Flashback to 2009: An Interview from Southeast Review

Five years ago, Samuel Lloyd, then a B.A. candidate in English/Creative Writing at Florida State University, interviewed me for The Southeast Review. The page has since been deleted from their archives (WAH!), so I thought I would reprint it again here.

What happened when I tried to follow the link. Bummer.

Since then, it appears that young Samuel has completed a master's degree in English education and is pursuing a second one, in Instructional Systems. He currently works at FSU as a Senior College Life Coach, which sounds like a really cool way of saying "career counselor," but perhaps means much more.

I'm still jealous of Brendan Constantine, but for different reasons. :-)

1) Where do you like to be when you write?

As a single working mother with a very hectic schedule I’ve had to learn to write wherever and whenever I can. Nowadays, that is usually either on the subway while I’m commuting (when I can get a seat) or in class, during a journal exercise with my students. My all-time favorite place to write was a “workspace for writers” in Manhattan called Paragraph. During a sabbatical in the fall of 2007 I became a member and was able to take advantage of their “quiet space,” which has a variety of relatively private carrels for members to use. There was something about writing in a space where others are also working that I found especially motivating and inspiring. Other favorite spots are a rock in Central Park (I have several I go to when I can), my gym (they have a table and chairs in one area, but a bench in the locker room will do in a pinch), and my bed (propped up by pillows).

2) How do you usually begin/end a piece you're working on?

Most pieces, prose and poetry, start in one of my notebooks—either the rambling “morning pages” cheap spiral-bound, or if I’m feeling ambitious, the hardbacked composition books I use for drafting. Very occasionally, a poem or prose piece will start out as a blog entry. At some point I will type it up then usually I print it out and make markings on the page.  Ending? I’m not sure if you mean the process—which is really never over, even when a piece is published—or an individual piece. Endings can take awhile, in either case, and it has sometimes taken me years to feel that final “snap” and know something is finished, or close enough.

3) If you like to listen to music while you write (by the way, I saw the Decemberists reference on your blog , isn't "The Crane Wife" great?) what kind of music helps the most?

As I have written elsewhere, music is my life. I was equally interested in music and literature all the way through graduate school—I played violin in a contra dance band and for a community production of Carousel while getting my degrees in creative writing. And I usually have music on while I’m working—when I need to concentrate, Glenn Gould’s recordings of Bach do the trick—but for writing poems I don’t usually listen to anything in particular, unless the poem itself is connected to a musical piece (such as “Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra”). But I can be inspired by a piece to write—either in the moment or later.

The following can be answered in a word, a phrase, a sentence . . .

1) Name a writer who is currently making you jealous.

Brendan Constantine. I’ve been reading his collection Letters to Guns and have been ranting about it to everyone who will listen. What he does with voice, with humor, with pathos, with the sheer music and drama of the poem, is flabbergasting. And the way he reads his work—well, it’s just not fair.

2) What kind of child were you?

Sensitive. Tough. Silly. Serious. Lazy. Ambitious. Sheltered. Curious. Wise. Foolish. Scared. Relentless.

3) What is your relationship with rejection like?

Probably as bumpy as anyone else’s. Who likes rejection of any kind? And is it really possible to become so thick-skinned that you really don’t mind all those fat envelopes (or standardized emails) returning one after another? It helps, sometimes, to hear well-known writers like Kim Addonizio talk about their rejections—in her book Ordinary Genius she actually reprints some of the rejection letters she has received from the finest publications in North America. There was a point at which I stopped sending blind submissions and only submitted work to places where I had some sort of “connection,” however tangential. For years I spent so much time, energy, and money sending out my book and chapbook manuscripts that I just couldn’t send to magazines. As a result, I went into submission frenzy when the manuscripts were accepted, trying to get the previously unpublished poems out there before the chapbook or book came out! I did manage to place a couple more, but I wish I had been more diligent earlier on.

4) What book did you suffer for the most, and why?

Well, since Saint Nobody is my first full-length collection, this is a no-brainer. I like to tell everyone that this has been eighteen years in the making (dating back to 1990, when I started graduate school), it really has taken my whole life up to this point. There is a quote attributed to Elvis Costello (and several other rock musicians), something like, “You get your whole life to make your first record, and two weeks to make your second.” I’m taking a little longer than that for the next one, but it does feel strange to be generating new work for a developing collection, rather than continually winnowing out and using most new pieces to fill an existing one.

5) What was the greatest surprise for you in your most recent writing?

