Poet all about the 'Big Two'

Sarah Manguso didn't think she had a career in poetry until her last semester in college.

Now she is a published poet and helps college students fine-tune their craft in New York.

"I actually didn't decide to be a poet until I was 25," she said. "Before that I wanted to be a doctor. I took a poetry class and applied to poetry school. That was pretty much it."

Manguso published one book of poetry, The Captain Lands in Paradise, and another book will come out soon. She also co-edited a book of poetry with Jordan Davis called Free Radicals.

She said she still remembers her first poem. She woke up around the age of eight or nine and remembered a seven-stanza poem she had written in her dreams.

"I remember thinking, 'Wow, that's magic,'" she said.

She said her topics of choice are love and death, or the "Big Two," as she calls them.

"My subjects are pretty concrete for the most part," she said.

Many of her influences are not female poets, but she said she doesn't think this matters.

"I don't think pretty genitals really have much to do with the quality or character of their work at all," she said.

She said she's hard-pressed to name some of her favorite female artists because of the lack of them throughout history.

"There aren't a lot to choose from," she said.

She went to the same high school as writer Sylvia Plath.

Manguso, who used to proofread encyclopedias, said teaching is an artist-friendly job.

"It doesn't take away as much from the fire that makes one's own art," she said.

Although she respects all genres of poetry and enjoys some spoken word, she said some spoken-word artists are imposters.

"For the most part, it seems people who jump on that bandwagon are doing it as an excuse to call yourself a poet without having to do the work required to become a literate," she said. "That is, of course, shameful and embarrassing for everyone."

Coming attraction

Sarah Manguso

Acoma SUB A&B

Fridat at 7pm