12 or 20 (second series) questions with Carrie Oeding
Carrie Oeding's
collection of poems
If I Could Give You a Line
won the AkronPoetry Prize and was published by University of Akron Press (2023). She is alsothe author of
Our List of Solutions
(42 Miles Press), and her work hasappeared in such places as Bennington Review, Sixth Finch, PBSNewsHour ArtBeat, DIAGRAM, and Denver Quarterly. She was therecipient of the 2020 Rhode Island Council on the Arts' Fellowship in Poetry.She received her PhD in creative writing from Ohio University. She is aninstructional designer and educator at Johnson and Wales University. She liveswith her husband and daughter in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?
In my first book, OurList of Solutions, I tapped into a voice, through readingother voices that surprised me. I figured out my associative inclinations.The book ultimately came from grad school, and I had learned what tolisten to and not listen to when making the book. When published, it felt likean achieved milestone, and I was/am very happy that I made the book I wanted tomake.
My second book, IfI Could Give You a Line, is wild to me because it feels like an impossiblework I made, that I am still surprised I wrote, that nobody cared if I wrote,and it was completely felt out in the dark in an exciting, difficult way. Ittaught me I can leap into uncertainty and write a future book that I also don'tthink I can write. My voice is still present in book two from book one, but inmy first book, the voice felt more pessimistic. This new book is notoptimistic, just more interested in art-making than anything, and thatart-making makes me think a lot about my relation to others in dailiness.
2 - How did you come topoetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I wanted to mine voice inthe dark and tunnel out spaces with that voice that felt like I could, in someways, do whatever I wanted to do as long as I let that voice keep unfolding ina certain way. I do not know how to describe what that "certainway" is, other than knowing when it feels flat or limiting and that Ineed to keep kicking over rocks or But I needed to figure out what kind ofcontainer or room was allowing that freedom in others' and then my own work.At the time I didn't know writers actually lead with voice in fiction andnonfiction, too. That edgelessness. But fiction writers like Claire Louise-Bennett set my brain on fire with their lyricalunderstanding/being.
3 - How long does it taketo start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
My writing isembarrassingly slow. The more I try to embrace that, I hope, the lesspainfully slow it comes. I don't finish a draft of anything until the poem isactually done. Meaning, I can't write a draft then revise it. I revise whilewriting and it never is a finished draft until it is finished. I like thismessy feeling, because I jump around the poem in progress and work on different partsat different times. Although my partner would say I sound completely frustratedand lost while working through this mess, and that is also true.
4 - Where does a poemusually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combininginto a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?
My poems usually beginwith the title or the first line. It feels like a frame or just one piece ofmaterial handed to me, and I can sense there's a lot there to explore with thattitle or first line. There is a lot of tone and concept at once in theline that I don't try to control but try to keep surprising myself with. I willhave to figure it out, but to be successful I also have to let go andknow I am not "capturing" but doing something else by developing thepoem from that first line or title. For instance, in If I Could GiveYou a Line, one of the poems is titled "At No Time in Your LifeCan You Just Be Near Something," which I started writing the poem with. Iliked the tension I felt between distance, closeness, longing, and annoyance. Atension between object, others, and self. Time in experience and time outsideof experience. Anyway, when I start with a title or line, I like the feeling ofpossibility in the line, yet the necessity to let go and swim through it.
5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?
Readings don't seem to bepart or counter to my creative process. My poems' speakers are verypresent and gesture to an audience that feels close and far away at once.I like that feeling while working on a book, but reading in public doesn'tfactor into that feeling. I like feeling alone when working atthe peak of a book, but I also feel lonely. Sometimes an audience laughsduring a reading and is surprised by some of the dry humor, which is fun.At this point in my life and with this recent book, I like reading in publicbut don't do it a lot.
6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?
I think so, but I wouldn'tbe great at explaining this. This comment would probably disqualify me fromanswering any further, for some people. I have to crack something open.
Some direct questions in IfI Could Give You a Line are “What materials are used to make distance?/ What else could you live without, me?” which are from the poem I Would Give You aDrawn Line. I question the freedom and limitation of the desire to makesomething you want others to encounter, while pushing back on the restrictionsI feel that others can have on artmaking. I think the book overall is alwayswondering what is poetic “space.”
7 – What do you see thecurrent role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? Whatdo you think the role of the writer should be?
I don't know if I can saythey have a role other than a culture has a role to allow writers to succeed,thrive, and be plentiful and diverse.
These days I wonder aboutpointlessness. Pointlessnesses? The delight I get from something I read or seethat is pointless in a way that feels very alive and engaging with the world atthe same time.
