Alexandria
Peary maintains a dual career in Creative Writing and Composition-Rhetoric. Her
third book of poems, Control Bird Alt Delete, won the 2013 Iowa Poetry Prize
and was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2014. Her other books
include Lid to the Shadow (2010 Slope Editions), Fall Foliage Called Bathers & Dancers (2008 Backwaters) and Creative Writing Pedagogies for the
Twenty-First Century (forthcoming, co-edited with Tom C. Hunley). Her work has
received the Joseph Langland Award from the Academy of American Poets, the
Slope Editions Book Prize, the Mudfish Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the
2012 Theresa J. Enos Rhetoric Award. Her scholarship has appeared in College
Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Review, Pedagogy, WAC Journal, Journal
of Aesthetic Education, and New Writing: The International Journal for the
Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. Her poems and nonfiction have recently
appeared in New England Review, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, New American
Writing, Volt, Verse Daily, Map Literary, Guernica, Hippocampus, and The
Chariton Review. She is an Associate Professor in the English Department at
Salem State University and maintains a mindful writing blog at
alexandriapeary.blogspot.com.
1 - How did your first book or chapbook
change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How
does it feel different?
Fall Foliage Called Bathers &
Dancers was
published by Backwaters Press in 2008. The publication seemed to correspond
with other life changes (my first child, my decision to enroll in a doctoral
program). Life was forcing me along to write. It’s something I describe at a
guest post, “Water Breaks, Writer’s Block,” at Mother Writer Mentor: http://www.motherwritermentor.com/2012/05/07/water-breaks-writers-block/. The first book allowed me to enclose
in the amber of publication writing I might normally have hesitated over. So
the book made poetry low-stakes and informal in my own perception (all that
really ever counts for a writer). I’m currently writing my fourth book of
poetry, and it feels like a joy because I’m at last able to take on certain
themes that I’d looked longingly at since the late 1990s.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as
opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Purely
by accident. As a pre-teen, I was intent upon going to medical school. One day
after school while dissecting a suicide goldfish using an ancient microscope a
neighborhood physician had given me, I looked out at the April rain and the sheen
of green on the leach field. I put down my tweezers and wrote my first poem.
3 - How long does it take to start any
particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it
a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or
does your work come out of copious notes?
I
don’t usually “do” drafts. I also don’t predetermine the length of any writing
project or separate actions into “starting,” “continuing,” or “finishing.” My
writing comes out of a mindful process; it engages the language that occupies
the present moment.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for
you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger
project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
A
poem begins for me with a fragment from my internal voice. This fragment is
mindfully perceived and written by hand in an ordinary $1 composition notebook.
5 - Are public readings part of or
counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing
readings?
It’s
interesting to have one’s audience a few feet away (as opposed to the
separation of space and time that occurs when doing the actual work of
writing). The best readings and audiences make me feel like I can sing duende.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns
behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your
work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I
am interested in the presence of language—so meta language or references to writing
frequently occur in my poems.
7 – What do you see the current role of
the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think
the role of the writer should be?
Don’t
we all play a role in a larger culture just by purchasing, expressing, and
breathing? I’m not sure writers are all that different except that they have
the potential to give other people inner experiences, ones maybe not easily
found in the social world.
8 - Do you find the process of working
with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It
depends. I’ve been blessed with working with several extremely professional and
insightful editors. Actually, I plan on posting shortly at my blog (alexandriapeary.blogspot.com)
about the experience. Last summer in the Roman Colosseum, I learned the
etymology of the word “editor,” and it’s one that will put a wry smile on any
writer’s face. See my blog in a few weeks.
9 - What is the best piece of advice
you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I
was working on my dissertation and had told my adviser that I was planning on quitting
the program. This admission was not said lightly since I (and my family) had
sacrificed tremendously for five years for me to obtain a doctorate. But I was
finding it impossible to proceed with the writing of the dissertation—not
because I wasn’t excited about the subject but because of what felt like the
manhandling of my potential ideas by one of the faculty readers. This person inserted
the most unkind, sarcastic comments in his/her pink “Comment” balloons—the kind
of relentless critique I myself would never
ever perform on a student at an early stage in their composition. I still
recall one comment: “This is one birthday party to which I don’t want to be
invited!” I told my dissertation adviser I was thinking of dropping out of the
program but would finish the dissertation regardless as a book outside of
academia. He understood that what was under attack in my perception was my
integrity as a writer. He told me, “From now on, don’t write a single word you
don’t believe in.” I copied his emailed advice on a Post-It and proceeded to
write the dissertation at a running pace.
10 - How easy has it been for you to
move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
That
ability to move between genres is essential
to the mindful writing I practice. Genres are ultimately preconceptions;
they shortchange the offerings of the present moment. I do not limit myself by
genre during any given writing session and now write poetry, creative nonfiction,
and scholarship.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you
tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
An
early rise (between 4 AM and 5 AM). A cup of espresso. A mindful observation of
my breathing and physical-psychological state. A jump-start poem by another
writer (currently John Ashbery, Caroline Knox, or Wallace Stevens). The opening
of my notebook and retrieving of my fountain pen. Sitting in the reflective
pool of writing until around 6:30 AM when one of my two daughters invades my
study.
12 - When your writing gets stalled,
where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I
permit myself fallow periods and turn to another genre or project.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The
scent of lost time that is emitted from the question, “What fragrance reminds
you of home?”
14 - David W. McFadden once said that
books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work,
whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Most
definitely visual arts. In addition to consulting poetry before I write each
day, I look at paintings by 20th century artists—Roy Lichtenstein
and Fernando Botero right now. Or a book on the Peggy Guggenheim collection in
Venice.
15 - What other writers or writings are
important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Caroline Knox, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, Italio Calvino, Francis Ponge, Jean Follain, W.S. Merwin, Paul Celan, Pablo Neruda, the Buddha, Emily Dickinson, oh
most definitely, Emily Dickinson.
16 - What would you like to do that you
haven't yet done?
I
have a current prose project that means a great deal to me. It’s based on years
of observing people struggle and succeed with writing. It’s about mindful
writing and the sources of writing anxiety or blocks. I would like it very much
if my theory of mindful writing could be of use to others, and this might
entail a couple of sidekick projects branching off this main theoretical one.
17 - If you could pick any other
occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you
would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
The
other occupation is one I made up: a writing psychiatrist. I adore classroom
teaching and would not want to give it up, but I have a dream of starting a
private practice where I could meet one-on-one with individuals from all walks
of life who struggle to write. I’d like to start a whole field—writing
psychologists. My approach as a writing psychologist would mix mindfulness and
various theories from the field of Composition-Rhetoric.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to
doing something else?
As
a child, writing allowed me to have an inner life. That inner life afforded me
chances for insight and awareness that seemed greater than what could be found
from other types of activities or professions. So now I use what I learn from
my writing practice in other activities during the day—teaching, parenting,
being a colleague, being a friend.
19 - What was the last great book you
read? What was the last great film?
Film:
The Great Beauty
20 - What are you currently working on?
I
like to balance multiple projects at multiple different stages; it’s part of
mindful writing. I do a sort of call & response, asking my internal voice
each writing session, “what am I honestly interested in working on right now?” When I have a variety of interesting projects,
that variety corresponds with the fluctuation and quantity that can be found in
the internal voice. I just wrapped up an academic article and sent it out, and
my co-editor Tom Hunley are on the cosmetic proofreading last stages of our
forthcoming Creative Writing Pedagogies
for the Twenty-First Century (Southern Illinois University Press in June
2015). So I’m working on a poetry book, various individual pieces of creative
nonfiction, and a longer creative-scholarly project on mindful writing.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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