12 or 20 (second series) questions with Rose McLarney

Rose McLarney’s collections of poems are Colorfast , Forage , and Its Day Being Gone , from Penguin Poets, as well as The Always Broken Plates of Mountains , published by Four Way Books. She iscoeditor of A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia , fromUniversity of Georgia Press, and the journal Southern Humanities Review .Rose has been awarded fellowships by MacDowell and Bread Loaf and SewaneeWriters’ Conferences; served as Dartmouth Poet in Residence at the Frost Place;and is winner of the National Poetry Series, the Chaffin Award for Achievementin Appalachian Writing, and the Fellowship of Southern Writers’ New WritingAward for Poetry, among other prizes. Her work has appeared in publicationsincluding American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, TheSouthern Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Orion,and The Oxford American. Currently, she is professor of creative writingat Auburn University.

1 - How did your first book change your life?

I signed the contractfor my first book, The Always Broken Plates of Mountains (Four WayBooks), right after graduating from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writersand that must have been part of why I was chosen for a teaching fellowship inthe college’s undergraduate program. That teaching experience led me to applyfor more academic jobs, to be hired for some of them, and to move to all overthe country. The Always Broken Plates of Mountains was largely aboutfidelity to place, so it’s sort of perverse that it was the reason I left myjob with the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, family, and property.But the positive spin is that this is a case of one love leading me to others.

Also, my partner inthese repeated relocations was Justin Gardiner, a fellow writer I met whileteaching at Warren Wilson, and surviving uncertainties together led tomarriage, and a strong fidelity between us.

2. How does your most recent work compare to your previous ?

The book of mine thatmost stands apart from the others is Forage (Penguin, 2019), my thirdbook. While my other books center on Appalachia, Forage is more about mycurrent location, the Deep South, and the environment at large. And I put greatereffort into Forage than anything else I’ve ever done. Colorfast,my fourth and newest book, forthcoming from Penguin in March 2024, is a bit ofa return and I didn’t write it with any illusion that it would change mycareer. In it, I am again writing about the mountains where I grew up, thesubject I naturally turn to if I don’t direct myself otherwise. Yet, I amreexamining the stories about the culture and my own girlhood I have been toldand told myself and recognizing problems such as how the perspectives of womenand others were omitted.

Colorfast’s poems are more complex in their content than my firstbook’s, and they’re more advanced in their construction. My lines and stanzasare becoming more meticulously counted and shaped with each volume.            

3 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say,fiction or non-fiction?

I’ve never had anycapacity for writing plot, conceiving of things happening. My mind wants tostay fixed in the moment and on a particular image and idea. I rememberreading, early on, in Lynn Emmanuel’s “The Politics of Narrative: Why I Am A Poet”: “So please, don't ask me for a little trail of breadcrumbs to get from the smile to the bedroom, and from the bedroom to the deathat the end, although you can ask me a lot about death. That's all I like, the very beginning and the very end. Ihaven't got the stomach for the rest of it.” That resonated with me, thoughshe’s got far more swagger than I ever will. When I began writing, I had verylittle time because I was holding down jobs in other fields (and working insome literal farm fields). Also, frugality was probably the highest virtue tome, then. I wanted to avoid the prosey task of explaining and the waste ofwords I thought it required.

Now I recognize that language inany genre can be subtle and economical, care at least as much about musicalityas economy, and like some little flourishes. But there’s still no chance of mewriting action scenes.

4 - Where does a poem 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?

My poems usually beginwith an impression or scrap of information jotted down in my journal. Then Imust figure out what I have to say about, what use I can make of, this materialI’ve gathered that may appear to have nothing to do with my own experiences orbe well outside areas in which I have expertise. For Colorfast, I minedinformation from reading about gemology, archaeology, natural dying, colortheory, and linguistics, among other subjects.

To start a book, I mustlet myself write all sorts of poems that may seem to be of separate species,until I can identify some larger concern or little characteristics they share.In Colorfast, feminist themes were obvious from the outset, but I wasalso aided in revising and sequencing by noticing details such as how often thepoems referred to hands and holding. After I have some general notions andgrace notes for a book, I can write with more purpose (and pleasure), creatingan arc for the manuscript, conversations between the poems, cohesion.

5 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (notnecessarily given to you directly)?

“Make do.” That advicemay have never been directly issued or verbalized to me. But it’s an aestheticthat helped with practicalities when I was younger—such as finding the charm indilapidated houses and learning how to wear secondhand clothes as if I intendeda vintage look—and helps now when I begin writing projects and worry that I’veused up the good stuff. It’s also a sort of exemplary piece of syntax. It’s economical,with just two words. It’s active, since both those words are verbs. And it’s acommanding imperative.  

That said, I’m not asrigorous as I once was and I’m recalling the New Year’s Eve when a friendadvised me to “Resolve to be less resolved.”

6 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres(poetry to essays)? What do you see as the appeal?

I have writtenwhat may be a full-length manuscript of lyric essays. (I’ve been letting themsit, so I can come back and assess them with more objectivity.)  It has not been easy. Transitions arethe problem—and I mean not just between genres, but between paragraphs andparts. As I said earlier, I’m wary of—bored by—explication and exposition. So,I’ve aspired to write prose with a line of reasoning running underneath, butthat, on the surface, leaps and seems to move from point to point by followingelements such as alliteration or off-rhyme as much as by argument.

