1. Tell us about your poem in Volume 21, “Sunrise Village.” How did it come to be?

It came into being the way most of my poems do: over time, various images lodge themselves in my mind and coalesce into something like a seed. When I feel it sprouting, I try to coax it into a full-grown poem. The germinating images for “Sunrise Village” were sunlit snowmen and geese in flight.

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

The act of writing is what most excites me as a writer. As for reading, I try not to be turned off—or, at the very least, to reflect on why something turns me off. Often, I discover that the obstacle isn’t in what I’m reading, but in me – impatience, close-mindedness, jealousy, or whatever.

The poet, Owen McLeod

3. Do you practice any other art forms? If so, do these influence your writing and/or creative process?

I was an experienced potter before I got serious about poetry, and these two art forms turn out to have much common – not only the transformation of amorphous blob into structured object, but also a bunch of lessons: don’t suck the life out of the piece by overworking it; avoid gratuitous ornamentation; listen to the material; pay special attention to beginnings and endings; strive to make something beautiful but also useful; be suspicious of your standards; try to keep your ego out of it. I suspect these lessons apply to almost every art, but I first learned them as a potter.

4. What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?

For me, there are two sorts of inspiration. One comes from exposure to art, which motivates me to make my own. Lots of artwork inspires me that way. The other is the arrival of an idea, image, or a line – something with content and direction, not merely the blind urge to write. Inspiration of this second sort generally comes not from art, but from what I’ve felt, seen, or heard outside the libraries and galleries.

I don’t have a poetry mentor, probably because I haven’t been through a writing program or even to any writing workshops. But I did get a PhD in philosophy, and my dissertation director taught me how to write philosophy in a style that would be comprehensible to folks outside the discipline. I think this lesson influences my poetry – most of which, I hope, is fairly accessible.

5. What does your creative process look like? How does the environment you are in shape your work or where do you like to write?

I wish I had a process. Instead, I just wait around, often months, for an idea to show up. That said, my writing environment is important to me. I need to be in my study at home, preferably with no one else in the house, between breakfast and lunch. I’ve tried writing in libraries, cafés, and pubs, but I always feel self-conscious – and I can’t write that way.

Visit Owen’s website, and pre-order his award-winning forthcoming poetry collection “Dream Kitchen” here.

One way to swirl up imaginative juices with your partner, in times of potential lackluster fluttering or in a dry spell on romantic river beds, is to share in the experience of mutual poetic expression. An easy introduction to this exercise is to experiment with the lean, playful and highly adaptable haiku form.

Traditionally, we understand the haiku as a three-line poem, with roots in Japanese word-craft, a couple of precise lines of sensory detail and observational imagery, with the final words cutting and diverting into a grounded concept of place and vision. In that respect, the loose spool of rules unravels and the trading of lines with your lover, can send you both wandering on whimsical and creative paths, like the ancient poets of old.

If you need a place to start on your haiku adventure, simply begin by describing your environment. This will give your tight and short lines a proper placement in time and space. Then, just add a pinch of personal perception and welling feelings to round off your inventive three lines. The quest of any great haiku is to find the fantastical in the ordinary, and to allow the power of your senses to lead the way.

Keep in mind, all written lines can be interchangeable and mix in any way you see fit; therefore, you will witness the joy and freedom of a haiku unfolding before you and beloved’s twinkling eyes.

Here are a few haiku examples composed by my girlfriend and I over a weekend, where environment, intimacy and sensory begin to tangle in surprising and insightful ways.

In a room with shades drawn:

Naked toes

Tops of trees

Deer bed in the snow

Eyes strung together

Low tide blue

Hips drown in twilight

At a bar with tall windows:

Red faced, white expression

Suffocated in bleach

Pattern of black birds fall

Old men on bar stools,

Iced gargoyle

Her cat eye winks

Bored couples on their phones

Bush league American flags

A mule laps up a lemon

Thus, with a few attempts at exchanging lines, you may realize that haiku becomes an inspiring and entertaining act of private or public artistic affection, taking place wherever you both may please.

