Passwords Primeval

Tony Leuzzi has written three books of poetry, including Radiant Losses, which won the 2010 New Sins Editors' Prize. In preparation for Passwords Primeval: 20 American Poets in Their Own Words, Leuzzi interviewed 25 American poets across a five-year span. Many of the interviews were initially published in such journals as Arts & Letters, Jacket, Sentence, American Literary Review, Kenyon Review (online), National Poetry Review, Left Curve, Great River Review, EOAGH, and The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review.

"Poet and professor, Leuzzi brings questing intelligence and a practitioner's empathy to this collection of interviews with 20 poets who are diverse in terms of aesthetic allegiance, generation, and practice... The range of topics proves that poetry isn't just for poets. This book will be a joy for anyone who loves the art of conversation, not just the conversation of art." -- Publishers Weekly *Starred* Review "Leuzzi, while touching on discussions of tone and image and revision (which are common enough), takes advantage of opportunities for the poets to reveal unusual elements or expand to enlightening discussions on others' works, or to speak on the influence that being married to a neuroscientist can have, or the surprising places one can go and find solace." -- David Bloomenberg, Sycamore Review

• Introduction ……………..Michael Waters: “Writing by Ear”Gary Young: “Horizontal Poetry” Dorianne Laux: “Singing from a Wound” Gary Soto: “To Write with Dark, Eternal Ink” Patricia Smith: “Speaking through a Second Throat” Scott Cairns: “A Glimpse of the Beautiful” Martín Espada: “Putting Blood Back into Words” Gerald Stern: “The Embrace of Everything”Nathalie Handal: “Poems Woven from a Sacred Thread” Stephen Dobyns: “Spontaneity and Surprise” Karen Volkman: “By Way of Play and Accident” Kevin Killian: “Poem as Gesture” Peter Davis: “Pursuing Something Recklessly"Dara Wier: “Bat Logic” Bin Ramke: “Poetry Steeped in Intellectual Matter” Mark Doty: “A Poetry of Expansiveness” Billy Collins: “Poetry in Present Tense” Carol Frost: “Balancing Images” Robert Glück: “Abandoning the Middle Distance” Arthur Sze: “Polysemous Poetry”