12 or 20 (second series) questions with Cate Peebles

Cate Peebles is the author of Thicket, winner of the 2017 Besmilr Brigham Award from Lost Roads Press. She is the author of several chapbooks, including The Woodlands (Sixth Finch Books, 2015), James (dancing girl press, 2014), and 9 Poems (eye for an iris press, 2014). She co-edits the occasional online magazine, Fou, and lives in New Haven, CT, where she is an archivist at the Yale Center for British Art.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Waking up one morning to an acceptance email from Susan Scarlata (editor of Lost Roads Press) for my manuscript was a great moment. I’d been submitting various manuscripts for about a decade at that point and been dreaming of publishing a full-length book of poems since I was a kid; I was super excited, happy for myself, and happy for those poems I’d spent so much time with because they found a home at a press that I’ve long admired. But really, the book has changed my life because it’s introduced me to some amazing poets/humans and expanded my world in totally unexpected ways. And now that I’m a billionaire, I can have massages at least twice a week, so I’m way more relaxed.

Since the book formed over many years, some of the poems are older, some newer. The longer poem at the middle of the book, The Woodlands  was the most recent work in the book and is more like what I’m writing now. There’s less punctuation, more syntactical freedom in the way the language moves, but also perhaps more clarity. I read some of the poems in Thicket and feel very far from them, but when I was constructing the manuscript they still had a place within the world of the book.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I got into poetry kind of early. Books were a big deal at my house growing up, so reading of any kind was actively encouraged. I was drawn to the wildness of it and the ability to jump ship from linear syntax, though I didn’t think of it like that at the time. I remember writing a poem for a fourth grade literary magazine and I when I got stuck or couldn’t spell something, I made up words and kept going; some well-meaning teacher got their hands on it before publication and changed the words into something that actually made sense. Even then, I remember thinking “Well, that’s boring.” Poetry has always triggered an excitement in me for the possibilities of language, magic, spell-making. I love novels, too, and more traditional storytelling, and definitely grew up with books and stories, but somehow, I fell into the act of poem writing and the freedom from expected linguistic trajectories when I was first learning how to spell and write and it’s something I’ve never been bored by. 

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I guess I’m both slow and fast. I used to take FOREVER with poems—it was like chiseling and polishing a piece of marble over and over again for years. As I’ve gotten older, the process is faster and some projects are born within a period of months. My chapbooks James (dancing girl press) and The Woodlands (Sixth Finch Books) both came to be in a period of months. Rarely do I write something and feel like it’s born fully formed, so editing is an important part of the process for sure. But I’ve become less of a perfectionist, which has helped the poems, I think.

Lately I’ve been taking more notes by hand because I’m doing the poem-a-day thing this April and I find that it’s helping me see more than I usually do. The poems that are coming out of the notes, though, look nothing like what I’m jotting down, just the image remains. Usually, I’ll start and end a poem on the computer, whether it takes a day or five years from first to last draft, and all the in-between drafts are erased.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Poems begin in all kinds of ways for me. A lot of the time, they come as a response to something I’m reading; I like to pull words from books I’m reading or phrases from magazines as a way to jump in. Sometimes it’s the sound of a phrase, other times it’s an image or thought. A lot of my poems being as the result of some kind of interaction with a piece of visual art, such as paintings, installations, or films; my book is full of ekphratic poems. I try not to restrict my modes of getting into a new poem. I’ve recently been trying out different kinds of prompts, which has reintroduced a sense of fun to my writing; prompts can take the pressure off. I hope what I’m writing now will find its way into a book, but I don’t have a fully formed concept for a book—chapbooks or series, yes.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I get nervous about doing readings but always end up enjoying them. Reading aloud is a different kind of interaction with the work, and often it can help the editing process with newer poems.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I think there are theoretical concerns behind my writing, absolutely, but I try not to impose them or say “this is what I’m doing here” because I think that can rob the reader of their own experience. In a general way, I’m always asking “Where can we go with language? What can language do today?” My concerns are lyrically and imaginatively motivated. I enjoy language as a medium. I am often resistant to explicit messages or “meaning as end-point” because that can stifle the possibilities of a poem.  I am more at ease when smarter people than I take on the challenge of parsing my work or delving into the theoretical concerns. Poetry, for me anyway, is all about choosing your own adventure.

