Literature, poems and the reader

patient vagabond

Reading an online literary magazine Prime Number Magazine which has a nice combination of features.  Most literary magazines have the work and a writer's bio.  Interviews of writers are often a special thing.   What I like about Prime Number is they put the work, the bio and an interview with the writer all together.   Prime Number is a North Carolina magazine, online and an annual print. 

For example with the poetry of Kat Henry there follows her bio and then an interview with her.   As a reader I liked reading the poem and then listening to the interview answers that gave Kat's poem "Vagrants, after A.M. Parker" a context from the writer.  In Kat's bio she tells of reading the "vagrants" poem at an open mic in a bar and also reading it to a homeless man who told her he could relate to the poem. 

Another poet  Katherine E Young writes searing poems of physical and emotional abuse.  She teaches English at University level, published in journals and translated from Russian.  The interview helps to understand the perspective of the poems.

Reading the poem is good and the main thing.  Having detail and context also helps me see the poem.