Rattle.com<\/a>]<\/p>\nRossiter:<\/b>
\nTo the extent you want to talk about the experience\u2014your friend, the one described in the poem\u2014at what point did that memory resurface? How did it become a poem?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nI think I tried to write this poem several times and never could find the right language for it. There are two main images that drove it. One was sitting on the hospital floor so I could talk to my friend after this terrible accident. I really did sneak in late one night. We were going on a family trip the next day, and here was my best friend, essentially paralyzed from the waist down.<\/p>\n
The second image was me going home afterward. There was no reason for me to run\u2014I could\u2019ve walked\u2014but I felt compelled to run in a way I didn\u2019t understand. Those two images had been bouncing around in my head, creating a kind of cognitive dissonance. A couple years ago, I gave the poem another try and found a way to talk about it. I don\u2019t fully understand it even now, but writing the poem brought some insight, some tentative clarity\u2014at least in terms of imagery. Not conclusions, but images.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nSo that second part, when you’re running\u2014did that actually happen? Or is that something you invented to make the poem work?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nThe running actually happened. I wasn\u2019t a runner at the time, but I remember doing it. That parking lot\u2014it was a stadium lot\u2014I had walked across it many times. And yes, you could get three shadows from all the overhead lights. That always fascinated me as a kid. I think the poem helped me explore what that meant: these three perspectives, these three shadows. That\u2019s probably the \u201cnew\u201d part the poem brought me.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nSo that element had existed in memory but hadn\u2019t yet come to the surface of a poem?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nExactly. I struggled a lot. Earlier drafts just came out as flat narrative\u2014\u201cthis happened, then this happened\u201d\u2014and it didn\u2019t go anywhere as a poem. It wasn\u2019t until the third or fourth or fifth draft that I found language that could carry more weight. I began to use repetition, variations in syntax, and that gave it some lift. I was about to abandon it entirely.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nWould you be against inventing something for a poem?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nNo, not at all. If part A of the poem happened in my living room and part B is completely fictional, that\u2019s fine. I don\u2019t know the percentage, but I\u2019d say most of my poems have some autobiographical trigger. That helps me believe in the poem as I\u2019m writing it. I feel more confident.<\/p>\n
Marianne Moore once described poetry as \u201cimaginary gardens with real toads.\u201d The imaginary garden is the vision or scaffolding of the poem. I’m not very taken with poems that exist at that level alone. I always want the toads. I\u2019d say my poems are maybe 20\u201330% imaginary garden, but there are a lot of toads. When I can sneak an animal into a poem\u2014literal or metaphorical\u2014it anchors the poem. Makes it more believable, more authentic.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nHave those real-life \u201ctoads\u201d\u2014people in your life\u2014ever called you out on the details?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nYes. My family often tells me, \u201cIt didn\u2019t happen that way.\u201d I say, \u201cWell, it\u2019s close enough.\u201d More often than not, I collapse two or three events into one. I compress time. That\u2019s what I usually do.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nHow many unwritten poems are you carrying around right now?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nUnwritten? That number would be infinite. But unfinished\u2014hundreds. I start a lot of pieces, and then they clamor for attention. I pay attention to the ones that clamor the loudest.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nIs there anything you won\u2019t write about? That you shy away from?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nWow, that\u2019s a great question. I\u2019m sure there are things. I\u2019m just not sure what they are yet. I\u2019d say what drives a poem for me is attention\u2014curiosity. If there\u2019s nothing I\u2019m curious about, the poem will be dead on the page. It might be technically good, but it won\u2019t hold interest\u2014mine or anyone else\u2019s. Robert Frost said, \u201cNo tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.\u201d It\u2019s not about writing sentimental things\u2014it\u2019s about the writer being emotionally invested.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nSo how do you approach the emotional content? Are you crying at the desk? Or are you detached, but trying to reach something real?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nI\u2019m not crying when I write a poem, but I am interested in the emotion. T.S. Eliot talked about the \u201cobjective correlative\u201d\u2014the better the poet, the better they are at separating the person who suffers from the person who writes. You\u2019re looking for a concrete equivalent of the emotion. If I just follow the emotion, the poem often goes nowhere. So I step back. I use image, metaphor, disjunction, line breaks. You want to create something that moves someone who doesn\u2019t know you and doesn\u2019t care about you\u2014unless you earn it in the poem.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>You\u2019ve probably read student poems that just gush on the page.<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/strong>
\nThe best poets don’t write out of their emotional self, but try to create something that they would be moved by if the poem weren’t theirs.<\/p>\nRossiter:<\/b>
\nHave you ever gone back and looked at one of your old poems and thought, \u201cDamn, that\u2019s good\u201d\u2014like you forgot it was yours?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nYes\u2014it’s great when that happens. Usually it\u2019s the opposite: \u201cWhy did I put that one in the book?\u201d But occasionally a poem surprises me. I think, \u201cOkay, I was onto something there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nHow many years do the poems in this collection span?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nAbout six years. Most of them are from the more recent end of that span.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nYou mentioned writing about religion, spirituality, philosophy. How do you think about using imagery from your own (LDS) religious background\u2014particularly when it might not be widely known or understood?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nThat\u2019s a great question. I read widely\u2014Dickinson for her repressed Protestantism, Whitman for his cosmic reach, Jane Hirshfield (you could call her a California Buddhist), Polish poets like Zbigniew Herbert and Adam Zagajewski. When I write religious poems, I\u2019m in their company. Or trying to. They\u2019re my audience.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t always use my local idiom. And if I do, I try to universalize it\u2014find ways that readers, religious or not, can connect. That\u2019s always the challenge. How does T.S. Eliot write for a broader audience while still being profoundly Christian? I try to do what he does\u2014or what Dickinson does.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nAre you willing to describe a poem you\u2019re currently struggling with?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nSure. About 25 years ago, a professor at BYU\u2014Hal Black, in the zoology department\u2014was doing research on black bears. My son and I went with him on a trip, and I ended up holding a black bear cub that was still in hibernation. It weighed maybe five or seven pounds.<\/p>\n
I tried to write an essay about it back then but never finished it. Just this morning, I thought\u2014maybe there\u2019s something there. What is it like to hold a bear? It\u2019s pretty singular. The narrative isn\u2019t enough by itself\u2014I have to find a language that reflects the experience. And that\u2019s where I am. I have a rough draft. It\u2019s broken, stapled together. But maybe it\u2019ll become something. That\u2019s the struggle: finding the language to contain or reflect that experience.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nAll right, our job is to look for the poem with the black bear.<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nNow you’re putting pressure on me. Give me two years.<\/p>\n
Rossiter:<\/b>
\nFair enough. Can we publish it?<\/p>\n
Larsen:<\/b>
\nNice invitation. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In honor of National Poetry Month, 15 Bytes editor Shawn Rossiter sits down with Utah poet Lance Larsen to discuss his newest collection, Making a Kingdom of It. In this intimate conversation, Larsen reads from the collection and reflects on the nature of poetry, memory, and emotion. Together, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Larsen-Author-Photo-scaled-1-e1745975627717.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 09:12:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92567"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92574,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92567\/revisions\/92574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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