I wrote a poem in two days for the blog Starting Today, co-edited by Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg, which resulted in a book published by University of Iowa Press. One hundred poets were each assigned a day to write a poem, one for each of the first hundred days of the Obama administration. Mine was day 61, March 21st, and I had conveniently forgotten that I would be traveling to Ohio that weekend for my sister’s wedding. Between work, taking care of my kids, packing, picking up the rental car, driving, etc….I knew that the only way I could accomplish this was to give myself a sort of exercise. I came up with the idea of an acrostic, using the phrase “HOPING FOR CHANGE.” I called it “Audacious: An Acrostic,” and I literally finished it an hour before I had to send it to Rachel, on the computer in my dad’s office, which doubles as a guest room. My niece Mary was reading one of Kipling’s Just-So Stories to my daughter and her cousin. The phrase “Best beloved” ended up in the last line of my poem.

6) What writerly habit would you most like to break?

Procrastination, procrastination, procrastination. Although is it really procrastination when you literally have no time? Hm.

Lastly . . . (one random fact to top it off)

7) What did you have for lunch today?

Today was Sunday, and not only did I go to church but it was my confirmation. (I recently became a member of a wonderful liberal Episcopalian church, St. Bart’s on Park Avenue.) They had a little reception for us after the service, and I had two pieces of this delicious lemon cake with yellow candy butterflies. Then I got a falafel pita and a diet Boylan’s root beer and headed to my office to look over my creative writing students’ manuscripts! So much for a day of rest.

"I CAN'T!" Notes on resistance in life and writing...

Resisting the paparazzi. July 4, 2014

My darling daughter, Stella, is twelve and a half now, prone to the vagaries of tween moods and whims, with a little extra spice from the "typical" stubbornness commonly exhibited by people (especially adolescents) with Down syndrome. When she is asked to do something and doesn't want to, which happens with alarming frequency, she has taken to protesting, "I CAN'T!" in a voice harsh with impatience.

I know how Stella feels. There are so many things I "should" do--or even "want" to do--that provoke serious resistance in me. Whether it's exercise, or eating right, or the proverbial cleaning my room, I feel like I'm twelve and a half and find myself having to be my own parent--or, worse, just giving in to the "can'ts" and not doing anything.

Writing, unfortunately, is one of these things. Although I identify as a "writer" and a "teacher of writing," and there is nothing like the feeling of being lost in language and in the flow of creation, I admit that I do not always see putting words on the page as a fun and exciting activity.

Ah, Summer! Taking the Virtual Blog Tour...

Summer is half over already (or something like that), and all of the "real work" I was gonna do has yet to be done. Instead, I have been teaching (2 online classes in June), parenting (more on that later), and plunging into a healthy new lifestyle of plant-based food and regular exercise. Oh, and recovering from one heck of an academic year, both for myself and my kids. As I have learned many times over the years, I really need a deadline, and a metaphorical cattle prod, to get words down on the page and out in the world.

So I was delighted to be invited by a dear and long-time friend, April Lindner, to participate in a "virtual blog tour," aimed at giving more exposure to blogs that readers may not have seen before. It's been quite awhile since I've posted (yikes!), so I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to get Saint Nobody up and running again--in hopes of revving up my own writing. This is the first in a series on various subjects I've saved up since my last post--time to put it out there.

First, meet April, the author of two poetry collections, This Bed Our Bodies Shaped from Able Muse Press and Skin from Texas Tech University Press.  She also has written three young adult novels—Jane, Catherine, and the forthcoming Love, Lucy, all published by Poppy. With R. S. Gwynn, she co-edited Contemporary American Poetry, in Longman’s Penguin Academics series.  A professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, she lives in Havertown, Pennsylvania.

April and I were classmates in the PhD program in Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati many moons ago. We read drafts of each others' poems in workshops, were roomies at my first-ever AWP Conference (Pittsburgh '95), and walked together for our doctoral hooding ceremony in 1998. It's been wonderful to see April from time to time at AWP and the West Chester Poetry Conference near her home in the Philly area. I've been a fan of her poetry for years, and have watched her career as a YA novelist with admiration ever since my niece, Mary, devoured the signed copy of Jane I gave her in 2012. I'll be posting a poem of April's, which I've used often in my classes, later in the week.

The next component of the blog tour meme is a quick "self-interview." Because this post is already fairly long, I will answer briefly here, and elaborate a bit in future posts.

