An Interview with Sofía Aguilar

By Melissa Nunez, written January 2022

Sofía Aguilar is a Chicana writer and editor based in Los Angeles, California. She is an alum of WriteGirl, an LA-based creative writing and mentoring organization that empowers girls and nonbinary teens through mentoring and monthly creative writing workshops, and is still active within that collaborative community. She has published an impressive body of online work ranging from poetry and essays celebrating her heritage to commentary on female and Latin@ representation in pop culture and the media for publications like LatinaMediaCo and HipLatina. Her passion for uplifting the voices of marginalized writers and contributing to a conversation of positive change was evident from the start.

Sofía is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Mag 20/20. This past December, she self-published her first poetry chapbook titled STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv. I found Sofía’s work resonant and relatable, especially her thoughts and themes surrounding Latin@ culture. Her published essays like “Decolonizing My Latina Hair: How I Learned to Love the Locks White America Wanted Me to Tame” (Offcultured, 2021) and “motherland” (Jupiter Review, 2021) voice issues relevant to many descendants of the Latin@ diaspora. As a writer with a wide range of talents, I was very interested in hearing more about where she finds her motivation and inspiration.

I was able to chat with Sofía during her time in residency with the Sandra Cisneros Fellowship in Tepoztlán, Mexico—one of the many honors she has received in her writing career. The bright room and window mountain scene served as a backdrop to our conversation and were matched by her vibrant energy.   

As an organization with a similar mission, Yellow Arrow Publishing was very excited to hear about the WriteGirl organization. Can you tell me about your experience with WriteGirl and what makes it so successful?

I was referred to WriteGirl by a high school guidance counselor because of my interest in writing. My peers were more STEM-oriented, and he saw the need for a creative community of writers I could relate to.

I met so many amazing people through WriteGirl. The mentees and staff, the women mentors, are so incredible. I cannot say enough good things about it. The workshops are designed to introduce you to all these different genres of writing, not just poetry, and [they] opened my whole world. From an early age, I was exposed to these things I wouldn’t have been otherwise. That’s why I write in so many genres. I write hybrid works and love pushing the boundaries of genre. Aside from writing, it also helped me with professional skills (public speaking and networking) that I still use to this day. And I’m still learning so much. I’m still involved with the program as a volunteer and staff member.

I think it is successful because it is led by so many incredible people. They are passionate about their work, and it shows in everything that they do. There is so much deliberate care taken in the building of relationships. I consider myself so lucky to work with them and help foster the next generation. Giving back to a community that gave me so much. They told me my words mattered and that my voice could resonate with people at a time when I most needed to hear it. The whole structure invites people to come back so the work continues.

What do you love most about writing?

I’ve always wanted to tell stories. I’ve always loved words and language. From an early age, I knew I loved creating new worlds and fantastical things. But when I was younger, I wasn’t exposed to people who resonated with me or reflected my own experience. Not until reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. She captures the Mexican American experience so beautifully. It was so impactful, and I wanted to do that. To give representation to someone else who needed it. I wanted to see a world where you shouldn’t have to wait to read a book that represents you. I love that I get to celebrate my heritage, my journey, and uplift women, shed light on social justice issues when I write.

You mentioned the amazing author, Sandra Cisneros. Who else has served as inspiration in your writing journey?

Everything Sandra Cisneros has ever written has become biblical to me. Her work is the kind that you can keep coming back to and learn new things, which is rare for me. I read her at a point where I needed her, and she has become such a relevant figure in my life. Other writers that have really inspired me are Jane Austen, who has impacted the way I look at character and dialogue. Maggie Nelson, in her telling of stories through vignettes. It can be really intimidating to see people writing these huge sagas, and I thought I couldn’t be a writer without writing this huge book. She showed me another way to do it. Salvadoran poet Yesika Salgado has greatly inspired my poetry. Janel Pineda (friend and WriteGirl alum) is another Salvadoran poet I admire. I enjoy reading writers across the Latin@ diaspora.

When you write about culture, how do you balance the honoring of family and people with the critical aspect that comes with acknowledging things (customs/values/mores) that need to change?

