How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
I feel like I’ve been coming to poetry for the first time most of my life. Probably the earliest was with the Random House Book of Poetry for Children, selected by Jack Prelutsky, and filled with charming illustrations by Arnold Lobel (of Frog and Toad fame). No single poem from the anthology really stuck with me, but it was hefty, and felt like a treasure chest. I came to poetry for again at 10 years old, walking on a beach in New England, when inspiration came to me, and I imagined a single line, and new it was part of a poem. The next first time was just before starting college, bushy eyed and bright tailed, when my Dad suggested I fill out my schedule with ‘Technique and Form in Poetry’ taught by Martha Collins. I first came to it again, stumbling on an anthology of Russel Edson poems, The Tunnel, published by Field Press. I still feel this whenever I read a new issue of a literary journal or open a collection of poetry I’ve just received to a random page : poetry resonates in part because of the possibility of newness captured in a single line or page.
How did publishing your first book change your writing? What have the differences been since?
For a long time, I wrote prose poetry. I really enjoyed making these poem bricks. Eventually I had a really big stack of bricks. I had bricks everywhere. Bricks in esteemed journals. Bricks online. Bricks in boxes in the basement. Periodically, I’d run into other crafters, and they’d say ‘Wow, that’s a lot of bricks : have you got a house?’—but it was just bricks, everywhere. Putting the bricks together was a whole other project that didn’t make much sense to me. Plus, I’d just realized I was very interested in making windows. But it was very hard for me to think about making anything else while I was stacking and restacking the bricks on top of each other in a particular order. Then one day, someone at Cornerstone Press said ‘Thanks for sending us all these bricks : we’d like to publish this pile!’. It was such a relief, that I packed up my hydraulic brick press, and threw it into a well (also made of bricks). Having a tidy bunch of bricks available to people is such a relief and has given me the energy to focus on windows. Now I have wall-to-wall windows, and they’re only slightly easier to imagine as a house than the bricks. And also, sometimes I still use the hydraulic brick press, even though I packed it up and threw it in a well. Poetry is like that.
How does a poem begin?
I sometimes feel as though I’m still working on my first poem : The Sea of Confidence. I’m still mapping its tributaries and cataloging its ecosystem, and probably will for the rest of my life. Better to ask how a poem ends : it does not : or, I have no idea.
Do you see your writing as a single, extended project, or a series of threads that occasionally weave together to form something else?
Periodically I have a beer with another poet and they ask if I have any ‘projects’ I’m working on : I do not. The project is managing to live each day and make as many interesting windows as possible. It’s the hardest project I’ve ever worked on, and at the moment, it’s going pretty well.
How do you see your poetry and prose works in conversation, if at all?
Maybe it’s because I made bricks for so long, but I don’t see a significant difference between poetry and prose : each is a way of making an argument on the page. Generally, a poem can play more games on the page, but sometimes prose can be ‘lyric’ and then all bets are on/off. As soon as you try to define poetry or prose as explicitly separate they wriggle away and/or merge with each other.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
I’m thinking about this during the Days of Awe, the ten days between Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and so I’d say that first, you have to write while the doors of poetry are open, and second, you must always assume that the doors of poetry are open, and that what you’re writing in these introspective moments has the power to enter those doors and alter something. This means embracing inspiration, but also not waiting or assuming inspiration will always come to you, and setting some time aside regularly to write, to create the opportunity for inspiration and awe. I’d like to start a tradition where, on the morning before Yom Kippur, I print all the poems I wrote in the past year, and wave the sheaf over my head, and resolve to be a better poet.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
I’d like to take a moment to pour one, or more out for favorite print and online literary journals that are no more : Artifice Magazine, Boaat, Carousel, Ditch, Kill Author, and Paper Darts. Between Poets Respond, Rattlecast, Critique of the Week, and more, Rattle continues doing the most. I always like to drop in on the new issue of the Diagram. Sixth Finch is consistently good, and you can submit to their chapbook contest with a donation to another non-profit, which is an amazing model. Inevitably, my favorite journal is always whoever has been gracious enough to publish my work most recently. To wit, check out Berg x Berg x Berg, written with Zach Goldberg and Dan Rosenberg (also great poets!), published by the Ghost City Press 2025 Summer Series.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
Cat Ingrid Leeches never fails to freak me out (in a good
way): check out an excerpt from their latest joint, I wander the earth,
hungry for semen. I also just finished Jon Wiswell’s Someone
You Can Build a Nest In: it’s gross and lovely: everyone should read it.
It’s dream like and kind, and about making oneself: in some ways it feels like
a continuous prose poem and reflection on prose poetry (the brick maker sees
bricks wherever he goes).
Ori Fienberg’s is the author of Where Babies Come From (Cornerstone Press, 2024), as well as the chapbooks Berg x Berg x Berg and Interim Assistant Dean of Having a Rich Inner Life (Ghost City Press, 2025 and 2023) and Old Habits, New Markets (elsewhere, 2021). Ori’s recent writing can be found in the Electric Lit, Ploughshares, and Smartish Pace. Read more at orifienberg.com.