8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
At this point, so many poetswho publish a book of poems today must make a book that is so publishable andbeyond ready, in order to be accepted for publication, that for a lot of us notmuch is changed after acceptance. Nothing was changed in my latest book besidessmall copy edits. But a series editor or judge has an important role inselecting who to publish. When writing an article or essay on somethingpoetry-related, working with an editor has been wonderful and humbling and I amgrateful for it.
9 - What is the best pieceof advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I am not sure at thispoint. Advice always reads flawed and partially true, except for read a lot.When I find myself giving advice, I am talking to myself, or I am in a momentwhere I should be listening instead.
10 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?
There was such a hardinsistence for a number of decades to be the writer who writes every day at5AM. I block out 1-2 hours here and there during the week, that land maybeon 3-4 days and then I also get time to write on Sunday afternoons. I have aseven-year-old daughter and my husband is a poet and professor, and ourlives are in hour-blocks, routine trade-offs to make everyone happy, but itworks. I think becoming a parent helped me get my act together. I would blocklike 5 hours at a time to write before which is silly in terms of how I write.I would waste most of that time in those large blocks.
11 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?
I am trying to figure outwhat stalled means for me. It's hard when feeling stalled leads to avoidance orbeing too forgiving to myself, but I have to relax and get in a certainmindsight. While reading helps me write, I can too often pick up a book andthink okay maybe something like this, when all of my movement forward on astuck poem ends up coming from me. Yet it didn't, really.
12 - What fragrancereminds you of home?
Very dry rectangles ofbaled alfalfa remind me of where I grew up.
13 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
One of the opening poems in IfI Could Give You a Line begins with my obsession with artist Richard Long’sA Line Made by Walking. Visualart is a major influence in If I Could Give You a Line, and thisparticular work excited me for how much it said and proposed about the physicalline. The brilliant simplicity of thinking about mark making and the line inthis way. It prompts me to think about the line and art making in the eight-sectionedpoem.
In If I Could Give You a Line, I play around withthe traditional triangular relationship between artwork, poet, and reader. Idon’t think my relationship with the reader is as traditional as a lot ofekphrastic poems. The book started with my envy of contemporary visual art and theimmediacy I feel when I walk into a gallery or museum and experience thatengagement with something made. I like that it’s a little impossible to be thatimmediate to my reader, but still be gesturing to them. I am exploring what itmeans that a moment of looking, as in a museum or as speaker in a poem, canfeel both public and private at once. That tug and pull also connects to someof the speakers as mothers who want to be heard as artists but feel limited.What is the value of making something when they often feel ignored. Making artas a parent changed in something for me, and I am trying to figure that out,even though I am not always directly writing about motherhood. I am alwayswriting about artmaking. I guess I can’t shake that every poem is an arspoetic, for me.
14 - What other writers orwritings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
For If I CouldGive You a Line, so many contemporary books of poems were important tothe creation of the book. It took 7-10 years to write it, based on how I lookat it, and reading books that kept me exploring and excited by new forms andvoices like Bridgette Bates’s Whatis Not Missing is Light, Mary-Kim Arnold’s Litany for theLong Moment, Stacy Szymaszek’s Journal of Ugly Sites, DianaKhoi Nguyen’s Ghost Of, Sherod Santos’s Square InchHours, Sarah Vap’s Winter, Cole Swenson’s OnWalking On, Yanyi’s My Year of Blue Water, Darcie Dennigan’sPalace of Subatomic Bliss, ReneeGladman’s Calamities. I know I am just listing and I go keep listing. Iam so happy to be reading and writing in 2023.
15 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?
If I'm just thinking aboutmaking things, I'd like to finish my third book of poems. I'd like to writenonfiction about art exhibits. I'd like to collaborate with a visual or soundartist on something I can't imagine right now. I'd like to spend time inBerlin.
16 - If you could pick anyother occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
If it was in a realisticway, maybe something with translation or secondary languages, which I have nobackground in. If I could fantasize, I would study studio art with a focus onvideo and sculpture/installation.
17 - What made you write,as opposed to doing something else?
It seemed like the mostaccessible art form, given where I grew up, in rural Minnesota, and books andthe library were always an option.
18 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?
I recentlyloved Niina Pollari's Path of Totality, , andCynthia Arrieu-King's The Betweens. I am starting and lovingEndi Bogue Hartigan's oh orchid o'clock.
19 - What are youcurrently working on?
A third book of poems. Sofar, I feel good about the collection's title.
