12 or 20 (second series) questions with Lisa Olstein
Lisa Olstein is the author of fivepoetry collections, most recently Dream Apartment (Copper Canyon Press,2023), and two books of nonfiction. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship,Pushcart Prize, Lannan Residency Fellowship, Hayden Carruth Award, and WritersLeague of Texas Award. She is a member of the poetry faculty at the Universityof Texas at Austin.
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recentwork compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Publishing a firstbook helped me continue to have a life in poetry, a new mooring of starting out.It allowed for the possibility of being in conversation with readers, thoseunknown beloveds, and it brought me into relationship with Copper Canyon Pressand my editor there, Michael Wiegers, who I’m lucky to be still working with 18years later. All of which I’m very grateful for. Comparing my first book (2006)to my most recent (2023) is like trying to compare myself then to myself now—muchcontinuity, much difference, much more experience.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction ornon-fiction?
During my earlyadolescence, I remember my mother reading poetry aloud to me sometimes when Iwas very upset. So I assume it’s her fault.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Doesyour writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first draftsappear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?
It varies quite abit. I’d say my writing comes quickly, over long, slow periods of time. When avoice, its music, arrives things tend to move along but this quickness is partof a much slower process. Drafts and notes vary, too. I rely on both but at thesame time, anything that sticks—whether a few lines or a whole draft—tends tohave a lot of its energy from the start, though this doesn’t mean revisionisn’t also crucial.
4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you anauthor of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are youworking on a "book" from the very beginning?
It begins in theear. I have to hear a the music of a voice or phrase, the rhythm of thethought, to borrow Oppen’s line. Without it, I’m thinking not writing.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Readings areseparate from my creative process, they’re a different thing. Having theopportunity to share work and be in community can be quite lovely, and Idefinitely hear the work differently when reading it in front of people. But mycreative process is quite separate, quite solitary, private.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kindsof questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even thinkthe current questions are?
I hope everythingI write asks and answers this question in its own way. Of course there arecertain obsessions, fascinations, ethics and aesthetics that stay with me,evolve with me. But writing is where I go not to deposit answers or proveconclusions, but to pursue questions and urgencies, to discover—incollaboration with language, that extraordinary medium—what I didn’t know Iknew or didn’t realize I needed to ask.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?
I kind of shrinkfrom monolithic singularities like “the writer” or “larger culture.” Writers.Cultures. Roles. We need writers and writing in so many differentways. It’s kind of like asking what is the current role of the scientist. We’dnever ask or answer that singularly, or at least I wouldn’t. We need scientiststo do science, in myriad ways toward myriad ends. We need writers to write, inmyriad ways toward myriad ends.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficultor essential (or both)?
For me, a fewtrusted readers are essential and I get their feedback first. Then an editor’srole can be many different things, from pretty hands off to pretty hands on.I’ve been fortunate to work with insightful, keenly intelligent people, so Itry to listen to what they say, however overarching or specific, whilepreserving my inside sense of the work, what holds it together, what is andisn’t malleable.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)?
Don’t try to makea happy baby happier.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry tonon-fiction to collaborative epistolary prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
In many ways, Ifound shifting from poetry—my home base—into lyric essay terrain surprisinglysmooth, at least in the two books of prose I wrote/cowrote. In those cases, thesentence felt like the right unit, and I was happy to realize that I was asobsessed with its music as I tend to be with the unit of the line when writingpoems. That said, the rigor/abandon of poetry is where I like to live.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you evenhave one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Both my health andmy days—what they demand and allow—vary quite a bit, so I try to be a flexibleforager. On a good day, I’ll slip into my study with a mug of coffee beforedoing anything else or talking to anyone and not emerge for at least three orfour hours.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (forlack of a better word) inspiration?
Certain authors and books, of course—some predictably, others of the momentsprung—but just as often other interests: film, music, performance, visual art;cooking; landscapes; natural science; textiles.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Peonies and thesoil they grow in. The air at about twenty degrees after four inches of snow. Agerman shepherd’s ruff. Cape Cod bay. I could go on…
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but arethere any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, scienceor visual art?
All of the above,indispensably. Other disciplines and mediums—their content and form, theirparallels and differences—are as essential to my creative/thinking life asreading and literature.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, orsimply your life outside of your work?
Too many to name! ButI always return to Li Po, Bishop, Dickinson, Plath. In the contemporary space,Anne Carson, Alice Oswald, Jenny Erpenbeck, Renee Gladman, Leni Zumas.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Crisscross Icelandon horseback.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be?Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you notbeen a writer?
I’d have loved alife that put me on or in the water a good deal of the time.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It didn’t feellike a conscious choice, exactly; it felt like a pull or a pressure in thechest, which is how Grace Paley described it.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I love JaneMiller’s new poetry collection, Paper Banners: exquisite, full ofrestraint and abandon in equal measure, brilliant. And I thought the film, American Fiction, an adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel, was pretty great.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’mworking on my contribution to a project called Delisted2023,which invites artists, scientists, and writers to engage with animal and plantspecies that have been recently removed from the US Endangered Species List dueto extinction.
