Installment #25
: : :
The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate download the questions, input your answers, and e-mail it to: editor@poemeleon.org.
: : :
Reading
Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?
A: Direct from small presses, if possible. Otherwise, used bookstores or, in a pinch, Amazon.
Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?
A: Never counted, but probably at least a couple hundred. 80% I'd say, unless it counts to have read some multiple times.
Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)
A: Anywhere but in the car although I used to like to lie on top of the car and read when I was a kid. Haven't tried that lately. I used to make myself finish anything I started; not anymore.
Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?
A: Yours, actually! Also some books I am reading (with pleasure) for reviews, especially the four chapbooks in Effigies.
Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?
A: I'm reading Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee closely as I am working on radio play adaptations of some of them. I’m also reading several books on Cherokee history. I did read the Kashi cereal box recently, though.
: : :
Writing
Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)
A: My favorite time is the morning, when I am closest to dreams, but longhand on whatever is at hand, whenever the mood strikes. I have written poems on napkins at picnics, on the back of an ATM receipt at the county fair (thanks, Ghoti, for taking “Below the Midway”), on a scrap of paper I found in my pocket at a lacrosse game. I write other things besides poetry, so I have several notebooks going. I used to journal (from 4th grade on when my teacher, Mrs. Carriker, saw I was a writer and gave me a little blue record book), but haven't done that formally in years. Now I just make notes and drafts in the same notebook. I only type things up when my revisions start to become illegible. Why write? Because every time I ask myself Rilke's question “must I write?" the answer is yes.
Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?
A: I work very slowly, but I do several drafts a month, whether on poem or other project. Realistically maybe 4-6 poem drafts a month, unless I really get on a roll. Is that bad? Why do I think other poets are more productive?
Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?
A: I don't.
Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?
A: When I start changing things back to where I had them before and when I read it aloud and it feels right, but not just because I am used to it.
Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?
A: You over-estimate my popularity.
: : :
Publishing
Q: What is your system for sending out work?
A: I keep a document of subs by date and title. I try to send out a few things a month, mostly rejections that I boot right back out the door. I rarely do simultaneous subs, because that tries my organizational mettle.
Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?
A: Provisional acceptance, which I expect will turn into a rejection; I never have expectations of acceptances, so am always pleasantly surprised when they happen.
Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?
A: Both. I fancy I reach more people (aside from my mom and best friend) with my poetry being online; still, I am a sucker for printed material. I was once published in a nature journal (Snowy Egret) that featured lots of beautiful drawings and paintings and I thought that was just excellent, but online journals do a lot with art, too, and I was pleased with a poem that was paired with a photograph to good effect (in Blue Print Review). http://www.blueprintreview.de/19unified.htm
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: Only one? I’ve had lots of great experiences; it was very cool to be solicited to submit for a journal where I ended up appearing with Paula Gunn Allen. I also was honored that Jimmy Santiago Baca chose some of my work for a recent issue of the same fantastic (and not because I'm in it) journal. I also loved the editor of an online journal who walked me through recording a poem for the first time so that I didn’t sound like I was reading from my bathroom. It was also exciting to have my poetry choreographed into dance! These positive experiences more than off-set the one truly terrible experience I had with a foreign editor. I think we receive back what energy we put out.
Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?
A: A few fan emails and that was a real kick. I also try to do the same for other poets and artists. It's important to stay connected as a community and encourage one another. The on line journals are good for that, especially, as they often list the authors’ emails. Facebook is also a good place for saying "way to go!"
: : :
Practical considerations
Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?
A: I’m a wellness coach and I'd say the effect is the other way around: helping people sort through their narratives about wellness is very telling; recognizing that when you change the words, you can begin to change the story line, is very powerful.
Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?
A: By providing health insurance and financial stability, thereby freeing up some of my neural space for writing instead of worrying quite so much about how to pay the bills.
Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?
A: Not couldn't, but didn't, and I nearly died. Writing has saved my life on more than one occasion.
Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?
A: Nope. I just buy things here and there and try to rotate journal subscriptions. I do try to support the presses whose work I love, although I can’t afford to buy as much as I’d like. The reading fees are the killers, although I understand the rationale. I was very fortunate to win a grant recently and that afforded me opportunities (studying Cherokee language, history and culture in Cherokee, NC) I would not otherwise have had (thanks, Montgomery County Arts & Humanities Council!).
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: I once appropriated an incident from someone’s childhood and wrote about it. When it was published, someone related to the person said I had “stolen so and so’s memory.” I didn't do it in a malicious way; I just saw good material for a poem and used it, without naming names. Isn't that what writers do? As to suffering myself: it stung when I was accused of living in a “kingdom of words,” but it’s sort of a good title, isn’t it? Oh, and there’s a really raw poem called “The House that Love Built” that was painful both to write and to record; I still can’t stand to listen to it: http://www.2river.org/2RView/11_3/poems/becker.html
: : :
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: I can see ghosts. Not all the time, but I have and do. I don't think that makes me superhuman, just super sensitive.
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: _____
...would never write a scathing poem about my mother! I did write a sad pantoum (“Watershed”) about my father that you published in the form issue; fortunately, my father and I have reconciled and my son might even go on the boat with him, after all!
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: Leave it to my family; my last wishes are already in a published poem, “All the Graves”.
Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?
A: Y, since it only behaves sometimes.
Q: Finally write a couplet for a collaborative ghazal using the following kaafiyaa and radif: “said the poet”.
[Oh, Lord. I’ve only ever written one or two ghazals, but here goes]:
Not just bone and skin, but spirit:
Even words wear thin, said the poet.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Kimberly L. Becker, of Cherokee/Celtic/Teutonic descent, is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. Her poetry appears in many literary journals and anthologies, most recently Hobble Creek Review, Red Ink, Yellow Medicine Review, and I Was Indian (Foothills). She is happiest when within sight of the North Carolina mountains.