One example of this is the way I use the Spanish language in my writing. I don’t italicize Spanish words because it is a language equal to English. But I also talk about (in “motherland”) how Spanish is a colonizer language. Spanish is beautiful and romantic and the language of our people, but we have to acknowledge that it is so widespread across Latin America because of colonization. On the other hand, in the United States, Spanish is seen as an enemy language, not to be spoken in certain areas. It is such a complicated dichotomy. There are some contexts in which speaking Spanish feels like something that brings shame or needs to be hidden away, and in this aspect, we should empower it. But also, it is used to silence Indigenous languages. So, there is a need to both celebrate and question the history of the language.

What work in progress are you most excited about?

I have so many ideas for so many things. I have so much to say, and so many ways to say them. Right now, I’m most excited about the novel in verse I am writing. There are so many possibilities for the characters and story. It is challenging but rewarding.

What advice would you give other women writers?

Write the story you haven’t read yet but want to read. That’s what is motivating my novel in verse. Nobody has written this story and it made me ask, why? This is my biggest motivator for writing. When I haven’t seen something done or done well, I want to be the answer to that question. Write the stories you want other people to read. What the world is missing. That urgency is so helpful to the writing process. Write what we need.

And also, rest. This is something I have learned during this residency. I have come to see writing as a service. We are storytellers. Someone here said something like, “Writers think they are not serving if they are not writing. But part of the writing process is to rest. Sit in silence with yourself.” So, you don’t have to be productive all the time. You are allowed to rest.

You can follow Sofía on Twitter @sofiaxaguilar and find more information about her writing career on her website. I am looking forward to reading more of her words. To see her writing what the world needs.

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Melissa Nunez is a homeschooling mother of three from the Rio Grande Valley. Her essays and poetry have appeared in Sledgehammer Lit, Yellow Arrow Journal, and others. She is also a staff writer for Alebrijes Review. Her writing is inspired by observation of the natural world, the dynamics of relationships, and the question of belonging. You can follow her on Twitter @MelissaKNunez.

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Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

You can support us as we AWAKEN in a variety of ways: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 102, Glen Arm, MD 21057). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.

Lunchbox Moments: A Zine to Emphasize the Importance of Community

By Rachel Vinyard

We aim to provide a platform for AAPI voices to express:

1.     anger and shame roused by racist microaggressions we may have experienced in relation to our cultural foods,

2.     pride, joy, and other emotions relating to our cultural foods, and

3.     how we have integrated deeper practices emerging from these experiences to honor those emotions.

When I was first introduced to the Lunchbox Moments zine and its mission, I was ecstatic to learn more. I was excited to know that there was a zine that gave the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islanders) community a platform to speak their truths and talk about very real issues that haven’t been widely discussed until recently. When I sat down to read Lunchbox Moments, it felt as though I were experiencing a world that was unique from mine. A world of fear, shame, and hurt brought on by ignorant, unapologetic people. Diversity is important for storytelling because every story is worth being heard.

Food is an especially important thing to immigrants because it keeps them connected to their culture. Lunchbox Moments is a zine that eloquently and beautifully portrays real stories about the struggles and xenophobia in the AAPI community regarding their food culture. Created by Anthony Shu, Diann Leo-Omine, and Shirley Huey, this zine showcases 26 AAPI writers, including Christine Hsu whose creative nonfiction piece “Mother Tongues of Confusion, Shame, and Love” appeared in Yellow Arrow Journal, Vol. IV, No. 1, Renascence. The zine is a compilation of a variety of different experiences regarding food in the AAPI community. Lunchbox Moments also supports Chinatown’s Community Development Center (CCDC) in San Francisco.

Anthony, Diann, and Shirley recently took the time to answer some questions for us.

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Please introduce yourselves and tell us how you decided to work together to create Lunchbox Moments. Why Lunchbox Moments?

Anthony: We met at the San Francisco Cooking School’s Food Media Lab in 2019 and had always wanted to work on a project together. Lunchbox Moments was born out of the pandemic and discussions of race and inequality that dominated 2020. As we went through various ideas on how we could collaborate, we witnessed increased attention on Anti-Asian hate crimes in early 2021. For me, this time period reinstated the importance of uplifting Asian American voices because our stories often go untold. How can we address discrimination against AAPI communities when our country lacks a shared discourse or knowledge of who this group encompasses/our history/our struggles? The theme of lunchbox moments was a way for us to combine our interests in food/food media with sharing Asian American experiences.

