Interview Conducted by Deborah Hill
Can you describe your work ethic regarding your writing; for example, do you wait for inspiration and ideas, or sit and write until the work happens?
I’m always writing in my head, there’s always language moving through. I think it’s a matter of sitting down and doing it, and trying to have some sort of structure and looking at writing as work. I said yesterday at the reading I do a lot of revising, and that’s a big part of the process. It’s a lot of work of processing through what the poem is supposed to be.
How has your writing and your process evolved?
I think as I’ve grown as a writer I’ve been willing to take more chances and risks with experimentation with different genres. When I started out as a writer in my early twenties, I was totally focused on poetry. My graduate MFA degree is in poetry, so creative and theoretical writing about poetry was where I put my energy. In the last decade or so I’ve been more willing to branch out into different genres. I also care less about what people think. I’ve let go of a lot of the critics we writers carry around with us, both real and imagined.
How is the title Lost Houses connected to your work?
When I was putting the collection together from poems that I did not write with a thematic connection, I discovered how the poems evolved with certain images that held them all together. When I looked at the images that connected the poems there was a clear thread that emerged. I’m fascinated with architecture and physical structures and I saw that (the “house” part). And so much of my work is going through memory and the reconstruction of the past using physical structures as a guide. A rebuilding of memory of what’s been lost in order to move forward.
When you finished high school, what field did you think you were going into? If not teaching/writing, then how did you come to be where you are?
I started as a Psychology major. I’d always written and I’d always read so writing and literature was part of my life, but my older sister and brother were literature majors, and I thought I couldn’t do the same thing they did, or I wanted to do something different to carve out my own place. I started in Psychology and switched to Sociology and finally came to my senses that I should follow what I loved. I majored in literature and minored in Women’s Studies. During graduate school I had the chance to teach part time and I found I really liked teaching. That lead me to where I am today.
What are you reading right now? What’s on your top shelf?
On my nightstand there’s a book titled Beauty by John O’Donohue. I’m reading nonfiction right now. I’m also just about to start a book of poetry called Water for Words Li Yun Alverado.
What writers inspire you?
There are so many. Right now, the work I’m doing is inspired by Anne Carson. I’m fascinated with how she structures her language into her books. It’s like a puzzle. She’s creating some really fascinating blended genre. Adrienne Rich is someone I’ve been really inspired by my entire adult life, because of her voice. Bhanu Kapil is another writer I so admire. There are so many writers who just make me think, and I tend to move towards that kind of literature.
Is there any advice that you think is particularly pertinent to poets, as compared to other writers?
No, I think the advice for all writers is that you have to read. Advice to poets is to read as many different genres as possible. That goes for fiction as well. Young poets often think that creative writing is all about inspiration, but it’s also work. In the world of contemporary literature, poetry doesn’t have the same large readership as fiction or nonfiction. To be a good poet you have to persevere, and don’t expect to make a lot of money off the books you write because at its core it’s not a commercial pursuit. The audience isn’t there for poets as it is for other genres.
