An Interview With Fleda Brown
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Fleda Brown, former poet laureate of Delaware, visited Mount Pleasant as part of the Wellspring Literary series in March, 2018. Brown has received numerous awards for her work, including the University of Wisconsin’s Felix Pollak Prize for her book Reunion (2007). The Woods Are On Fire: New and Selected Poems (2017) is the most recent of the more than a dozen books of poetry, essays, and memoirs that she has authored or edited. Brown was an English Professor at the University of Delaware From 1978 until 2007, when she retired and moved to Michigan. Kevin Thomas had the privilege of interviewing Brown via email prior to her visit.
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Kevin: Your background in and practice of meditation seems to come through in all of your writing. Is writing a means of meditation, or is meditation a means of creative inspiration?
Fleda: Good question. Meditation is meant to teach awareness, and awareness is the root of poems, right? So it is the faithful practice of sitting that increases the ability to see clearly, to see through our clichéd language and clichéd thoughts, to what’s real. That’s the way I see the connection.
Kevin: What does writing poetry do for you that academic writing and blog writing does not? Or are these just different means for the same kinds of goals?
Fleda: I think poetry is the most deliberate in its desire to say what can’t be said. That’s the almost exclusive realm of poetry, to open the reader (and the writer) to the intangible. That doesn’t mean the fuzzy or the obscure. It means what lies within the tangible world—the trees, the bullets, the hangnails—is opened out into its eternal, or absolute realm. There’s not any way I can say that that makes sense in an ordinary way. When we run across a poem that “takes the top of our head off,” as Emily Dickinson said, we recognize that realm. When I’m working on a poem, I’m stretching into what I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s going, but I know when it begins to get close.
Kevin: The reflections that arise in your poems often include memories. How does memory function in your writing process?
Fleda: In a way, everything is memory, isn’t it? Even if I write about what I just had for breakfast, that’s a memory. Lots of times when we say memory, we mean a story we’ve made out of the memory. When I’m writing, I’m likely to go for the image inside the story. My poem, “The Kayak and the Eiffel Tower,” is a good example. I only remember bits of the night I describe in the poem, but that’s how it is when you’re young. You have only part of the story. I filled it in somewhat, based on my later realizing what the postcard must have meant, but I kept the poem on the level of images. I’ve written other more complete narratives in poems—for example, “My Father Takes My Retarded Brother Sailing,” but even those depend on the images to carry them.
Kevin: A love of and respect for nature and life is reflected in your work. How has writing allowed you to deepen your relation with nature?
Fleda: Again, really interesting question. When I write poems like “Lady’s Slipper” and “Trillium” I have to study the flowers until I have them embedded in my mind. Same with “Felled Tree,” and many others, I’d say. I study the tree. I study its absence. It’s an incredible, indelible way to teach myself that I’m not separate from what’s called “nature.”
Kevin: You write about some of the pressing political issues for today. How does writing help you to process political questions? And what role might you see for poetry and art in the political sphere?
Fleda: This is the question of the hour. I am so gratified by the wonderful poems that are arising from the anguish we see all around us. Poets are carrying a huge weight. You might think they aren’t being heard, that no one reads poetry, but not true. We don’t hear much about poetry in our usual media, but it’s there—lots of it. Some is overtly political, some not, but all of it is supremely aware. It says to abuse, to misuse of power, “I see you.” And it’s quietly changing, or maybe I should say challenging, the air quality, the tone of things.
Kevin: What advice would you give to aspiring poets who are preparing to submit for publication for the first time?
Fleda: Publishing is good, even if it’s just standing up and reading to your friends. You begin to get a feel for how the poem needs to connect to the listener/reader. Trying to publish in the big world brings your work up against some of the best poems being written. It’s good for you. It’s good for me. It makes me write better. Then you might ask, what do you mean by “best”? The only way you’ll be able to answer that question is to read lots of poems--classic poems, and contemporary poems from the journals that accept only a small percentage of what they receive. You begin to get a feel for when the language is being used with skill and when the insight of the poem is rich and deep.
Fleda: Good question. Meditation is meant to teach awareness, and awareness is the root of poems, right? So it is the faithful practice of sitting that increases the ability to see clearly, to see through our clichéd language and clichéd thoughts, to what’s real. That’s the way I see the connection.
Kevin: What does writing poetry do for you that academic writing and blog writing does not? Or are these just different means for the same kinds of goals?
Fleda: I think poetry is the most deliberate in its desire to say what can’t be said. That’s the almost exclusive realm of poetry, to open the reader (and the writer) to the intangible. That doesn’t mean the fuzzy or the obscure. It means what lies within the tangible world—the trees, the bullets, the hangnails—is opened out into its eternal, or absolute realm. There’s not any way I can say that that makes sense in an ordinary way. When we run across a poem that “takes the top of our head off,” as Emily Dickinson said, we recognize that realm. When I’m working on a poem, I’m stretching into what I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s going, but I know when it begins to get close.
Kevin: The reflections that arise in your poems often include memories. How does memory function in your writing process?
Fleda: In a way, everything is memory, isn’t it? Even if I write about what I just had for breakfast, that’s a memory. Lots of times when we say memory, we mean a story we’ve made out of the memory. When I’m writing, I’m likely to go for the image inside the story. My poem, “The Kayak and the Eiffel Tower,” is a good example. I only remember bits of the night I describe in the poem, but that’s how it is when you’re young. You have only part of the story. I filled it in somewhat, based on my later realizing what the postcard must have meant, but I kept the poem on the level of images. I’ve written other more complete narratives in poems—for example, “My Father Takes My Retarded Brother Sailing,” but even those depend on the images to carry them.
Kevin: A love of and respect for nature and life is reflected in your work. How has writing allowed you to deepen your relation with nature?
Fleda: Again, really interesting question. When I write poems like “Lady’s Slipper” and “Trillium” I have to study the flowers until I have them embedded in my mind. Same with “Felled Tree,” and many others, I’d say. I study the tree. I study its absence. It’s an incredible, indelible way to teach myself that I’m not separate from what’s called “nature.”
Kevin: You write about some of the pressing political issues for today. How does writing help you to process political questions? And what role might you see for poetry and art in the political sphere?
Fleda: This is the question of the hour. I am so gratified by the wonderful poems that are arising from the anguish we see all around us. Poets are carrying a huge weight. You might think they aren’t being heard, that no one reads poetry, but not true. We don’t hear much about poetry in our usual media, but it’s there—lots of it. Some is overtly political, some not, but all of it is supremely aware. It says to abuse, to misuse of power, “I see you.” And it’s quietly changing, or maybe I should say challenging, the air quality, the tone of things.
Kevin: What advice would you give to aspiring poets who are preparing to submit for publication for the first time?
Fleda: Publishing is good, even if it’s just standing up and reading to your friends. You begin to get a feel for how the poem needs to connect to the listener/reader. Trying to publish in the big world brings your work up against some of the best poems being written. It’s good for you. It’s good for me. It makes me write better. Then you might ask, what do you mean by “best”? The only way you’ll be able to answer that question is to read lots of poems--classic poems, and contemporary poems from the journals that accept only a small percentage of what they receive. You begin to get a feel for when the language is being used with skill and when the insight of the poem is rich and deep.