Page and Stage and the Spaces Between by Harry Josephine Giles

Degna Stone Craft, Library

A microphone on a stand waiting for someone to speak into it

A poem doesn’t exist, for me, until I’ve felt it in my mouth. They often begin with a catch of sound, an earworm that bothers me until I give it space to wriggle about on the page. Sometimes I’ll find myself trying out lines as I cycle along, the polyrhythmic framework of pedals and breath giving shape to the poem. …