#63 - Patty Paine

How often had you sent out The Sounding Machine before it was chosen as the winner of the 2011 Accents Publishing International Poetry Book Contest?

I sent it to quite a few contests. It was finalist a dozen or so times, and it was even picked up for publication in 2009. It was supposed to go into production within a year, but at the end of the second year with no publication date in sight, I decided to withdraw my manuscript. It was a trying experience, and I came very close to giving up on the book at that point. However, in this instance, being incredibly stubborn was a good thing because I decided to revise it one more time and send it out for one more round of contests. It won the Accents Publishing International Poetry Book Contest, and it was clear from the minute I started working with Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, and the Accents team, that The Sounding Machine was exactly where it was meant to be. I couldn’t ask for a more passionate, enthusiastic, and generous editor, than Katerina—she is truly a force of nature—and I wouldn’t change a thing about the publication path The Sounding Machine took.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been The Sounding Machine? Did it go through any other changes?

The original title was Oracle Bones, but I discovered that Peter Hessler wrote a non-fiction book called Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China. I recommend it; it’s a wonderful book. It wasn’t hard to give up the title, I never felt it was quite right even before I discovered Hessler’s book.

I found a sounding machine in an antique shop, and though I didn’t know what it was at the time, I bought it. I just liked the look and the heft of the thing. It has a marquise shaped base with a handle, much like a flat iron. It’s made of brass, and it has a numbered dial on the base. I discovered that a sounding machine is a pre-sonar nautical device that drops a line to measure water depth. I liked the idea of plumbing the depths, sending a weighted pianoforte wire into the unknown to bring back something substantial, something knowable. It seemed an apt metaphor for a book of poems, and perhaps this book in particular since it delves into some dark places.

It seems like there’s a possible misconception among some poets who are trying to get their first book published: that they must win a contest. Were you concerned about winning a contest at any point? What advice would you give to poets sending their book out now regarding contests versus open reading periods?

I think this is something every poet has to decide for her or himself. I entered many contests, and I also submitted to open reading periods. I didn’t see much difference between the contest model and the open reading model. My main concern was that I submitted to presses I respected.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

Assembling the book was actually quite easy. The poems as a whole tell an overarching story, so the poems are arranged more or less chronologically. There is information in some poems that the reader needs to fully understand other poems, and that also influenced the ordering of the poems. The main structure of the book didn’t change very much. As I revised, I added poems, and took out weaker poems, but overall, there weren’t major changes.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I was very fortunate that Katerina let me chose the cover image. I spent a long time searching for the right image, and when I saw The Annunciation, Pigeon Triptich by Tjaarke Maas I instantly fell in love with it and knew it was the cover. Maas was an artist from the Netherlands who was born in 1974. In pursuit of finding a personal god through art, she retreated into a cave in the forest surrounding the Hermit Monastery of San Francis. In 2004, her body was discovered near the cave, her death the result of a fall.

It’s difficult to articulate why this image grabbed me. There is something chaotic about it, but from chaos recognition of the pigeons emerge. From chaos, beauty emerges. The tilt of a head, curve of a back, a sense of motion, the individual and the collective reveals itself to the viewer. There is energy in the bold lines, and one senses an urgency to capture the pigeons, their essence, not just their likeness.

What about the publication of the actual poems in journals and magazines prior to the book being published? Was there ever a concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were sending out your manuscript?

I wasn’t concerned that most of the poems have appeared in journals, mostly I think because this was my first full-length collection, and though I wanted to publish a full-length collection of poems, I was working poem by poem. I don’t know if that makes sense, but now I have a second manuscript complete, and a third almost finished, and I thought of them both more as books right from the start. I’ve sent out a handful of poems from the second manuscript, and none from the third, yet. I’ll send out poems from each, but not nearly as many as I did from The Sounding Machine.

How much work did you do as far as editing the poems from the day you knew the book would be published to its final proofing stage?

