Carla Schwartz

Oyster River Pages: Why did you choose Oyster River Pages?
Carla Schwartz: I was first drawn to ORP when you published a friend of mine whose poetry I admire, Tom Daley. I also liked that you were open to considering work that had yet to find a home. And I especially appreciate Abigail's statement of her poetic preferences, and thought ORP would be a good home for my poem.

ORP: What’s the most recent work that surprised you?
CS: Today I was reading the Poetry Foundation's Poem of the Day, "If Feeling Isn't in It" which starts off with an epigraph by Howard Moss, which makes it kind of an anti ars poetica, a complaint of what most poems lack, and then does its best to fulfill Moss's description of what would be better than most poems, in dog terms.

ORP: If you could tell your younger creative self anything, what would it be?
CS: Type up a a copy of that Rip Van Winkle song and save it. -- this was a song I co-wrote with my best friend, and we only wrote it down on one piece of paper, which she kept and since has lost track of.

ORP: When did you first learn that language had power? What was that experience like for you?
CS: When I began to speak and read. My first word was apparently, "No." I had long discussions with my older sister with that one word. Very powerful. And then at 3 I taught myself to read by memorizing Dr. Seuss books. The sounds of the words had power as well. That was very empowering to be able to read at a young age.

ORP: What’s the most unexpected place you have seen great art?
CS: This is not unexpected, but these damp and humid days of summer, I am seeing a lot of unusual mushrooms popping up, and find these to be extremely colorful and sculpturally beautiful -- yes works of art!

Carla Schwartz is a poet, filmmaker, photographer, and blogger. Her poems have appeared in Aurorean, ArLiJo, Eyedrum Periodically, Fourth River, Fulcrum, Bluefifth, Common Ground, Cactus Heart, Leveler, Long Island Review, Mom Egg, Submittable, Switched-on Gutenberg, Gyroscope, Mojave River, Naugatuck River, Paddock, Solstice, SHARKPACK, Triggerfish, Sweet Tree, Varnish, Weatherbeaten, and Ibbetson Street, among others. Her poem Gum Surgery was anthologized in City of Notions, A Boston Poetry Anthology. Her second collection of poetry, Intimacy with the Wind, is available from Finishing Line Press or Amazon.com. Find her debut collection, Mother, One More Thing (Turning Point, 2014) on Amazon.com. Her CB99videos youtube channel has 1,700,000+ views. Learn more at carlapoet.com, or wakewiththesun.blogspot.com or find her @cb99videos. Read her poetry here.