Diann: Lunchbox Moments came about because of the perfect storm, really. Food media is still overwhelmingly nondiverse, even as discussions on cultural appropriation and who can make whose culture’s food have begun to take shape. Asian Americans have also long been silenced or perceived as apolitical, so creating this platform was our “lane” in the activist sense.

Shirley: From our first moment of connecting in 2019, Diann, Anthony, and I have been talking about our respective and mutual interests and experiences in food and cooking—personal and professional (we each have worked in some capacity in restaurants/food), writing, and the political and cultural intersections of those subjects. We each love food deeply and find personal meaning and joy in cooking. Everything starts there. It’s a bit of a cliché to say this, but I do believe that important conversations often begin at the kitchen or dinner table. Our story is no different: we started talking about our experiences with/in food and our respective interests in food and writing over several lunches (a memorable one at Sai Jai Thai in San Francisco).

On Lunchbox Moments, I wanted to work on something that would, hopefully, be meaningful to readers, relevant to the moment, and also doable. We had real-life constraints of various kinds, but we also wanted to make this work. Speaking for myself, I wasn’t thinking about a platform; I’ve never been particularly quiet about where I stand on political issues. What I did want, though, was to do good work in line with my values, help create a platform for others to tell good stories, and raise money for communities affected deeply by the Covid-19 pandemic.

What was the most challenging part about putting the zine together? How did you address the challenge?

Diann: From a logistics angle, we conceptualized and executed the project entirely remotely. In fact, the first time we were all able to gather in person since meeting in 2019 was only recently. We staked ourselves to an ambitious publication date (about seven months from concept to execution). From an emotional angle, the increase of violence against Asian Americans came to a heartbreaking crescendo with the Atlanta and Indianapolis shootings, not to mention the media’s sudden reportage of violence against Asian elders and especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. We were editing the selected pieces during that time period, and the editorial process was both a cathartic way to process the communal grief but also simultaneously traumatizing. The challenge was keeping ourselves motivated, remotely, when sometimes I think all we wanted was to fall apart or hide underground when our communities were under attack, but we pressed on because we knew the work had to be done.

Shirley: We came together to work on this project because of what we observed during (and before) the pandemic—the negative rhetoric and physical violence directed at Asian Americans. As the pandemic went on, the relentless news coverage of what was happening affected each of us deeply. We were editors, yes, but we were also people observing and experiencing what was happening in the world around us and to our communities, processing the collective grief and also our own individual personal griefs, which were real and deep.

How did we deal with the challenge? I think the most critical thing was that we really trusted each other and held each other through it as colleagues/collaborators. We had weekly meetings to keep us on track, and at certain points, one of us would say, “Hey guys, I just can’t manage this right now.” And the others of us would say, and we meant it, “No problem, you take a little time away from the project. We’ll hold it and keep it going.”

How was Lunchbox Moments conceptualized? What inspired you most to create the zine?

Anthony: When we first thought about this theme, we learned from articles in NPR and Eater that challenged the value of stories about lunchbox moments. These articles argued that the traditional lunchbox moment narrative excluded many AAPI individuals who never have these moments and overemphasized feelings of shame. In response, we broadened our language in our call for submissions. It was inspiring to see the various pieces that came in and how people interpreted the lunchbox moments theme. We heard from writers and artists who had always been proud of their lunch, who felt their lunch hadn’t been Asian enough, and who shared about lunchbox moments in fields beyond food like language and familial relationships.

Diann: Yes, we wanted to shift focus from the stinky food narratives that have been so pervasive that lunchbox moments have become a trope. We sought out narratives that we found most interesting was how many people had lunchbox moments within the community or within themselves. On a personal note, I lost my grandmother and gave birth to my first child in the midst of our short, but ambitious publication process. For me, the zine became a sort of driving force tribute to both my grandmother and my child—of memories past and future.

