I sent the manuscript to
a few presses and contests each year after I completed my MFA in 2008. The
manuscript wasn’t ready to be a book that first year, or even the second, but
increasing its readership in this way helped me think about what it meant for
the individual poems to become a book as I continued to revise them. I
gradually cut and added poems, clarified the language, and re-ordered areas of
the manuscript between 2008 and 2011.
Tell me about the title. Had it always been Tongue Lyre? Did it go through any other
changes?
Initially, the manuscript
was called Tongue. Jon Tribble
suggested that I might think about adding a second word to the title: we were
phone conferencing about edits and brainstorming possibilities, and “lyre” was
the winner. (One of the poems in the book is called “Cleaning Out the Lyre.”)
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?
When I first began
sending out the manuscript that became Tongue
Lyre, I didn’t know all that much about the publishing industry for poetry.
I sent individual poems out to journals that my university library had in their
periodicals room, and I read calls for submissions in the Writer’s Chronicle for contests. I learned as I read, and I
researched presses that published books I enjoyed spending time with. But I
wasn’t as hooked into “the scene” as many MFA students seem to be now. I didn’t
know about many other ways of having a first manuscript picked up other than
through a prize, since most of the publisher’s calls for first books that I was
seeing at the time were linked with first-book contests.
What advice would I give poets sending out their
book now?
I’ve recently screened
poetry manuscripts for a national prize, and it has been interesting being on
the other side of the table. It made me think of the post-MFA me, and the
manuscript I was circulating a bit too early at the time. I suppose on the one
hand, I want to tell poets to send their book to as many places as possible.
But on the other hand, I would also advise poets to ask themselves: “Is this
manuscript really ready to be a book,
or do I just really want it to be one?” Many of the manuscripts I screened were
interesting and demonstrated a lot of skill, but as a whole, they weren’t
coming together as a book quite yet. There is no prescription for when a book
“is finished”: each book is different. But I would advise poets not to spend
money on the contest fee unless they absolutely, honestly believe the
manuscript is ready to be a book. That means making sure that on your end you
have done all you can to make the manuscript read as a finished whole. I would
also say that while Facebook can be a great way to connect with people and
learn about news, I would warn poets not to let it trap them into rushing their
work. Social networks can be great, but they can also exert a pressure to
produce, as though you have to keep up. It’s important to look inward not get
swept up in it.
What was the process like assembling the book? How
many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?
Countless, obsessive
revisions. I mean that. I lost count. Tongue
Lyre builds off the structure of the Odyssey, which is a frame narrative.
It drove me crazy—a good kind of crazy—figuring out how to incorporate that
structure into the arc of my book. I re-arranged the poems many, many times.
And the individual poems? Some have been through 40 revisions. Some many more.
I have boxes of old notebooks and papers, and I recycled some of the
preliminary hard copies of the manuscript recently because I just can’t hold
onto all of that paper anymore.
How involved were you with the design of the
book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?
The press did a beautiful
job with the book. I suggested some cover images, and some were suggested to
me, and the designer did an amazing thing with the image we decided on.
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?
Poets should stop
worrying about this. It seems like there’s a mentality that once all the poems
are taken, the book is “done.” Even if every single poem in a manuscript is
published, that does not mean that a poet’s book is finished—no matter where
all these poems have been taken. Think of a book like a giant poem. Ask
yourself, “What does my giant poem want to be? How is it holding together, as a
giant poem?”
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?
My first inclination
after Tongue Lyre was taken was to
re-do the whole thing. I actually ripped the manuscript apart and spent an
entire weekend rewriting it. The result? A terrible, terrible draft. I never
sent that version to the press (I doubt they would have accepted it). I think
that because I felt like a younger artist-“me” was behind the earliest drafts
of some of the poems, I thought I had to make the project match the artist-“me”
that answered the phone the day Jon called me with the wonderful news. But both
“me’s” are not all that different, I’ve come to realize.
I ended up tweaking minor
things in the manuscript before sending it to Jon, and then Jon and I talked
about a range of edits to the poems that made a huge difference, but that were
akin to taking a tiny brush to a painting to clean off the surface rather than
soaking a rag in turpentine and wiping the canvas down with it.
What do you remember about the day when you saw
your published book for the first time?
It was surreal. And
amazing. I was very happy: I couldn’t believe it existed. But it was also a
little weird, seeing a box of reproductions of the thing that I felt like I
made only one of.
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 would say it is a
book-length sequence that gives voice to the myth of Philomela, whose tongue
was cut from her mouth after she was raped. But it is also a book about
representation in art and music that was deeply influenced by Joyce’s Ulysses. (An Odyssey series of poems
threads throughout the book.)
What have you been doing to promote Tongue Lyre, and what have those
experiences been like for you?
I’ve been reading from it
a fair bit, in Chicago where I live (at Danny’s and the Dollhouse, for
instance) and also in other cities and towns (the Writer’s Center in Bethesda,
MD; the AWP Bookfair in Boston, MA; the Stadler Center in Lewisburg, PA; Bates
College in Lewiston, ME; the Monsters of Poetry Reading Series in Madison, WI;
the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN; the Women Write Resistance AWP
Off-Site in Seattle, WA; the Split This Rock festival in Washington, DC, among
others). Each reading is very different. The audience brings its own energy to
the space. It doesn’t matter if two people show up or if the room is full: I
try to think about how I can make the poems come to life for the people in the
room each time I read.
What advice do you wish someone had given you
before your first book came out?
Not to worry so much
before giving a reading. I can get pretty anxious about it the day of. And also
that things like this—this interview—take time. Once the book is in the world,
a lot more of your time will be dedicated to talking about it in a public way.
It’s energizing, and an honor. But it does take time.
Are there any new writing projects in the works?
I’m working on my next
manuscript right now. I don’t want to say anything more about it at the moment
and risk jinxing it. The manuscript is similar to Tongue Lyre in some ways, but in others it is very, very different.
Do you believe that poetry can create change in
the world?
Yes. When I’m 85, I might
be able to start answering this question...
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Tyler Mills is the author of Tongue Lyre, winner of the 2011 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award (SIU Press 2013). Her poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Blackbird, The Believer, Poetry, and Boston Review, and her essays have appeared or is forthcoming in The Robert Frost Review and The Writer's Chronicle. She has been the recipeient of work-study scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Vermont Studio Center, and she is editor-in-chief of The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose, and Thought. She lives in Chicago, where she is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
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