Ask The Author: Mary Jane Newton

November showed these four poems by Mary Jane Newton. Mary Jane talks about comic strip characters, Duran Duran and stanza building.

1. How can one be too big and too everywhere?

More easily than being too small and too everywhere. Bigness and everywhereness definitely coincide, which is not to say they’re identical. That would be too easy, and life’s anything but easy. So, the short answer, I guess, is practice.

2. Would you ever work a love crisis hotline? What advice would you have for me if I called?

Would l? I already do. I’d give you the same advice as I give everybody else: “Sorry, wrong number”.

3. How can one export love that is made?

There are two methods that work, reliably. A sieve and a colander. It depends on the fineness of the grain.

4. What comic strip character best embodies you?

Mrs Geriatrix from the Asterix series — you need to meet my husband to understand why.

5. How do you build your stanzas within poems?

I don’t build them, they just occur.

6. What Duran Duran song is the best to listen to when reading each of these poems?

Remind me, which parallel universe are we inhabiting here?