Susan Blackwell Ramsey will read from her book A Mind Like This Wednesday night at the Portage District Library. In her interview with WMUK’s Zinta Aistars, Ramsey talked about how her mind seems to remember only the most trivial things. This is the basis for her title poem “A Mind Like This.”
Ramsey often uses humor in her poetry. She says she feels consistently tragic works seem fake, because even a dark subject can have black humor.
Ramsey uses a lot of forms in her poetry. She says she likes forms because they push her to continue writing until the poem has finished in that form. Ramsey says poems should even start after the writer finishes saying what they were going to say.
Ramsey dedicated her new book to her husband, who she says in the dedication is the only person who reads poetry but doesn’t write it. Ramsey says she believes poets are the only ones who read poetry because most people who like poetry usually take a stab at it themselves.