What are the current questions? They are such big questions. Such as: WTF is going on here? That’s a common one…how do we do better, treat each other better, value kindness over fear and greed? My poems don’t try to answer specific questions—that sounds impossible to me. I think poetry, as an activity, is often engaging with these questions, and becomes more important the more we’re confronted by a power structure that favors materialism, violence, and numbing out as its favorite tactics---poetry, and the act of writing it, can resist these things. Perhaps it doesn’t solve the problems, but as a form one chooses, as an assembly of voices, it can certainly participate in resistance to our hyper-capitalistic moment, foster empathy, and open readers and writers’ awareness to the world around them. It’s also just a fun thing to do.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Adding to what I said earlier, the writer’s role is to be awake to the world, to be aware, and to create an account based on observations. The variety of the accounts is what makes writing so endlessly interesting. We all have our own accounts, our own imaginings and interpretations, our own identities that can be expressed in in so many unexpected ways. As human beings, writers have a role in culture—writers create much of what we call culture. The TV shows we watch, the music we listen to, the poems we read all respond to and enact culture. The role of the writer should be/ is to write from their own self to the other selves around them—that said, I don’t think there’s one, prescribed role other than the writer writes and uses language (in some way) as their medium.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

My experiences working with outside editors has always been smooth sailing. My chapbooks and my book were all taken “as is”, with most of the editorial process having taken place in the shaping of the work before submission. I seek editorial advice from a select few trusted readers. I’m not opposed to having a very hands-on editorial experience in the future, though. It just hasn’t happened yet. The generous readers and teachers I’ve had over the years have helped shape my poems in so many ways; they are absolutely essential.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

The piece of advice that has worked well for me, aside from “always be reading” is: “the only failure is quitting.” I don’t know. Pausing or shifting gears in life shouldn’t be mistaken for quitting, though.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

A typical day must begin with coffee. I wish I could write in the morning, but because of my job, I don’t get to write at a scheduled time each day. I so wish I was good at early rising, but it takes me a little time to get on board with a new day. Sometimes I run early, and that habit has helped me become more of a morning person, and in an ideal world, I’d write between 9 and 1 pm. But given the constraints of my work-life, I have to be open to writing when the time is there—be it early, lunchtime, a break at work, or right before bed.

One new addition to my routine is getting together once a week with a couple other writers in New Haven. We meet at a beautiful library and just write together for an hour-and-a-half; just having that built in to my schedule has helped me find time on other days to write, and it’s great to have the moral support. There aren’t any requirements—just sit in a chair and write for that amount of time. Magic.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Usually I’ll turn to other books of poems. Also, I’ll turn to visual art, old issues of National Geographic that I cut up, or text books that become erasures, music, a long run. Doing these things helps me get out of my head, or away from the pressure of what I think I should be writing.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Humid, late-August air, grass, mud, tree bark. I grew up in Pittsburgh where the landscape is much more lush than you might expect from a former steel town; it’s actually still got a lot of wildness to it. Oh, and at-home hair dye also reminds me home, circa 1996.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

As mentioned before, I’ve long been very into ekphratic poetry and I’m also into listening to music while writing. Many of my poems begin with some kind of experience with a piece of visual or non-verbal art. Artists like Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Agnes Martin have influenced a lot of my poems.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I’d be nobody without Gertrude Stein and Emily Dickinson. Their work always gets me in the mood to put some words on the page. My other go-to poets are: Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, C.D. Wright, Lucie Brock-Broido, Wallace Stevens, Susan Howe, Mary Jo Bang, Mary Ruefle, and Anne Carson. There are others, but these are the poets who immediately come to mind when I think of my poetry parents.

