Many thanks to John for
asking me to be part of this "tour," started by Rutgers-Newark
Graduate School students Serena Lin and Safia Jama.
How this works: each invitee joins
the virtual blog tour and addresses the issue of their Writing Process. We
answer four questions, then select two further writers who blog (and who may or
may not agree to continue the project!) exactly one week later. On with the
Show...ur, Tour:
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| An amount of skepticism is needed when faced with my answers to any question |
1) What are you working on?
Right
now I am trying to go through a lot of the drafts, false starts, scribbled
lines and triggering ideas that I have surrounding me at home. In other words
I'm trying to Finish Things, which sometimes can be surprisingly difficult for
me. My secret perfectionism kicks in I suppose and if it's not *exactly*
right.....Anyway, I suspect I have enough already (half) written to make up at
least one other book, if not two. And I want to go back to a project idea that
I had a while ago, but dropped after I found myself talking ABOUT it more than
I was actually DOING it, and my 'muses' stopped talking to me. I'm hearing
their voices again (I hope that's what those voices are and it's not my
medication wearing off!) I also have been thinking about working on fiction
again, but I need 'space' for that, and we all know how space (even 'head
space') is at a premium in The Big Apple.
Of
course the problem (?) is that going through drafts, older versions of things,
etc, often leads to completely new material, and I wind up with more than I had
before when I was trying to winnow it down! Such is life....
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| From "Baltimore Folk" (c) Patrick Joust (http://www.patrickjoust.com/) |
Well, I HOPE it's different - I'd hate to be a
copy of someone else, but how or why eludes me. I think sometimes much of my
work tends to be more straightforward (on the surface anyway), than some of my
peers who I admire greatly. I'm hoping to speak to an audience that often
thinks that they don't like poetry, or that it is not for or speaking to
them. If I have in my head some idea of an 'ideal reader' (other than myself,
and writing to make myself happy) that person I suppose would be it.
Also, too, just as Philip Levine has Detroit and
had Cavafy (Ancient) Alexandria, Afaa Michael Weaver and I (and others) have
Baltimore as our great haunting hometown subject, to which we come back to
again and again.
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| Note to self: its best to put your glasses ON when reading (with Afaa Weaver at the Pratt Library, Baltimore) |
3) Why do you write what you do?
I
read something fantastic that I think more people should be aware of, and it
becomes a review. I hear an evocative phrase or mash-up of language(s) and it
becomes a poem. I see something that ignites something in me and it becomes a
story. Interesting news items become Facebook posts or Tweets. Half-baked
ruminations on events lead to blog posts...somehow it all seems 'of a piece' to
me, regardless of genre. Its just that different forms fit what I'm trying to
explore better than others.
4) How does your writing process work?
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| Yes, Idris, ANYTHING you say.... |
Ha -When it works!
I find it very difficult to do my initial writing or drafting at
home. It's taken me a while since moving to New York to find a place to go to
write (since I work at The Perfect Place for Poets every day), but
fortunately I think I've found one (or two). No I won't tell you where they
are.
Lately I've been looking through those drafts and scraps
with scribbled phrases and note on them, and find the ones that still have
'juice' or that I feel I can work on for that day. And I begin moving the words
around on the page, adding, deleting, putting words back, until I get something
that I'm satisfied with. For poetry and fiction, this is done long hand, pencil
on paper. I usually write most of my reviews directly on the computer, and go
back over it on screen.
After the draft (again thinking poetry) I'll enter it into the
computer and later print it out. Probably more drafting, changing, what was I
thinking?! will come out of that. Often I put things up on the wall of my
bedroom so I can look at it (or not!) for a few days and fuss with it some more.
Then I like to put it away, get it out of my sight, sometimes for as long as
six months, and come back to the piece and see if there's still something
there, or if I have some additional ideas for edits/changes that my
subconscious has come up with over those months. There are a few things which
have felt 'finished' to me that I skip the steeping time and send them out
fairly soon. And I also occasionally send drafts to people whose work and
judgement I admire and respect, and ask for feedback.
For the next two writers, I choose Samiya Bashir and January
O'Neal - Tag they're "It"!
Samiya Bashir is a poet (Where
the Apple Falls, 2005 and Gospel, 2009) and was editor of Best
Black Women’s Erotica 2 (2003) and co-editor of Role Call: A
Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art (2002).
January Gill O’Neil is the author of
Underlife (2009), executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and teaches at
Salem State University in Salem,
Massachusetts.