I took on thechallenge of writing prose because I had information from research that was toocumbersome for poems to carry. Because there’s the possibility that people whodon’t read poetry will give an essay a chance (though they’ll find my essayscan actually be more heady than my poems). And, well, because I’ve completedfour books of poetry and it was a challenge.

7 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or doyou even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I start each morningby looking out the window before I let my eyes turn to any printed words orscreens. Then, I try to see that the first thing I read is a poem. Then, Iwrite something down in my journal—not any sort of narrative or record ofevents, just an observation. For instance, my last two journal entries arequotes from an overheard conversation between airport bartenders and anarchitectural text. Then, I go running and try to think about how what I’vewritten in my journal or drafted the previous day (though that’s gotten moredifficult as I’ve gotten older and more injured and have started to have tothink about the form of my body and the running itself). I will try to makesome revisions or expansions over breakfast. 

If I am not going tocampus to teach or attending to other errands, I’ll work on typed drafts untilnoon. It’s useful to me to have that cut-off point so that I don’t stickrelentlessly, as I am prone to do, to a draft that isn’t going to amount toanything in the end, and so I don’t feel guilty about the laundry I’m nothanging and email I’m not answering—yet. (If you send me an email, I’ll answer you the same day, but not untilthe afternoon.)

8 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The house Justin and Ishare often smells like kafir lime leaves or cardamom or ginger. He mortar andpestle pounds roots and spices into curry pastes. I am heavy handed with anyspice available and like to improvise cultural mutt meals.  (To be honest, a person who does not have ourcallous palettes may be greeted at the door with a cloud of air peppery enoughto make them choke.)

Underneath thosefragrances, there are notes of antique furniture--my grandparents’ and greatgrandparents’ old possessions I’ve drug around with me—and his many books. I’mglad you asked this question because the first portion of Colorfast hasa setting like my childhood home and deals with problematic relationships withmen. I appreciate a chance to mention my current home and the love poems, aftera reader makes it through the harder sections, in the latter part of thecollection.

9 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books,but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music,science or visual art?

Nature and biologyinform most of my work. I have no scientific training or taste for precisefigures and facts as firm answers. But I like to ask questions such as why snowmelts around trees, where it’s shaded, before it melts in open fields; somedead-looking leaves stay on tree branches into winter; and fossils form in somesoils and not others.  Those inquiriesbecame poems in Colorfast.

I have published a fewekphrastic poems, yet I’ve probably written as many about the hushed atmosphereof museums—modern people exhibiting their most reverent behavior—as I have theactual art. And I may not have written any poems focused on music. Yet otherart forms undoubtedly influence my writing. My musical tastes, for example, aremuch edgier and more diverse than the kind of poem it is easiest for me togenerate. Music has inspired me to allow for some experimentation, dissonance,and noise in poems. In particular, musicians such as , who makesfolksy songs weird, innovative, and utterly his own, prompted me to avoidcliches associated with writing about rural America. (You can read more of my thoughts on music andlisten to a playlist I put together at Largehearted Boy.)

10- If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, whatwould it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doinghad you not been a writer?

Veterinarians havetold me I should be a vet. I’m not squeamish in the least and I have much morepatience for and rapport with animals than the average human. I doubt I would enjoythe job, since vets meet animals when they’re distressed. And it’s an awfullynon-verbal alternative for a poet to choose. But at least I might be competentat it and I suppose both vocations involve plenty of perceiving of emotion andreading of implication and tone.

I am more certain ofthe job at which I’d be worst: valet. I hate cars and driving, and beingentrusted with (presumably) rich people’s fancy cars would wreck me.

11 - What was the last great book you read? What was the lastgreat film?

I read so much poetrythat it’s hard for me to choose one book to mention. So I’ll tell you the lastnovel that I loved: Milkman by Anna Burns. It is set in Northern Irelandduring The Troubles, and addresses political and cultural issues present inother countries and communities too, in some of the most colorful and originalprose I’ve encountered. I admire how elements of the style—never givinganyone’s proper name, for instance—aren’t only artistic touches, but tied tothe psychology of the people in the story, who must keep many secrets becausethey are under constant surveillance.

The film that’s stayedon my mind recently is Chocolat, directed by Claire Denis and set inCameroon (not the Johnny Depp movie). It’s from the ‘80s and, obviously,not American, but its commentary on race relations felt very relevant and itsapproach original. My husband found the film because Claudia Rankine referencesthe director in Citizen and Chocolat’s artful final scene, whichleft me with much to contemplate, felt like the conclusion of one of thosegreat poems that open out to more thoughts rather than closing down with apronouncement.  

12 - What are you currently working on?

I already noted that Ihave been writing a collection of lyric essays. But, with my new poetry bookjust about to come out, it’s not the time for another publication. And I am tryingto put aside the validation of having the essays readily accepted by journalsand learn to gauge for myself what finished really is for my prose,since I’m a beginner in the genre.

I am also composingnew poems, because there will be a fifth collection someday. In order to helpme get out of essay mode and back to poetry, I assigned myself to draft withoutany capital letters or punctuation. This is hardly revolutionary, I know. Manypoets have written in this manner, including Ellen Bryant Voigt in herwonderfully refreshing Headwaters. But it’s a huge shift for me and, sofar, these poems are more fun than what I usually produce. That said, theycan’t contain as much information as essays and they don’t yet have theintricate craftmanship I tried to achieve in Colorfast and my othercollections.  Maybe a current projectshould be remembering to celebrate Colorfast when it is finally in printand, rather than newness of style, the quality of endurance that is often whatthe poems are about.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;