What does it mean to be an emerging writer? How does the first book matter? When Nicole Cooley, Kate Greenstreet, Nancy Kuhl and Anna Leahy initially formed this conversation, they had each published their first poetry books in recent years. They discovered through conversation, however, that each had different experiences getting to and through that first book publication and that each began dealing in different ways with what was next. In this chapter, each author is at a somewhat different reflective distance beyond that first book, but all feel as if they are in the process of being an emerging writer.

Kate Greenstreet: I understand why some people resist that label: emerging poet. But I had stopped writing for quite a few years, and, when I started again, it felt like emerging. Beginning to get published was another kind of coming out. In my case, the term still feels accurate.

Nancy Kuhl: I have mixed feelings about the term – on the one hand, of course, it might be said that we are all always emerging, but at what point has one emerged? And after emerging, then what? Has Nicole, with her third and now fourth collection, slipped or propelled herself into that other dubious category: mid-career? I know other terms are no better or more accurate – many who might be called emerging poets are not new or young or beginning – but I do wish we had a reasonable alternative. Maybe simply first-book poets.

Nicole Cooley: I too have mixed feeling about the term emerging and about the term mid-career. What has surprised me is that with each book – my first and second and the one I was finishing when we first had this conversation – it always feels like I’m starting over as a writer. Re-emerging each time perhaps?

Anna Leahy: Certainly, we were emerging before our first books, but, yes, the first book is a distinct career accomplishment, a benchmark of sorts.