An Interview with Elizabeth Knapp
by Mark Bradley
Atlanta Review, a biannual poetry journal, has chosen its 2022 International Poetry Prize winner. The poem, “It’s Ok to Worry about the State of Britney Spears’ Mental Health,” was written by Baltimore Review poetry editor Elizabeth Knapp. We congratulate her on receiving this honor!
Elizabeth Knapp is an associate professor of English and Chair of the Department of English & Communications Arts at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. In addition to this new achievement, she has won several poetry awards, including the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize for The Spite House, her first poetry book, as well as the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize.
Her poem was selected by the competition judge Steven Reigns because of its “balance of global awareness, sincere concern, and artful imagery.”
What was your inspiration for the poem?
“I wrote this poem in the summer of 2021 when Britney Spears was in the news because of the struggle with her father over her conservatorship. It was a particularly hot week in the middle of July, and I remember also having read about dangerously high temps across the country and the globe. So in my mind, at that moment in time, Britney and the climate crisis were linked. What if Britney’s mental health became a sort of barometer for the mental health of humanity and, by extension, for the state of the planet?”
Who is the target audience for this poem?
“Anyone who can read English is the target audience for this poem. It contains no obscenities, and it references a celebrity everyone is familiar with, so it requires no specialized or outside knowledge to understand it. I think (hope) the message is transparent and universal.”
Why was this specific form selected for the poem?
“This poem is written in free verse, not a closed form such as a sonnet. The indented tercets are a stanza structure I’ve been playing with recently, because I like the way the lines move back and forth across the page. Many of my most recent poems use this stanza structure.”
What are some of your favorite subjects for your poems?
“The perennial subjects of poetry: love, death, and poetry (in that order; or maybe poetry, love, and death; or maybe death, poetry, and love; I can’t decide). My most recent poems are more outward looking and address social issues like climate change, gun violence, and economic inequality.”
What advice would you give to a poet looking to publish their poetry?
“Read the publications you want to submit to before you submit. Read poetry. Read contemporary poets. Buy their books. Find and join a community of poets, whether it be a small, informal group or an MFA class. Revise before you submit. Revise some more.”
What are you working on now?
“I’m currently working on my third collection of poems, tentatively titled Blue Origin. The Britney poem is a good example of the subject matter of this book, which deals a lot with the climate crisis and other social issues. Scattered in between poems with more global themes are personal poems for my husband and children.”
Congratulations to Elizabeth Knapp on winning Atlanta Review’s 2022 International Poetry Prize!