1. What am I currently working on?

I Take Your T-Shirt to Bed Again

And by now it has almost lost its scent—

your scent, as when you were here and turned

towards the wall while I pressed my body

into your body and sighed, “You smell like candy”

into your t-shirted back. Yes, the smell is yours

the shirt warmed by your lean torso, tufted

and delicious. I’ve washed my clothes in your soap,

but that wasn’t it—there must be something sweet your pores

pour forth. In three days you will be here and we will drink

from and with each other, sleep in close quarters,

naked, awake to heat and singing cells and slickness. But now,

 too tired even to please myself, I breathe the shirt that covers

my pillow and dream—our yes and yes and yes opening and opening—

----Amy Lemmon

Published in The Best American Poetry 2013 (Scribner, 2013)

Originally published in Vitrine:a printed museum

best american poetry....and best of the net!

I'm getting some great poetry news so far in 2013. My poem "I take your T-shirt to bed again..." was selected for The Best American Poetry 2013, which will be published by Scribner in September. I've written for the Best American Poetry blog several times, but this is the first time my work will actually appear in that estimable annual collection.

Furthermore, Gerry LaFemina's poem "Bright Windows," which I selected for the Summer 2012 issue of Ducts.org, was chosen for the 2012 Best of the Net Anthology! That should be online later this month, I hear. I'll post again when it's out.

Rilke is my litany

The place we rip open again and again

that always heals—that’s God.

We are all sharp-edged from our need

to know; He is spread out, serene.

Even the pure and blessed libations

He takes into His world in just

one way: by staying motionless,

never controlling the way things turn out.

Only the dead drink

from that spring that we can hear,

when the god signals to them, silently.

Just the noise of it reaches us.

And the lamb begs for its bell

out of its quieter instinct.

 Sonnets to Orpheus, Part II, #16

Rainer Maria Rilke

Trans. David Young

bOB always remembered

Bob's birthday is today. He would be 47, or as he always put it (to his younger siblings), "entering his 48th year." In some ways, it's good that his birthday is near Father's Day--we sort of "get it over with," feel all the heaviness and hardness around the same time. Which is not to say it doesn't pop up on a regular basis at other times, but this has been a tough week. Fortunately, Bobby, Stella, and I are surrounded with love.

Photos from 2010: Bob and Bobby on Memorial Day Weekend at one of Bob's favorite places, the Pompanuck Farm Institute. And with Stella in Chicago, spring break, reflected in a mirrored sculpture.

happy spring!

For the first time in years (and the first time ever for the kids), we spent Easter in Ohio. I had forgotten how beautiful our family home on the Pike is in springtime--the new green leaves and grass, the bird sounds, the flowering dogwood outside my bedroom window. And the sun shone every day, for at least part of the time.

It is truly a time of renewal after the long dark winter. Wishing joy and new life to all!

with a little help from my friends...

Poetry, like life in general, has its solitary moments, but it is also a very collaborative art. Sometimes, when the going gets tough, the only way I can get going is with a dear and capable friend holding my hand. Case in point: the poems I have had the privilege to write with the amazing Denise Duhamel, some of which have been published in ABBA: The Poems by Coconut Books. Our publisher, Bruce Covey, was in town from Atlanta this past week to read his hilarious and devastating poems, including his latest book Reveal (which was composed with the help of Google "I feel lucky" searches). He gave a fantastic reading (with the prodigious Amy King) and I got to "reveal" to him that Denise and I are collaborating on some new poems. Stay tuned....

the way life should be

We are spending some time in Vacationland--the beach, the lakes, the mountains. More soon!

interdependence day

A poet friend of mine posted on Facebook today that his partner is participating in an Interdependence Day Parade at a Buddhist retreat in the Bay Area. Simultaneously, in my search for wisdom on a personal issue, I found a quote from Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh:

 ...[I]f you take good care of yourself, you help everyone. You stop being a source of suffering to the world, and you become a reservoir of joy and freshness. Here and there are people who know how to take good care of themselves, who live joyfully and happily. They are our strongest support. Everything they do, they do for everyone. (qtd. in Why Talking Is Not Enough: 8 Loving Actions That Will Transform Your Marriage by Susan Page)

I definitely need to work on taking care of myself, and I know that a spiritual practice is part of that. In her book where I found the quote, Page describes what she calls "Spiritual Leadership," part of her concept of "Spiritual Partnership," and explains how one person becoming a "spiritual leader" can transform a relationship. One of her principles is that, when you are feeling dissatisfaction or disappointment with a partner, you should shift your focal point from them and your relationship to your own spiritual path. She quotes Thomas Moore: "Slight shifts in imagination have more impact on living than major efforts at change."

