Interviews
An Interview with Valerie Hardin
Author of ‘I’m With My Mom on Sunday’
AUTHOR-NETWORK: Please tell us about yourself — where you grew up, went to school, traveled, etc.
VALERIE HARDIN: I went to school in both Utah and Long Island. It was funny I just happened to come a cross a school transcript a few days ago. I was such a different person when I was 11. They were trying to put me back into special education program. I was in special education for six months and it was a painful experience for me that I never planned to return too. I was a bright child but Dyslexic, and awkward. It took me a while to learn I wasn’t that person on that piece of paper that there was more to me. I learned as I grew older that people wanted something different and the things that bruised me as a child became my gifts when I became an adult.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: How did you begin to write poetry?
VALERIE HARDIN: I started writing poetry seriously in Jr. high They were about nature and love mostly. In 1992 my poems began to take on a rather gothic undertone.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: Can you tell us how a poem is born?
VALERIE HARDIN: Each poem is born differently, some come quickly in an image. Some poems grow inside me for a long time. It took me years to write my poem “beautiful hypocrite”.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: What happens to a poem once it’s written?
VALERIE HARDIN: Sometimes it stays on paper for a while. Hopefully though I will not be lazy and type it up.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: What is your poetry “about”?
VALERIE HARDIN: My poetry is about whatever I am feeling at the time to make the reader feel as well. Sometimes it’s about looking at the beauty of angels even when they seem broken and twisted in heaps.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: Do you have a short, favorite poem you can give us right now?
VALERIE HARDIN: Yes, I do.
Almost Bleeding by Valerie Hardin
The ghost that clung inside orange flesh Parts in a bowl now without any use to her Without the hope they will be scattered on the ground To grow and become like the spirit she once was Light inside her hollow round form Glows ever so dimly now Melting into carved flesh Almost bleeding The ghost inside cries for Parts without any use to her
AUTHOR-NETWORK: Do you ever write rhymed poems?
VALERIE HARDIN: Once in a while I write both rhymed poems. I write haiku sometimes as well but a good part of my poems are free verse.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: What poets influence you most — old, classical poets and living poets?
VALERIE HARDIN: I am inspired by music.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: If you had a child, would you advise the child to become a poet?
VALERIE HARDIN: I don’t have a child yet so I do not know what I’d do. I’d hope at least that I would read to my child so that they can enjoy their imagination.
AUTHOR-NETWORK: Do you have a day job? What is it?
VALERIE HARDIN: All my jobs tend to be odd right now so that I can find the time to write. I am also an artist, and children’s ebook writer.
Valerie Hardin runs The Write Charm newsletter.
Print interview.
Net radio interview.
I’M WITH MY MOM ON SUNDAY an ebook by Valerie Hardin.
Fan club