Tiare Picard

Breakfast of choice:

One pot of coffee and cigarettes.

Why poetry anyway?

Hmm. Well, I can’t draw, I can’t sing and I can barely carry on a decent conversation without sounding a bit “off.” Poetry allows me to do all of it, and the “off” part works in a poem. When I was a kid, my mom bought me a microscope. Maybe that has something to do with it. I set up our garage like a lab and performed all kinds of experiments. I used to watch things dance under the lens. I guess poems elicit that same sense of awe. I love to experiment with words, form and the things that hide themselves from normal vision. I like to piece things together that don’t fit in the traditional sense.

What do you do to get your creativity flowing? Special exercises, foods, a particular place?

I hop in my Ranger and drive around a lot. I need a pocket recorder because the left-hand-on-wheel/right-hand-on-pencil-and-shifting-paper method is a tad dangerous. Also, gas is expensive.

Where do you get your material from? Family, friends, dreams, the newspaper?

I have this thing for Sugi Pine, foam on black rock, and daybreak. If you listen, everything has something to say. That’s been said before and it’s worth repeating because it’s so true. Everything is up for inspiration.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Let the creepy voice out of the basement.

The Soles of My Feet

I live in an Oak tree

and embrace the darkness

in the green of things.

I stand with my arms

out to my sides, fingers

through the chandelier of leaves,

I touch the ripples of black and white;

my torso the center of my own gravity;

it propels me forward,

I drink it all in

through the lips of my pores,

feel it coil beneath my skin as I tread

softly through the stillness and chaos.

Then, from the soles of my feet

I find my voice

and speak.