1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
This is my first full-length book so I am experiencing how my life is changing. It came out the same year my father died, so it’s been a year of initiations.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Poetry is the genre that has the strongest grip on me. It calls me back, continuously. It reflects the natural state of my thought process - elliptical, associative, elusive, and fragmentary.
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?
Starting? I am a quick starter. When drafting, the words flow like cheap merlot. I turn my executive mind off and my receiving mind on and enter the current, banging away with utter freedom. But that’s not how I polish, revise, or craft. There’s a great divide between the drafting process and the rest of it.
When I was working on The End of Welcome, I collated all the versions of the poems in it and that manuscript was close to 800 pages. So the process with The End of Welcome included wrestling with an 800-page tiger.
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?
The End of Welcome was individual pieces that found themselves cohabitating in the same manuscript. The manuscript evolved over a period of about six or seven years. The manuscript I am working on right now has started as a book - it’s thematically linked and being written with the end shape in mind. The methodology is project dependent.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I find readings enchanting. There’s something ancient and nourishing about humans gathering to hear other humans.
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?
The End of Welcome has social concerns around abuse of power and tyranny. It engages in questioning who has agency, who controls progress and our bodies, and who dictates the direction of our collective hope. The name itself is a nod to that - the age of America as a welcoming agent to the dispossessed, the searching, the poor and resilient is over. It’s becoming a plutocratic dystopia. Who belongs?
Here are a couple of the questions on my mental altar:
How do we keep world-centric and human-centric without becoming cynical, exhausted, and hopeless?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?
How do we keep ourselves tender enough to rest and eat good food and laugh when the emperor is running around naked and stark?
I don’t know what the role of the writer is in larger culture - we are treading in waters that reject the intellectual, complexity, liberalism, and the humanities. Throw AI into the mix and it’s a watershed moment. Society is reshaping and so is the role of its gatekeepers, champions, and pillars.
In terms of the ideal writers role, it depends on the writer. If the writer is a small-minded bigot from Dogpatch who uses their platform to spew orange vomit, then a NPC role would be preferable.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Personally, I’d rather stick my tit in a Cuisinart.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I am allergic to advice.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to stories to essays to reviews to visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?
Its natural to glide between painting, photography, poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews, but I can’t sing or dance, and that’s why I never made it as a Rockette.
The appeal? There’s pleasure in multiplicity. Different genres let you do different things, offer different quests, and present different challenges.
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?
I’ve been writing for 41 years and I don’t have a Routine. I have provisional routines. Sometimes they will last a week, sometimes a month, sometimes a season. I’m in flux.
Right now, this is my routine: Monday through Friday, get up at 6 am and write for 1.5 hours in the morning before work. When I am done with my work day, I need to unfold my mind and let it flutter on the breeze. I am in bed by nine pm, so there’s no night writing sessions anymore. But thirty years ago? I’d be writing till dawn’s wine-stained fingers ripped the pen out of my fist.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Astrology. I have a system where I use horary charts (charts of the hour) to unlock when I get locked up. I engage with the universe as a creative partner.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Pierogies and onions and Emeraude.
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?
Visual art - I get juiced when I am at a gallery or museum. Spending time with visual art changes my brainwaves and unlocks escape hatches and secret doors.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
For my life outside of my creative work, I read a lot of astrology since I have been a consulting astrologer since the late 90’s: William Lilly, Liz Greene, Demetra George, Chris Brennan, Renn Butler, and Steven Forrest are a few of the names on my shelf.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Build a yurt.
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?
Perfume designer.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Absolutely no choice in the matter. Makes me wonder about free will, tbh. I’ve been writing creatively since I was 11 years old. In a dynamic life filled with reinventions, writing is the throughline.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I’ve been on a Han Kang kick lately and was absolutely blown to bits by Human Acts.
20 - What are you currently working on?
A fun project that marries my two favorite things: poetry and perfume. I spent about a season waking up early and starting each day with a perfume. I’d sit in the semi-dark and smell the perfume, put it on my body, smell it as it developed, and then write about it. Then I explored what the public was saying about each perfume and what the perfume house itself was saying. I’m layering those three axis of language around each scent: the personal, the social, and the corporate.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
No comments:
Post a Comment