My friend Adrienne Nunez passed the Writing Blog Tour torch on to me, so I am happy to report on what I've been up to in my writing!
What am I working on?
I’m working on a long poem called Ghosty Boo that gives voice to my girlhood self, Ghosty Boo, who grew up with neglect & whose trauma haunts me. She is sometimes a real ghost in real life.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Ghosty Boo is a long poem. It/she varies between short lines and prose blocks. She (young & ghost) and I (adult & human) ask each other a lot of questions, both earnest and rhetorical. Stylistically, I’m not sure that is much different from other poems, except it’s a long poem and that's new for me. In terms of content, this feels really wild: Ghosty Boo is history, but also fantasy, and I'm writing characters whom I hope the reader will get to know & care for/be afraid of/worry for/celebrate. I’m trying very hard to not censor myself writing as a human in Ghosty Boo, and that feels freeing/terrifying. I will always love talking animals, though, so I’m sure they will exist in the world of Ghosty.
Why do I write what I do?
I’m writing about my experience with neglect & unresolved trauma because it pisses me off—my adult life is completely shaped by my experience in a non-nourishing pattern of a home. Through holistic healing and a brilliant group of friends, I am learning to live a nourished life of love. Through reading & talking to Gurlesque poets, I feel motivated to write what I want to write and put it out in the world, and I feel angry at systemic oppression and violence against queers and women. Ghosty Boo is angry, and sarcastic, and creepy, and girly, and full of power.
I’m writing multiple voices (me as adult, Ghosty Boo at different ages) and in multiple locations (different rooms in a house, farm/country land, dreams) because I’m in love with books of poems that have characters (i.e., everything Lara Glenum writes + Paula Bohince’s Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, which tells the story of the speaker’s father’s death and gives voice to farm workers/saints). When I was in my MFA, someone told me that I shouldn’t write a book with characters that tells a story. That someone also told me that I shouldn’t include blocks or shapes on a page, but look how phenomenal Danielle Pafunda’s Natural History Rape Museum is with those title/text blocks! Look at Lara Glenum’s Popcorpse! I guess I am pushing my own boundaries and feeling confident that I can write the way that I want, now. There’s an audience for this kind of poetry, and I know that because I’m a part of it. It feels amazing to write about trauma in a story/fantasy world where I control what is said/shown. The anger/sadness is still there, but it’s creepy and powerful and fun and sexy.
How does your writing process work?
Because I tap into dark (and sometimes sweet) memories to write, I often write and write and write for hours, do that a few days, then go back and read what I’ve written a week later. I revise that once I’ve had some distance. It would be overwhelming to read it all right after I had written it, I think.
I talk about Ghosty Boo to my close friends. They know who she is. Sometimes I sense her in the room or in my home and I’m learning how to live with her, so writing about her feels like I can give her my entire attention and respect. I struggle with balancing memories and fantasy, and I try to focus on the mood in the poems. My favorite of my poems are the creepy sad ones, but Ghosty Boo lets me be silly and young and angry and retrospective all at once. Some of it’s pretty funny, too. I’m really in love with this collection, and I hope to circulate it once I write a little more.
Next stop on the Writing Blog Tour: the triptych that is Anne Cecelia Holmes, Caroline Cabrera, and Gale Marie Thompson. Check out their responses the last week of July!
Anne Cecelia Holmes is the author of The Jitters (horse less press, 2015), and the chapbooks Junk Parade (dancing girl press) and I Am A Natural Wonder (co-authored with Lily Ladewig; Blue Hour Press). She lives in Western Massachusetts.
Caroline Cabrera is the author of FLOOD BLOOM (H_NGM_N BKS) and the chapbook, DEAR SENSITIVE BEARD (dancing girl press). Her second full-length collection of poems is due out this winter.
Gale Marie Thompson is the author of Soldier On (Tupelo Press, 2014) and the chapbooks If You’re a Bear I’m a Bear (H_NGM_N) and Expeditions to the Polar Seas (Sixth Finch). She edits the online magazine Jellyfish and lives, teaches, and writes in Athens, GA.
