OUR PICK:
JOS CHARLES
Poet & Editor

When it comes to the evolution of language and our understanding of it, poets are often the progenitors. The realm of stanzas, rhyme and verse may be more niche than its prose counterpart, but the impact of its experiments with words and meaning can reverberate in surprising places. Today, few are revolutionizing the form as much as Jos Charles.

"As poetry editor of The Drift, I see submissions that look like her work," Hitzig says, noting Charles' influence on younger poets finding their own voice. According to Hitzig, the way Charles "fractured" and "defamiliarized" language in her Pulitzer-nominated book feeld by blending Middle English spellings with contemporary ideas created a paradigm shift in the literary world.

When asked about her own style, Charles says, "I feel relatively multi-styled and it's the work, whatever the work, that calls for such-and-such a style for me . . . What I'm working on now turns more to Shakespeare, Raúl Zurita, and some of those first loves–Psalms, [Gwendolyn] Brooks, Emily [Dickinson]. It's a bit more bricolage, a card house. It's slow work, piece by piece, of references and ideas–the ideas seem to lead to other and other ideas that cross out the first ideas–until something manages to hold shape." [photo: Sergio De La Torre]

THE REAL INFLUENCERS

THE REAL INFLUENCERS