ANOUK: Hello. Hey. Hi.

SUSAN: Oh my gosh, hi. Good to meet you.

ANOUK: We're just gonna start out with like, broader questions about writing in general. And then we're kind of just gonna go a little more specific into your work. 

SUSAN: Okay.

ANOUK: So the first kind of broad question I have is, what are you writing currently? Or if you aren't writing now, right now, what do you plan to write? 

SUSAN: I'm working on two pieces right now. One is about self-esteem, via fashion. That's one thing I'm working on.

I'm sure you can relate to that. I'm guessing you can relate to that. And the other thing I'm writing about is a moment when you really know yourself.

And that is being done via a memory. So they're kind of a departure from “INVITATION,” but I write broadly about lots of different things. And it's sort of all is in the same realm.

ANOUK: Okay. Are those all poems? 

SUSAN: Yeah, both of those right now I'm working on our poems.

ANOUK: And I guess you kind of answered my next question. My next question was, what kind of haunts you when you're writing, when you're creating? You did say that there were a lot of different things that you work with. Do you think there is like a single thread in your work that you can find?

SUSAN: This question is good. Just the way you framed it is so good. What haunts you? I'm just going to look at something that I'm thinking about right now. I write a lot about discarded memories.

I write a lot about things that slip through our fingers. But it’s not about regret. It's just about moments and the crystallization you have from those. And I like to take that to the reader. 

ANOUK: So like memories that people, maybe they're doing it, but they like don't realize that it's like a memory they forgot. 

SUSAN: Exactly.

It's—it’s discarded, and then somehow it comes up in a moment, or it comes up through an experience. I like to blend all of those together. 

ANOUK: That's such a cool concept. So could you give me some examples of memories that we're living in, but we kind of forget about? 

SUSAN: Yes. I'm going to talk specifically about “INVITATION,” the poem that you published. The poem came from a memory I had about my nephew when he was three years old.

And I was in charge of him. I would walk him across the street, and I would death grip his hand because I was afraid, you know, I lived in Chicago, I was very busy. And he would say, “Not so tight, Aunt Susie, not so tight.”

I was thinking about kids, and “have I ever let go [of a hand]”—it, just all blended together. And that memory came up physically as I was walking across the street. Then that turned into—I mean, poems take me a long time to write.

My visual memory was of walking across the street. And if I didn't have his hand like slipping away, which is exactly what happens in “INVITATION” in lots of different ways.

“INVITATION” is not literal, but that's how it started. That was the genesis of it. 

ANOUK: You're answering all my questions. I'm curious, what kind of memory, scent, or feeling started your work? I know you just answered that, but I was wondering—was it the tactile? The gripping your hand? Or was it the street?

I mean, when I'm reading this poem, there’s a lot of things that I'm imagining. There's a lot of things I'm feeling, sensing in the poem. So what specific kind of sense did you have when you were making this poem? 

SUSAN: I was thinking along the lines of safety—how we can feel safe, and how we can fool ourselves into feeling safe.

And the opposites of those things are what really blended the poem together. You feel safe. You think you're safe, and there are times you are safe, but there's so many times you're not safe, and you don't even know it.

So that's really sort of how I kind of blended it all together. It's a little fantastical magic. It's just like magic realism.

I really had, unlike a lot of other of my other poems, I had a really fun time writing that one. I don't know how you feel about yours, but I can hear a lyric in a song, and I can parrot it back to you almost immediately. It's a weird thing I have.

Poems take me infinitely longer. I do not have that skill. And I do have some poet friends who write so quickly, and I'm very I admire it, but that's not me.

ANOUK: Yeah. So I mean, I guess that just means that you're thinking it through every word, every line is like intentional. Thank you so much for that answer.

I think that's really interesting how you talked about discarded memories and your nephew's hand. So, how does that moment of safety and that moment of walking your nephew through Chicago—how did that become a discarded memory that popped up for you? 

SUSAN: I oftentimes—I know this is not a great quality I have—but oftentimes I will catastrophize something, so I can be prepared for everything just in life. We do it.

So when I remember that memory, I just free write. And then I was writing all the things that actually happened in that moment. 

And then I decided that I would put it around the umbrella of fantasy and magic and realism, and also to put some kid-like qualities into it. And that's really how it turned out. 

ANOUK: Okay, thank you.

That kind of leads us into the next question: How does a poem come into your life for you? And can you tell me about the life cycle of a poem for you? 

SUSAN: “Life cycle.” I have, like a lot of writers, I have banks of words and phrases and images and experiences and things you either want to write about, or sometimes things you don't want to write about. And then those come to the top.

Sometimes I will take a prompt from something I see, either from a workshop, or from a class or being out in the world. And I'll just write down that prompt and say, “Is there something to this? Do I have something to say?” You know, nine out of ten times, it just goes into the bank.

And then that little gem comes through. Then I work on something for a very long time, months. I write, I look, I work on a poem for a very, very long time. Then sometimes I come back to it. Sometimes I set it aside. Sometimes I just plough through.

And that might be one of the only things I'm working on, or maybe a couple of things, but that's the primary one. So it's that's sort of my approach. 

