“The Book Burners” and “The Dream of Odysseus” by Eric Machan Howd appeared in Issue 42 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more this pair of poems.
My villanelle, “The Dream of Odysseus,” is in form and I love writing in form. I attended a series of lectures by poet David Wojhan on poetic forms and when the villanelle was covered David posited that it is nearly impossible to write a very good villanelle, especially in comparison to Elizabeth Bishop and Dylan Thomas’ powerful, well-known, villanelles.
“The Book Burners” was inspired by Ray Bradbury and his novel “Fahrenheit 451.” My poem was triggered by news about book bans and I immediately thought of Bradbury and decided to write my own poem about a future where books are burned.
What was the most difficult part in finishing this set?
For my villanelle “The Dream of Odysseus,” the hardest part of the composition process was the form itself. I love writing in form and the challenge that goes with it. For “The Book Burners” the composition process was simple; the poem was one of those poems that just came out and required little tweaking.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
Red by Chase Berggrun. The book is a fantastic erasure of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. I recently finished a book-length erasure project myself and am looking for interested publishers, which is why I thought of it now.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
Either Stephen King or Neil Gaiman. I love speculative fiction and horror and both of these authors mean a great deal to me. I’d also love to spend some time with speculative poet Bruce Boston. Can we all sit at the bar together?
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I just finished a book-length erasure project entitled Dreamquest. The book uses a novella by author H.P. Lovecraft as the foundation of its erasure and the theme of the erasure is gender expectations and self-identity.
Our thanks to Eric for taking the time to answer a few questions and share these poems. Read “The Book Burners” and “The Dream of Odysseus” here.
___________________________________
Eric Machan Howd is a poet, musician, and educator. His work has been published in such journals as River City, Nimrod, Stone Canoe, Caesura, and Slab. He earned his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts as well as degrees from Binghamton University and Ithaca College. In 2023, his sixth collection of poetry, “The Last Cardinal,” was published by sometimes y publications. He is currently finishing up work on a book-length erasure project using a work by author H.P. Lovecraft.