Neil Shepard - Interview #397 (4/25/16)

Vermont Author Neil Shepard, whose new poetry collection is Vermont Exit Ramps II, with photographs by Anthony Reczek (Green Writers Press / Sundog).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider whether your own work feels at all strong armed or overly intentional. Can you maybe bring in some element that will lessen that or make it more subtle? In his poems, Neil brought in anagrams, fortunes from fortune cookies, signage that he saw on his travels. What can you introduce to take out the overly contrived or explained elements of your work? Neil suggested you could write a counter statement to every statement. Play around with this idea and see if you end up wanting to keep some of the counter statements that balance out what might otherwise feel overly preconceived. 

Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).