The Academy of American Poets invited twelve guest editors to each curate a month of poems in 2019. In this short Q&A, Paul Guest, the Poem-a-Day Guest Editor for July 2019, discusses his curating approach and his own creative work.


Poets.org: How did you approach curating Poem-a-Day for July?

Paul Guest: I approached it as a reader, first and foremost—I wanted poems that I'd enjoy reading and sharing with others. I chose poems by poets that I loved, whether or not those poets were well known.

Poets.org: If you could direct readers to one poem in our collection at Poets.org that you haven’t curated, what would it be and why?

PG: The quality of the poems you feature at Poem-a-Day is so high, so compelling, that I hesitate to single one out. What I really enjoy is letting the morning emails pile up in my inbox and catching up on the weekend. It's like I have a weekly, widely varying anthology that is always renewing. I love it.

Poets.org: What are you working on now in your writing, teaching, or publishing life?

PG: New poems for my next collection. And I've been thinking some about how to write another memoir. What that would be like. What it would be about.

paul guest

Read more about Paul Guest, plus poems.


Listen to an interview with Paul on WNYC's All of It with Alison Stewart: