The Academy of American Poets invited twelve guest editors to each curate a month of poems in 2019. In this short Q&A, Paul Guest, the Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for July 2019, discusses his curating approach and his own creative work.
Poets.org: How did you approach curating Poem-a-Day for July?
Paul Guest: I approached it as a reader, first and foremost—I wanted poems that I'd enjoy reading and sharing with others. I chose poems by poets that I loved, whether or not those poets were well known.
Poets.org: If you could direct readers to one poem in our collection at Poets.org that you haven’t curated, what would it be and why?
PG: The quality of the poems you feature at Poem-a-Day is so high, so compelling, that I hesitate to single one out. What I really enjoy is letting the morning emails pile up in my inbox and catching up on the weekend. It's like I have a weekly, widely varying anthology that is always renewing. I love it.
Poets.org: What are you working on now in your writing, teaching, or publishing life?
PG: New poems for my next collection. And I've been thinking some about how to write another memoir. What that would be like. What it would be about.