How does your work first enter the world? Do you have a social group or writers group that you share ideas with?
I tend to be almost secretive about what I’m currently working on, but I have moments where I tell writer friends ideas, or scraps of ideas, about things. I’ve noticed since I started writing more essays, I am more open about the subjects of those than I am about poems. How does my work first enter the world ? I frequently ask myself what’s the one thing that I feel that I must work out of my system, even if it’s a painful subject that I might find hard to reveal. I write a lot of found poetry, and so I am frequently looking at books not just as a reader, but as material for poems. I should also say that I am always looking at other art, as well. Movies, music, other forms of visual art. My second chapbook, Edie (Whispering): Poems from Grey Gardens, came directly from watching the documentary Grey Gardens, and turning the transcripts from that into poems. I was obsessed, and I wrote the book very fast.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say that yes, I do have one friend, Cat Conway, who is a poet and a Plath scholar, that I regularly share my ideas and poems with. We read each other’s work; she’s designed two of my chapbook covers, we edited a journal together; we’ve written blurbs for each other’s books. I am so grateful to have her as a friend and colleague. Not everyone who works in this lonely business gets to have that one person (or several) to make it less lonely. While I write alone, it’s important to know that a community is there.
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