Pop-Ups from Elsewhere: Maria Sledmere and Oli Hazzard in Conversation

This is the first of the ‘in conversation’ pieces that we hope to host on And Other Poems over the coming months and years. The idea is a simple one: two poets talking about poetry. This conversation between Maria Sledmere and Oli Hazzard, which took place via email in June 2025, revolves around the relationship between poetics and dreaming, particularly the ways in which poems might replicate the peculiar logic and movement of dreams. Along the way, they discuss the late American poet Alice Notley, the use of quotation marks, the idea of a telepathic poetics, generative AI, friendship, teaching, ecological crises, time travel, and much more. Maria suggests at one point that writing a poem is like arriving late to something and trying to discover what you’ve missed. Oli, meanwhile, considers the unsettling sense of déjà vu sometimes evoked by poetic refrain. They also discuss Maria’s recently published Midsummer Song (2024), a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ exploration of creativity and criticism in a time of climate crisis, and Oli’s single-sentence epistolary novel Lorem Ipsum (2021). Their exchange is wide-ranging, thoughtful, provocative and often moving. I hope you enjoy it.