Michael C. Peterson holds degrees in English from Stanford University and the University of Virginia, and received his MFA in Poetry from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as the Michigan Quarterly Review, American Letters & Commentary, Gulf Coast, Barrow Street, New American Writing, American Literary Review, Bat City Review, and elsewhere. A recipient of two work-study fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and two grants from Stanford University, he has worked as a teacher, farmhand, welder, and record-store employee. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

I remember you saying you were working on a book of poetry. Can you tell us about it?

Sure. Like perhaps so many young writers in their early thirties, I've been working on a full-length manuscript of poems, a first-book. It's a two-part project, the first portion being composed of shorter poems, the second half dedicated to a sequence of lectures/elegies. I'm still writing poems for this book, while at the same time working on other poems (though it is common for poems from different projects to intersect). It's easy to be impatient in this current climate about publishing something fast – getting it out quickly, as it were – but I'm trying to be patient, to let the poems arrive in the way they need to. With the elegy I think this is particularly important as your task is historically a moral one. That is, to sing of the dead. In the end, I think each poet is given to know when their work is done, either in the completion of a single poem or the conclusion of a longer body of work.

What poetry are you reading now?

Newer stuff? Merrill Gilfillan's terrific collection Undanceable. A book which hasn't gotten a lot of press but which is a stunning little book of lyrics published by Flood Editions (who produce some of the most interesting and beautifully designed books of poetry I've seen recently). Frank Bidart's Watching the Spring Festival is astounding and very real to me. Recently, Randall Jarrell. As a Californian, I never spent much time with his work, probably because his name never came up with any frequency among my friends and teachers (or I just wasn't paying attention). Ed Skoog's recent Mister Skylight. Always there is Wallace Stevens lying around.

Which novel is on your nightstand?

Salvatore Scibona's exceptional The End.

What inspires your poetry?

Well, William Carlos Williams is famous for saying that poetry comes from the mouths of the Pollack Mothers – and Lorine Niedecker, famous too for suggesting that poetry flowed almost "dreadfully" from the mouths of the pressmen with whom she worked – and while I don't know many Polish mothers or hang out in many newsrooms, I'm bound to agree. Working different jobs puts you in contact with a variety of people, all of them with different patterns of rhetoric and speech. I don't see poetry as being responsible for "transcribing" such speech – the poet is not a stenographer – but rather it puts the poet, anyone really, in a position where they feel speech to be as fundamental as that, that close to being. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger sees language as the "house of being" and I'm wont to concur with that too. Arguments for and against, voices of expertise, law, logic – whether you're a carpenter or lawyer – regardless of their rules or aims, this is important speech in which we are trying against odds to connect, to make sense of each other. Idiom, figure of speech, even clichés– these are the tenuous connections and agreements we make on a daily basis. There is something to be said for them.

As for myself, I haven't been drawn to the descriptive retelling of personal narrative in my poems – I never really have been. Say, for instance, I go for a walk and see a bird I've never seen before, or, maybe conversely, I witness a car accident on my way home from work: these "facts" haven't ever really made the poem for me. They may be beginnings or endings (if they prove themselves to be, if they assert themselves) but usually aren't the issue. But such events inspire thinking about a variety of things, and problematic thinking at that. Thinking which can tend to collapse on itself. The poem itself then becomes a structure (a house, a vessel, maybe) which is capable of ordering or establishing at least a provisional stability in which this thinking can exist. I like for the poem to almost break under its own weight, like a measuring tape you feed out until finally it folds over. To cantilever. To be near collapse. Collapse means you're close to something dire, that you're approaching things in a meaningful way. And some poems more than others. Not all of them will have the same ambition, and that's fine. Having said all that, season and landscape are perhaps most important to me. The coast of California where I grew up, the new terrain of North Carolina which I more recently inhabit. Seasons are not merely phenomena, but also ways of thinking and believing. I find my summer and fall work to be of very different characters.

When did you first start writing?

Yikes, let me think. Well, probably when I was 13 or 14. From that point on, I had several amazing English teachers in high school who encouraged us all to try it. I remember writing an imitation of Yeats in his Celtic Twilight period my sophomore year. You know, all that faerie imagery, bands of warriors riding, trout-fishing, et cetera. I remember laying on my bed writing it the day before it was due. And I remember feeling it become more than an imitation– it was an imitation, but I was suddenly invested in it. I wanted it to sound good. Even the having of such a simple ambition is memorable. That's one story of how it began.

Which poets inspire you?

Many. Close friends. People in workshops I've been in. The old Roman heartbreakers like Horace and Catallus and the new heartbreakers like Robert Hass, Linda Gregg, and Carl Phillips. My teachers along the way: Stuart Dischell, Jennifer Grotz, Linda Gregg, Arthur Sze, and Linda Gregerson. Shelley is quite inspiring, I think, for his willingness to believe it all. John Ashbery for his wisecrack-ery. George Oppen for his gravity. Creeley for his joyousness amidst heartache. Past poets who retain a quiet presence in the landscape – they are known but perhaps not read as much – Paul Blackburn, John Wieners, Gilbert Sorrentino to name a few. My partner, Sarah Rose, who writes beautifully and insightfully about family. My sister, Katie, who is a poet close to my heart. My sister Molly, a radio journalist who thinks like a poet, though her occupation wants the facts from her. There is always something inspiring when you look closely, even if you find yourself deeply at odds with it.

Do you have a favorite poem? If so, which one?

It changes. Favorite poem read today: "The Climber in the Ice" by Meghan O'Rourke, perhaps because I just recently saw Nordwand, a recent German film about the great Toni Kurz's failed ascent of the Eiger in 1936.

Do you have any advice for aspiring poets, especially student poets?

Maybe to go back to the cantilever/measuring tape analogy: put yourself in a bit of danger. And I suppose I must say, to be sure: not physical danger or harm. But it will be tempting to (and you will) write about emotions which are both scary and fascinating for their scariness. Wilderness. Writing is a safe way to investigate these states. You may be surprised by what you find in it, if you give yourself permission.