In The Field is a blog series devoted to highlighting the writing life and artistic process of our contributors. This week we continue with our series now featuring contributors from our most recent issue, Vo. 21 “Bodies Worth Defending”.

1. Tell us about your poem, “In Code,” in Volume 21. How did it come to be?

For about thirty-five years, I worked for the Office of the Revisor of Statutes, a nonpartisan office of the Minnesota Legislature that drafts bills and publishes the state’s laws. I was hired in 1981, as a newly minted PhD, to help attorneys learn to draft the law in plain English. When I first began working there, I was shocked to discover what tight constraints there are on the syntax patterns and the vocabulary of statutory law. Compared to literary language, it’s like a straitjacket. I got used to it, but I never lost the memory of the initial shock, and that memory is what birthed the poem.

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?
If by “excites” you mean the excitement that starts a poem, I like Kay Ryan’s statement that poems are like pearls: they start with an irritation. A minor irritation may not dictate a poetic form, but I’ve found that genuine anger very often produces sonnets—something about harnessing strong energy, I guess. I enjoy turning the energy of irritation into good sound and giving shape to an argument at the same time.

What turns me off in reading is writing that doesn’t respect the need for appealing sound, writing that’s too plain, that doesn’t surprise me.

3. What craft element challenges you the most in your writing? How do you approach it? What is your quirk as a writer?

I find it very difficult to write real free verse. My quirkiest habit is my need to have a meter in mind before I start writing, and most of my poems end up at least roughly metrical. I’ve said this before: I think of rhyme as a ladder down into the dark of the subconscious and of meter as the underground spring I find there.

4. What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?
I was a medievalist before I came back to poetry, and the Old and Middle English sources remain a big influence. I’ve done a fair amount of translation of medieval poems; several such pieces are in my third book, Mid Evil, the 2014 Richard Wilbur Award winner.

As for mentors, I’ll always be grateful to Anna George Meek, fellow Twin Cities poet and fellow choral singer. During my first years of returning to poetry, she’d give me rides home from choir and I’d pepper her with all manner of embarassingly basic questions about writing and submitting.

I’m also grateful to the poets who participated in the online poetry discussion board Eratosphere. They gave patient critique to my early work, and they still listen to my kvetching about the vagaries of the writing life. Perhaps Eratosphere is the reason I nearly always begin poems in meter. Perhaps all those years studying older poetry are an even stronger reason.

5. Do you practice any other art forms? If so, do these influence your writing and/or creative process?
For most of my life, I’ve been a choral singer, and most of that singing has been done in church choirs. The language of liturgy and of theology absolutely influences the symbols I think in. “In Code” is an example of that. My love of meter probably has something to do with psalm and hymn texts, too.

Visit Maryann’s website here, and follow her on Twitter.

No, you’re not technically writing, but creating “magazine poetry” is a good exercise to get you out of your own head. Experiencing writer’s block? Spread out, use new tools and muscles, find words that aren’t your own and claim them. Here’s a quick guide to magazine poetry that will have you generating new work in minutes.

SUPPLIES

Magazines. Glue. Tape. Scissors optional.

There’s a really good chance you have old magazines lying around, or someone you know has magazines that they’re done with. And I know you’ve got glue somewhere in that house, if not, tape works just fine, and if you don’t have tape then what are you doing with your life? Scissors are useful, but frankly, you could always just tear the words/images out. The point is, this is free!

A large workspace and your brain.

As you spread out your magazine pages and words, take up as much space as possible and let the project surround you. It might feel overwhelming at first, but your mind will get used to it and open up too.

ADVICE

1. Don’t change the poem after you’ve finished. Sure, you can add to it, but once it’s glued down it’s there for good! This, in my opinion, will bring a sort of peacefulness to the work you’ve created when you’re done. It’s a good experience to finish something and know that you cannot change it.
2. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, the less perfect, the better! Don’t try and cut words out perfectly, and don’t try and rip out pages with a flawless seam. The uneven cuts and the torn pages will add character to your work with no effort.
3. That being said, you don’t have to love or like what you create. You are making art out of garbage, so if you truly hate it, tear it up, throw it away, burn it for all I care! Maybe that step alone will free up something in your writing. Regardless, find the good in the process, no matter how you feel about the end result.

