Collaborators’ Q&A: Artist Lisa Sette: …I like the idea of night coming on and chasing you down. Night does weird things to people. It changes their behavior. That’s when anxiety hits you. That’s when you see how people respond to stress and loneliness and heartache. Poet Jon Ballard: The biggest surprise for me is the feeling (I may be wrong) that the artist senses the idea of dislocation I hoped to convey in the poem. The woman in the poem is stranded to a degree, if not physically then certainly emotionally, and the night “coming on fast” is no friend. The artist, I think, captures that.

Poet Jon Ballard received his MA in English from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, and has taught writing and literature at Oakland Community College in Royal Oak, Michigan. Artist Lisa Sette holds a BFA in photography and a master’s degree in biology.