features ANNIE BIEN

features ANNIE BIEN

"I thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative process and working with Eve (Hanninen). I like looking for ways to stretch and develop my writing because I don't know what my potentials are as a writer yet. Since I had no expectations about what would happen, my writing was very relaxed and released. I also specifically chose an option that sounded challenging, would make me approach writing in a new way, and wouldn't be safe going."

~ Annie Bien

"Icicle-light"

E. A. Hanninen - 2007

Sleet slants across frigid windows

mackerel clouds veil your open eyes
the roof of the world beckons, snow capped

prayer flags flutter and beg the elements:
listen, wind hushes time across the valley -
will you, will I, strain to stay or run with sky

1) bamboo shoots slice in angles

2) five spice brews plunge through hollow stems
not licoriced from anise seed, but curl in wisps –

3) A steaming brew heats the tongue. She stirs
her dreams watching frost, writes his name
in strokes with pomegranate seeds.

Unwind the Secrets – choose the next stanza, click the link!

"Rain Puddle"

E. A. Hanninen - 2007

Eve Anthony Hanninen: Did you feel constricted by the somewhat non-linear form of your particular project requirements, or did you find the pattern stimulating, provoking?

Annie Bien: By working with a specific format of singlet, couplet, tercet, in various patterns, it really made me think about what each form could provide. Having a set structure allowed for a lot of freedom for interpretation. I wanted to give each verse form a specific role for telling a story, and for evoking mood or characterization through the senses.

EAH: What attracted you to writing poetry?

AB: I began to write poetry because of a need to express the spaces between the words. English didn't start out as my first language, so I felt like a mute for a long time; now I know it better than my original birth language. It's interesting how silence impelled me to want to speak through words.

Annie Bien received her first commission for playwriting at the Soho Theatre Company in London. Her poems have appeared in Quattrocento (UK), Snakeskin (UK), Lily, Loch Raven Review, Andwerve, Worm 38, and will soon appear in Cadenza Magazine (UK). She is a Pushcart Nominee and a runner-up for the Georgetown Review Contest 2006.