How did you first come to poetry? What is it about the form that resonates?
I first came to poetry in grammar school. And there was a long journey after that. I began writing about twenty five years ago. The form resonates with me because it is concise; every word matters. And it can be used to allude to things beyond the words themselves.
How does a poem begin?
A poem usually begins with a dream or a thought in the middle of the night. I think the controls of the rational mind are loosened during those hours. There will be a [phrase that arises or a thought about something that needs to be said ..... something arising from a personal experience. The night my sister died I had a dream about her walking up a path to an illuminated place. She turned to me and smiled. But more importantly was the truth that arrived in the dream. She was a disabled person who I looked after. Because I could manage the everyday world much better, everyone thought I was the strong sister. But she knew differently. In my dream she and I both understood what we had never spoken of. She told me not to worry. I would be OK without her. So I wanted to put this into a poem to convey the truth of us as well as the love we shared. Like all my poems and prose, I rewrote it many many times... adding, subtracting....... This poem is finished, many never are. My MFA is in painting and drawing and I had the same experiences with visual art. The work is seldom "done" .. it simply ended. Sometimes I hear a phrase or a word and for some reason it stays with me ... it becomes important.... because it describes an event, an emotion perfectly .....my new word for today is "liminal" ...... liminal space is the place where my father-in-law slipped away from the onset of a massive heart attack .. during the fall to earth ... where by the time he landed he was gone. Liminal space is where I stole away with the children when escaping an episode of domestic violence ... a space, in the attic above the apartment in Chicago that did not exist but that i needed for it to ...... and in my mind it may really be there ..... the liminal space is in the doubt.. Anyway ...... sometimes a poem is in the memory of a sidelong glance ... a brief communication that was too important to fade away. Sometimes poems are to process wild life events or times of intense emotion. Writing helps me "corral" them and keep them from overwhelming me.
Do you see your writing as a single, extended project, or a series of threads that occasionally weave together to form something else?
Some poems are single things or maybe they are like the inert dwarf stars just floating in space and one day they may collide with another poem in ways I never expected. That's happened before. Occasionally i see groupings of poems that seem to need to be together. The entirety of my poetry and prose can only be my small once, unique to me, in my brief time on earth. I will leave it behind for future generations to read and wonder at a life during a time in history. I do that with a letter my gg grandmother kept from a beau she did not marry. Why did she keep is all of her life? Why do I have it in my hands? And I have an 1815 police report from Ghent Belgium ...... with the shadow of my gggg grandmother, who I refer to as Oma, who was compelled to relinquish her baby boy. There was no room for a baby in her harsh life ....... Oma.
How do you see your poetry and prose works in conversation, if at all?
i don't know how they work in conversation. I'm not certain of the question. I know I talk to my friends about things that are on my mind and what I have written about. Sometimes i read a poem on a zoom link.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
I like to write in the morning .... sometimes starting at 3 a.m. My mind is freer then. I am retired and old and disabled from an iatrogenic injury. My brain gets tired as the day proceeds and afternoons can be rough with symptoms and prevent writing anything of any value. I/ can't use those in time, immediate responses to prompts very well...... my thoughts need to cook for a while.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
no favorites
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
not much lately ......... I have been terribly distracted by politics because I care so deeply having been a 1960s social justice activist. My country is in troubled waters right now. I have grandchildren. I need to do what I can to navigate this so they can have a democracy. Due to my disability there are no more rallies and marches, but I can write to my legislators and I do.
I've had some more pieces published ..... a prose poem
"Shhhhhh" about the oppression of the patriarchy will be published
soon. I have a list. Here is some of it: RAIN, North Coast Squid,
oddball magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Down in the Dirt
Magazine, Grey Goose Press - Words Have Wings, Hot Potato
Magazine, Marrow Magazine, Persimmon Tree, Poem Alone,
Poetry Super Highway, Quail Bell Magazine, Silver Birch Press,
Spindrift, Synchronized Chaos, The Bad Day Book, The
Blue Bird Word, Verse-Virtual, WELL READ magazine, Writing
in a Woman’s Voice, Stray Words, Breathe, The Stray Branch
Magazine, Salal Review, The Hill.
Martha Ellen lives alone in an old Victorian house on a hill on the Oregon coast. Retired social worker. History of social justice activism. Old hippie. MFA. Poems and prose published in various journals and online forums including North Coast Squid, oddball magazine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Hot Potato Magazine, Marrow Magazine, Persimmon Tree, Poem Alone, Silver Birch Press, Spindrift, Synchronized Chaos, The Blue Bird Word, WELL READ magazine, Writing in a Woman’s Voice and others. She writes to process her wild life.
She has poems included in the thirteenth issue.