I confess that I have felt very much "out of touch" spiritually since Bob's death. Where before I often felt the presence of a positive force, a loving Spirit that provided guidance and lifted me up when I was down, I now find it hard to connect with that energy. I hope that will change soon.

remembering bOB

Yesterday was your birthday. Today is Father's Day. Missing you terribly. And trying to deal with it the only way I know how: writing.

Father’s Day

for R.E.B. III, 6/18/65 to 8/30/10

The blue pen flows, the gospel radio brays.

This day is different from all other days.

No mass, no kaddish, everything's been said.

We’ll plant a young tree with the kids instead,

right near the playground. Now we say Amen.

It’s bluegrass now. A love we shared. I met

my fiddle hero at that festival,

your gig. He died just two years later: old,

a lifelong smoker. You were forty-five,

ate vegetarian and rode your bike.

Six-two, one hundred sixty pounds of brawn.

I wonder if they’ll miss me when I’m gone—

the dobro twangs, the banjo taunts my ear,

the upright bass is—well, upright. Too clear.

grief for kids

"The grieving process is different for children," asserts this article. The piece is about a support group for bereaved kids, which sounds similar to the one that I have been taking Bobby to at The Center for Hope at the Cohen Children's Medical Center.

The group has helped him a lot--perhaps the most important thing is to be around other kids who have lost a parent or other close family member, to make them all feel less alone, less different. The kids get into small groups by age to do crafts and other activities designed to help them process their loss. Meanwhile, the parents meet in one big circle and learn about the kids' activities, and talk about how they can help their kids (and, often, themselves) through it. At the end, the kids come back into the "big room" and we celebrate birthdays and sing a special song written just for the Center.

The kids have been having some trouble sleeping some nights of late--not as easy to get to sleep, and waking up in the middle of the night or early morning. I'm looking into some grief-related services for children with special needs, so that I can get some support for Stella, too.

ducts.org issue 27!

The new issue of Ducts.org is up and running! Go here to read it. If I say so myself, we have a very nice poetry section, featuring work by Valentina Cano, Shanna Compton, Derek Otsuji, Elizabeth Poreba, and Dana Elyse Tarasavage.

Check it out!

powow poetry reading

Tomorrow, Saturday May 7, I have the pleasure of reading with Robert Crawford in the Powow River Poets series in lovely Newburyport, Mass. It starts at 3pm at the Jabberwocky Bookshop.

Join us!

code dependent

Well, one way to solve the problem of internet-based procrastination is to lose your internet access. The problem is, you also lose your access to the things you really need to do.

That's what happened to me. On Friday, April 22nd, at approximately 7pm, my computer went dead. Perfect timing--it was during spring break, and I was intending to catch up on some grading over the weekend. Plus I couldn't even get into my office because all the babysitters were out of town for the holiday weekend!And let's not even talk about the fact that the kids had two additional days of break (this past Monday and Tuesday) that FIT did not.

I took the laptop in to our IT folks first thing Monday morning. By Tuesday, I still hadn't heard anything, other than it was "work in progress." Finally, yesterday, I got connected with the guy working on it (aka My Hero). I'd somehow gotten a virus that caused my hard drive to be inaccessible. It had to be replaced, but fortunately he was able to retrieve my data files by connecting an external hard drive.

WHEW. I just got it back, four loooooong days later (and 6 and a half long days after the crash).

In the meantime, my only access to email, my online classes, and everything was during the time I was able to be in my office at FIT (thank goodness, I still have a desktop unit, albeit an old and slow-ish one).

The rest of the time I felt entirely cut off from the world, from my friends, my family, my boyfriend, my fellow writers and collaborators and partners in crime. It was like a big NOTHING. Silence. I couldn't get in touch with anyone whose phone number I didn't have. I couldn't check my bills and accounts. I couldn't even cook without looking up recipes on the web.

How did I become so dependent on this machine--this chunk of plastic, metal, and whatever other crap that circuitry and such are made of? It's a bit bizarre.

I realized yesterday that I had been going through a serious withdrawal, which was probably chemical in nature. I am a techno addict, and so it follows that my brain was deprived of the dopamine surges it was accustomed to. This reminds me that I need to read Dr. Gary Small's book iBrain, to see exactly what it up with our neurochemistry in this day and age. I've been meaning to get around to it, but now it's time to stop procrastinating and get to it.

