Interviews | December 10, 2012
A Conversation with T.R. Hummer
Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
A poem is a score for consciousness (“score” as in “musical score”). In textual terms, consciousness conveys itself as what fiction writers call “point of view.” So far so good. I believe less in the absolute separation of the various points of view, however: first person and third person are manifestations of the same thing: consciousness per se. Therefore, I work as though every third-person text is simply a first-person text in which no one has (yet) said “I” but could at any moment. I also work as though every poem, whatever its preponderant pronoun, is in fact (à la Whitman) a groping for omniscience, the manifestation of a desire to forgive everything and therefore to know everything.
This interview is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT
Interviews
Oct 07 2026
A Conversation with Sigrid Nunez
Sigrid Nunez has published nine novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and, most recently, The Vulnerables. Her first collection of… read more
Features
Jul 09 2026
A Conversation with David Ryan
A Conversation with David Ryan Tara Anne Dalbow There are certain human experiences that defy articulation. Many of them are marked by longing, loss, desperation, abjection, desire. Conditions that, if not universal, are nearly so, which we—unable… read more
Features
Jan 13 2026
An Conversation with Curtis Sittenfield
A Conversation with Curtis Sittenfeld Michael Piafsky Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of seven novels: Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, Eligible, Rodham, and Romantic Comedy, which was picked for Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Her… read more