Eve Wood is the author of five books of poems, Love’s Funeral, and Six, (published by Cherry Grove Collections), Artistic Children Breathe Differently, (Hollyridge Press), a chapbook entitled Paper Frankenstein published by Beyond Baroque Press and Correspondence (Gegensatze Press, Austria) Her newest collection A Cadence For Redemption is new from Del Sol press. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including The Best American Poetry 1997, The New Republic, The Denver Quarterly, Triquarterly, Poetry, Witness, The Wisconsin Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Greensboro Review, Exquisite Corpse, The Florida Review, The Antioch Review, and many others. She has twice been a guest on KPFK’s Poet’s Café hosted by MC Bruce. Wood is the recipient of the Jacob Javits Fellowship and a Brody Grant. Wood writes art criticism for ArtUS, Flash Art, Artillery, Tema Celeste, Artext, Artweek, and Artnet.com, Bridge Magazine, Latinarts.com, and Art Papers etc. Also a visual artist, Wood was represented for six years by Western Project and for three years by Susanne Vielmetter; LA Projects. She is currently represented by Track 16 Gallery. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is included in several collections including Eileen and Peter Norton, The Weatherspoon Museum, and the Laguna Art Museum.
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
EWOOD: My first book was called Love’s Funeral, and it didn’t really change my life per se, (as is often the case with books of poems) very few read it, however, it was a crucial experience because Mark Strand wrote the back-jacket blurb and I remember I kept pinching myself in disbelief at his kind words.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
EWOOD: Both my parents were poets and actually met at the MacDowell Colony, so I suppose you could say it runs in the family.
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?
EWOOD: Usually, and hopefully, lightning strikes, but that is a rare occurrence. I think in terms of “projects,” “concepts” rather than individual poems. Each project has a different trajectory, pulse and rhythm – some, as was the case with my most recent book written in the “fictive” voice of Abraham Lincoln, came all at once with a tremendous urgency, but I credit that to the incredibly difficult times we currently find ourselves living through. It was a visceral experience, at times so palpable, it almost felt like Lincoln was there beside me, shaking his head in astonishment.
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?
EWOOD: I am usually struck by an idea, or sometimes a line occurs to me and I build from there. For example: the most recent school shooting left me feeling so hopeless that I began thinking about all the rage brewing in today’s young men, and thus a poem entitled “To All the Angry Boys,” came into being. I usually work from a specific concept, an overriding theme, so I suppose, yes, I work on new “books” from the beginning.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
EWOOD: I LOVE doing readings, but sadly, rarely get the opportunity. A century ago, when I was young, I studied acting and I think that experience really helped me understand the importance of being able to read one’s own work in public. Being a good reader of poetry is a cultivated skill that not many poets have mastered. I also had the opportunity of going to see some really stellar and personable poets read their own work – Mark Strand, Galway Kinnell, Brigit Pegeen Kelly and Tom Lux, and this also helped me hone my own reading skills. For me, humor is key – the stories you tell between the poems are as important as the poems themselves.
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?
EWOOD: I am old fashioned. My poems are my way of explaining my life experience back to myself. It’s a reiteration of joy, grief, sorrow, shame, love, all the qualities that make us human. I do not have any specific theoretical concerns in my work. I believe the best poems are a translation of human experience made accessible through a specificity of language. For me, theoretical poems deliberately distance the reader from the poem, which is antithetical to the purpose of any poem – to reach out and grab you by the throat, or lull you deeper into yourself, or as the great Franz Kafka once said, “A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.”
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
EWOOD: The role of the writer has always been the same as it is a timeless profession, one that is ¼ shaman, ¼ renegade, ¼ sage and ¼ lover – ultimately writers are those among us who are compelled to tell the truth no matter the circumstances. This “truth” is universal and available to us all, but great writers are conduits to the unknown, to mystery, beauty and salvation, and we need them now more than ever.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
EWOOD: I always enjoy the process of working with another set of eyes as it usually helps me to see where the writing could be better, etc.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
EWOOD: The best piece of advice I ever got was from the poet David St. John who told me to be selective when showing my work to others. He told me to find one or two trustworthy readers and to really cultivate those friendships. Those relationships are like gold.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to criticism to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?
EWOOD: I’ve been engaged in all these various art forms for a long time, and when I was at Cal Arts, I began writing and the practices grew together. I think in some way they feed each other as poetry is a visual language.
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?
EWOOD: Because we have six dogs, three birds, and one cat, AND I work a full-time teaching job, I am always jockeying my various responsibilities, so I literally carve out time where I can. Sometimes it’s only an hour, but I’ve learned to modulate my creativity, and many times I write the poem in my head as I am doing my daily chores and then sit down at night and set it all down. It’s not the best creative model, but it seems to work.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
EWOOD: I read the work of my favorite writers, and that usually jump starts my creative juices.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
EWOOD: There really isn’t a fragrance I associate with home. Maybe horse poop because I used to ride horses when I was a kid and have many good memories of those days.
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?
EWOOD: I would say that visual art has had a tremendous effect on my work. Because I am also a visual artist, there is a lot of cross over between these genres for me. I often listen to music when I am writing and more times than once can claim a “happy accident” when I have misunderstood a lyric and it becomes part of a poem!
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
EWOOD: Being an art critic, I read a lot of art criticism – Peter Schjeldahl, Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss, Jerry Saltz, Clement Greenberg and Susan Sontag to name a few. I also read fiction when I have the time.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
EWOOD: I have not travelled very much in my life and am consciously trying to change that. In 2019 I went to Berlin and Vienna and this year Paris. My goal is travel once a year. Hopefully one day I can got to the Giraffe Manor Hotel in Nairobi.
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?
EWOOD: Since I’m not good at anything else other than art making and writing, I probably would have been some sort of animal trainer, i.e. working with animals in some capacity, but I could just as easily have wound up a bum. LOL!
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
EWOOD: In my experience, writing is never a choice. It’s a compulsion that cannot be quelled by any other means. I tell my students all the time – “If you can do ANYTHING else, do it because the life of a writer is difficult, painful, poverty stricken, etc. and you must feel in your bones that you NEED to be doing this – that you will practically die if you can’ t set pen to paper.
What made me write was that I could not not write.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
EWOOD: George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo – absolutely brilliant. Last great film was Lamb directed by Valdimar Johannsson.
20 - What are you currently working on?
1 comment:
Wonderful interview.
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