I just found it in the New York Public Library's electronic resource, eNYPL. I'm going to download it as soon as I get home with my newly healed laptop. Because now, I can.

what i do instead

There are a million things to do. And unfortunately, I have a problem staying focused. Instead of doing what I "should" be doing, I keep myself "busy" with lots and lots of Nothings. I check my gmail. I check my FIT email. I check the Angel network for messages and my online classes for new discussion postings. I go on Facebook (aka World's Most Successful Time-Suck). Lately, I even started playing Klondike solitaire again--a Nothing I hadn't indulged in for years, but which became frighteningly enmeshed with my hourly routine.

I found a wonderful blog on Psychology Today called "Don't Delay" by Timothy Pychyl, PhD. According to his bio, Dr. Pychyl's research is "focused on the breakdown in volitional action commonly known as procrastination and its relation to personal well being." Reading the blog I discovered that, like creativity, procrastination is a sub-field of study in psychology research. Fascinating.

Of course, reading the blog posts gives me another thing to do--not quite a Nothing, and it really gives me some food for thought. Mostly, it helps me feel less, um, pathological--I am certainly not alone in my Nothing-ness.

I've also read that checking email or texts obsessively--or even compulsive Googling--is connected with the surge of dopamine you get from receiving messages and retrieving information instantly. The last thing I need right now is to get locked into a dopamine-feedback-loop. I'll never get free!

I have decided that, today, I will only check gmail once an hour (if that sounds like a lot, believe me, it's a huge reduction). I will only go on Facebook at lunchtime and the end of the day. And I will not play Pretty Good Klondike at GoodSol Online at all.

Instead I will write. I will get my tax information to my accountant (a BIG source of entrenched procrastinating energy). I will make headway on grading. I will chip away at the dozens of things I need to do for the family--paperwork for Stella, child care arrangements, spring break travel plans.

One thing I am proud of is my commitment to exercise. This week, I have gone for a run/walk every day except Tuesday. And last night I finally did a yoga class at my gym for the first time in a few weeks.

Having done at least that, no matter how much of a blob I've been in other ways, shows me that, in at least one area, I can make the choice to do the right thing, the smart thing, the thing that is good for me. I know that this good energy can carry over into the other parts of my life.

Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted....

my creative brain ?

Needless to say, when you are recovering from a trauma it messes with your mind. In my honors class, Creative Imagination: Theory and Process, we study some of the research about the brain and how it's used while you're making art, solving a problem or coming up with innovative ideas. Our main text for the past few times I've taught it is Nancy Andreasen's The Creative Brain, which is a readable, manageable little paperback that digests some of the theories of creativity over the centuries, and presents the author's own research in neuroscience. We also look at a number of "case studies" of creative achievers in the arts, sciences, and business--from Michelangelo and Leonardo to Maurice Sendak and Maya Angelou.

I'm so grateful to be teaching this class right now--as usual, I feel that it's benefitting the teacher at least as much as the students. It's been two years since it was offered, and this semester I've been discovering some new publications on the subject. Not only do they give some important information (including new research in the social sciences), but I am finding them helpful to me on a personal level, as I struggle to try to write (always a struggle, but now more than usual).

One of the topics we focus on is what I used to term "Creativity and Mental Illness." Andreasen has a chapter called "Genius and Insanity," and the link between the artistic ability or exceptional intellect and psychiatric disorders has been oft-debated. After reading the introduction to Ruth Richards's Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature, I was very encouraged: Richard and colleagues have found in their research that the exercise of creativity (including writing, art-making, and other activities) can actually alleviate some of the symptoms of disorders like bipolar and depression.

Meanwhile, I was in the middle of Heather Sellers' amazing new memoir, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, which is about Heather's recovery of and from a difficult childhood, and the discovery that she has a rare neurological condition called prosopagnosia ("face-blindness"). Heather has been one of my favorite writers for a long time, and her books Page After Page and Chapter After Chapter are lifelines for me when I need to pull myself out of the waters of procrastination and writers' block. In the memoir, Heather describes reading about schizophrenia (which she suspects her mother has been suffering from), and discovers that some of the uses of language that are "symptoms" of the disease sound a lot like things she tries to get her creative writing students to do! It's a fine line....

I was also thrilled to see that interviews with creative people who have been on Studio 360 (one of my favorite radio shows)  have been compiled in Spark: How Creativity Works. When my copy arrived from Amazon I stayed up much later than I should have because I couldn't stop reading it!

By far the most exciting of the new "creativity handbooks," though is Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life. The author, Shelley Carson, has taken all of the research I've seen here and there and framed it in a usable, practicable, even "fun" way. I'm determined to read it cover to cover ASAP and put it into practice in my life!