Over at The Conversant, Andy Fitch poses a series of intriguing questions about The Phonemes—and Frances Richard responds with a series of intriguing answers.  For example:

AF: Do you appreciate art and texts that train their audience in some way? When you’d mentioned hearing voices in your head, I remembered Bertolt Brecht’s idea of true intellectual work involving thinking in others’ heads, while having other people think in your head. Could you sense something constructive, rather than simply controlling or constrictive, in training the reader or getting trained yourself?

FR: Yes, I like that. This connects again to meditation, which feels wide open but not easy. It takes a lot of training, a lot of discipline, to enter that openness. And poetry’s verbal artifacts demand attention, demand certain kinds of brightness in the reader’s focus. You don’t just loll back. I like this about poetry. I find it’s good for the mind.

Read Fitch’s full interview with Richards here.