A Woman of Grace

/ Lisa / 13 Comments

I asked a friend if I could interview her, and then had to say, ‘breathe, Pat, just breathe’. Even though this thoroughly terrifies her, she answered my questions with the grace and joy she shows to all around her. A poet, and much more, Pat is known as the soul of the writer’s group I attend. While this is long for a blog post, I am not dividing it up as Pat’s words flow  together. Please take the time to read the responses of a gentle soul, and please encourage her in her writing by posting a comment. Don’t let her tell you otherwise; she writes amazing poetry. I am honoring her terror by not using her full name until she can draw in a breath that is not panicked.

Lisa: I know you are tentative about doing this interview. Would it be too invasive to ask you what it is that scares you?

Pat: This is an easy question, though probably not an anticipated confession! I would shy from your interview because I am IGNORANT about poetry. I just write it! What do I know?  I could not even pass a grade school exam, or readily or accurately even define “iambic pentameter”!! There were a few little issues of anonymity which I have since worked out – mainly by remembering not only YOUR good will, but that this is the twenty FIRST century, where there is not a House Unamerican Activities hatemongering Senator’s group, or Birchers quick to condemn first and never question or learn after.

Lisa: How have your poems changed since you began writing poetry?

Pat:  I don’t seem to feel any change in my own poetry from when I began nearly 40 years ago. I still like some of my first pieces best! I’m no good at analysis; could never be good with critique, just too much into my own experience I guess. I think that how I approach any subject of a poem might change, but I’m not sure how, and it feels no different in the process or end result, even with consistent format.  I just finished finalizing a year of work, ending 1999. I hadn’t finalized in some 13 years. Neglect!

Lisa: Has the meaning of poetry changed for you over the years?

Pat:  I have no concept of poetry per se, as I grew up with such condemnations of it. I could put in some examples, but – Yuk. Ugly. I didn’t start out TO write poetry, that’s just how it came out, and I needed feedback to figure that one out. Once I accepted what might be true, then I worked it through, studied poetry, and found wonderful affirmation of the process itself.  Best source was Shelley’s IN DEFENSE OF POETRY.

Lisa: Are there certain emotions or environments that inspire poetry for you? For example, music, walks, anger, joy, etc.

Pat:  Intense emotions and the entire realm of Nature are first inspirations, which are also the first senses I have that a piece could come if I welcome it. I learned with intense relief in after-study, that poems just cannot be WILLED.  (I think of Rollo May’s wonderful Love and Will). I remember that first fall, clearing all my decks to be ready for work with NO distractions, and I SAT there, on my empty facilities throne. That was a GREAT lesson to me.  I can prepare, but there’s no real planning that works for me.

Lisa: Are there poets that have inspired you?

Pat:  I was writing awhile before I thought back to what might have set the stage of this emergence for me, so utterly unintended were poems; it was more a back alley accidental exploration after everything else I’d thought to do had failed. There wasn’t much; just vague memories, then I wrote out “favorite poems” I could remember with pleasure, of Robert Service, Robert Frost, EMILY DICKINSON, and then others that came later, after I began writing:  Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou. What really moved me in youth and life, addressing huge issues, were the Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, beginning with “South Pacific”. Music, as much as the words themselves, worked on me to set the stage for poems later on, and utterly unforeseen then, when I was some 30 years of age.

Lisa: What makes you choose a poem as the medium for your words?

Pat:  Journaling just didn’t cut it for me as actual creating, more like “reporting”!! After I realized what I was doing, then a journal has often been interactive, with pieces leading to them, and sometimes I need journaling to come out of them! Poems take up little space (mine anyway) so that was a wonderful logistic when riding in a car; I could scrawl on any little piece and capture the moment, like a photo might, or a wonderful painting, or an exquisite piece of music. These assets of the process sure were encouraging of pieces themselves. Plus, like I heard so perfectly put in your writing group, I just don’t have the staying power of a book, or play, or even an article. My poems are like a jigsaw puzzle, with hopefully some solitary experience of each piece’s own, then of a whole mosaic of human experience.

Lisa: What do you find easiest and hardest about writing a poem?

Pat:  Initially, the hardest part of writing a poem was just accepting that that’s what I was doing. Then, working out logistics and ordering it so it wasn’t all scattered bits driving me crazy. It was satisfying to get that worked out. The easy part after I realize I CAN, making that welcome, setting the stage, securing safety, is just exploring with the words, to see where they lead; I often don’t know where I’m going, but with a sense of “it’s OK” then the joy comes, even if I’m NOT sure I like what I end up with! But, more often, even surprised, I am enchanted that this vaguest sense in the beginning arrives, even after words pin it down, that it still conveys this initial amorphous inkling.

Lisa: Do you see the meaning, or intent, of your poem change when it is read aloud by someone else? How could you avoid that happening?

