Julia Wietling

Breakfast of choice.

Chocolate chip pancakes

Why poetry anyway?

Good question. I starting writing poetry to fit in with girls at camp who were writing songs; unbeknowst to me I had stumbled upon a great way to deal with the weirdness of being a teenager. There's something really subversive about being in an eighth-grade history class and writing a scathing poem about why your teacher is being a jerk or why you don't like the fact that your hips are changing shape. Then I started reading the work of professional poets and the budding sense of artistry that developed through highschool has made a permanent place for writing in my sense of self. And people are intimidated by poetry, so it's rewarding to work to remove that fear.

What do you do to get your creativity flowing? Special exercises, foods, a particular place?

Jazzercize... I don't do anything that's out of the ordinary except to try to notice the details my experiences as fully as possible. There is nothing that cannot be thought of as a poem.

Where do you get your material from? Family, friends, dreams, the newspaper?

All of the above, except dreams. My dreams tend to be unremarkable: no one flys, or falls, or levitates, and there are few, if any, Freudian significances. I write to interpret what I experience (and don't understand), so relationships are a common theme. I'm not good at writing about the natural world, as much as I love it. Oh, and earthquakes are useful too.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Practice. Not every poem has to be finished, not every line has to be perfect. Read what you write out loud. Read poetry. Talk to other poets. But mostly, just try.

Untitled

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth writing poems down,

The spontaneous sort that one need only observe the world to know.

Listening to the neighbours laugh, for example, is fair game

For catching in a phrase, should the right words come to mind.

Or that certain slant of light that Emily Dickinson knew was God

On winter days, or the quiet noises of trees and breathing that shush one to sleep–

Any and all moments are there to transcribe

Into a language of remembrance

But what is for abandoning, for living and letting go?

What is for remembering, for giving as a poem?

My neighbour has stopped laughing, has left, has given my night

Thought and pause. I have given only witness to her delight,

Yet whether I pencil out the sound of her voice or not

My testimony lives, for having listened and known.