I didn’t have to do a great deal of final editing. There was a great deal of editing along the way, but fortunately when it was selected for publication by Accents it didn’t need any major work.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

It was unreal in the best possible way. I was quite moved, and emotional about seeing it. As I mentioned earlier, I had almost abandoned the book. I decided to send it out to one more round of contests—just one—if it didn’t get published, I was going to start sending out my second manuscript and tuck The Sounding Machine in a drawer.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

My writing life has changed. There’s a sense of relief of having published a book, but I also feel like I needed to get those poems out so I could move onto other obsessions. The poems in The Sounding Machine were the poems that demanded to be written. I needed to write them in order to be able to move past them both personally, and as a writer.

If you struck up a conversation next to someone seated on an airplane, and after a few minutes you eventually told them that you were an author who had a book of poetry published, how would you answer their next question: “What’s the book about?”

I live in Qatar so I spend a lot of time on planes. I try not to strike up conversations because it’s very difficult to sustain, and awkward to get out of, on a 14 hour flight, and truth be told, I’m trying to get out of answering this question.

I suppose it’s about everything, and not about everything. It’s about something, and it’s definitely not about nothing, except sometimes when it is about nothing. It’s about my life, but it is absolutely not about my life. It’s about the truth if the truth were made wholly and partially out of lies.

What have you been doing to promote The Sounding Machine, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I’ve been using social media probably to an annoying degree to promote The Sounding Machine. In my defense, since I live so far from the US, it’s harder for me to do readings so I have to do what I can. When I’m in the US, I participate in readings, and I’ve read on this side of the world too. I pester people to review the book, I set up a website, I send postcards, in short, anything I can.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

I had wonderful teachers and peers in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University, so I don’t wish for any advice. The best advice I got in general all along the way was to revise ruthlessly, write fearlessly, and persist, persist, persist.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I think there’s a sense of relief that the first book is out there, but a writer still has to stare down the blank page whether he or she has published one book or twenty. I have two manuscripts under construction. One is ready to submit, the other is close to completion. I’m currently working with two colleagues Michael Hersrud and Jesse Ulmer on the final edits of The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf. It’s a book of folk tales illustrated by VCU Qatar students. They did incredible work, and I’m excited that it’s coming out from Berkshire Academic Press in early 2013. I’m reading for the 6^th anniversary issue of diode poetry journal, and I recently launched Diode Editions which is currently running a chapbook contest.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Yes, through the individual lives and minds that were changed by poetry.

******************************************************************************************

Patty Paine is the author of The Sounding Machine (Accents Publishing), Feral (Imaginary Friend Press), Elegy & Collapse (Finishing Line Press), and co-editor of Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry (Garnet Publishing & Ithaca Press) and The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf (Berkshire Academic Press). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird, Verse Daily, The Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, The Journal and other publications. She is the founding editor of diode poetry journal and Diode Editions. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar where she teaches writing and literature, and serves as Assistant Director of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

****************************************************************************************** 

#62 - Megan Harlan

How often had you sent out Mapmaking before it was chosen for the 2009 John Ciardi Poetry Prize from BkMk Press?

I’d sent it out about a dozen times, over about eight months. To be honest, I’d been bracing myself for it to take years. I picked contests given by university presses and literary presses based on the editorial staff and the publication track record. But I took a sporting view of any judges whose names were announced during the submission period -- I really fought any instinct to think, “There is no way so-and-so would ever pick my manuscript!” I just took that issue out of the equation, and focused on the presses themselves.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Mapmaking? Did it go through any other changes?

When Ben Furnish, the Managing Editor at BkMk Press, called to tell me I’d won -- “You’ve taken the prize,” was his memorable way of putting it -- as soon as we hung up, the first thing I did was run to my laptop to see which title I’d used for that contest. The other, earlier title was Farsickness, the title of a poem in my book. It’s an idea that I love, that of course German has a word for, fernweh. But my problem with Farsickness was that I was never thrilled with a book title connoting illness (even of a subtle sort). Mapmaking better captures what I think the book actually explores -- landscapes depicted through language, memory, and imagination.

