I love Kate Carroll De Gutes.
KCD
In fact, I must love her very very much to agree to answer these fool questions in front of God and my country. These are questions I don’t even like to think about in the privacy of my own studio, let alone hold forth about them in polite company. Nobody—and I mean nobody—cares why or how I write. But I was honored to be asked to join The Writing Process Blog Tour, and I really do love Kate . . . So I said yes.
But as I sat down to work on this installment, I felt that old urge– I have a case of the vapors, the dog ate my homework. I have a pressing deadline, a sick child, a boil. I must beg off. I am certain nothing will be lost if I demur.
And yet, I do love that Kate De Gutes, and I can’t stop reading backwards in the chain-letter that got me here. I was moved to tears by Kate’s description –enactment?—of writing in the second person. And then Barrie Jean Borich asked us to picture a tall grass prairie sprouting from that tall building’s roof. And before her, David Lazar made me snort out loud at his irreverent answer to the question how does my work differ from others of its genre? Answer: Mine is prettier, because mother put mine in a basket, and gave me a lovely red hood to wear on the way to grandmother’s house.
And Adrianne Kalfopoulou reminded me of the power of witness when she described her decision to blog as Greece unraveled: It seemed like a way to keep something of a lit match in the forest of chaos if only as a conversation with myself in the dark, or with those who were having similar conversations.
And back and back some more.
In respect for the good company that proceeded me, I need to pull up my socks and answer. So here goes. . .
What am I working on? I am writing poems. Mostly poems about presidents. Or maybe not about presidents but inspired by presidents. And their families. And their pets. So, I am reading a lot about the 44 men who have lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (except poor George Washington who was stuck in New York, then in Philadelphia).
But, I am finding the presidency to be a little, well, male. So, I am writing some other poems too. I don’t know what they’re about, but suffice it to say they have something to do with Madame DeFarge.
Madame DeFarge
I’m also working on parenting two whip-smart adolescent girls, walking a couple of unruly dogs, and worrying myself sick over the fate of democracy.
WW
How does my work differ from others of its genre? Now that is a question I really cannot answer. That is a question for the ages. Or at least for the critics. And I’m not even sure it is something I aspire to. Never once—for even for one hour—do I forget that my poems are slipping into the stream of one of the world’s great arts. I cannot forget that they call themselves by the same name as The Inferno and Song of Myself and The Emperor of Ice Cream. When I think of those great poems and all the others that anchor body to soul, I am demoralized at how my poems do differ, at how they don’t measure up, at how they pale and tremble in the face of the greats. At this point, I don’t aspire to difference. Rather, I aspire to a place in the art, no matter how small. I aspire for my poems to chime in—even faintly—to a timeless conversation, for them to be in communion with poems that came before and those that will follow.
Why do I write what I do? Right now, I am writing about presidents because I am obsessed with them. I am obsessed with the office, with the idea that we call ourselves a self-governing people and yet we are a puddle of rice pudding in the face of money and power. I am obsessed with the idea of scale—how does one frail human body take on the expectations and obligations of such an outsized world?
But that’s just what I’m obsessed with now. At other times, I’ve been obsessed with Biblical women and dogs and Frida Kahlo. I am persistently obsessed with perfecting my pie crust recipe. I feel German Expressionism creeping into my consciousness. I fear it is next.
But I am also obsessed with poems, and at this point, they are what I have at my disposal. I want to believe that the art is both big enough and small enough to contain the fullness of human experience. I don’t question the capaciousness of the art. Rather, I question whether I am brave enough or smart enough or skilled enough to do both the subject and poetry justice.
How does your writing process work? Now this is a question I can answer without quaking. A few years ago, I took the StrengthsFinder test. Hands down, my biggest strength was input. In fact, I just about admitted to you that my husband’s pet name for me is “Input,” but that just sounds wrong. So never mind. But for poetry, input it is! I can research one poem for months before I ever put pen to paper. This month, I know a lot about Ulysses S. Grant’s horses. A lot. I know how much Grant weighed when he entered West Point. I know that his classmates called him Sam (as in Uncle).
But by April, no. It will all be gone, and I will be regaling my family members with the misadventures of Andrew Johnson.
So I read and read. And take notes. And make Pinterest boards with photos of my research. And I share all my useless knowledge with unsuspecting friends and family. Until finally—finally—a poem’s vocabulary starts to sneak up on me. I can begin to hear the sounds of the poem. Then, I will write down all of those words. Then lines will start to wobble together.
After all that, I type the lines into the computer—in no real order—to see what is there. I move them around and experiment with forms. I fill in and take out. I fiddle and faddle until I arrive at a last line. And only once I have a last line that I can live with do I call the poem a “draft.”
At that point, I either go back to the draft and tinker with it until I can no longer stand it, or I leave it for dead.
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Ok, that’s it. Thank you for asking. And soon—very soon—I will disclose the writers that will follow in The (Great) Blog Tour. But for now, seriously. I really do love Kate Carroll De Gutes.
