Who are you hoping to reach with your work? Do you have a target audience? Who would you like to inspire?
I like to imagine that I am reaching “ordinary” readers. In other words, people who are not that immersed in poetry, but who are receptive to just reading and feeling something new. If someone — anyone, actually—laughs or cries, that’s all I want from the work. I think the best compliment is when someone says, I’ve never read poetry, but I really like this.
Are any movies, music, books, or poetry collections (or any media at all, really) particularly inspiring to you?
In this poem, I’ve referenced a John Ford Western— and it is not the first time. I’ve written poems about The Searchers, My Darling Clementine, The Many Who Shot Liberty Valence and here, Rio Grande. That particular vision of The West (and its conflicts) always inspires me. In other poems (in my chapbook, Woman on the Run), I’ve also used the imagery of film noir to fuel the poems. So old movies are a big big influence, both content-wise and, I think, formally— I like writing that is “cinematic.”
Give us some background on the piece you contributed to this issue.
This one, oddly enough, came from an online “twitter/x” prompt from Diane Seuss, who presented a gorgeous Gwendolyn Brooks poem, “the sonnet ballad,” that intermingled two narratives in 14 lines and asked the poet to construct a similar “intertwined” sonnet. I had become fascinated with the sea lions who were sleeping on the San Francisco Bay, and the poem flowed from there. I rarely write from prompts, so this was a happy exception.
Carla Sarett writes fiction, poetry and, occasionally, essays; her work has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of Net, Best Microfictions and Best American Essays. She is the author of one full-length collection, She Has Visions (Main Street Rag) and two chapbooks. New work appears in Potomac Review, Stonecoast Review, Harpy Hybrid and tiny wren. Carla has a PhD from University of Pennsylvania and is based in San Francisco.