Life is hard by the yard. By the inch, it’s a cinch. I still have that yellowed card on my refrigerator door
Would you please tell us a little about your writing process?
It has evolved from daily free-write journaling in a spiral notebook, as advised by Tom Lux, first thing in the morning for ten minutes or a page, whichever’s first, then continue to free-write for a few days without reading or editing, then go back to read and underline phrases that seem alive. Then make a poem. That was in the beginning. Now as I go through my day, I will note a moment or phrase that sticks like a burr, that wants to be a poem. Maybe. But no matter what, every morning I sit down at the computer and let the blank white page stare back.
What is the best piece of advice you would offer an aspiring writer?
Keep at it, if you find the process interesting, joyful, calming. I am not particularly talented but what I am is dogged. And go to my computer first thing after letting the dogs out into their morning. Have learned to shrug off rejections, important for a poet. Would also advise reading other poets whose work resonates. There are so many streams flowing to the river. Find your stream. Mine is narrative, the way Elizabeth Bishop is narrative. Or Ted Kooser. They are so accessible, a goal of mine. When my husband said “I don’t get it” I knew the poem wasn’t finished. I like to tell stories and try to stay open to where my first impulse leads, not where I think it will, but where it wants to go. That’s hard for me but important. As Marianne Boruch says, watch out for the thinky-thinky.
And as my eighth-grade Latin teacher, Miss Lake, wrote on a 3X5 card when I was struggling to translate Julius Caesar: Life is hard by the yard. By the inch, it’s a cinch. I still have that yellowed card on my refrigerator door
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
The advice I gave myself—out here in rural America without writer colleagues—was to find a good MFA program. Luckily for me, I met Ellen Bryant Voigt, a MacArthur genius who invented the low-residency MFA. She encouraged me to apply to the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. The experience there changed my life and continues to support my writing through our alumni gatherings every summer. I have a tribe. And I have a zoom group twice a month with three other “Wally” poets trained in the same esthetic.
Are there any downsides to being a writer?
Not much money in it, for a poet. And the practice can edge on lonely.
Which successes are you most proud of?
-Earning a rigorous MFA forty plus years after college.
-The Library of Virginia honoring my collection about my husband’s death from cancer. White Bird: A Sequence (FutureCycle Press, 2016).
-Sticking with the work.
-Being appointed the Poet Laureate of Millwood, VA.
-Winning The Fish (Ireland) Short Memoir Contest, and now The Letter Review Poetry Prize!
What are the major benefits of being a writer?
In the current maelstrom of this country, I get to escape into the world of my thoughts as I craft a poem or work on revision. Time evaporates when I go there. And I joke that I’m a poet of disaster. I have kept myself sane writing about my husband’s cancer and my son’s catastrophic golf cart accident that left him quadriplegic in 2011: The Spinal Sequence (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and After Ward (Cherry Grove Collections, 2022). In fact, like a dog on a bone, I find myself still making poems about those times, especially my son’s life-situation. What a brave man he is.
As to my writing’s function, I would hope for a reader to find comfort in a private “Me also” moment, recognizing shared life experience. And I welcome urban readers onto my farm, and my rural life where dog walks through the fields can bring a ‘found’ poem: Walking up on a headless rabbit, wild turkey nest, aggressive coyote. Now that I think about it, my walks are like poems, not knowing what I will come across when I start out.
Wendell Hawken (she/her) earned her MFA from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers. Publications include four chapbooks and five full collections. Hawken was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Millwood VA, an unincorporated quirky village in the northern Shenandoah Valley where she lives. In addition to my writing, I am active in local non-profits: helping to create the Barns of Rose Hill, now a thriving arts venue out of two dilapidated dairy barns in Berryville VA; founded the Christ Church Cares Food Pantry that I managed for ten years; and a founding board member of Ability Fitness Center, a special-needs gym in Leesburg, where I currently serve. These projects have brought me deep satisfaction and serve as a balance to the self-involvement of my writing.