Lindsay Lusby is the author of the poetry collection Catechesis: a postpastoral (The
University of Utah Press, 2019), winner of the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize,
judged by Kimiko Hahn. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (Porkbelly
Press, 2018) and Imago (dancing girl
press, 2014), and the winner of the 2015 Fairy
Tale Review Poetry Contest. Her poems have appeared most recently in The Cincinnati Review, Passages North, The Account, North Dakota
Quarterly, and Tinderbox Poetry
Journal. Her visual poems have appeared in Dream Pop Press and Duende. She is the Assistant Director of
the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College, where she serves as
assistant editor for the Literary House Press and managing editor for Cherry Tree.
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?
Having my first
full-length poetry collection out in the world has been both completely
fulfilling and frantic. The manuscript has existed in some form for about six
years: four years of writing, one year of sending it out to publishers, another
year from acceptance to final publication. It has moved from ideas and
experimentation to beautiful complete object. Seeing and holding it for the first
time as the full package: the beautiful front cover, the generous blurbs on the
back cover, a foreword written by a poet I deeply admire who really understood
what I wanted to do with this book, then the text and visual poems exactly as I
had envisioned them arranged. This perfectly-packaged object is what feels so
life-changing, and that it looks and feels so much like all of the other poetry
collections that I have read and loved by others. This book has made me feel
real in the world in a way that all the individual poems never did. Impostor
syndrome can always weasel its way in, of course, but now I have all of these
lovely words from poets I greatly admire and respect to remind that I am indeed
a real poet.
I’m still figuring out what I’m writing
post-book. It feels a little lonely not to have a “project” that I’m writing
yet. I’m a slow writer, so I’m just taking it one poem at a time. I’m still
exploring some of the same ideas and then mixing some new ones in as well. But
I feel like I really figured out the kind of writer I am with this first book,
so I’m continuing along that same path but with new poems and continuing to
give myself permission to experiment.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as
opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I started
writing poems in third grade and fell in love with them then. I can’t say for
sure what first drew me to poetry, but possibly it was the pattern-building and
the sonic nature of poems. These days, the things I love about poems are
brevity and concision, the associative collage of influences distilled into new
ideas and images. I love poetry’s transformative powers—making beautiful things
out of the strange and monstrous, and vice versa.
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 like to think
of my writing process as slow and deliberate. It involves lots of note-taking,
reading, research, movie-watching, and time. I have a strange process of
revising while I draft each poem, so I really write one line at a time with a
lot of thinking in between. I consider the images and associations I want in
the poem, the sounds of the words and rhythm of the line, and maintaining those
things consistently through to the last word. By the time I have a first full
draft, I have usually worked on the poem for several weeks, each line probably
revised 2-3 times. I just can’t continue to writing the next line until I feel
like I’ve figured out the line before.
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?
With my first
book, I knew the poems I was writing were building toward a larger project.
Each individual poem was an intentional piece and all the pieces together
became a book that I hope adhered into one larger poem-like structure. I think
each book will be different though. Right now, I have no idea what the next one
will be, but I’m writing new poems one at a time. And once I have a good
handful, I’ll spread them out in front of me and try to see if there’s the
thread of a book taking shape somewhere within them.
5 - Are public readings part of or
counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing
readings?
Planning for
and giving readings is still pretty new to me. There are definitely parts of
giving readings that I absolutely love, especially if I’m reading alongside
other fantastic writers that I can listen to and then talk to about our busy,
unpredictable writing lives. I love meeting other writers and making those
deeper, personal connections. It’s exciting to introduce new readers to my
poetry, people who probably haven’t heard of me or read any of my work before.
And it’s another kind of thrill to meet and talk to people who are followers of
my work. But overall, I am very much the introvert. Giving a reading and
engaging in intense socializing for a day or an evening absolutely drains me
and makes me crave some writing time by myself. It’s the opposite end of the
spectrum from the writing process, which, in its solitary nature, relaxes and
recharges me. But I think both of these things are necessary for a fulfilling
writing life for me. I like to be on my own, but I need to feel like part of
the outside world, too. I need that connection.
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?
All of my poems
are about some kind of transformation—but I can’t really say why. I think I’m
still figuring that out, piece by piece, with each new poem. I do have a
fascination with how women in particular are transformed by violence, via the
saints & martyrs of the Catholic church (my upbringing), fairy tales (an
obsession), horror movies and true crime shows (another obsession).
I think the
current questions are slightly different for each writer—important variations
on the question of our humanity and what it means.
