Jessica L. Walsh : part five

How does a poem begin?

For me, poems come from a moment when I go a little bit askew—I can literally feel a vibration in my body that resembles how you feel after the sound of a low, resonant gong. Anything can prompt it—a phrase, sometimes a single word that just sounds different to me than it has before, the emotion I pick up from others, my own ridiculous abyss. I always have a notebook or my phone with me, and rush to write a line when it comes to me. Later, if I see the line and the feeling is still there, I know it’s worth pursuing. I rarely start a poem by sitting down and saying “Now I will write a poem.” My writing time is about finding those fragments and seeing what they become. The origin stories of my poems are moments when life breaks through and tells me to listen. 

Jessica L. Walsh : part four

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

This will sound stodgy and canonical, and I promise I read loads of new poetry, but a poem that endlessly engages me is Tennyson’s “The Lotos Eaters.” Every time I read it, I’m thrown. And I get different messages from it—at times, I find it full of despair, but at other times it seems like a glorious permission slip to just be. The way the lines begin to lengthen and lose track of their own meter, the rolling and confused rhythm of the final stanza, the debate over whether worry and hustle have any merit at all, the ultimate question of what our lives are worth…everything in it absolutely knocks me over. More people need to read it today.

Jessica L. Walsh : part three

What do you find most difficult about writing poetry?

Poetry is a scalpel. It’s precise, sharp, and piercing. At its best, the scalpel helps me take something—a feelings, a story, a person—and isolate it, understand it in a deeper way. But the scalpel necessarily has to go towards painful places at times, too. Having emotional energy to turn the scalpel on myself is the challenge, over and over again. 

Jessica L. Walsh : part two

What do you feel poetry can accomplish that other forms can’t?

When I’m trying to convince my students to give poetry another try, I tell them to think of something they feel no one could understand except those who have been through it. What comes up are the common devastations and transformations: combat, falling in love, heartbreak, loss, motherhood, and so on. Poetry, I believe, is the closest we can ever come to succeeding in bridging that gap. Poetry is the one thing that can evoke the complexity of thought and feeling that makes certain experiences seem beyond words. It’s the oldest form of literature because it was our first need: we want to connect.

Jessica L. Walsh : part one

Jessica L. Walsh is the author of Book of Gods and Grudges (2022) as well as two other collections. Her work has appeared in journals including Lunch Ticket, RHINO, Tinderbox, Glass: A Poetry Journal, and many more. Originally from rural Michigan, she now resides outside of Chicago and teaches at a community college. Find more at jessicalwalsh.com

Photo credit: Candy Bryant

How did you first engage with poetry?

My grandmother used to recite poems to me. She was a hard woman to get to know, very guarded and even cold at times. But I have a memory of her pushing me in a swing and joyfully reciting Robert Louis Stevenson. Later, she would send me books, like The Collected Poetry of Langston Hughes, and in the upper corner of the page, she would pencil a faint check-mark to indicate that poem was one she especially wanted to emphasize. I look at those books now, decades after her death, and I try to figure out what she wanted me to know, what she wanted to be able to say.