12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jill McCabe Johnson
Jill McCabeJohnson’s third poetrybook, Tangled in Vow & Beseech (MoonPath, 2024), was named afinalist in the Sally Albiso and Wheelbarrow Books poetry prizes. Honorsinclude an Academy of American Poets prize, the Paula Jones Gardiner PoetryAward from Floating Bridge Press, twoNautilus Book Awards, plus support from the National Endowment for theHumanities, Artist Trust, and Hedgebrook. Recent works have appeared in Slate,Fourth Genre, Waxwing, The Brooklyn Review, Gulf Stream,Brevity, and Diode. Jill is editor-in-chief of Wandering AengusPress. https://jillmccabejohnson.com
1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does yourmost recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first poetry book was a collection of persona poems, all written inthe imagined voice of the sea. It allowed me to write from a persona that feltto me as though it were innocent, wise, and brimming with love. Subsequentbooks and chapbooks, including the latest book, Tangled in Vow & Beseech,have fewer persona poems. Even when the pieces aren’t about my life, they feelfar more personal and therefore risky. At the same time, I hope readers willconnect with them in a more intimate, meaningful way. I don’t know if thewriting changed me or if changes within me changed the writing, but I do feelmore confident in myself as a person and poet, and that allows me to expose myvulnerabilities more in relationships as well as on the page.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction ornon-fiction?
Lo, so many years ago, when I started at the wonderful MFA program, theRainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, I wanted to studypoetry because I believed it would provide a foundation for writing in prose,too. The attention to image, music, form, diction, and even, at times,narrative teaches a kind of precision but with unlimited wildness, too. It’s contradictory, but it teaches a personto work without constraint despite constraints—basically doing the impossible.Who could resist?
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?
I wish there were one, predictable way. Sometimes the writing comes in anunexpected gush, other times it emerges as a complete package, and too often itflops into the world, a floundering, unwieldy mess.
4 - Where does a poem or essay usually begin for you? Are you an authorof short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you workingon a "book" from the very beginning?
For me, poems almost always begin with an image but are written fromsound. It took me a long time to trust the sounds bubbling up and onto thepage. Now, I do my best to get out of the way of what the subconscious wants tosay. Easier said than done, of course. The essay writing process is similar,except that it usually begins with an unusual incident or situation, forexample, getting laid off from a job or sitting with my father’s dead body.Like so many have said before me, I don’t know what I have to say until I beginwriting. That takes its own form of trust and getting out of the way, too. Withenough smaller pieces and momentum, I finally see what a larger manuscript isworking toward. If I try to force things, the writing isn’t as good.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Readings are fun, and I do find it informative to see how audiencesrespond to narrative pieces. Mostly, I just love when authors and readersconnect during a live reading, regardless of whether I’m in the audience or onthe stage.
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?
In the last several years, I’ve been writing my way through trying tounderstand gender violence. I don’t really even want to write about it, but thesubject won’t let me go. It’s frustrating because there are so few answers, andI don’t like most of them, anyway. But the subject has me in its grips for now.We’ll see where it leads.
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?
Do we have to have roles? Can we simply write what matters to us?
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficultor essential (or both)?
All praise for editors! I can’t be objective about my work. I can’treread it and hear it for the first time. Editors help us clarify and refine.That doesn’t mean their suggestions should always be taken. We still have to bediscerning about how we revise, but editors help us see when there’s need torevise and ways we might do it.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)?
Stan Sanvel Rubin said to read widely, even work you don’t like, becauseyou learn from it and might even grow to appreciate it.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry toessays)? What do you see as the appeal?
It’s hard for me to go immediately between working on poetry and prose.With a little time between—a walk, for example—it’s easier. There’s a differentmindset required, at least for me, to write in one or the other. Even fromessay to essay or poem to poem. It’s as though my mind needs a palate cleanser.That said, I love writing both. Some things are better suited for an essay or apoem, and I like being able to go between.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you evenhave one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
My husband and I have a bed and breakfast. Summers are insanely busy, somy writing routine doesn’t follow a daily schedule. It’s on a yearly cycle,with only short work and revision in the summers and longer works in thewinters when I have time to immerse myself more deeply.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (forlack of a better word) inspiration?
Any good writing will inspire me to write. Also, writing just after a napor when I wake in the morning, assuming I don’t reach for my phone and read thenews.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
The scent of a briny seashore.
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?
Books come from the rattling sound of the hoola-hoop at your ninthbirthday party, from the bully who broke your glasses playing dodge ball, theycome from the coffee-flavored candies in your grandmothers crystal box, fromhow it felt to tear the necklace your first boyfriend gave you from your14-year-old neck when he broke up with you and started dating your sister, fromoysters roasted open over campfire coals, from the ache in your lungs hikingMt. Si and being too embarrassed in front of your athletic friends to stop andcatch your breath, from kissing your dead mother’s forehead, from apologizingto your son for shaking his shoulders when he forgot once again to turn in hishomework, from listening to a flock or red wing blackbirds singing winter inside-out.Books come from books? Don’t make me laugh.
To be fair to David W. McFadden, books absolutely inspire and influencethe creation of other books. I also like to look at the structure of things andmake correlations to writing, for example, is the work like a nautilus, ariver, a pair of lungs, a branching tree? Good standup comedians are experts atshaping story. They know how to setup a situation and seed an idea, as well ashow to convey a story specifically and concisely, and how to close in asatisfying yet surprising way.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, orsimply your life outside of your work?
I read so widely, this is a tough question to answer. There are too manywriters I love to even attempt to list them, though Rebecca Solnit would bevery high on my list.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Skydive. Live in Paris. Hike in Patagonia. Master bread-making. See bothmy husband and son grow old. Be kinder to everyone. Forgive. Listen. Accept.
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?
Botanist. Cheesemaker. Marine biologist. Jazz singer. Weaver. Chimneysweep.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
How else to connect with humanity and express wonder and try to make theworld a better place?
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Book: All the Light We Cannot See
Film: The Square
20 - What are you currently working on?
Lyric essays as well as essays on gender violence.
