 16 clumsy & shy.... About a year ago I took a workshop with Nicole Hardy, author of Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin, on writing an artist statement. She ran us through a battery of quick prompts to mine our lives so we could see the connections to our art. One question was about our early influences, which is a question that always flusters me. I don’t come from an academic family who introduced me to great works while in-utero, and I grew up on TV, pop tarts, and frozen vegetables. I listed out a few names that were true for me, but still nothing felt authentic. The next day I picked through my books and pulled out Allen’s Ginsberg’s Snapshot Poetics: A Photographic Memoir of the Beat Era. I made some notes, and kept the book by my bed for a month, eventually tossing it back into the pile of my art and photography books, which were perched on top of an old Ilford photo paper box – a box full of contact sheets, test strips, and more than a decade’s worth of photos I’d taken. I don’t know about you, but the artist statement is my most dreaded part of any residency or grant application. I often miss deadlines or abandon my application ¾ of the way through because I just can’t pull one together. Total self-sabotage. (Any other writers feel weird even applying “artist” to what they do?) I decided that it was time to get my artist statement done, just to have it in my pocket. I emailed my friend Carla who has a memoir coming out in 2019, and asked if she’d be my accountability partner and exchange drafts, giving us both (myself mainly) a deadline. When I started working on my artist statement again, I went back to what I wrote in my notebook in the days following the workshop and decided to follow the photography thread. Alongside a detailed description of Ginsberg’s photograph of Kathy Acker, I scribbled in the margin, “In 61 pages of plates, there are less than a dozen women.” Rereading this sent me back to my bookshelf, back to the photographs of Sally Mann, Mary Ellen Mark, Cindy Sherman, and Annie Leibovitz. At its heart, writing is an act of discovery. In going back to my original workshop notes, then the notes I’d written after, then exploring from there, I discovered that photography played a pivotal role in my development as an artist, as a writer. It’s so strange to me that I never saw it before. I studied photography from 7th grade through the seven years I spent getting my undergraduate degree, even taking architectural photography classes when I was majoring in urban planning. I’d also studied literature and creative writing during those times as well, and it still took me awhile to figure out that writing was maybe more than a hobby. Here’s a snip from the current over-written draft-in-progress, which I really ought to get back to since I’m 16 days past my suggested deadline.
Almost 30 years later, my writing still holds elements of the black & white photography that captivated me in my youth: the composition of the frame, the light and shadow casting nets on life’s totality, exposure and controlling the narrative as an antidote to erasure, the desire to show, show, show, show (and tell beautifully). PULL OUT YOUR NOTEBOOK! Who and what were your early influences? Are there any parts of that medium or those people that still resides within you? That shows up in your work? Feel free to post in the comments, or reach out via my contact page. I’d love to hear what you discover! xo, scu Some old work from the photo box, circa 1993 -- 1996
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Okay, I made something that's on its way to becoming a book. It's a complete first draft: twenty-two chapters and a coda, an epigraph and a table of contents. Now, I'm working the revision toward a second draft, and I'm a little stalled at chapter 15, but it's for the best that I'm stuck because there's something it still needs to say. There's no panic, no writer's block, just a lot of walking through the city and drifting and going to bed early and seeing what my dreams have to offer up in the morning. Holding a first draft -- slipping its pages into a binder and seeing it whole -- transformed how I relate to the work, and to myself as a writer. Whatever it is you're working on, keep working it.
Next up in the "Meet Readers" are the extraordinary poets Casandra Lopez and our featured reader, Michelle Peñaloza. (In case you missed the first installment, you can read it here.)
Looseleaf is a new Seattle-based reading series co-founded by Spark A'wesome, Shelley Casey, Dawn Quinn, Samantha Updegrave, and Suzanne Warren to create a space for woman-identified emerging and established writers to step out of their binders and share the stage. Combining storytelling and music, the series is held at The Den in Chop Suey. Our next reading is coming up on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. Doors at 7 pm, and it's gonna rule. Over the next few days, I'll feature a couple of the readers (and the musician) with a quick Q+A. CASANDRA LOPEZ What are you reading at Looseleaf on 1/26? I am planning to read some poems. At the last Looseleaf reading, Suzanne Warren and I were discussing her reading selections. She mentioned that she thought the best fit for a bar reading was work that dealt either with sex or humor. I think I am going to take her advise. Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work? Writers that excite me right now are Wendy Ortiz and Kiese Laymon. They both write in a way that speaks to me in a visceral way. I'm also a huge fan of Nayyirah Waheed's poetry so much that I have both ebook and physical copies of her books because I want to be able to easily access her words. I read a bit of it almost everyday. Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one? Haha. I don't know if I'm completely looseleaf. It feels like this stepping out of a binder or binders is a continual process that one needs to be conscious of. Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going? the wounds have changed me. i am so soft with scars my skin breathes and beats stars. Nayyirah Waheed Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one? Anything coming up for you in the near future? I will be reading for Margin Shift on February 19 at CAM in Belltown Where can we find online? twitter: @casandramlopez http://asusjournal.org/ https://casandramlopez.wordpress.com/ MICHELLE PEÑALOZA What are you reading at Looseleaf on 1/26? I'll be reading a poem or two from each of my chapbooks and then several new and not-in-chapbooks poems. Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work? I've read Cathy Linh Che's Split, but then I heard her read at Margin Shift last week, which made me return to it; that book is just incredible. So unflinching. So moving. So good. I also have been doing a sort of slow-burn read of Aracelis Girmay's Kingdom Animalia. I admire her control and her trust in her poems' syntax. Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one? Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going?
