The Habitual Poet: Marilyn L. Taylor
Installment #32
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The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate copy & paste the Q's from below and e-mail your answers to: editor@poemeleon.org.
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Reading
Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?
A: We have a wonderful independent bookstore here in Milwaukee called Boswell Bookshop, and I make it a point not to go anywhere else if I can possibly help it. It has survived the onslaught of the mega-bookstores, and it’s also holding its own in the Age of Kindle. A substantial interview with the owner, Daniel Goldin, appeared in the June issue of Poets and Writers; check it out!
Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?
A: I think I own about 300 books of poetry, about 280 of which I’ve read.
Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)
A: Right the first time: mostly at bedtime, often under the covers. Also on vacation. I read cover-to-cover if it’s nonfiction or fiction, with no cheating on the latter by reading the last page first. With poetry, I wander back and forth through the pages.
Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?
A: Ana Enriqueta Teran’s selected poems, The Poetess Counts to 100 and Bows Out (I bought it for the title, but it gets even better than that). Before that I re-read Sonnets from the Portuguese, and I recently finished Richard Newman’s excellent Domestic Fugues. I read a lot of poems online at work (not enough people go to poetry websites to get them blocked by the firewall).
Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?
A: Let’s see. Barbara Crooker’s More, Fleda Brown’s Reunion, C.X. Dillhunt’s Things I’ve Never Told Anyone, Mark Jarman’s Epistles. It was a banner month for quality.
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Writing
Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)
A: I am finishing up a two-year term as Poet Laureate of Wisconsin and have had exactly zero time to write lately. I do scribble things on the backs of envelopes like Abraham Lincoln, and toss various snippets into a computer file named “Random Ideas.” But when my laureateship ends at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2011, I’m jumping back in with both feet! I plan to write an entire poem every day, for one entire year (in emulation of Ron Wallace, who did it so successfully a few years back).
Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?
A: I tend to work very slowly, because I edit my work line by line, polishing each one before I let myself go on to the next. Since I tend to write shorter poems, e.g. sonnets, I can usually complete an almost-ready-for-prime-time draft within two to three weeks.
Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?
A: Again, I revise as I go. If I’m stuck, I’ll put the poem away for a couple of weeks, look it over then, and take up where I left off.
Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?
A: It’s done when I’m thoroughly sick of working on it.
Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?
A: In all honesty, no—unless it’s an invitation I wouldn’t accept in the first place. One has to have a Life, after all.
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Publishing
Q: What is your system for sending out work?
A: My system is very slapdash. If I come across a likely-looking journal, I simply gather together some poems I think the editors might like, write the cover letter, and send it off. I keep records, but they are shamefully sloppy
Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?
A: Because my last few publications have been solicited, I’ve received some very nice acceptances lately. When I start sending out new poems “cold”, I’m sure it will be a different story.
Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?
A: I publish both online and in print. I used to prefer print, but I don’t feel that way anymore, thanks to the proliferation of wonderful online journals like Poemeleon.
Q: What is the worst (or weirdest, or best) experience you’ve had with a journal/magazine/press & its editor(s)? (No names, please!)
A: Several years ago a journal kept my submission for over a year, and I decided to query. Weeks passed, but I finally got a letter in response, telling me that the assistant editor’s house had burned down, and since my poems (along with the poems of dozens of others) had been consumed in the leaping flames, could I please submit again? I don’t know whether to believe this story or not.
Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?
A: Yes, on both counts, but I’ll expand only on the hate-mail. Once when I judged a completely blind contest, a woman accused me of cronyism. I had never met the winner of the contest, but it was quite true that the third-place poet and I had at one time taught in the same graduate program—although I didn’t know her, either, nor had I the slightest clue that she had submitted. But my accuser saw fit to write to an influential local arts newspaper about my evil ways and total lack of ethics—and also to Foetry.com, which at that time was a nasty place to be accused of anything. I haven’t heard anything about her lately; maybe she’s joined a cult somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
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Practical considerations
Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?
A: Although I have retired from college-level teaching, I am Poet Laureate of Wisconsin right now—and it’s a full-time job. It’s fun, but it has absolutely done away with my writing time.
Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?
A: My husband is now retired and is at home a great deal of the time, but he still sees to it that I have lots of space that allows me to write, and to travel to poetry-related events. Bless him.
Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?
A: Yes. My aforementioned husband had cancer last year. I couldn’t write until he was finished with his treatments and well on his way to recovery.
Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?
A: I have a separate bank account into which I deposit honoraria, fees, book sale “profits”, etc. I use the money for poetry-related expenses, and for getting my hair colored.
Q: Have you ever suffered (or made someone else suffer) in the name of your art? (i.e. picked up your kids late from school so you could finish a poem, forgone lunch to buy a book, left a relationship because the other person just didn't understand, etc.)
A: No, I don’t think so. I have had a supportive family all these years, and it has never come to that. And I realize how fortunate I am to be able to say this.
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Random nonsense
Q: Do you have any superhuman abilities? (i.e. can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue, or write a double sestina with both hands tied behind your back?)
A: Sure, how’s this? All the dialogue in my dreams is spoken in flawless iambic pentameter. (But now I really want to try the cherry stem thing!)
Q: You write a scathing poem about your mother and she learns about it. You:
a.) Move to South America and leave no forwarding address
b.) Delete the poem and insist it never existed
c.) Show it to her (she’s already written you out of the will anyway)
d.) Do none of the above; instead you: _____
A: My answer is “a.” South America, for sure. Buenos Aires, if possible, or maybe Santiago.
Q: If the best medical specialists in the world told you that if you didn’t give up your poetry habit today you would die in six months, would you get your affairs in order or would you leave that up to your family?
A: My family knows that my poetry habit is just a symptom of a bigger problem, a genetic trait for which there is no cure.
Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?
A: I would be a diphthong. Is that permitted? I’d love to rhyme with plow, and thou.
Q: Finally, what piece of advice would you most like to share with our readers? (This can be on writing, the writing life, or anything else...)
A: My most heartfelt piece of advice: Poets, please remember that it is the writing that matters. Not playing the game, outfoxing the competition, selling books, networking, schmoozing, boozing, or making waves. It is the writing that matters.
Marilyn L. Taylor is the author of six collections of poetry, the most recent of which, titled Going Wrong, was published in 2009 by Parallel Press. Her award-winning work has also appeared in many anthologies and journals, including The American Scholar, Poetry, Measure, Mezzo Cammin, Raintown Review, and Poemeleon. She taught poetry and poetics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for many years, and currently serves as a Contributing Editor for The Writer magazine, where her columns on craft appear bimonthly. Marilyn was appointed Poet Laureate of the State of Wisconsin for 2009 and 2010.
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 02:03PM
Reader Comments (1)
What a warm way to remember how much wisdom there is in each of us
and so much in common among us.
now if we can figure out how to take notes in our dreams...
:-)