ANOUK: So most of the time you don't give meaning to things you find interesting.

SUSAN: I do not. I don't think so. 

ANOUK: How do you know when something that's in your bank is a gem? 

SUSAN: If it's really hard to write, but I'm very excited about getting it down.

And some days it flows, and some days it doesn't. When that happens, I'm like, “This is something, and I will continue to work on it.” But I really labor over, you know—probably just like you— a word. How to line break.

One of my poetry mentors told me that she spent two weeks deciding whether she was going to put an “a” or a “the” in a line. And that inspired me. I'm like, “Well, if she can do it.” So I really took that on. 

ANOUK: Oh, that's cool. Spending that much time on the smaller things.

Do you think that's like, what poetry is all about? 

SUSAN: I mean, for me, I want readers to take what they can from my home. I like lots of different interpretations. And I like to hear different interpretations of people—“Did you mean this or did you mean this?”

And I'm like, what did you think it was? That's much more important for me to know. And when I find people tell me different things that they've gotten from different lines or my whole poem, it just makes me so— it's rewarding because, you know, you don't have all the interpretations that are read to you.

I just want someone to read the poem, and maybe read it again, and get something more from that. That's really my goal. 

ANOUK: So as a poet, you want the reader to reach their own interpretation, but be engaged enough to reread it and dig it out. 

SUSAN: Yeah. 

And listen. That’s a very tall order because—you know—people are busy and read and move on. But if you can craft it just so that someone's like, “Oh, let me read this again. Let me see what else I can get from this.” Or [gasp] like, you know, when you read a good line anywhere, I just am like, “Ooh,” it's just like—it's like music, or it's like a really good meal, and it's just to savor. 

So maybe, someday, someone will do that to one of my poems. I don't know.

ANOUK: I mean, that's what happened to your poem this time around. I really did it. I think the rereading—maybe that's what you want from your reader. You want them to kind of cling onto a line and read it again.

This question is kind of harder. We kind of already talked about this, the fantastical, the absurdism. And it gives me this immediate burst of whimsy, this poem.

I was just wondering, how did you decide on this tone? And what kind of purpose does this tone serve for your poem? 

SUSAN: So when I thought about the memory, I wanted to layer on how I was thinking about how kids navigate the world with a magical view. And as kids get older, they lose some of the magical view as they become adults—certainly when they become adults. So I was thinking about how to take that memory from the child's point of view, and really sort of exploded in, not using realism and using, “Maybe this is what a child thinks.”

And I was wondering if I had ever suppressed the magic in any children in my life. And that's why I wanted to take it and sort of offer it out in a magical way rather than more cerebral. 

ANOUK: Thank you.

So the door, the people, the banana, these characters, are they from your point of view, or are you looking at them through your nephew's eyes? 

SUSAN: I was blending it, but I was really trying to keep it from a kid's view of, you know, just how they're physically navigating the world. They're walking. They're sliding. They're seeing. They want to fly. And then I had to make that a little more concrete.

That's really how it all came together. 

ANOUK: Okay. Now that you say that, and I'm rereading it, and I'm just imagining—kids are tiny, they're really small.

And I guess the world does seem like an amusement park.

SUSAN: That's a wonderful interpretation. I love it.

ANOUK: Yeah. Thank you so much for telling me that, because I'm reading, and I’m noticing different things. 

SUSAN: You know, the whole thing with kids is they don't have any purpose except to be happy and to be safe. That's their purpose. And I was trying to find things that, you know, would blend into this whole invitation to take more magic in your life and look for it and grab onto it.

And—that's physically grab on. That's the symbolism of the handholding of the nephew. So I hope that it came across that way.

ANOUK: Mm-hmm. So, you already answered my other question, which was, how did you decide on the title? Maybe you could elaborate more on what you thought about. The title.

SUSAN: It's funny, probably like everybody, I spend a lot of time on titles, and this one sort of “slapped me in the face”—if I want to use this, still use the metaphor of hands. It really came to me when I was, you know, navigating kids, and “What do kids respond to?” They respond to invitations of whimsy to your word or invitations to laughter, or lightness, or fun and frolic.

And so I just decided the visual of the witch at the farmer's market with the tabby cat—she was inviting you to really turn on your magic. 

ANOUK: And the door.

SUSAN: And the door. “Not so much a door.” Not so much a door, yeah.

ANOUK: So, do you apply this kind of thing or this kind of process for titles for all of your poems? Or was this one particularly weird in that it kind of just hit you?

SUSAN: Yeah, that doesn't happen very often. I don't know if it happens to you. It doesn't happen very often.

And then when it happens, I test it to see if there's something better. And in this case, it's stuck from the beginning. 

ANOUK: In your other poems, how do you usually come up with the title? 

SUSAN: I'm exploring a lot of titles right now where I'm writing really long titles that really have very little to do with the poem, as far as exacting.

I'm working on that, working through that. And I'm trying to engage a reader to be surprised with the title or even to make them think more from the title once they're reading the poem. I like that when I see titles.

And I also know that when I see titles of poems that don't interest me, I will pass that poem. And sometimes maybe I shouldn't pass it. Maybe it's a really wonderful poem.

