A brief interview about poetry with Homebound Publications:
HB: Why did you start writing poetry?
CMR: I’m not sure which is more true: if I began writing poetry, or if poetry began writing me. All I know is, at some point, it became a necessary creative way for me to understand the world, my own experience of life in it, and to express whatever needs to be expressed.
HB: What inspired your first poetry collection?
CMR: I’ve been creating a body of work for several years, and have multiple collections I fiddle around with when I succeed in making the time and having the energy. I make amalgams of old poems and new poems that seem to have something in common thematically, trying different combinations. So it feels like cheating to say my first collection is “inspired” by something (though certainly the conception of each poem began with an inspiration, epiphany, reflection, or observation). It feels more like finally hitting a home run after striking out several times.
HB: Do you have a favorite poem from the collection?
CMR: No. Maybe if I were a woodworker I’d have a favorite table or something.
I might be a little too working-class for that notion. Just keep trying to make yourself available to the muse, you know? Roll up your sleeves and get in there and do your art.
HB: What poets have inspired you over the years?
CMR: So many. Basho, Kay Ryan, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Tony Hoagland, Whitman, Frost, Louise Gluck, Rumi, Wendell Berry, W.S. Merwin, the Beat Generation…..the list is endless.
HB: What are you working on next?
CMR: More poetry, and a prose poem collection.
C.M. Rivers 
Good afternoon C.M.
That was a really nice interview.
I appreciated your poetry process and the amalgams you plan to make out of old poems. I share most of your poet inspirations. Happy future poetry writing.
I hope things are going well with you
and your book.
Stay safe and healthy,
Jesse
Sent from my iPhone
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