Let’s talk about Fat Crayons!

You’re a jewel!

The manuscript was produced largely during Lexington Poetry month. (I’ve produced 2 chapbooks and 1 full-length manuscript over the course of 3 Lexington Poetry Months!)

I began writing the Fat Crayon poems after I’d been writing sonnets, so they have the sonnet form embedded in them, even though they are prose. I consider them prose sonnets. I’m still using this form now, after several years, after several other series of poems have spun off. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever use a line break again, but of course the line breaks came back for The Wendy Bird Poems, so I’m not sure what I’m worried about. Maybe it’s because I feel that prose is underrated in the same way that chapbooks are underrated.  

Lexington Poetry Month is the bomb, right? Have you been more productive working in the environment or are you prolific throughout the year? What draws you back every year? Is there any value in sharing your newly finished drafts with the world?

I get a huge rush of energy every spring, beginning in March. I burn it off by putting in a lot of miles (running and walking) and writing. So June is generally a prolific time of year for me, biologically. But there’s something about Lexington Poetry Month that keeps my momentum going. I appreciate the sense of community. (I’ve discovered that, though I’m not all that social, I am very communal.) I’ve driven from Louisville to Lexington quite a few times to read just 1 poem. And I tend to post just about every poem I write, regardless of the quality. (Writing is a practice, and I want to promote that.) I’ve learned not to be too critical of my own work. Reading Donald Murray’s essay on writing badly was a huge transformation for me. I try to pass this on to my students, especially the students who have problems with development, problems with getting words on the page. I remember one paper I wrote as a graduate student. I spent 8 hours staring at a blinking cursor before writing a single word. We should not have to go through this. But, yes, a poem requires a reader in order to exist. So I see a tremendous value in the daily posting. Lexington Poetry provides us readers as well as reading. And appearing in the anthology is very rewarding. Publishing your own collection is great, but it can’t replace appearing in an anthology with our colleagues. So I have only positive things to say about Lexington Poetry Month.

I have Fat Crayons and have begun reading it. Immediately I noticed the speaker is in some way the opposite of the speaker in Communion. I’m speaking of distance here. This speaker allows everyone and everything to come out. Or so it seems to me anyway. What was the process like for discovering the voice of the speaker in Fat Crayons. Any surprises along the way?

For one thing, Fat Crayons is in 1st person, whereas Communion is in 3rd. Nevertheless, the Fat Crayon poems, I have to admit, were the 1st poems in my natural voice. I’ve always used a persona. I’m not sure how it happened. It must have been something about summer (I’m generally more open then) and Lexington Poetry Month (I try to open myself up to the spirit of the moment–it’s a poem a day state of mind, which is a playful sort of thing).

It was definitely freeing. I consider them unpoems. I relish their naturalness. So yes, there is far less distance in the Fat Crayon poems. I think the prose, somewhat, allows for that. But the distance. I think the distance allows us to address things emotionally that we couldn’t otherwise. I learned this from Lydia Davis. And I’ve always felt a bit reticent concerning emotion. I mean the things you feel very deeply about you can’t really speak them. Truthfully.  I remember walking into the florist with my sister to order flowers for our mother’s funeral. I tried to explain to her that when your feelings are so deep you can’t really express them. To even attempt to makes them meaningless. I’m highly against sentimentality. It’s all very complicated. I feel very deeply, but to convey deep feelings honestly is very difficult.

You have to provide a definition for an unpoem, now. I want to know how to spot them in the future!

Mmmm . . . the unpoem. 1st thing comes to mind is 7up the uncola. Do they still call it that? (Maybe I’m dating myself.) I see it in the Urban Dictionary. Whereas 7up is not a cola, an unpoem emphatically is a poem. (So maybe it’s not a good comparison.) Nevertheless. An unpoem is a poem that does not try to be a poem. It’s raw, unselfconscious, It doesn’t necessarily look like a poem. But it is a poem, because there is something about it–it’s very essence that makes it a poem, despite it’s humble, pedestrian appearance.

How about that? I’m not really good with definitions.

I do confess. Every since I wrote a reference article for Salem Press on Nora Ephron, who coined the expression high-maintenance in her screenplay to When Harry Met Sally (my favorite film) I have felt the desire to coin a term.

Similarly, after I wrote a reference article on Sandra Cisneros, I decided that I wanted to write 1 poem that would be in the curriculum of every high school student in the United States. I want my own House on Mango Street.

Other than these 2 fantasies, I’m fairly humble!

What are your fantasies? In terms of poetry that is!

I just want to write poems that change people’s lives. So pretty humble too. haha.

So, I’ve finished Fat Crayons and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The speaker’s obsession with words I think reflects what you said early about distance, that you need it to approach a subject that you feel deeply about. The speaker seems to hover around words and moments looking for a way into the inexplicable nature of the relationship between these two people. Can I ask, what do you find fruitful or fulfilling in writing about romantic relationships?

I suppose they are (potentially) the most intimate relationships. And that’s what I’m really interested in: intimacy.

I’m trying to figure them out. I’m innately a problem solver. And I don’t really understand men in particular and people in general. They are all so complicated!

It’s the most primal and universal story. He and She.

It’s the tension. I don’t really like conflict in my real life (my real life is very routine, very repetitive, and boring), but I crave it in my art. I love the opera. And the opera is very bloody. It’s intense.

I grew up reading True Crime and Historical Romance.

I’m a fatherless daughter. I hate to admit it, but yes, I am. Therefore, I will spend the rest of my life looking for acceptance from men.