It seems like there’s a possible misconception among some poets who are trying to get their first book published: that they must win a contest. Were you concerned about winning a contest at any point? What advice would you give to poets sending their book out now regarding contests versus open reading periods?

My experience is very particular to my goal, which was -- in fact -- to win a contest. It’s been many years since I attended NYU’s graduate program in creative writing, and even though I have a good track record publishing my poems in journals, I felt my collection would really benefit from winning a contest by an established literary press. It seemed to me that the term “award-winning” in front of “first poetry book” may inspire reviewers to take a closer look, and librarians to consider buying it for their collections. Those sorts of elements came to mind when I was writing those contest entrance fee checks. But each book has its own path, and I’ve admired many books that have taken very different routes.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The process was excruciating at the time -- which of course means it’s now my favorite part of the whole book publication experience. My son was an infant during that period, and while he napped, I would take the printed poems and shuffle them, sometimes moving them around the floor like a big jigsaw puzzle. I tried all kinds of methods. The only thing I knew for sure was how I wanted to manuscript to end (with the poem, “Living Cloisters”). But the opening poem -- that gave me head-aches. I also had an instinct to divide the book into four sections, partially to evoke the cardinal points on a map, but really more because then each section would have about a dozen poems, which feels to me like a natural size for a grouping. As far as developing “themes” to each section, the more logical that got, the worse I felt the manuscript flowed.

What finally worked was almost ridiculously obvious: I packed many of the strongest poems into the first section and saw where that left me. Those poems started “talking” to each other -- and I was able to pull some out to anchor other sections. Then I wrote a number of new poems.

Something almost chemical happened along the way, and the order, the sections, started to make sense to me -- at least, in that “poetry” meaning of sense. I think about poems as visual, visceral pieces of language -- somehow the sounds of the words create heights, textures, colors, almost akin to relief maps. I know a poem is finished when I can picture its particular body of texture/color/object-ness. The breakthrough for me was when this sense of “order” and physicality finally attached itself to the book. Now how I picture the order is, in rough terms, like this: The first section is city and kaleidoscope. The second contains slippery or treacherous landscapes, graveyards, wastelands. The third has water, and lots of sky, a sense of expansiveness. And the final section takes place inside different sanctums -- a diary, a bed, a chapel.

This realization evolved very gradually, and now seems like it should have been obvious to begin with. Months of my son’s nap-times transpired. He grew, and the book grew. It finally came together into this whole.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

Not very. BkMk Press commissioned students from the Kansas City Art Institute to work on the cover design, for example, and they did a marvelous job. As a font person (and what poet isn’t?), I was thrilled that the book designers chose for the type-set one of my favorite fonts for poetry, Garamond. Ben Furnish did ask if there was any design element that would, essentially, make me cry if I saw it. My one request: “No cursive, anywhere, please.” That was honored, I’m happy to say.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

I did send along some of my favorite old map images. Not being a book cover designer, I couldn’t imagine a book called Mapmaking with anything other than a map on it. The cover image instead is original artwork by Michael Smith (then a KCAI student): it’s an abstract, very finely rendered pen-and-ink drawing of an object like an intricate nest, or perhaps a landscape blurred from a distance. Path-like tracks cross the cover, and the title text was sketched and colored by hand. The cover evokes a hand-drawn field map -- it has that intimate sense of place. I think it looks especially striking in person.

What about the publication of the actual poems in journals and magazines prior to the book being published? Was there ever a concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were sending out your manuscript?

I wasn’t concerned about this particular issue, because I’d been publishing the poems in journals on a regular basis. I don’t write a lot of poems in any given year, but those I do I really work over, hammering them out until they feel done. Then I send them out to journals, and tend not to take any “no” to feel ultimate. (Meaning, I’ve had my share of bridesmaid poems that have finally enjoyed their big day in print, sometimes years later.) My publication pace has been pretty steady.

How much work did you do as far as editing the poems from the day you knew the book would be published to its final proofing stage?

