The Habitual Poet: Ren (Katherine) Powell
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 09:18AM
Lalanii R. Grant in The Habitual Poet


Installment #52

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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:  I buy them – almost all of them - online. I usually use the publisher’s websites when buying individual books, but turn to Amazon.co.uk for sprees. I know that it is controversial for many reasons, but I am vocal when I don’t like what they do and I’ve been happy with the way they responded to the protests of their indirect censorship of queer literature, and other issues. Generally, the only English language books in the local bookstores (which are all chains anyway) are the paperback bestsellers. There is a terrific independent bookstore in Oslo called Tronsmo. When I am in the city I buy a book there just as a matter of principle.

 

Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?

 

A: I catalogue my poetry books and I have over 200 collections and then another 100 or so on theory, another 60 or so anthologies. I’d say I’ve read about 2/3 of them.

 

Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)

 

A: On the train, on the couch in front of the fire when no one is home, in the beanbag chair in my office when they are in bed, before my husband comes upstairs and turns off the light. I dip into anthologies, but read collections cover to cover and try very hard to set off time to do it in a few long sessions, if not in a single sitting.

 

Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?

 

A: H.D.’s Helen in Egypt. Paul Farley’s The Atlantic Tunnel. Jessica Fox’s Blameless Mouth. I have decided to be systematic in my reading this year to balance classic books, traditionally published contemporary works and self-published works.

 

Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?

 

A: I’m reading What Ever Happened to Modernism? now. For work I have been re-reading plays: American Buffalo and Top Girls. I’m also incredibly lucky to get to read Poemeleon submissions.  And I’ve been enjoying the new online journal Esque 2.

 

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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 usually begin writing on the couch while drinking tea—either on my laptop longhand, or on scraps of paper (I cannot for the life of me keep a descent notebook of any kind). Then I move to my desk to nurture it.

 

I am bipolar and I respect the cyclical nature of my life. I once wrote to my MA advisor Ted Deppe to apologize for a thin term-packet of poems.  He told me that I should be patient and wait for my season to come around. It was wonderful advice. I do wait for it: my writing season. Then I respect it when it passes. This isn’t to say that I wait around for inspiration. Often the pump needs priming and I’ve learned the importance of being able to do that myself instead of waiting for some fantastic muse.

 

I write to communicate. To be seen and heard. And to share. I want to point to what I experience as truth and have someone else nod and say they get it: we are on the same wavelength. I think I’m a very needy poet. Don’t get me wrong: compliments are nice and all, and it’s cool when people acknowledge me as a poet, but what I really need to know is if I’ve communicated exactly what I intended. But because I’m terribly influenced by the modernists, I very rarely succeed.

 

Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?

 

A: I am not sure that I write “drafts” in the traditional sense. I generally begin with a kernel of a poem, which I invariably believe is a finished poem, then it grows from there to reach toward a reader. My poems go through little growth spurts and rarely need pruning. I believe Robert Hass works like that sometimes. He’s published a poem at various stages of its growth.

 

When I’m writing I can develop about five poems a week. Then I do go for months without a line. I’m ashamed to even write that—what with all the writer’s wisdom out there about “writers write every day” etc.

 

Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?

 

A: I generally work straight through over several days. Occasionally a poem fragment sits over a season and when I return I’ve forgotten its point of origin.  It’s like working with found text. These kinds of poems are like two different creatures. Sometimes the Frankenstein-like poems, sewn together from several seasons’ fragments, function well, but they never feel as authentic. More like documentation than expression. But the older I get, the more I like documentation and craftsmanship.

 

Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?

 

A: The season has to pass and I have to have distance from the process to decide if it communicates with me once the cord has been cut, so to speak. Too often I forget that, and submit poems that are unfinished. It’s self-destructive.

 

Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?

 

A: I don’t get many invitations. I find most social situations stressful and it probably shows. I am too intense—I have no idea how (or why) to do small talk. I’d rather stay home and write small poems and send them into the world and hope somebody is listening.

 

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Publishing

 

Q: What is your system for sending out work?

 

A: System? … Back now, I had to go get another cup of tea and then stop laughing so I wouldn’t spill it on the keyboard.

