Karin Chandler/Winonan
Kim Roberts, author of the award-winning poetry book “Animal Magnetism,” visited Winona State University and gave students an idea of the creation of her “weird medical” poems.
Roberts’ book features a collection of poems about the anatomy of the human body, specifically its frailties and failings. The book won the 2009 Pearl Poetry Prize.
Since her poems focus on some of the medical museums around the United States, she visited a number of them before and during the creation of her collection. Roberts wanted to find some way to write about her own experience with cancer, and she did so through this collection.
Samantha Schwanke, a junior, said she liked the wacky nature of Roberts’s subject matter. “I liked it because how very normal she is for having written on an interesting subject. It also creates interesting prompts.”
Roberts included a series of poems about husbands in her book. They all began with “my husband” and ended with the name. Quite a few are entitled “My Imaginary Husband.”
“I wanted to have some formal device,” Roberts said. “He remained a pretty stable character. The more I wrote, the more he felt real to me. I wrote about different men. They all meld together to form one.”
Roberts said that she appreciates formal poetry, even though “Animal Magnetism” is entirely free verse. “I returned a lot to traditional verse forms,” she said. “I like form; it’s paradoxically freeing. There’s something about constraints and rules that I really enjoy.”
“Extreme Makeover Home Edition,” one of her newer poems, was about the television show. She talked about how even though it was the same show every week, she still loved it.
Roberts said, “I don’t know why, but I was sad to see it go.”
Roberts said she writes about her present more than her childhood. “I don’t write a lot about my parents or my background. I know one story from my father’s childhood, and I am determined to use it.” She read a new poem based on that story, entitled “A boy named Smutz.” She also based her poem, “Hearing Loss,” on her mother.
The final poem Roberts read was entitled “The International Fruit of Welcome,” all about pineapples. She said, “Pineapples are a symbol of hospitality. They never go out of style.”
When writing poems, Roberts said she doesn’t think about creating a collection. However, at some point, she organizes the poems into something cohesive.
“After a while, I’ve hopefully amassed enough poems to pick and choose,” she said.
A student asked Roberts about her editing process. “I tend to tinker, so poems go through many, many revisions,” Roberts said. “Sometimes I don’t know when to stop.”
She also mentioned a quote from British poet T.S. Eliot: “A poem is never finished, it’s abandoned.”
Compared to previous poet readings, this particular reading had a lot of requests for Roberts to read certain poems.
Mari Schlitter, a senior majoring in English, said, “It was good to hear a poet read something, especially when the topic is not often heard. It’s nice to hear so many requests to hear more poetry.”
Roberts’s enthusiasm for her poetry held the audience’s attention.
Becky Loftfield, a senior, said, “I thought it was a great opportunity to hear a poet read her work, and I liked her enthusiasm and willingness to take requests.”
Roberts’s reading was the last event of the Great River Reading Series for fall 2012.
Contact Karin at [email protected]