But I really think a title, especially in our world today, is really important to get a message across and also engage a reader and get their attention. 

ANOUK: Do you think titles have a big role, especially in poetry? 

SUSAN: I think titles do. I think first lines do.

Of course, I think second to last lines do. 

ANOUK: Oh, second to last. 

SUSAN: Second to last lines.

Because for me, that's the opportunity to surprise or be unpredictable with the way that the poem ends or hit somebody with a, “Oh, that took my breath away.” But it could have been in a few different ways. So I like to concentrate, also, on the second-to-last line.

If you look at “INVITATION”—yeah, well, the penultimate is holding his hand. That's the second-to-last line.

And then the last line is him very magically, like a kid would do, just [whoosh].

ANOUK: Would you consider this ending a happy ending or a sad ending? Or what kind of ending do you think for this poem? 

SUSAN: You really leave that to the reader. Like, let me ask you, what is your interpretation? 

ANOUK: I thought it was a pretty sad ending, mostly because he wrestled away. He tumbled through a sliding gate.

But hearing you, I'm interested in what you intended for the ending. 

SUSAN: Yeah, I mean, I always intend the reader to have the interpretation. That is like the final rule for me.

In this particular case, if you apply fantastical magic and less realism to it, he gets to go explore. You know, sort of like he's been holding her hand for so long. And maybe he's ready to explore.

ANOUK: So the hand is an invitation for him to explore. 

SUSAN: That's right.

ANOUK: Thank you so much for that. Maybe it's a metaphor, because when I was reading this, I interpreted it as a metaphor for the end of childhood, like a counting of age.

SUSAN: Yeah, yeah. An underlying theme is, you know, how much as an adult you're either holding on to a child, either metaphorically or physically, and how in both ways, kids want to, you know, invite themselves out into the world or explore or escape into the world.

And I think in this case, that's sort of the foundation I was laying on top of it. 

ANOUK: Okay, thank you so much. I have a really broad question.

But what are the steps you take when you're in writer's block, when writing isn't really happening for you? What kind of process do you have to overcome that? 

SUSAN: Well, I'll tell you one thing I don't do. I don't write.

I don't look at my word bank. I don't scribble. I do not write.

I do a lot of being in the world or being present in yourself. I also listen to music. I know that there are certain kinds of music that trigger problem-solving.

And I think when I'm writing a poem, I'm trying to problem-solve. And I'll listen to different—specifically classical music—as research has shown that that helps to solve problems. But I also like to listen to the lyrics of some singers that I think are poetic.

I like to do that. Anything but write. That's what I do.

ANOUK: Oh, that's interesting, how you call poetry problem-solving. Could you elaborate on that? 

SUSAN: Yeah. Your question was about being stuck, and when you're stuck, or your words aren't coming. To me, that's—I need to solve where that line is, or I have to go find it somewhere.

And for me, writing doesn't work. I need to take a break away from it and see what else can inspire me or trigger my brain to, you know, and sometimes it comes. You hear a word which has nothing to do with your poem. But you hear a word, and then it just starts to take you somewhere.

Then you're like, I better write that down real quick before I get back to where I'm going with that particular poem or piece that you're writing. 

ANOUK: So you think there's a power in music and, well, obviously not writing, but also a power in a word when you're stuck?

SUSAN: It is so true that a word can stop me. I could be in a restaurant, I could hear it at another table, I could be, you know, doing errands or something.

And maybe I'm always looking for those words, or something that just sings to you. So yes, I agree. 

ANOUK: So I should be looking for words.

SUSAN: You do your process the way you do your process. It just depends. I mean, you know, if you ever listen to like Olivia Dean, I don't know if you know her.

ANOUK: I love Olivia Dean.

SUSAN: Jensen McRae, just a real writer. Really.

Then you listen to the music together with its lyrics. It's almost like you're reading to me. You're absorbing all of that experience.

And I want my poem to have that same kind of feel. I really do. As music. As music and lyrics together. I mean, that's my aspiration.

ANOUK: Wow. So I've never thought about it like that before. So you want, when a reader reads your poem, to feel the kind of emotion that you feel when you listen to music.

SUSAN: Yes. 

ANOUK: So I guess my last question for you is—this is even broader than the last question.  As a writer, what do you think your ultimate goal is for yourself? What does writing do for you? 

SUSAN: I really am interested in the emotional truth.

That's just the kind of poems I am interested in reading and writing. I want my poems to be accessible and understandable. But above all, I want the emotional truth to fly in my poems

And it's hard to do that. It's hard to—I mean, for me, it's hard to blend it all together and ensure that the reader can understand and relate to their emotional truth, whatever is residing in the poem. 

ANOUK: This emotional truth—What does that mean for you?

SUSAN: I think that poetry is not meant to be mysterious. At least, not to me. I want something that resonates with the reader. It doesn’t have to be the same emotion, but this kind of emotional truth that you are tapping into or—especially related to the discarded memories—sometimes we suppress them, we’ve forgotten about them. 

But when something comes up that is emotionally true to you, you might open a little bit. Your heart or mind opens a little for a moment when you read that poem. For me, that’s what it’s all about.