What advice would you give a person just starting to write poetry?
Every writer needs three basic tools: practice, stubbornness, and emotive distance. Writing has to become an integral part of each
day. A good deal of my success hinges upon the fact that I write and complete one or more poems a
day, whether I’m feeling particularly inspired or not. The sheer fact of “output” has taught me
that the writing well is never dry. It may not sparkle on demand, but the liquid is there. It
becomes a matter of recognizing that you have a voice and then listening to it speak. A writer’s
life is like an airport’s runway: the engine and the path have to be prepared when it’s time for
take-off. Creativity turns up in odd places, descends in irregular patterns, and is nearly always
a product of our openness to the cause. I treat the submission process with the same ritual of
repetition as I do the writing process.
It is easy to translate those first few rejection letters as negative commentary on one’s
suitability or popularity or skill as an artist; however, that defeatist attitude becomes a shroud
in which to hide, not a catalyst for growth. When I began writing four years ago, I told myself out
loud: “If you can’t stand the heat of rejection, you have no business gathering sticks for the fire
and lighting them off.” I developed a pretty tough emotional shell in very little time. It became
quite impractical to tie my happiness and sense of self-worth to the sword of an editor’s
“authority.” I wrote (and still do) because I have something I need to say, not someone I need to
please. This doesn’t mean that I don’t listen to criticism. I take the element of feedback very
seriously; openness to criticism is crucial. Writers are often seen as isolated beings, tucked away
in a closet of self-absorption. I see negative feedback as an opportunity to increase the
accessiblity of my work, but not as a judgment gong that deafens the sound of my inner voice.
Do you compose your work at the computer? If not, where?
I do my assembling and writing at a
keyboard because it’s faster for me than writing and revising by hand, but my assembly tactics are a
disparate and disheveled process. I’m constantly jotting down images and words and concepts and
short lines. Living life is like reading a book and putting notes in the margins. When the idea
strikes, I respond to it by catching it in whatever net is handy, be it the back of a bank
statement, a grocery list, or the face of a business card.
What poet do you read for pleasure?
My favorite contemporary poets are Marianne Moore, Rita Dove,
Ward Kelley, Elisha Porat, Alice Walker, Mary Ann Hazen, David Sutherland, John Horvath, Claudine
Moreau, Marie Kazalia, and a host of others. They are stables of inspiration and springboards for
creativity. Reading them always kindles a writing fire. I seem to be drawn to poets who are
unafraid of risk, for that is a trait I deeply respect.
What do you do if you lack inspiration?
On a “dry day,” I do what I call “the keyword plunge,”
which involves grabbing words out of the air, even thumbing through pages of a dictionary or
magazine, to land on a term or concept that snags my emotive and intellectual interest. Words are
things I enjoy accumulating. I love nothing more than being handed a list disjointed threads and
then pouncing on the challenge of turning them into a quilt with the batting of relevance. I love
to play with sounds on my tongue, to read phrases aloud, to hurl them into a context, and toy with
their shapes. Creativity is not an event; it is a way of looking at surrounding earth and human
interaction. Poetry, for me, is merely the evidence of that attitude.
Do you own a dog? If so, what kind.
We have a Cockapoo named Gretel. She sleeps at my feet while
I write, pushes my keyboard in the drawer when she wants my attention, and unties my shoe-laces when
I saunter across the house. My father will tell you I have absolutely no talent for training dogs.
Funny, I feel the same way about syllables; they both take dumps at the most inopportune times,
which is part of their fundamental charm, I suppose. Animals make wonderful companions for writers
because they are wedded to instinct, have interminable curiosity, and such a delightful way of
making the trivial paramount.
Selected poem:
In keeping with our discussion of the writing process at work, I’d like to preface this poem by
explaining a little about its origin. Yesterday, I was driving to the bank and running a few
errands. I sat at a stoplight in a line of impatient cars, waiting for a pedestrian to hurry across
the street, so they could turn right. The man was a burn victim. His flesh was thickly scarred
from head to toe and his cadence revealed a great deal of physical pain. When I sat down at the
keyboard, his face kept flashing on the screen of my mind, and I knew I needed to contemplate my
limited sense of his struggle. I remember him crossing the street in a laborious gait, pulling the
rim of his hat down over his face again and again. It was a photo that stuck in my head for hours
and this poem wrote itself in about twenty minutes. As a “product,” I think the piece demonstates
how a writer responds to the world because his emotions force him to.
Scar Tissue
Your body crossed the busy street,
one long and wrinkled leather scar
hitting sockets of marble eyes,
refusing entrance to your grief.
Spinning with their obligations
chipped by hands that clanked on clocks,
confined by fear, deflecting fate
from striking at their sanity.
Your walk was slow,
slug trail after pounding rain.
That trudging pain I understood
from hoofing on a bleeding stump.
But I had clothes to cover up.
You pulled at rims around your hat
as if your flesh were slips that show
on necklines of an evening dress.
I pondered both our legacies.
Mine was just a missing foot,
an absent knee, a choppy limp
unraveling the upper curl of impish smile.
Still alive and waltzing a disjointed dance
to chances that tomorrow’s lot
would bring less salt of agony.
Your life a jerking rattlesnake
that ticks beyond its mortal span,
constricting to the cruel beat
of something denser than a man
should ever be anointed by.
Orange suns above your head
had to be, just had to be tiny reminiscences
of flames unwelcome for their sparks.
Struggle was an Armageddon
larger than a movie screen.
Horns just blared in such impatient unison.
I wanted to scream,
be the cradle of an angel,
make my loudness carry you
to safer places than this world.
Most recent books: Desideratum’s Doggie Dish, Reefs We Live, and Calamity’s Quilt. Art Villa Records is soon to release my first audio CD of poetry entitled Before
the Rose.
Please visit her website.
