The Chapter One Project from Marsh Hawk Press features the memoirs of outstanding poets from diverse backgrounds, recalling the ways by which they found their start as writers. While creative writing programs seek to develop the talents of maturing writers, essential information about the development of the writing craft will be discovered in the early memoirs—the Chapter One’s—of established poets published in this series. Each month we’ll post a new Chapter.
For more on the Chapter One Series read our Original Project Proposal
Series 2023
February: Denise Duhamel: “In Praise of Colette Inez’s ‘Pay Yourself First'”
January: Sandy McIntosh: “Coaxing the Hangman”
Series 2022
December: Patricia Carlin: “At Home”
November: David Lehman: “The Birth of The Best”
October: Tony Trigilio: “The Importance of Being Obstinate”
September: Mary Mackey: “The World Before Words”
August: Steve Fellner: “On Murderers, Anorexia, and the Concept of the Soul”
July: Sandy McIntosh: “A Poet Learns to Drive the Author-Driven Book”
June: Denise Low: “The Fourth Dimension of Writing”
May: Basil King: “My Aunt Ethel’s husband Dicky Graveny was a sculptor”
April: Stephanie Strickland: “Do I contradict myself?”
March: Rafael Jesús González: “The Gasp”
February: Arthur Sze: (Interview) Revealing and Reveling in Complexity
January: Barbara Novack: “Thanking Mr. Cohn”
25 Essays and Interviews from previous years are available in On Becoming a Poet, an anthology