Interviews
Accents – A Radio Show for Literature, Art and Culture
Katerina Stoykova Klemer hosts Accents – A Radio Show for Literature, Art and Culture on WRFL, 88.1 FM, Lexington, Kentucky every Friday from 2-3 PM. Listen live on your radio or stream from http://wrfl.fm. To hear Marilyn Kallet speak about her poetry, click here. Aired May 25, 2012.
Poet/teacher/translator Marilyn Kallet gives advice on how poets can use their dreams to improve their writing. Clip from an Accents radio show episode on 3/20/2009. http://katerina-accents.tumblr.com/post/46787814272/poet-teacher-translator-marilyn-kallet-gives
The Word Whisperer (Higher Ground: An Online Magazine of the College of Arts and Sciences, March 27, 2012, by Lynn J. Champion)
Where does Kallet get inspiration for her poetry? “Sometimes it falls on my head like pollen,” she says.
But she also has a keen eye for observation of people and her environment and has the ability to connect and identify with people and their emotions. She connects also with her imaginary muses, whom she has playfully named Dante and Beatrice, who commune with her on occasion and offer a rich vein of ideas and inspiration. Read more….
Connotation Press: an Online Artifact (Issue VII, Volume III : March 2012). Interview by J.P. Reese
What six people would you invite to your fantasy dinner party and why? What food and wine would you serve, and in what country would it take place?
I teach poetry in Southwest France, in Auvillar, each May—you can’t get a bad meal or a bad bottle of wine. So I would host my dinner party at tables set out on the lawn in back of Maison Vieilhescazes, in the gilded sunlight of that enchanted place. I would serve champagne as an aperitif, and then local red and white wines—the Tariquet white being one of my favorites. Continue reading….
Putting a Mustache on the Mona Lisa by Tristan Hickey
Marilyn Kallet discusses the art of translating Benjamin Péret’s great work of Surrealist poetry, The Big Game
Kallet recently answered questions from Chapter 16 via e-mail about Surrealism, Péret, and the art of translation:
Chapter16: What first interested you about Péret?
Kallet: I had previously translated the Last Love Poems (Dernier poemes d’amour) of Paul Eluard, a major Surrealist poet, and that translating was such a meaningful experience for me that I was on the hunt for another French poet to delve into. Four years ago I was rummaging through a Parisian bookstore, and I picked up Le grand jeu. Immediately I liked the unaffected quality of the work, the relatively plain diction, the speed of thought and imagery. I thought I’d try a few of the poems, then I got hooked. Some of the attraction was the quirkiness and humor, the unpredictability of the lines—a challenge for a translator. Continue reading….
Interview with Kim Baise of Bees Knees Books:
My new favorite author, Marilyn Kallet has a wonderful children’s book out called Jack the Healing Cat , illustrated by Sandra Van Winkle. My four year old son loves this book and there could be no better choice reading for fighting off our winter colds during the holiday break! Marilyn is the author of 14 books, including her latest, The Movable Nest: A Mother/Daughter Companion. I am a huge fan and decided to ask her a few questions for inspiration…and what a Great Inspiration she is! Continue reading…
Poems are Always Moving Through More than One Dimension of Consciousness (Interview with Matt Urmy, December 19, 2008) on Public Republic
In your years of experience writing and teaching poetry, how has the consciousness of American poetry shifted around the dream/spirit world? In other words, how have you seen our culture deal (or not deal), with that kind of content?
When I started teaching, in the late Sixties, ethno-poetics was beginning to have a huge impact on American letters, thanks in part to Jerome Rothenberg’s TECHNICIANS OF THE SACRED, and a few years later to SHAKING THE PUMPKIN, Margot Astrov’s THE WINGED SERPENT added to our appreciation of vision quests in Native literature, as did William Brandon’s THE MAGIC WORLD, Theodora Kroeber’s THE INLAND WHALE, and John Bierhorst’s, IN THE TRAIL OF THE WIND: AMERICAN INDIAN POEMS AND RITUAL ORATIONS. American poetry was immeasurably enriched by this…. Continue reading….
Blue Fifth Review
Volume X. Issue 3
April 2010
Comment by Marilyn Kallet
Baudelaire is my boyfriend. He opened poetry for me, gave me my first taste. Madame Pradal read aloud “Correspondences,” in her deep, theatrical voice (she had played the role of Phèdre), and I swooned. I was 18, a poetry virgin for all intents and purposes (Yeats and I had petted a little in high school), but Baudelaire in Georgette Pradal’s mouth made me dizzy. I stared at the words on the page… Continue reading….