There wasn’t a lot of editing work done on the manuscript. At one point, I had a good talk with Michelle Boisseau (the Associate Editor at BkMk Press) about the book as a whole, and I remember her saying that the manuscript was polished, that there wasn’t a lot to do to it. She tweaked the order of some poems in the second section, for example, and I still feel fortunate for her insight about that. But to me, it didn’t feel like much editing.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

Two things: I pulled out a copy after cutting open the box, started stroking the matte cover and the thick-stock paper, and I just remember thinking, My book is real! As I was admiring it, my then-toddler son started pulling copies out of the box and throwing them all around the living room. It was literally poetry in motion.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

In the fundamental way -- that I no longer have to worry about if/when/how my first book of poems is coming out. That, I’ll just say, is a relief. A related, and no doubt more profound difference, is that having the first book out releases you towards all the other books you now get to write. The road ahead seems more real, somehow. Not easier, but more tangible.

And of course, there’s the paparazzi...

If you struck up a conversation next to someone seated on an airplane, and after a few minutes you eventually told them that you were an author who had a book of poetry published, how would you answer their next question: “What’s the book about?”

The book’s title really helps to answer that question. When I’ve been asked this (more times than I would have ever guessed), Mapmaking gives some helpful context to my very short answer, which is that it depicts my responses to place through travel, memory, and emotion. Often I’ll mention my fascination with maps -- the only thing I collect. Along the way, I’ve met many people who share my interest in maps, and I love to hear about their favorite maps. True story: I once sold a copy of my book to a cab-driver after having this sort of conversation.

What have you been doing to promote Mapmaking, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I’ve done readings and other events at some wonderful venues in California and New York. I also did a book-signing at AWP in Washington, D.C., and was asked to read a poem for the PBS Newshour website. My first reading for Mapmaking was also my first poetry reading in something like fifteen years -- and it was filmed for Youtube posterity, as many poetry events are these days. That felt like going from 0 to 60, public performance-wise -- terrifying, but thrilling too. I’ve loved every reading I’ve been fortunate enough to give. It’s always a great joy in the end.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Since I have no dire mishap to warn against, I’ll instead give my best advice to any poet looking to publish their first book: Figure out what is important to you, and you alone, about having your book published -- the explicit parameters of what you actually value. Then be true to that vision.

I’ll also add this. Though I said in the first question that I did not factor in  the identity of the contest judges, now that the book is out, I have learned: The judge is so important! Not the least because your name and theirs are tied together forever on the cover of your book. That Sidney Wade was the judge of the contest -- announced after I’d won it -- has been the source of such lasting gratitude for me. I know other contest winners who’ve said similar things about their ongoing amazement at having a poet whom you deeply admire -- and who doesn’t even know you -- select your manuscript. So, perhaps a word to the wise there.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I am working on a second collection of poems, much as I worked on Mapmaking -- at random intervals of sprint-like bursts broken up by long hiatuses. I tend to write in clusters of four to six poems, then I take a break from poetry for however many months, write another cluster, take another hiatus -- years go by this way. My long-form fiction-writing, on the other hand, is an almost daily affair, and requires waging this carefully planned campaign of productivity. So my two book projects are useful in that they could not be more different. I use one to take a real break from the other.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Yes. Like any art form, poetry can make sense of the world, do our paraphrase-defying experience of it some justice -- if only for the length of a page. That, for me, is change on the order of a miracle.

******************************************************************************************

Megan Harlan lived in seventeen homes across four continents by the time she graduated from high school, and now lives in Berkeley, CA. She is the author of Mapmaking, winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry (selected by Sidney Wade) and published by BkMk Press/University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2010. Her poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, PBS Newshour’s Poetry Series, and Verse Daily, and in journals that include American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, AGNI Online, and Arts & Letters. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such publications as Alaska Quarterly Review, The New York Times, and Cimarron Review. For more, visit her website, www.meganharlan.com.

******************************************************************************************