I’m always seeking a muse somewhere—sometimes Poetry Magazine, sometimes the Wall Street Journal, sometimes an interesting smell, on and on.
13.Do you write your poems with pen and paper or on a device? Both
14.Who’s your favourite author? Mary Oliver
15.Who’s your favourite poet? Mary Oliver
16.What’s your favourite book? The Leaf and the Cloud by—you guessed it—Mary Oliver
17.What’s your favourite poem? Toom nay to name
18.How do you go about writing a poem? One thought into another, one idea into another, intersections, interruptions, interrogations.
19.Why do you like poetry? I always like a painting made up with words.
20.Do you have any advice for aspiring poets? Write, edit, write, edit, write and edit some more. Place the poem somewhere and then come back to it for more editing.