Four poems from Travels of the Angel of Sorrow by George Franklin appeared in Issue 27 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about this set of poems.
These four poems are part of a larger sequence, Travels of the Angel of Sorrow (forthcoming as a chapbook by Blue Cedar Press). This is the first sequence of poems that I’ve written, and I find it hard to talk or write about them as poems or from the perspective of craft because they are very much “received poems.” I was writing the first poem in the sequence, a description of plague, when a character just appeared in it, the angel. I didn’t plan for him or expect him in any way, but once he was there, I had to write his story. Most days, I would find myself writing a poem about his interactions with the people in this unnamed village during an epidemic. My job was mostly to stay out of the way as a “writer” and allow the poems to happen. Each one I wrote I thought was the last one.
What was the most difficult part in writing this set?
The most difficult part for me was learning to accept the poems. I’m very much a poet who cares about craft. Many of my poems are formal, either syllabic, blank verse, or sometimes a more elaborate form such as a villanelle, a pantoum, or a sestina. Here, it was important not to impose a form on the Angel poems. They were autonomous, and I had to accept that.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
The book that has made the greatest impression on me in recent years is Isaí Moreno’s There Are Not So Many Stars, translated from the Spanish by Arthur M. Dixon. This remarkable novel is about a mathematical prodigy in 18th century plague-ridden Mexico who believes he can comprehend all reality by counting. I was totally caught up in it as a reading experience, the way I read a good mystery or sci-fi novel, but at the same time I was fascinated by its ideas and the colonial world where it takes place. I think it’s one of those books that people will still be reading a hundred years from now.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
The desire to sit down over drinks with an author means that there is something in the work (or the life) that you want help to understand. Often, it’s a “Tell me how you did that!” There are lots of wonderful writers I admire and correspond with all the time, but as much fun as it would be to socialize in person, none would be the writer I would pick for this occasion. Instead, I would like to meet the wonderful Argentinean poet Luis Benítez. Here in the US, we’re very good at writing about sensations, about experiences and emotions, but it’s hard for us to get thinking into our poetry. Benítez does that. His poems are ideas as well as emotions. I would love to sit over drinks with him and ask him how makes those poems happen.
Our thanks to George for taking the time to answer a few questions and share his work. Read Franklin’s four Travels of the Angel of Sorrow poems here: https://www.sequestrum.org/four-poems-from-travels-of-the-angel-of-sorrow.
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George Franklin is the author of Traveling for No Good Reason (winner of the Sheila-Na-Gig Editions competition in 2018), a bilingual collection, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores), and a broadside, “Shreveport” (Broadsided Press). He is also the winner of the 2020 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize. His individual publications include: Into the Void, The Threepenny Review, Salamander, Pedestal Magazine, Cagibi, and The American Journal of Poetry, and poems are forthcoming in The Woven Tale Press Magazine and Cider Press Review. He practices law in Miami, teaches poetry workshops in Florida state prisons and is the co-translator, along with the author, of Ximena Gómez’s Último día/Last Day (Katakana Editores). His chapbook, Travels of the Angel of Sorrow, is forthcoming from Blue Cedar Press, and a new full-length collection, Noise of the World, is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. Find more at https://gsfranklin.com.