Poetry gave me the life I live: many of the people I love, the places I've traveled, the things I've learned about myself, the job I hold. And I can't count the times I've been on the precipice of making a - shall we say "adventurous"? - decision and thought, "But think of the poem I'll get out of this." Most of them have paid off.
James Allen HallArt devoid of danger lacks many other things as well: pleasure, beauty, and the ability to save us. Poems that divest the self of its masks in order to analyze how those masks are made - by what means, by whom, for what ostensible purpose - those poems risk offering us refuge.
James Allen HallI try to use my privilege to deconstruct from inside the racist, homophobic, heterocentric house, as an ally, while compatriot tools dismantle the patriarch's house. I do this by pushing the boundaries of what makes a poem and what makes an essay. My tools are blur, cross, pulverize, confront, remember.
James Allen Hall