Partners in Poetry: An Interview with Aby Kaupang and Matthew Cooperman
Hila Ratzabi

In late December 2011 I had the opportunity to chat with poets Aby Kaupang and Matthew Cooperman on how their relationship as a married couple influences their poetic process. As the parents of a young daughter, Maya, who was diagnosed with autism, the poets discuss the impact of living with disability in their daily lives, how the world of medical jargon collides with the intense emotions of their experiences as caregivers to inform the language and tone of their poetry. They discuss the constraints on time and subject matter which create the conditions for their poetic processes, and the particular nuances, joys, and challenges of caring for their disabled daughter (which ties in closely with the theme of Drunken Boat's Issue 15 Non-Fiction The Body Silent theme).

Aby and Michael

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Hila Ratzabi

Hila Ratzabi has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was selected by Adrienne Rich as a recipient of a National Writers Union Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, The Apparatus of Visible Things, is published by Finishing Line Press. She is the editor-in-chief and poetry editor of the literary journal Storyscape.