1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I am about to see! I just published my first book a few weeks ago.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I could never write fiction. Character creation and plot are not my thing. The freedom in writing poetry suits my nature I guess. I also write non-fiction, although it sometimes feels like work, which writing poetry never does. I like mixing the two mediums. Actually, my writing arose out of a practice in visual art, which was my life for many years and continues in part to be.
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?
Once in a while a poem is perfect from the moment of hearing it and writing it down. Very rarely. I use the word “perfection” consciously. The etymology of the word means “complete”. Many poems do not achieve perfection but some do, and I know when I see it. It is an aspiration, an obsession really, and my editing process could not be more relentless. Time is a friend, stepping away and coming back again and again. Of course, sometimes I go back to a first pencil draft and find it fresher and more living than all the heavily edited versions.
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?
Both, all of the above.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I am told I read very well, but I see lots of room for improvement, which I plan to focus on. I adore reading aloud in general and have loved doing dry reads for theater, but poetry readings can make me a bit nervous, especially at the beginning. More a matter of deciding what to read and getting the timing right, which I think I am bad at.
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?
How can we learn to see beyond the physical? How can we awaken to beauty? How can we really pay attention? How can we learn to see the macrocosm in the microcosm and vice versa? How can we get close enough to something to know what it really is? How can we hear the living voice in things? How can we honor what has shaped us? How can we act from a sense of responsibility for the evolution of humanity? How can we do the work of angels? How can we learn to know the good, the true, the beautiful? How can we transform rubble into a castle? How can we express our gratitude? How can we simply listen? How can we Love?
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?
I think the role of the writer is to ask all the questions in Question #6, at a minimum.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I very much enjoy the experience, having worked with two very different editors, one a poet, the other a chair of English Literature. I value immensely being shown my blind spots, as well as having to justify my reason for doing a particular thing. It is a process I find both fun and essential.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. - Goethe
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to photography to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?
Moving between these genres is second nature to me. They build upon, inspire and inform each other. The physicality of art-making is also a very nice antidote to the stillness/stiffness of writing. Learning to really see, as one does in learning visual composition, is an essential asset as a writer, I think.
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?
Cold (ish) shower, make chai, kundalini yoga and/or a solitary walk (not for exercise - in nature or an otherwise beautiful place), then writing (pencil and paper)....later in the day transcribing to computer, preferably in a cafe over matcha, or in bed.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I read philosophy, meditate, rearrange furniture, do laundry (I love laundry, as a lover of cloth and clothes), catch up with friends, make soup, read, work on a beautiful jigsaw puzzle. Walking in nature, alone. Prayer. I ask the invisible world to be a conduit for its expression. I see all of my work as a co-creation with the unseen/spiritual world.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Fresh cut hay, lily of the valley, a woodshed, early spring rain on a field, fallen maple leaves.
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?
All of the above and more. I think one needs to work out of direct experience. Reading is great but the soul needs much more than books. I literally feed on all of the arts,
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Rudolf Steiner, Hermann Hesse, Owen Barfield, Wendell Berry, Simone Weil, Rilke, Clarice Lispector, Wallace Stevens, Annie Dillard, Tennessee Williams, Dylan Thomas, Durrell's Alexandria Quartet....so many others.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Collaborations of all kinds, something involving music....a musical maybe, or an opera.
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?
Singer, lawyer, psychotherapist, costume designer, linguist, nun, ethnobotanist, actor, food critic, Waldorf teacher, interior designer, farmer, philosopher, minister….I have felt strongly called to all this and more. Probably poetry is the only thing that allows me to live a small piece of all the things I have longed to be in this lifetime.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I was in a somewhat nomadic phase of life and found the materials of visual art cumbersome.
19 - What was the last great book you read?
Vladimir Soloviev, Russian Mystic, Paul M. Allen
What was the last great film?
Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread
20 - What are you currently working on?
Lots. A second and probably third full length book. Several chapbooks.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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