BENEFITS

Get Physical

As a writer, it can feel confining and boring to have only a pen and paper, or a computer, to work with. Take old magazines and just start ripping them apart and use all the physical space you can.

Cathartic Crafting:

Magazine poetry gives you an excuse to do arts and crafts, what more could you want? Also, if you’ve got kids, this is a fun way to keep them busy while you also get to be your creative self.

When I made some of my first magazine poetry, I only had magazines that my roommate and my Grandma gave me, which included modern house designs, cooking tips, and ads for Ritz Crackers. Something about creating work out of things I DON’T like was strangely uplifting. I also had a great time ripping and cutting apart the boring, modern rooms that I hated.

Build Your Word Bank:

This exercise provides you with an insane range of words that you don’t normally use. Yes, a lot of words in magazines are common words, but that doesn’t mean that you use them in your writing. Take my two pieces for example; the words, ‘shelter,’ ‘couture,’ ‘hunt,’ ‘emerging,’ ‘mighty,’ ‘adjustments,’ etc. These are all average words that don’t spark some big excitement in me, but I don’t think I’ve used any of them in any past writing of my own.

The Three Rs:

Here you are, making art out of garbage. Can you say, reduce, reuse and recycle? Look at you, using your resources to make something instead of printing a poem on a brand new piece of paper. The earth will love you, and so will the trees you save.

You really have no excuse NOT to try this. And poems will come easier than you think! While it might feel overwhelming at first, try to concentrate on the moment, and the process itself. And have a little fun.

Author:

Douglas Fir

1. Tell us about your poem in Volume 20. How did it come to be?

“You’re the deciduous forest” was written a few years ago while I was writing a lot of poems that were basically litanies of contradictory statements. In truth, I tend to write quite a few of these. This one is particularly interested in exploitation, whether it be environmental or work-related.

2. What was an early experience that led to you becoming a writer?

When I was in 5th grade, I wrote a serial called “The Time of Dinosaurs,” reading it to my whole class every Friday. It was an original creation about a boy who goes back in time with his tiny dinosaur friend, though it may have included some unauthorized characters, such as Garfield, Fred Flintstone, and Danger Mouse. (I wasn’t too versed in copyright violations at the time.) The immensely positive audience reaction pretty much sealed the deal for me.

3. How has writing shaped your life?

I left for Argentina upon graduating from college, spent 4 years in Buenos Aires and Mendoza while writing a series of horrible manuscripts I’d hoped would one day turn into bestselling critically-acclaimed novels, and slowly gravitated towards only writing poetry. Upon returning to the U.S., I became a Spanish interpreter, which allows me plenty of time to write, rewrite, and send out my poems into the greater world. Also, I married an extraordinarily talented writer with whom I immediately connected in large part because we’re both writers. In short, I have no idea who the hell I’d be now if it weren’t for writing.

René Magritte, The False Mirror, Paris 1929 (Photo from The Museum of Modern Art)

4. What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work?

I mention this in almost every interview, but here I go again: Camus, Camus, Camus. The Plague is my favorite book, and every time I think about it I wish I could one day write something as phenomenal as that. The same goes with One Hundred Years of Solitude. And Leaves of Grass. And To the Lighthouse. And Moby Dick. Before I realized I’d never be a good painter, I prayed at the altar of Magritte, Picasso, Miró, Monet, and Rivera.

5. What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

I just finished a series of 90 sonnets, most of which are probably never going to see the light of day. I usually don’t have “projects” so much as I have loose configurations of similar forms and subject matter. It’s hard nowadays NOT to write about the current political climate, but I do try to mix it up a bit. I’m going to my first writing retreat in May [2018], so I’m very curious to see what comes out of it.

Visit Jonathan’s website.