Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Sabitha: We love the wild, the playful and the offbeat, and so we jumped at the chance to interview Jennifer Kilgore-Caradec about her poetry collection, Raw. Jennifer, can you tell us about your work?  

Jennifer: My creative work is a collection of poems called Raw, published in August 2023 at Le Lys Bleu Editions in Paris. It weaves together a number of different threads, including a historical vision of the present (with climate anxiety), the value of the arts, teaching before-during-and-after covid, and a quotation from the original Star Trek series.

Sabitha: I love everything you’ve just said about this project. But moving beyond the written word—is there a playlist for your book Raw?

Jennifer: Since it appeared I have discovered the unlikely coincidence of the ZZ Top Album Raw that was released in 2022. There is an eclectic playlist for my poetry, but it does not include hard rock (if my brother Tim is reading, he’s laughing at this point).

The playlist is classical (Bach, Berlioz, Haendel, Debussy, Dutilleux…), includes jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, the Dorseys, Brubeck, Haynes, Shorter…), and rock songs (1960s-1990s). The beat of the book alternates between rhythms of Motown, French popular hits by Reggiani and Montand, and rap by women.

Sabitha: What book do you tell all your friends to read?

Jennifer: I’ve been recommending the poetry of Geoffrey Hill for a couple of decades …

Sabitha: How much research did you need to do for your book?

Jennifer: Interesting question. For a novel, it would be two or three years of research. For poetry there was certainly just as much— if not more —, but it is much harder to quantify since so much of it happened before knew I would write a poem about one subject or another…

Sabitha: Do you have any suggestions to help people in our community become better writers?

Jennifer:

• Writers write (several hours a day and/or binge-writing through whole weekends or vacations).
• Listen to your muse. When inspiration strikes, record it immediately.
• Keep essential reference works handy: it is impossible to write without dictionary and thesaurus.
• Devote as much time to reading as to writing.
• Indulge in pastiche and parody.
• Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notebooks.
• Learn a foreign language (said T.S. Eliot).
• Read literature from other countries (in translation as needed).
• Cultivate as many areas of knowledge as you can in a broad general sweep (read several good newspapers from different regions/countries regularly).
• Read Literary reviews like the TLS or the NYRB.
• Read little-known and well-known poetry magazines and the magnificent websites of the Poetry Foundation and the American Academy of Poets.

Sabitha: What is your next writing project?

Jennifer: I have finished translating Charles Péguy’s L’Argent (1913) and am looking for a publisher. Péguy sounds like he is speaking to our present time, where the only value seems to be about making a profit.

After that appears, who knows, maybe another collection of poems… ?

Sabitha: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Jennifer: I teach at the University of Caen in Normandy and can also be found here. Many of my articles are on the internet, or see “Poems Alive” on Substack. Raw can be purchased directly from Lys Bleu.