I’ve written poems about other subjects, but they don’t seem to cohere into a collection. At least into a collection that people are interested in reading.

What other subjects do you find yourself turning to?

Other subjects. Hmmmmm . . . . Last week I wrote a poem about polka dots. Balloons, confetti, things that bring me joy–I have several Birthday Poems.  I’ve learned to begin with concrete objects when I write. Words. I don’t really think about subjects. I suppose when I’m not exploring relationships between males and females I’m exploring my own mind, how it works. The movement of my thoughts.  Words have become an obsession for me. I haven’t always been a verbal person. I started out as a dance major. I was in graduate school when I realized that many people actually think in words. I had to train myself to do that. I more naturally think in terms of movement. I suppose most of my work concerns communication. At least the first two chapbooks. Innately I’m quite reticent. But as I’ve begun to communicate more vocally, I’ve realized how difficult it is. I’ve seen in my classroom how even (what I consider) the most clear message can be misconstrued in multiple ways. I suppose my poem “Fat Crayon” is really what I’m getting at. I think all of us are really communicating with a fat crayon, much of the time. And I think that sad. The distance. It’s lonely. Often males prefer this distance (or is seems that they do).  And so what I like about exploring relationships between males and females (not necessarily romantic) is that they are potentially the most intimate, though often the most distant.

Do you have writing heroes? People whose styles or thought process you admire?

Maureen Morehead. She started it all. Ironically, I enrolled in a short fiction course with Maureen. I originally thought I would write fiction. I am a voracious reader of novels. I rarely read poetry, I am ashamed to say. And then I took another course with her. She was sort of on Sabbatical from her high school teaching, teaching at UofL. I fell in love with her, and I started reading her poetry. This was before she had any books in print. I checked out her Ph.D. dissertation, which would later become The Yellow Room. These poems taught me how to write. The Purple Lady Poems and the Laura Poems taught me how to write in a series. That’s what I do. I write in a series.

Before Maureen was Leon Driskell. He was my first mentor. He made me literate. He taught me to read and to write.

After Maureen. I began reading Jeffrey Skinner. He was newly arrived on campus. I really liked his poetry. I still do. Occasionally I see it in Poetry, which is freaky. A while back I was talking to one of my colleagues at UofL, who was working with Jeffrey on an MA thesis, but had never read his poetry. I thought that very weird.

I suppose you can say that largely my heroes are people near to me. People that I know and can touch. I love the work of Katerina Stoykova-Klemer. I love the work of Jeremy Paden. I love the work of Leigh Anne Hornfeldt. And I love your work, also, Christopher McCurry.

In addition, Lydia Davis sort of changed my life. She came to campus at UoL. I didn’t know who she was at the time, but I submitted some work for her Master Class at UofL. My work was not accepted. And I didn’t attend her reading. I had (fairly young) children at home at the time, and I thought I should stay home, cook supper. But latter I became acquainted with her work, and realized what I had missed. I fell in love with her. Though she is known as a prose writer, a writer of fiction, I consider her a poet. I think Fat Crayons became possible because of her. It was the movement of her thoughts. And then her Cows was published by Sarabande.

In addition, I love Joyce Carol Oates. She is so prolific. I love all her work, even when it is not necessarily fabulous.  I love it’s exuberance. Fortunately, I read Theodore Dreiser before Joyce Carol Oates, and was, thus, introduced to the exclamation point.

As you are aware I like to write in series too. I might as well ask: why do we do it? Why do you do it? What does it give you access to?

The Series, the whole is always more than the part. That’s what I really love about your Marriage Sonnets. They are so much more meaningful when read as a whole. I think it the same effect for many of my own poems. It’s the minimalist effect. Frank Stella. Mark Rothko. There’s some magic when the individual parts are combined into a whole. They form a story.

I like the intertextuality created by a series. The relationships formed among poems. The individual poems all become so much more meaningful. Even the weaker poems, which especially are enriched, the ones which, by themselves, might not be great poems, but when you read them in the series you can see their purpose.

Each of my chapbooks noticeably use one form. I’ve begun to write like that. I find a form and then I exhaust it. I think I learned to do this writing reference articles. I wrote 100 very short articles on poets–all using the same rigid structure. Once you get that form down, you really begin to think within it. It’s rather comforting, not having to wonder about what the next poem will look like. It’s very efficient.
What do you think about the state of contemporary poetry? I mean the reading and the writing of it. What conversations are you interested in having with other readers and writers of poetry?

Contemporary Poetry is big. There’s so much of it! I think the conversations I’d like to have (at least at first) would be very basic. Which poets should I read?  What are you reading? What have you learned from it? What are you experimenting with? I wouldn’t mind a guide. A few people to hold my hand. A way in. It’s all so intimidating. Sometimes, even reading the biographical statement of an “emerging poet” gives me a panic attack. Seriously, what have I been doing with my life? Anyway, I learn best by doing. I think that’s why I’ve begun to write reviews. It gives me a reason to read poetry, closely. It gives me a sense of purpose and audience. I’m a rhetorical construct. I belong to a book club–we’ve recently celebrated our 10 year anniversary. But I don’t really belong to a poetry club. If you know of any people wishing to discuss poetry, introduce me to them.

You can read Nettie’s blog by clicking here.

Nettie Farris is the author of Communion (Accents Publishing, 2013), Fat Crayons (Finishing Line Press, 2015), and the micro-chapbook Story (Origami Poems Project, 2016). Her chapbook The Wendy Bird Poems is forthcoming from dancing girl press. She has recently begun publishing book reviews and is currently working on a project with Blue Lyra Review spotlighting small presses.