An Interview with Jorie Graham Issue 2 (August 2012)

Earthlines Magazine

 

http://www.earthlines.org.uk/

 

 

 

“People were clearly not meant to live as they

wished to live on the planet, as I could see it. The mismatch

between this species – with its needs and desires – and this

place was evident everywhere … Native Americans, in their

early history, knew how to live on land. But we took care

of that. Oh it made me and makes me half-crazed at times

with grief, then with rage, then with just total bafflement.

Most of my poetry has spent its time trying to figure out what

‘being’ is – human ‘being’ and non-human ‘being’. How do

they go together. Can they. What on earth is human desire. I

knew even then desire was our illness, as well as our stunning

spark. It has turned out to be more our illness. Our terminal

illness. What can I say. That is what I write from and about.”