Anything coming up for you in the near future?
In March and April I'll be doing some traveling (I think? Offers have been made but contracts have not been signed so...). Where can we find online? michellepenaloza.com On the Twitter: @pennyzola
Looseleaf is a new Seattle-based reading series co-founded by Spark A'wesome, Shelley Casey, Dawn Quinn, Samantha Updegrave, and Suzanne Warren to create a space for woman-identified emerging and established writers to step out of their binders and share the stage. Combining storytelling and music, the series is held at The Den in Chop Suey. Our next reading is coming up on Tuesday, January 26, 2016. Doors at 7 pm, and it's gonna rule. Over the next few days, I'll feature a couple of the readers (and the musician) with a quick Q+A. First up, Kristen Millares Young and Jenny Hayes. Both formidable forces of writing nature. KRISTEN MILLARES YOUNG What are you reading at Looseleaf on 1/26? I'll be reading from my novel Subduction, a tragic love story between an anthropologist and a hoarder's son. Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work? I've been reading Eula Biss, who seamlessly weaves her personal experience with deep research in On Immunity: An Inoculation. Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one? I'm out of my binder by the grace of Samantha Updegrave, who created an opportunity for me and others to share our work. Anything coming up for you in the near future? I'll be reading with Jordan Hartt at Hugo House on Friday, March 11th, to celebrate the second printing of Leap, his book of poetry. Where can we find online? Find me at kristenmyoung.com or on Twitter, @kristenmillares. ***** JENNY HAYES What are you reading at Looseleaf on 1/26? I'll be reading some bit of short fiction (specifics to be determined at the last minute, most likely) ... and maybe a poem or two if I'm feeling fancy. Who’s a writer you’re stoked on right now? What’s exiting about their work? I've read several of my friend Margaret Elysia Garcia's stories, both in publications and in writing classes we've taken together, and now I'm finally making my way through her collection Sad Girls, published by SolsticeLit Books last year. It's an eBook ... and I really prefer reading print, so if I'm actually reading an eBook it's gotta be worthy. I just love her writing: it's lyrical and heartfelt and also has hilarious lines like "Ewww. Yuck! There's a Goth asleep in my Jacuzzi!" Why are you out of your binder? Or, advice for stepping out of binders if you still feel stuck in one? Be the binder you want to see in the world. Or even better, be your own loose leaf. (I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I'll stand by it.) Is there a quote / soundtrack for how your week is going? I love this quote from John Cage because I always need to remind myself. It works for pretty much any week, and this one is no exception: "I really think it's important to be in a situation, both in art and in life, where you don't understand what is going on." Anything coming up for you in the near future? The future is wide open. See also: the quote above. Where can we find online? jennyhayes.com and @jennyha_yes on Twitter!
More witchyness. That's not so much a New Year's resolution as it is a recommitment to life. To all the wondrous, strange, twisting strands of it: mornings of inky pens and a few yoga movements to greet the sun that's still on its way over the Cascades, mediations on and off the cushion, sweeping the floor while the turntable spins Joan Baez or Childbirth, womb massages, drifting in and out of dreams. Asking questions. What's blocking me and what is the way forward to finish the first draft of my book?  The eel reminds me I am a warrior and this is warrior work of wisdom. The bows tell me to discard what is no longer serviceable, and that the fire and sparks are still alive even when I let go of old habits. And the green woman, well damn. She's the sovereign female archetype and the first person I'm meeting as I walk through the threshold.
I climbed back into bed, partly because I was a touch hungover and partly because I was curious about intention. Is asking a question a way to open a door? I stood on a bridge over a ravine cut by a river, reaching for a big yellow balloon. My son was on a train nearby, waiting for me. My fingers tugged at the string. The balloon was heavy and had a pull; that it floated and drifted seemed impossible. It snagged in one of the steel trestles and I yanked. The train began to move and I yelled, "Wait!" and all the passengers yelled, "Wait!" and the conductor slowed but started again toward the high bridge. I had to choose: the balloon or the train with my son. I let go and ran. Hopped into the moving train. As it passed by the balloon, I heard people murmur -- was I going to try again and reach out for it? I smiled at the balloon, at its silly rounded shape lodged between pieces of steel, and looked forward. |