 

Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?

 

A: The last rejection was for a manuscript–the book I wrote as part of my PhD dissertation. I’m never surprised. Discouraged? Always.

 

Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?

 

A: I used to think that it was most important to publish in print journals. Then I went to San Francisco a few years ago to pick up as many journals as possible to bring home. I had trouble finding journals. I like the fact that my work can be read online. I don’t want people to recognize my name as a name, but to remember a poem and think, “Yes, she’s the poet who wrote that one about the turtle…” I have a publisher here in Norway—several beautiful hardback books, so I got over the thrill of being able to say I was a published poet a long time ago, realizing that published does not mean read. I want my work to be published in journals read by people who like to take time to read poems. For this reason I still like print journals. Do we read poems online with the same care yet? I print out poems I really want to spend time with.

 

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: I got a self-addressed, stamped postcard (for which I’d been forced to go to great lengths to obtain US stamps) from one print journal. The salutation appeared to be: Ms. Reject.

 

Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?

 

A:  I have written fan mail to Nadine McInnis, Pamela Gemin and Albert Goldbarth. I have written fan letters with such enthusiasm that my internal editor was overwhelmed. I’ve vowed never to do it again. I did get a wonderful letter back from Goldbarth after I’d foisted one of my books on the poor man, who was my first poetry teacher.

 

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Practical considerations

 

Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?

 

A: At the moment I’m teaching theater studies at a performing and visual arts high school. As a teacher, I’m still dealing with how writing and teaching can coexist. It is mainly a question of self-censorship—whether I want to keep my two worlds separate. I also translate and teach writing workshops.  Translating, lecturing and coming up with analogies in teaching situations, certainly prime the pump to come home and write.

 

Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?

 

A:  I am married to an engineer with a steady income and that has given me the freedom to work and take off work, as I needed to over the years. For a few years I was able to work for PEN and go to international conferences. It didn’t help my “career” as a poet, but the experiences—good and bad—helped me grow as a poet.

 

Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?

 

A: Absolutely. Whole seasons of quiet time. I don’t panic anymore or think I am really meant to do something else.

 

Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?

 

A: Uh. Budget? When the boxes from Amazon start piling up I remind my husband that we are lucky I don’t have a thing for jewelry.

 

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: Yes and no. My kids have never had the kind of mother who packs school lunches for them, who cooks family dinners or knows how to talk to the other parents at the PTA meetings. I’ve been at the computer. But when I am with them, when I am listening to what excites them, puzzles them, frightens them, I am there 100%. I am sane. Forcing myself to be anything other than an artist... I couldn’t live with my failures. I stopped feeling guilty about my less-than-tidy house recently. I’ve liked myself a lot better since. My husband doesn’t like poetry. It took me years to accept that and stop feeling deprived. Maybe if he “got” poetry I wouldn’t feel compelled to write. Maybe I actually picked him as a partner on purpose, to protect the privacy of my public habit.

 

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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: I am a human lie detector. At least my youngest still thinks so.

 

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: … do a little happy dance on behalf of my inner child.

 

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: I’d pencil in descriptions of scenography and call them playtexts.

 

Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?

 

A: O. It can express everything from ecstasy to desolation.

 

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: Fish or cut bait. Whether it is the poetry book you always wanted to write, or the immaculate kitchen you think you need to maintain.

 

Ren (Katherine) Powell is a writer, poet, translator, and native Californian living on the west coast of Norway. She has published four full-length collections of poetry and eleven books of translations, and her poetry has been translated and published in six languages.

Ren has a BA in Theater Arts and received her doctorate in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in England in January, 2011. She has taught theater and drama at a performing arts school for ten years and her dramatic works have been performed in the U.S., Canada and Norway.

The founding editor of the online literary journals Protest Poems.org and Babel Fruit: Writing Under the Influence, Ren also represented Norway on the International PEN Women Writers' Committee, and helped establish the International Cities of Refuge Network in Europe. Ren's latest book "Mercy Island" has just been published and is available here.

And the link to her publisher: http://www.phoeniciapublishing.com/



Article originally appeared on poemeleon (http://www.poemeleon.org/).
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