Some newer books I’ve been surrounding myself with lately are: Cindy Arrieu-King’s Futureless Languages; Bridget Talone’s The Soft Life; Adam Clay’s Stranger; Jos Charles’ feeld; Jessica Baran’s Equivalents; Rachel Moritz’s Sweet Velocity; Sandra Simonds’ Orlando; and Simone White’s Dear Angel of Death. All of these books remind me of the vast possibilities poetry offers and keeps me excited about trying new things in my own work. 

I also find that my friendships with artists and writers are essential to my life both in and outside the work. Though we haven’t made an issue in a few years, I really enjoyed putting together the online magazine Fou with my friends David Sewell and Brad Soucy; it was a nice collaborative effort that was a different way of participating in the writing community and put me in touch with so many poets whose work I admire.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I’d like to write/ publish another book of poems. I’d also like to write a scary novel.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Well, I’ve always had other occupations along with being a writer, so I’ve had the pleasure of testing this question out quite a bit, except the occupation has never been instead of. And while I’ve had periods of not writing much, I’ve never been able to shake the eventual desire to keep doing it no matter how many other things I attempt. I’ve been a barista, an editorial assistant, a cheesemonger, a copywriter, and now I’m an archivist at a museum. I think I’ve finally settled on the right occupation because it satisfies another part of my brain while feeding my writing life. I often wish I’d tried out teaching, and maybe I will one day, but that’s the road untaken that I fantasize about. Again, it wouldn’t be instead of being a poet, it would be in addition to. I can’t think of anything I would’ve done that didn’t include writing as part of the package.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

A very stubborn, compulsive nature combined with an interest in magic spells/ witchcraft.

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I’m reading C.D. Wright’s Casting Deep Shade and it’s blowing my mind. I hope it never ends. I haven’t been watching many films, but the last great one was maybe the one about all the cats in Istanbul.

19 - What are you currently working on?

This April, Adam Clay convinced me to try writing a poem-a-day, which I have never done, so I’m working on a series loosely inspired by the painter John Constable’s Cloud Studies; we’ll see how much I keep from it, but I’ve been enjoying the experience of adding to my growing document every day and allowing each poem to take its own shape. Constable’s studies were never intended to be exhibited, because they were his way of taking notes for larger “more serious” paintings, but they’re wonderfully impressionistic, though made before that was a thing, and thinking of my April poems as studies has freed me a little from the pressure of trying to “make a serious thing.” I’ve recently been experiencing a weirdly (for me) prolific phase, so I’m working on a lot of new things, which will hopefully lead to another collection, or chapbook, in the next couple of years.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Rachel Moritz, Sweet Velocity

Near Future

On the lilac, buds sharpen:

a quotidian green spring.

The sky is traceless,

nothing new

But these windows

with our names,

and patience shining like the glass

cleaned by hand,

vinegar and water.

Something transparent,

we know,

still contains.

Consider the heft of light

which has no face

but one worth dividing.

How its clear halo presses

as it comes,

how a transverse cut

could also be contrails.

Minneapolis poet Rachel Moritz’s second full-length poetry title is Sweet Velocity (Jackson WY: Lost Roads Press, 2017), a collection of short, sharp and exquisite meditations constructed out of direct and indirect statements, heartbreaks and hesitations, observations and queries. Hers is a poetry of inquiry, and her poems are sketched from point to point, thought to thought—akin to the English-language ghazal—creating a poetry of accumulation; less a singular scene or thought than a trajectory. Set in three numbered sections, two of which are made up of shorter lyrics (including three poems titled “Near future” that open and close the collection), and these sections bookend the third section, a sequence of poem-to-footnote poems, composed as a kind of “call and response” sequence. In a 2016 interview posted at Speaking of Marvels, she discusses the work-in-progress that eventually became Sweet Velocity, specifically the chapbook How Absence (MIEL Books, 2015), the poems of which were folded into the current book: “The poems in How Absence are largely concerned with birth and arrival. They were written in the first years of my son’s life. Among the book’s themes are the intense experiences of physical intimacy that accompany motherhood, coupled with the inherent experience of distance/absence that is conception via artificial insemination, as well as a C-Section delivery. Time is also important.” Further in the same interview, she writes:

The poems in this chapbook are part of a longer manuscript titled Sweet Velocity, which marries poems about my son’s birth with poems written in the wake of my father’s death, which occurred almost a year later. I’m largely finished with this project, but still tweaking individual poems, undertaking some final edits.