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?
I think the job
of the writer is to ask the uncomfortable questions and also to admit that we
don’t immediately know the answers. The job of the writer is to remind us to
stop and think, to draw connections between things, and to explore the
multitude of meanings there. But above all of that, to find beauty and to share
it with the rest of us.
8 - Do you find the process of working
with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It all depends.
Most of the time, it is incredibly helpful to get out of your own head and find
out how your poem reads to someone who isn’t you, who doesn’t already know all
of the references and connections you’re trying to make. It’s hard to know for
sure if your poem is successful unless you have an outside reader who can give
you feedback that you trust. The ideal scenario is to have an editor who likes
and understands your poetry and style, and what you’re attempting to do. It’s
the closest you can get to a clone of yourself who can evaluate your poetry
with an unbiased perspective and a fresh pair of eyes.
9 - What is the best piece of advice
you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
The best piece
of writing advice I’ve heard, that I don’t follow nearly as often as I should,
is not to censor your first draft. You have to silence the critic in your head
when you’re getting a first draft out because there’s a lot of bad writing
floating at the top. But when you get the bad writing down, you can get to the
good writing underneath, maybe even hit on a piece of something great.
10 - What kind of writing routine do you
tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I don’t really
keep much of a disciplined writing routine actually. I tend to do most of my
writing in the evenings after work and on the weekends, but it definitely
doesn’t happen every day. I write as often as I can manage, which is never as
often as I would like.
11 - When your writing gets stalled,
where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I turn to books
and movies! Often I’ll return to a favorite for a reread or rewatch. Other
times I’ll make a dent in the stack of new poetry collections on my nightstand
and hope something shakes loose in my writing brain. I’ve also more recently
turned to playing with visual poetry and collage when I’m stuck on a textual
poem to exercise some adjacent creative muscles. The other tried and true reset
button is going for a good, long walk.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
It’s a very
distinct scent—damp soil, dead leaves, and moss are some the things that make
the rich smell of the woods on the U.S. East Coast. I grew up in a heavily
wooded neighborhood in rural Maryland, where my little brother and I would
always play outside either in the woods across the street or the woods behind
our house. Now, whether I’m hiking in Delaware or Pennsylvania, or even this
summer down in North Carolina, the smell of the woods is exactly the same; and
it immediately transports me home. It’s a deeply comforting smell.
13 - 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?
Absolutely! So
much of my inspiration for poems comes from folk and fairy tales. But more
recently, I’ve been writing poems in conversations some of my favorite horror
movies—and it has been so much fun! In my new poetry collection, Catechesis: a
postpastoral, there are two different sections of horror movie poems in which each
poem borrows for its title a line of dialogue from the films. One is about
Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs and the other is in conversation with
Ridley Scott’s Alien. Since the movie-lines-as-titles come before the poem is
drafted, they serve as the jumping-off point for the rest of the poem; and the
poems themselves tend to go in some really interesting directions. I had so
much fun with these poem series that I’ve also recently started drafting some
new poems in this same style, using Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist.
14 - What other writers or writings are
important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I think the
texts that have been the most important for my work are folk and fairy tales—I
try to infuse a little bit of them into every poem I write. The other writers
who have been most formative for me as both a writer and a reader are Angela Carter, Italo Calvino, Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton, Kate Bernheimer, Neil Gaiman, Jorge Luis Borges, Elizabeth Bishop, Shirley Jackson, Matthea Harvey,
Madeleine L’Engle, and so many more.
15 - What would you like to do that you
haven't yet done?
I’d like to
find some kind of work-life-art balance, but I think that’s definitely more of
a long-term project.
16 - 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?
I really enjoy
graphic design work and letterpress printing, both of which I’ve picked up
through years of experience rather than formal education. I do some of this for
my current job and also a little freelancing, but I’d love to do more.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to
doing something else?
I really can’t
say. I just can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t writing. It’s the
only way I know to go through the world and find some semblance of wholeness.
18 - What was the last great book you
read? What was the last great film?
This past year,
I’ve read Brute, by Emily Skaja and The Red Parts, by Maggie Nelson—both of
which were phenomenal. This summer, I’ve been rewatching some classics that I
love: Rosemary’s Baby and An American Werewolf in London.
19 - What are you currently working on?
Recently, I
wrote my first lyric essay about my obsession with true crime shows. I’m hoping
to write another essay soon. And, of course, I’m still writing poems—figuring
out what the second book might be.
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