Peacock exposed by bookslut

Chris Murray today lets us know the latest issue of bookslut is out and in so doing tells us that it includes an interview with Molly Peacock. So I clicked right over and read one of the most unassuming and refreshing takes on the sonnet and Formalist vis-a-vis Language Poetry in the modern history of American politics (oops, I just morphed into John Kerry.) It's not a long interview and the questions concerning the sonnet form and formalism in general, though telling, are few. But here's one taste anyways:

I tend to let the rhyme shift, like I might start off abab, and then suddenly I have cddc and I know that there is some unconscious emotional pulse that’s pulling it and I let that happen. And then what if I got effg, I’ll let that happen too, and I’ll just keep picking it up. I really love the unconscious surges that control the music. Music in poetry is both the least conscious aspect and the most consciously manipulatable part of it. I love being astonished by that play, I feel the significance of something taking over and I obey it. I don’t try to wrench the poem back into some kind of stricture. I am not Jesuitical about my sonnet form.

And to think I had her Selected in my hands on Saturday and decided at the last moment not to purchase it. Well, until I do, I'll read this and this and this and this.