Fasting from words has changed Alex Grant’s poetry. Touring and selling his craft sickened the award-winning poet, and he left the business seven years ago with no intention of returning. But, last year, Grant was drawn back after writing a poem to a dying friend.
He was reminded of poetry’s ability to condense transcendent meaning into just a few lines. This time, the Scottish-born, Chapel Hill-based poet avoids marketing his work. His current writing is intensely cathartic and personal. Two of his poems were recently published in the international multi-genre “Fish Anthology” (Fish Publishing/2019). In them, Grant conjures images that are simultaneously mundane and bizarre, juxtaposing a thick-sliced bologna sandwich with his tai chi teacher vomiting into a potted plant. Host Frank Stasio talks with Alex Grant about how to make poetry both powerful and everyday.