Category Archives: Interview

Interview with an Accents-published author, or someone else we want you to hear from.

“a miraculous process… fraught with the potential for hazard”:
Lynnell Edwards on Poetry, Glass Blowing, and Production

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Lynnell EdwardsLynnell Edwards recently talked with Accents intern James Pfeiffer about her new book, Kings of the Rock and Roll Hot Shop (or, What Breaks?), as well as the relationship between "production arts" (like glass blowing) and writing.

How did you first become interested in glassblowing?

I was first exposed to glass blowing when Steve Powell started the program there at Centre in the mid-80s, but I didn't study it at the time. Many years later, I met Brook White, the founder of Flame Run when I did a series of creative writing workshops at galleries in Louisville. We did a session at Flame Run and Brook talked to us a little about the process. Brook is an incredibly informed and passionate guy when it comes to glass blowing and his energy and his vision for glass blowing as a way of thinking about life totally inspired me as to the potential for exploring glass blowing and life in the hot shop as a subject for poems. During that workshop I wrote a couple of very short poems that unlocked, for me, what I thought might be some of the potential for the subject. Shortly after that workshop I approached Brook about whether he'd be open to my sitting in, observing, and writing some poems; I shared the short work I had done at that point and he trusted me enough to invite me into his world.

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“And the Pendulum Swings”: An Interview with Eric Scott Sutherland

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Eric SutherlandTell us about yourself and your full-length book Pendulum (Accents Publishing 2014).

My name is Eric Scott Sutherland. I am a lifelong Kentuckian and advocate for its beauty.  My fourth collection of poems, pendulum, is a tale of light and dark set in Lexington’s Central Library where I spent eight years managing a small cafe. The scene is overlooked by the Gatekeeper, yours truly, who watches the daily carousel of humanity coalesce and collide before his eyes. There is despair everywhere but the light of hope remains lit amid the struggle.

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“Manage to Meet”: Olya Stoyanova on the Importance of Poetical Discourse

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Olya StoyanovaAs part of our “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet, journalist, and playwright Olya Stoyanova, one of the brilliant voices featured in The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that interview.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

Of course, Bulgarian poetry has many voices which often sound nothing alike. Actually Bulgarian poetry is connected only by the language in which it’s written, while the people behind the poems often gaze in completely different directions. With some of these poems you’ll find a common language, with others—not. Some of them you’ll like more, others less. And there is nothing more normal than this. Poetry is always an invitation for a personal conversation.

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“A Wonderful Meeting” with Ivanka Mogilska

mogilska2As part of our “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet, copywriter, and translator Ivanka Mogilska, one of the brilliant voices featured in The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that interview.


What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

Both Bulgarian and American poetry focus on identical themes. Only the approach, the images, the perceptions are different, and indeed, that is what’s valuable. The more points of view we have, the closer we are to the truths that stir us.

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“Next Time You Order a Beer… Think of Me”: Petar Tchouhov on Poetry, Music, and the Love of Haiku

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Petar TchouhovAs part of our “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet, musician, and songwriter Petar Tchouhov, one of the brilliant voices featured in The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that interview.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

First, to start remembering from time to time that such poetry exists. Above all, I hope that The Season of Delicate Hunger will move the concept of “Bulgarian poetry” out of the abstract and into the concrete for the American readers. Second, that they’d understand that this poetry is capable of surprising them, of sharing something new and interesting. And third, that among the Bulgarian authors, they may discover a few who will become their favorites.

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Bulgaria Writes Quality Poetry: An Interview with Vanya Angelova

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Vanya AngelovaAs part of our “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet, theatre dramaturg, and journalist Vanya Angelova, one of the brilliant voices featured in The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that interview.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

I’d be pleased if they looked up Bulgaria, my home country, on the map. Which would mean that they were impressed by what they’d read in the anthology. Continue reading →

“…Even in Complete Darkness”: Rossen Karamfilov on American and Bulgarian Poetry

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Rossen KaramfilovAs part of our “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet and linguist Rossen Karamfilov, one of the brilliant voices featured in The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that interview.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry? 

Bulgarian poetry has been developing in a different way throughout the years. In my opinion, we have very good authors who possess poetic voices powerful enough to be heard and understood correctly by the audience. Continue reading →

“The Sky Above Us All is Equally Endless”: Kerana Angelova on the Beauty of Poetry, Religion, and Humanity

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Kerana AngelovaAs part of our “Meet a Bulgarian Poet” series, Katerina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet, teacher, and journalist Kerana Angelova, one of the brilliant voices featured in The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that interview.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

For sure they will receive confirmation that Bulgarian and American poets—poets in general speak the same language. When people became too proud, believing that they were easily capable of raising the Tower of Babel in order to make their Etemenanki (home between heaven and earth) closer to the Father, He became angry. He jumbled up their language and scattered them around the earth, and the nations became alienated from one another. It is possible, however, that God’s providence was present in the subsequent division of languages—that the Father was overjoyed by his creation’s striving to rise up and gifted them with greater individuality—with more curiosity towards one another. I daresay that, after all, the Creator left humanity with one common superlanguage in reserve. Poetry. In-spiration. It’s true that in order to communicate in this language, the nations divided by the Tower of Babel need the intervention of translators, but when translators are inspired as well, the language of poetry becomes active and effective and is the best way to help people around the world understand each other.

In that sense Bulgarian poetry with inspiration articulates the eternal themes of love, loneliness, life, happiness, pain, suffering … in the same tongue with which the poets in America tell about the same things. And this is, above all, the language of the heart. Continue reading →

A “Personal Encounter” with Yasen Vasilev
(Meet a Bulgarian Poet Series)

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Yasen VasilevKaterina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet and dramaturgist Yasen Vasilev for The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that conversation.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

That it’s world-class poetry :)

What would you like for the American readers to know about you personally?

That I’m more excited about bringing texts to life than publishing them. I write texts to be acted out—for theater or performance, for actors or solely for the author, but in any case, the performers must live inside the words and not merely act them. Then the utterance has the power of a spell, and the gestures and the movements of bodies—of a ritual where time slows down and another world is built inside this world. Continue reading →

“Curiosity Protects from Stupidity”:
An Interview with Ivo Rafailov
(Meet a Bulgarian Poet Series)

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Ivo RafailovKaterina Stoykova-Klemer interviewed poet and graphic designer Ivo Rafailov for The Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry. Here is a translation of that conversation.

What would you like for the American readers to know about Bulgarian poetry?

That it’s tenaciously working on its semantic threads.

What would you like for the American readers to know about you personally?

That I’m working on mine, as well. :) Continue reading →