Pat:  I’ve almost never heard my pieces read by anyone else. My first reader has such a lovely voice (she was a trained musical vocalist in her youth) that I am enthralled to HEAR it! I never think how it might change anything, as I always presume that the beauty of poems, like songs, or pictures, can mean different things at different times to different people. Even from the beginning, I felt that it’s the reader or hearer that ultimately determines the worth of what is received, that as creator, that reception is something I would never even want to control or determine (except of course to avoid giving offense or inciting violence!). That old saw about sticks and stones, but words can never hurt…well, they can, and Do. That would be an outcome I would work to prevent or avoid being held accountable for… thus posthumous publishing has ALWAYS appealed to me! The ultimate escape!

Lisa: What would you like to tell me about poetry?

Pat:  I might actually say to you, Lisa, to not “Worry” about poetry. At all!  It will survive, or NOT.  I don’t see it as any more worthy than ANY other form of creativity, including comics, or movies, or even inoffensive graffiti!  I could only hope it ever competes with philosophy, or a symphony, or suspense and intrigue, or really engaging beauty at any level, even models, sculpture, photography, not to mention the stunning awesome compelling experience of Nature all around us, especially where you live!! Where I was privileged to be a guest while you visited the sere enchantment of eastern Montana in winter, and near where you read a Christmas entry of my journal a few years ago, and I think I never heard anything so lovely!  What a joy to be So received.   “If the poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.”  Jean Cocteau

What’s Your Book About?

/ Lisa / 4 Comments

I’m dreading that question. Because the way I want to answer it is to start listing a blow-by-blow account of everything that happens. And the action, the plot points, aren’t what the book is about. So if it’s not, how would I answer that question? This confusion took me back to one of my favorite books on writing, Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell. I ended up reading about theme and premise, and here are some quotes from the book.

‘Theme is not the message of your story, nor is theme a moral as stated in Aesop’s Fables. Instead, it is the central concern of the story and it gives the story a focus.’

‘Theme is not the same thing as the story’s subject.’

‘Imagine theme as an invisible thread that links the disparate elements of a story together.’

‘Theme can evolve organically as it emerges from the character’s actions, or it can be the basis from which you write.’ (Jessica had a lot more to say about this subject, including the pros and cons of both ways. For me, theme evolves organically without me being aware of it. In other words, I finish the story and say, ‘Theme? What theme?’)

‘Premise is linked most specifically to the story’s conclusion.’

Premise is defined as a truth, or conclusion, usually but not always about human nature that is proven by the story’s events and ending. It often reflects the protagonist’s journey of understanding and ramifications of the character’s actions. Most often it can be summed up in a simple statement such as ‘true love never dies’.

‘Premise is sometimes confused with story concept which is basically a one or two-line summary.’

‘Premise also connects the character arc because at least one character must be changed by what the premise proves.’

‘The premise and the ending of the conflict must always reinforce each other.’

So with all that floating in my tea-soaked brain, what is the theme of  The Memory Keeper? What’s it about? Well, the emotional bonds of family I guess.

And what’s the premise? Well, that family is not just those of blood relationships, history impacts the present, and the bonds that bind can also free.

Honestly, that premise stinks. The theme is okay, but I have to put some more thought into this before someone asks me the dreaded question. How would you answer that about your stories?

The photo below is the view from my desk at work, just for your enjoyment.

The Mystery Woman

/ Lisa / 2 Comments

Some writers develop the character first, and once fully formed, the story arrives to surround them. Some writers are the opposite, getting that story idea first, and then populating it with life. And of course some writers create with a combination.

Those sentences are nothing new to anyone who’s been writing a while. And I’m not here to say you have to develop characters a certain way. I just want to pause a moment and think about this because for the past two years I have been haunted by a character.

My normal process comes from the ‘what if’ question. I see or hear something, or have some random thought from outer space, and immediately think, ‘well, but what if…’ and away I go. Usually I know the very last line of the story before anything else, and then figure out how to write my way there. The characters come along after the ‘what if’ light bulb flashes.

After radiation treatments a couple of years ago, my writing process changed dramatically. And one of those changes involved my brain being introduced to a fully formed character. I can picture her, hear her, know all her motivations, how she will react. And yet for two years I have not found a story for her to populate. Over the months I have pondered her internal wounds and jotted down her back story. I’ve tried to write a story for her and have many beginnings that have ended.

In the meantime I have been finding my way back to writing, and have finally started a sequel to ‘The Memory Keeper’. And guess who showed up in the story? She’s a secondary character, the plot won’t revolve around her, she’ll be a path to friendship for the main character, and this time, it feels right and the words are flowing.

This character has stubbornly hovered out of reach, waiting for the story she belongs in. I now see that this one I have started will be her stepping into life, staying in the background, and working her way slowly toward a story of her own. This is one character who was smarter than me.

I love the mystery of writing.

Speaking of  mysteries, take a look at this photo of an old railroad bridge (now foot bridge) over Icicle Creek. Don’t you want to cross into the wilderness? Don’t you want to see who that is at the end and why they’re standing there, and where they’re going, and if they’ll let you pass? Talk about the ‘what if’ question.