Anna Lowe Weber, originally from Louisiana, currently lives, writes, and teaches in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Iowa Review, Colorado Review, and Cimarron Review, among others.
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Anna Lowe Weber Interview, with Nicelle Davis
In the poem “Old Hurts” you have the lines “But we all own some version / of this story.” Some say that poetry only tells two stories (love and death). Why is it important for an individual to tell their version of a similar story?
Well, if we were all determined to say something that had never been said before when we sit down to write...we wouldn't get much writing done, would we?! I think that when I write, for the most part, I'm writing with the understanding that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of other writers have said what I'm about to say before—and probably have done a better job saying it. That's not to say that I sit down to write with the attitude of a defeatist—but I do think that if you want to tell a "new" story with your poems-- you're probably setting yourself up for a fair amount of disappointment. We do all share different versions of similar stories—that's life. And I think one of the great things that a poem can do is to connect people through telling those stories—even though they've been told for years, decades, centuries already.
You use cuss words very effectively. What advice would you give a young poet about word choice?
I would tell them to stop asking me so many damn questions.
Kidding. I remember in one of my first poetry workshops, we were reading James Wright's poem "Lying in a Hammock..." There's that line in the poem, "In a field of sunlight between two pines, / The droppings of last year's hoses / Blaze up into golden stones." We got into a lively class discussion about how different the poem would have been if instead of writing "the droppings of last year's horses," Wright would have just written "horse shit." Obviously it would have been a terrible choice—the poem is full of lovely imagery, and the words horse shit would have pulled the reader right out of the reverie of the poem. I guess my point is that curse words don't work in every poem. I think you have to choose your moments with curse words—just like you have to choose your moments with a precious image, or a crude image, or really heightened language.
That being said, I curse a lot in real life. And so, if I'm writing a particularly "voicey" poem, curse words do tend to fall into the poem, because they tend to fall into my natural speech patterns. In revision, I do try to really decide if the curse words are necessary—are they gratuitous, or do they feel necessary and natural in the poem? I guess I would advise a young poet to take word choice on a poem-by-poem basis. Words that work in one poem won't work in the next.
What new poetic projects are you currently working on?
Right now, I'm just plugging away at my manuscript—sending poems out to journals and submitting the manuscript to as many contests as my bank account can afford.
What is something (if anything) that you would like a reader to take with them after reading your poetry?
To circle back to my first answer, I guess for me it's all about connection. The poems that I enjoy the most are the ones that might tell a familiar "story," or idea, but present it in a way that feels fresh or exciting. I like poems that open doors and give the reader a new way of seeing something. So, ideally, my hope would be that a reader might take that from my poetry as well.
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Old Hurts
He tells me he cried often as a child.
Often and at silly things—
a low bowling score. Some asshole
coach calling him out at a t-ball game.
Move it in. The kid can’t hit.
But we all own some version
of this story, keep harvesting
the same bright indignities,
plucking those strings over and
over until we can’t tell the strum
from the release. We worry
the worry stone until it’s almost gone,
rubbed to nothing but the smallest bit
of lapis, a blue sliver of universe
that you swore as a child you’d guard,
you’d keep in your hot palm forever.
Red Bird Poetics
Small red bird I’d like
to hold you in my hand. Small
red bird your wings are brown
but your breast so red.
So crimson scarlet ruby
cherry vermillion carmine brick.
So blush cardinal claret
copper rosy roseate rust.
So much depends
on the light, the time of day
that you light down,
call this ledge your own.
Small red bird I write down,
but that isn’t right. Not
at this hour. Not
when the sun is still
an afterthought. Or
a thought before,
I should say.
Thought before rising. Thought
before flight. Prelude to me
and to you. But the sun
has wings too. Soon
it ascends, pulled up
by some invisible twine.
Bird, your breast—
in this early morning light,
it changes faces like a moon.