Monday Muse: Worthy Reads Roundup

This is another in an occasional series in which Monday Muse rounds up a half-dozen recent interviews with poets and writers.

✭ "Poetry treasures individual lives and perceptions. It's the exact opposite of going to war." ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Marissa Kessenich, "Politics, Perception, and Precious Details: Q&A with Poet Naomi Shihab Nye", Cultural Compass Blog, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, September 2, 2016

✭ "Poetry is about time, and what I would call the romance of time. The romance of time means we're running out of it, right? ~ Billy Collins

Barbara Chai, "Billy Collins on Being an Only Child and Why Majoring in Poetry Is Like Majoring in Death", The Wall Street Journal Blog, October 3, 2016

✭ "I could never become a Stepford poet, or the kind of poet who is invited to read her poems in suburban settings and is guaranteed to make her listeners feel safe and secure in their skins. That's not my gift." ~ Nin Andrews

"GRACE NOTES: Grace Cavalieri Interviews Nin Andrews", Poets and Artists, September 27, 2016

✭ "The next poem is presently several scraps waiting to find a shape." ~ Terrance Hayes

"Syntax, Sound, and Sensation: Terrance Hayes in Conversation with Alan Michael Parker", The Best American Poetry Blog, September 29, 2016

✭ "[M]y activism begins at the level of the word. But I am also an avowedly activist writer — although that means different things at different times. . . ." ~ Sophie Mayer

"An Interview with Sophie Mayer", The Midnight Mollusc Blog, September 29, 2016

✭ "Poetry privileges feeling. . . Poetry is the one place where your experience and your feelings are privileged and made legitimate and authentic. And all of us share that. We share the ability to feel something about what is happening around us." ~ Claudia Rankine

Jennifer Maloney, "MacArthur 'Genius' Claudia Rankine on the Power of Poetry", The Wall Street Journal Blog, September 22, 2016