The Magic of Nature and Small Moments

Ira Joe Fisher has a sharp eye; he sees something special and unique in the ordinary and expresses his take on it with beautiful prose. The Birth of Snow is his latest collection of poetry and I had the wonderful opportunity to discuss writing and his life with him. Please see below!

oQ & A with Ira Joe

Jen: I am thrilled to introduce a beautiful book of poetry to Book Nation readers.  The Birth of Snow is the first in this genre to grace the pages of my blog and I am excited to learn from you.

 Hello, Jennifer.  How kind of you to ask about my latest book and me.  And I am honored to bring poetry to your blog.

Jen: Your name, Ira Joe Fisher, is familiar to me as I recall you being on tv reporting the weather when my children were little.  I love the synergy; it is perfect how this book of poems has a connection to weather!  Wikipedia says you are a broadcaster, poet and educator.  Tell me more!

How happy I am that you remember some of my work on television.  I always hoped someone was watching!  And also that you acknowledge that I was reporting the weather.  I am not a scientist or meteorologist.  Just a humble reporter.  And have engaged in other broadcast endeavors (far more interesting than weather).  

Jen: How did you become interested in writing poetry?

When I was in high school, my English class was blessed with a teacher with great taste in literature.  We read Dostoevsky, Thoreau, and Shakespeare.  And he also “assigned” poems to read.  The first was “To a Waterfowl” by William Cullen Bryant (which I understood and loved) and then we read on to Frost and other 19th and 20th century poets.  And my love deepened.  Always had a book of poems in my pocket and mind and heart.

Jen: What inspires you to write?

A look out a window, snow swirling, wind in bare, winter trees; wind in shuddering summer leaves, thinking about the sweet western New York village where I grew up (surrounded by bosky hills and meadows and creeks); love.

Jen: This is not your first book; what else have you written?

My books are a poem chapbook – Remembering Rew; full-length poetry collections – Some Holy Weight in the Village Air; Songs From an Earlier Century, The Creek at the End of the Lawns; and a book of essays, Wide and Wavy Out of Salamanca:  Sort of True Essays.

I have also written for magazines (printed and online) and newspapers.  And for radio and television (for which I have received two regional Emmys).

Jen: Growing up in school we did not study much about poetry.( I recall learning to write Limericks.) You write various types of poems and I was wondering how you decide what type of poetry you write and what the topic will be.

I usually feel that that the topic chooses me, rather than the other way around.  I see or hear something that prompts me to put pen to paper.  I write poems with pen and paper.  I type prose on the computer.

Jen: If you were to teach me how to write a poem, what would be your advice?

First I would reveal that poetry cannot be taught.  It can only be experienced, encountered.  Then, look out the window.  Go for a walk.  Notice what you see and what you hear.  Then, honor your thoughts by writing ’em down.  Then engage in the fun of shaping those thoughts into that which we call a “poem.”  Never be satisfied with your first draft.  But keep returning to what you have written and play with the words and the order in which you write them.

Jen: What should everyone know about poetry and how is it evaluated?  How does one know if it is well written and if it has accomplished its goals?

 First rule (my first rule, anyway):  never ask, “What does the poem mean?”  It means what it says.  Ask, “What effect does this poem have on me?”  And, often there will be no effect.  So turn to another poem.  And another.  But then will arrive that epiphanic moment when the poem actually …speaks to you!  There’s the joy.  And, like a good and frequent cheeseburger, you’ll want to read additional poems (and return, like a song on the radio, or to another cheeseburger, to favorite poems).  

Jen: Many of you poems evoke a clear picture in mind (ex. Low Clouds of Late Winter p15).  Do you wordsmith with descriptive words once you know the gist?

I confess I don’t understand your question — wordsmith (as a verb).  My reading gives me every word that I write.  Just as happened to Shakespeare.  I am not putting myself in his league, trust me, but the words he employed (and invented) are sitting in the air and in our hearts and memories …waiting for that exquisite moment when they will be asked to take inky shape and mellifluous sound in something I write.  

Jen: Cycling (p23) shares a day bike riding with your brother.  Can you tell me about the rhythm and how to construct this type of poem?

That is a free-verse narrative poem.  It tells a story.  Simply that.  I wanted to depict the hills and the slight summer breeze and how a younger brother thinks and reacts with his older brother.  Auden said, “A poem is a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed as a table or a motorcycle.”  I don’t consider a poem as being “constructed,” but I like Auden thinking …and saying so.  Regarding “Cycling,” I took a real memory and “shaped” it (to my satisfaction) into a narrative that allows me see the day, the adventure, my brother and how I — a young boy — felt.

Jen: Obituary (p79) is a bit of a story written in sentences with no breaks until you included dialog.  Please tell me more about this poem/style.

I am honored by your close reading of my writing.  Again, “Obituary” is another narrative.  About a real place.  But the old woman and the encounter with the poem’s speaker is pure fiction.  Fiction that — in my thinking — expresses a truth in …what could have happened.  All of literature, all of art, is imagination.  Not necessarily fact (as in reporting), but …it must be truth.  I and all honest poets aim for truth. 

Jen: Nothing New (p100) is very brief.  What kind of poem is this?

A couplet.  Two lines.  But expressing an important — to me — fact.  A friend, the late F. D. Reeve (father of actor Christopher) referred to me as an “anti-war activist.”  I was deeply touched by that.  I am a military veteran, but I am a human first and I anguish over the state of the world — wars and terror and bigotry and rising dictators or authoritarian wanna-bes.  

Jen: What are your 3 favorite poems in this collection and why?

Nope.  Can’t bite here.  As with my children and all the Pups that have graced my life, there are no favorites.  I do take special pleasure in the title poem, “The Birth of Snow,” which I wrote in Frederick, Maryland, on a searing July day.  

Jen: The town of Annville is mentioned; what is the significance?

Most of my Annville poems are about my boyhood hometown — Little Valley, New York.  But it is also often my current home of Ridgefield.  “Annville” is a composite.  

Jen: I assume you have written many poems, how did you decide what to publish in this book?

 Indeed.  Many.  And happily.  This collection is mostly (but not entirely) rather recent compositions.   

Jen: Who is your favorite poet?

Not just one:  Frost, Emily Dickinson, Anna Akhmatova, Pablo Neruda, Edna St. Vincent Milay, Mary Oliver, Richard Wilbur, Mr. Shakespeare, Patrick Kavanaugh, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, Denise Levertov.

Jen: How can we keep up with you and all you are doing professionally?

 I have a newly refurbished website:  irajoefisher.com. 

About the Author

Ira’s poetry has appeared in Poetry New York, The Alembic, The New York Quarterly, Entelechy International, Diner, Ridgefield Magazine, The New Hampshire Review, and the anthology Confrontation. He is the author of Remembering Rew, a poetry chapbook, and three full-length collections, Some Holy Weight in the Village Air (2006), Songs From An Earlier Century (2009), and The Creek at the End of the Lawns (2012) and a collection of essays, Wide and Wavy Out of Salamanca (2020). 

He presents readings and conducts poetry workshops in New York and throughout New England. Ira has a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire. He has taught communications and broadcast history at New England College and poetry at the University of Connecticut in Stamford, Waterbury, Torrington, Western Connecticut State University, Mercy College, and Founders Hall in Ridgefield, Connecticut.