In Moritz’ poems, the “sweet velocity” of time only increases in speed and intensity, including a series of moments both caught and missed, attempting to pause when she can, and capture when appropriate, all while working to absorb as much as humanly possible. Writing as both parent and child, Moritz adds her voice to a list of contemporary poets exploring parenting, specifically motherhood, from Margaret Christakos to Julie Carr, Pattie McCarthy to Rachel Zucker. As Moritz writes in the poem “Depart”: “do you leave the child / to discover what it will feel like when he leaves [.]”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with J.L. Jacobs

J.L. Jacobs lives and writes in Norman, Oklahoma. She studied art, photography and literature at the University of Oklahoma and poetry in Brown University’s MFA program. Her work has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, New American Writing, New Orleans Review, American Letters & Commentary. Books include Varieties of Inflorescence, Leave, 1992 and The Leaves in Her Shoes, Lost Roads, 1999, and the chapbook DreamSongs, above/ground press, 2004.  Representative work appeared in American Poetry: The Next Generation from Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2000. Recent work has appeared in Fascicle and Octopus.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
a.  Finishing the first book meant I completed graduate school.  The first book kind of calls you on to the next and the next.  Getting it published gives you the courage to keep at it.

b. Recent work is my old aesthetic gone awry.  I no longer try to be willfully obscure for its own sake.  I no longer (always) wear a mask b/c I am afraid of what this or that camp thinks I'm up to.  Now I rhyme, hard rhymes; I would never have done that before I had a close call with mortality that involves my spinal cord and nerves.  I started feeling the vibration of everything...including earthquakes no one else felt but were registered by the seismographs...I started being able to tell what key a piece of music written in a key was in..(unfortunately this did not last after beginning to recover)...but I began hearing everything differently in my head.  It was more than just the image that moved me to write. It was now  sound.  c. It feels friendlier; less like a cold artifact in a museum that is elegant, but untouchable.  My earlier work feels untouchable in that way.  Recent work is much more O'Hara-esque in its friendly gait and moving on.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Books as a child...Dr. Suess, Mother Goose.  In college, by happy accident, I took Elizabeth Robinson's Contemporary Fiction class.  She had us write two poems.  She invited me to study in a Directed Reading with her the upcoming Fall.  I did.  And, well, changed from looking at grad school in photography to looking at MFA programs, and the rest fell into place at Brown.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
Both. But, usually, it comes pretty fully formed.  There are days and days of absorbing, composing when you wander around inside or out...caught, lost in doorways...then in a few days, whatever it is will wake you up early and so begins a new project. But this is the way it works for me for the whole process, not just the beginning. I think I first encountered copious notes with the novel because it required more research.  Poems are charged moments which spring up involuntarily in my head. A sight, sound, smell or bit of overheard song or conversation. Something gets tripped in my head, and the poem begins with two lines and you realize you'd better find paper because more are on the way. The novel certainly had a forward propulsion, but often the movement was toward the research; the writing coming together after it had all sifted in and the flour dust settled.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? 
See answer above.

Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
Again, both.  I'm often consciously working on a larger project, like in Streets as Elsewhere, I was exploring women's sort of underground connections in a backbackwater area in the years after my Grandmother's mid-wife practice.  My first book was about her mid-wifing practice among hillfolk at the place where the Trail of Tears ended for many.  She was revered, delivered babies of every colour. But, I realized in writing the first book that these women who gathered to quilt or walk for cakes had powerful connections that were tacit.  They almost all had husbands, but they sort of run in different circles.  I wanted to understand the
silent, solid structure of that little community of people. 

