Lindy’s Hough’s latest poetry collection, Wild Horses, Wild Dreams follows a trajectory from the early seventies to the present, giving a generous overview of Lindy Hough’s intellectual world and emotionally evocative language. The cofounder of the seminal literary magazine Io which began in 1964, Hough is also the cofounder and publisher of North Atlantic Books. She has published four books of poetry and her fiction and poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines.
When did you think about becoming a writer?
Probably in college. I, like most people, kind of fell into becoming a writer. My parents had an artistic bunch of friends who spent time at our houses in Denver and Central City, and the idea of “making work” was something they held.
Was there someone who got you interested in writing?
My father was Poetry Editor of the Denver Post, a reader and appreciator, not so much a poet himself. He was a working journalist constantly batting out stories on a loud typewriter at home. My mother created an artistically rich environment in other ways, and became a painter when I was in high school. During college (but not at) I met poets and fiction writers I admired the work of, and became aware that it could be a life and identity.
Who or what has been the greatest influence on your writing?
Robert Kelly, poet and professor at Bard College whom I got to know junior year at Smith, was an early influence who valued young writers. He showed that writing was a way to live, a journey of knowledge and expression which would repay effort if you kept developing and challenging yourself.
What does “New and Selected Poems” mean?
It’s a type of book that poets publish in mid-life which features the “best of” of earlier books, and also showcases new poems. It’s like a retrospective for a painter or a film-maker where you get to focus on the kind of work he or she have done over their lifetime.
What’s significant or noteworthy about this genre of book, rather than simply a new collection?
The New and Selected allows an entry way for new readers unfamiliar with an author’s work to see what was written in earlier years. It’s kind of a “reader’s guide” to a writer. The reader can compare the different books in terms of the eras they were published in, the type of technical devices and form the poet used in different eras and at different stages of life.
What’s special to you about Wild Horses, Wild Dreams?
It draws from three lyrical collections and the long narrative poem Psyche. Only three books from Psyche out of six, but enough to give a sense of what this particular long poem is about.
Prose poems are included from the last book, Outlands and Inlands (p. 181-232) which foreshadow the movement into fiction I made in later years. Psyche is like a play, one character, recurrent dilemmas, moving around geographically. The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson was an influence on me as a young poet in terms of creating a character who demanded of a place (Gloucester, MA) that it prize its early history and understand it. (Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27: This Greeks, is the stopping/ of the battle”) I think Olson’s strong voice echoed the force of western voices I had grown up with in Colorado. It made me early on take voice in poetry seriously, and realize that personas and narrators could be taken on.
Is there any particular story to tell concerning the writing of this book?
I began to watch what any reader will experience reading Wild Horses, Wild Dreams— the evolution of the thought and art of a writer. You can follow five themes through the work as the narrator bounces off walls and takes the bit in her mouth time and again:
- Taking seriously psychic investigations and the occult
- Cues to the inner life from dreams
- The life of the mind and the senses
- Love and identity
- People, cats, children, friends, family.
What is the one thing that you want readers to take away from your book?
A narrative voice that hopefully speaks richly to you about life in the world.
What are you working on next?
Wondrous Child: The Joys and Challenges of Grandparenting, to be published March 27, 2012. After it’s delivered in July I’ll work on finding an agent and publisher for Loving Cinnamon Blue, a novel about Colorado and New Mexico in the early ‘50s.
Read more about Lindy Hough in her special featured interview with Litseen.com’s Evan Karp, “LINDY HOUGH: Not At All Confessional.” Wild Horses, Wild Dreams is available in bookstores and online wherever books are sold.
