Joanna Rawson Wants to Wrestle You
Joanna Rawson's new collection, Unrest, is just out from Graywolf Press. She is the author of a previous poetry collection, Quarry, winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs' Award Series in Poetry. She lives in Northfield, Minnesota.
For our readers who may not be familiar with your work, what's the most accurate thing someone else has said about it?
A very distinguished looking guy (suit & tie, mall glam-shot) on goodreads.com says about my new book Unrest that "The reader ends up having to do too much work." Our man Douglas Jones might be right. Then again, you should hear what my mother said about it.
What have you read/watched/listened to/looked at/ate recently that will permanently change our readers' lives for the better?
I'm not sure that lives, at least L Magazine readers' lives, need to change for the better.
Whose ghostwritten celebrity tell-all (or novel) would you sprint to the store to buy (along with a copy of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius so that the checkout clerk doesn't look at you screwy)?
I don't sprint. I stroll at a stately pace to the store, since from where I live that would be about 13 miles. And that store doesn't stock just any old Greeks. But if I were to undertake such an incredible journey, it would have to be a kiss-and-tell by one of Cesar Millan's dogs.
Have you ever been a Starving Artist, and did it make you brilliant, or just hungry?
No I haven't ever been out of food. I have, however, since I live in Minnesota, been a scarving artist—usually January-March.
What would you characterize as an ideal interaction with a reader?
Mud wrestling.
Have you ever written anything that you'd like to take back?
Some bad checks, in college.