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Love readings, both listening and reading.  I don't really consider it part of the process...it's like the cake. It's the public ritual of celebration by the fire, so to speak.  The gatherings and the proferrings.  It is part of why practice of poetry exists I think.
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I've tried to keep theory behind the praxis and not the other way round.  Always been a lyric poet, who ducked and dodged being put into this here or that there camp. This question makes me think of a C.D. Wright quote: "Theories are beautiful, but they are feeble."  I'm over pretending I don't like things I do.  I'll admit Frost and Bishop and many more.  I've come to embrace the canonical, as well as the non-canonical.  I'm not sure I was ever able to clearly articulate the theoretical concerns without growing dizzy and weary and doubting myself.  The questions I've explored include geography of place and people, the Trail of Tears, bird-life, my own near death experience with spinal cord injury, and weather & environment, vegetable, animal, human.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
To tell the complete truth I think our role is twofold: we sing the "almost imperceptible" as C.D. Wright says, and we heal ourselves and others, hopefully.  Are we still the unacknowledged legislators of the world? Maybe.  I'm not sure anymore.  But I think we are the sort of priest / healers who offer ritual sacrifices in public reading venues.  We cannot afford to be selfish; we have responsibility to live mindfully and to sing the songs of praise and lament of the world we find ourselves in. 

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I've not enough experience to answer this one.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I've thought about this a great deal.  I think, for me, "choose your battles," "mind your manners," and "discretion is the better part of valor" are up there, cliches or not.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?
I segued into poetry from photography one hundred years ago when we used film.  My early poems were often like still lifes, relying heavily on the visual element of aesthetics.  It felt natural to move between the two. And, it was not until I participated in the Bayou Reading Series with Jeff Mims did I discover sound. Sound in me.  Now I can't close that door.  There were some unusual things that went with having my spinal cord almost severed.  I could hear things like you can't imagine.  The key a piece of music was in, for example.  I was all vibration and colours and sounds and words...the downside was unbearable pain. Moving into fiction is much more difficult, though I did finish a novel during that painful time.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Short walk with Fritz (Bishon Frise). Coffee. Check email & fb.  I keep paper and pencils handy, as I often find myself hearing a couple of lines in my head while doing laundry, baking, or walking my pooch.  Coat pockets full of notes which I type up later. 

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Usually, nature or music...mostly classical.  I think it effects your neurotransmitters.  Don't we know it does?  I think we know that.  I feel that way.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Catalpa blooms and lilacs take me to my Grandmother's.  Salsa on the stove takes me there also.  Rain.  I guess it's the smell of ozone, but I call it rain.  The musty smell of stale books, old books take me to my Great-Grandmother's. The smell of yeast rising also.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
For me, it is moreso everything but other books. Maybe other poems, or bits of poems that I can't get out of my head. Songs. Instrumental music mostly. Songs in languages I can't understand.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Lorine Niedecker. C.D.Wright. Dante. Simone Weil. Wittgenstein. John Donne. Yun Wang, my friend-poet.  Jack Jordan, my friend-poet.  Carol Koss, friend-poet.  We gather when we can.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
See my second full-length collection published.  Parasailing is now out.  But, I'd like to see the Emerald Grotto at evening time.  And explore the Amalfi Coast.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
In an alternate universe somewhere I am an ACLU attorney. If they don't have ACLU, then something like that.  Law in the public interest.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
An happy accident, a life changing encounter with one Elizabeth Robinson in 1989 my senior year of college. Downsided, up. Ever. After.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 
Many books are really good, same with films. Great?  C.D. Wright's Deepstep Come Shining is one of the best books I've ever read.  I'd put it beside The Divine Comedy.  The Golden Mean was a good book. The Mystical Mind by Newberg and d'Aquili (neuro-theology) was a great book.

films...I thought I'm Not There was pretty nearly great.

20 - What are you currently working on? 
a collection of poems just called After Amsterdam for now, and a scholarly article on neurological synaesthesia and poetry which looks closely at Ashbery, C.D. Wright, Bishop, De Chirico, Messiaen, which comes out of my work on Ashbery and Messiaen co-authored with Ronald Schleifer and published in Philological Quarterly.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;