Visiting poet to discuss writing, motherhood
Poet Beth Ann Fennelly will share her wisdom on the creative aspects of motherhood -- wisdom she's acquired since having her daughter and son.
The University of Mississippi professor visits Naperville Friday to read from her collection of poems in a presentation called "Motherhood and Creativity: A Poetry Reading" and to quote from her book, "Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother."
The letters were written to a friend experiencing motherhood for the first time.
Fennelly has written four books, and her poems have appeared in numerous literary reviews. Her book "Unmentionables" is due out in April.
Q. What characteristics best serve a poet?
A. Dogged determination, because there are times when you just have to keep writing and working hard even when there seems to be insurmountable problems, and fierce patience, because everyone goes through times when nothing is working. But you have to have faith in yourself and keep writing.
Q. How did a girl from Lake Forest settle in Mississippi?
A. I went to high school in Lake Forest and went to college at the University of Notre Dame. After that I went for a year to teach English in a coal-mining village on the Czech/Polish border.
Then I went to the University of Arkansas for one of the country's best writing programs. I met my husband, who is a fiction writer, on the first day there.
He was offered a writers-in-residence (post) at the University of Mississippi, and later I was given a position. We have been there since.
Q. Can you recite a poem or stanza that inspired you to write poetry?
A. I remember as a teenager reading Robert Frost's "Bereft" and how beautifully the setting is described. I thought I would like to try something like this myself. We think our emotions are always clear and understandable, but the truth is often they are not. I think it is a poet's job to articulate human emotions.
Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch's sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly striking at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret may be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.
Q. What do you wish someone told you when you began your career?
A. When I was in graduate school, sometimes I saw people who were praised by our teachers and I thought maybe those would be the really good poets and I'm just a nobody.
But the truth is later, some of those people stopped writing for various reasons and I just kept at it. What I wish I knew then was that being praised early is not a guarantee of success. Sometimes the one who keeps at it is the one who will get their work published.
It is a lifetime race and not a sprint.
Q. What sparks your imagination?
A. Seeing something in nature, in a painting or in a book that makes me take notice in a way that is not fully understandable but is intriguing. That is the material I pay attention to and come back to later. I have learned to pay attention to my own instincts.
Q. What basic adage do you tell your students of poetry?
A. I say, keep writing and reading everyday. Young writers may have the urge to write but don't yet understand the importance of reading.
Q. Who do you want your poetry to reach?
A. I naturally want everyone to read my poetry, but I am happiest when the average person feels they understand my poetry.
When my mom and her friends like my work, I really take that as a tremendous compliment. After a reading, when someone tells me they would like to buy a book and it is the first book of poetry they ever bought, that makes me as happy as a compliment from a well-respected poet.
Q. Who would you like to come to your poetry reading at North Central College?
A. Hopefully everyone will come and feel welcomed and intrigued. I do hope mothers, or people contemplating being mothers, will come.
I write on motherhood because I thought I was well prepared. I did a lot of reading, and read every book written. But I was shocked and unprepared for the reality of motherhood. So I wrote poems to help me figure out what I was going through.
I tried to articulate the experience for myself. Motherhood is too often portrayed sentimentally. People often come up and thank me after a reading.
Q. What is creative about motherhood?
A. Motherhood is an experience that takes you out of yourself and blurs your boundaries. You are so deeply invested in another person. The experience of creativity is an expansion of yourself, just like motherhood is.
-- Joan Broz
If you go
What: Motherhood and Creativity: A Poetry Reading
When: 11 a.m. Friday
Where: Smith Hall in North Central College's Old Main, 30 N. Brainard St., Naperville
Cost: Free
Info: (630) 637-5300