Interview with a Poet: Christina Fulton

The following interview with Christina Fulton, author of To the Man in the Red Suit, is from South Florida Poetry Journal’s “Interview with a Poet: Five Questions, Three Poets, Each Month,” from April 2020:

Christina Fulton

1. How important is accuracy in your poetry?
   
   Accuracy is essential because I am often poking at my father’s life and suicide, and the truth is something that was missing in his life and mine by association. He had a hard time remembering just precisely what the truth was, so this is me reminding him and myself by proxy. 

2. In what way do you use imagination in your work?
    
   I often use my imagination to find new ways to express my feelings. Most of my work feeds off of my emotions, life experiences, and family drama, and I know that can get repetitive, so I try to repackage them, like using only poker terminology to describe my disappointment with individual members of my family. I like to create different lenses to explore my mental health journey and to understand my father’s life and death.      
    

3. Do you re-write your poems trying different points of view, voices, forms, etc., before settling on their final expression? 
   
   Not really. I do a lot of pre-planning, though, so by the time I get started, I am very confident in what I am doing. I free write, do research, and even draw what I am trying to express.  

4. Could you show us an example of a leap in one of your poems?
    
   Memories 
   taste like puppet fluff 
   and pinecones. 
    
   The dead count 
   with a pimped out version 
   of my childhood. 
    
   Three bats… 
    
   can be baker acted 
   in moss. 
    
   I wanted to jump from my childhood memories to my very adult fears/mental health concerns.
    

5. How often or do you read collections of poets from generations past? … Read the Full Interview Here.