Shirley: What inspired me the most at the very beginning was the opportunity to showcase stories featuring Asian American writers, to have some creative control over the project, and to do so in a way that was in service to the larger Asian American community. This was a remarkable opportunity to work with my really talented coeditors and friends, to work on compelling subject matter, and to uplift the work of our wonderful writers and artists. It was also an opportunity to learn about what it takes to bring something like this into being.

What do you hope that your readers take away from Lunchbox Moments?

Anthony: I hope people recognize the diversity in the stories told, especially in the range of emotions shared. These aren’t just stories about lunchbox moments focused on shame that elicit rage, guilt, or sadness. To me, this isn’t a collection of stories about Asian Americans being victims of discrimination. Instead, each piece complicates our definitions of being Asian American.

Diann: I hope readers come away with more questions than answers regarding Asian American identity. The Asian American identity has long been boxed in by the “model minority” myth and is not a monolith, and disparities abound between ethnicity, class, color, and generation. Even rereading the stories again today, there are different meanings I pick up every time.

Shirley: What Diann and Anthony said. And also, for some readers, I hope that they come away with a sense of recognition and connection to the stories told. I’ve just been asked to speak to a college-level class on Asian American women writers about Lunchbox Moments and feel so gratified to know that students are reading this work. I hope that readers can see the power of sharing their personal experiences—whatever they are and however they fit into or don’t fit into a particular trope around what it means to be Asian American. And honestly, I really hope that readers come away with a hunger for new food experiences as well as a recognition that meaningful stories about our lives can come in many forms, including about something as seemingly mundane as our everyday interactions with food.

How did you know that storytelling through and about food has power?

Anthony: Food is an important way for immigrants and their descendants to connect to their cultures. In the collection, I witness the different ways this connection is interpreted, lost, or reinforced, often across generations. I feel that many people can connect to this idea of food traditions changing over time. Also, since announcing the zine, I’ve spoken to many people, not just AAPI individuals, who have strong memories about school lunch and the cafeteria. A common theme has been being bullied for receiving free or reduced-price lunch. It seems like there is something formative in those childhood meals.

Diann: With the popularity of platforms like Instagram and Yelp, foodie culture relegates food for its consumptive value. There’s an adrenaline rush in waiting in line for three hours for the next hottest food trend, of taking so many photos the meal gets cold, and then getting your followers to obsess over the geotag location. In our stories, however, food is a character. Food is symbolic, food is catharsis. Food inspires all types of emotions.

Shirley: There are moments in our lives that we never forget—the big moments—the weddings, the births, the deaths, the loves, the trials and tribulations. And then there is the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The sweetness of ripe summer strawberries encased in soft whipped cream. The pungent smell of savory salted fish and chicken fried rice. But the two—the big moments and the smaller moments—are not unique and separate. As Diann says so beautifully, food is a character, yes. Food and our interactions with it reveal things about ourselves as characters that are meaningful. This is especially true for some who grow up in families that are not particularly verbal or direct in communicating about emotions and feelings—except about food. When this is so, I think showcasing food in the storytelling can be particularly powerful.

Why did you choose to partner with San Francisco’s CCDC?

Anthony: To clarify, we are not partners with the organization. We just named them as our beneficiary. They operated two iterations of Feed + Fuel Chinatown over the last year and a half, which was a program that combined supporting Chinatown’s residents and its businesses, especially its restaurants. We wanted to respond to the xenophobia that has hurt Chinatown businesses since the start of Covid-19 (and before shutdowns in the U.S.).

Diann: People may not be aware of the racist, segregated history that allowed for the creation of Chinatown and laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese were thereby limited in what occupations they could take, and cooking was one of them. Chinatown and Chinese people have long been synonymous for immigrant communities and Asians, so when [then-President Donald] Trump spouted vitriol like “Kung Flu” and “Chinese virus,” it undoubtedly felt like an invisible history was repeating itself. Yet that time period is not that long ago, as my parents were both born in Chinatown and would have benefitted from an organization like the CCDC if it existed back then. So our decision to donate funds to CCDC was a way of giving back to those historical immigrant roots.

Shirley: We actually put a lot of thought and research into it, knowing that whatever organization we chose needed to be one that the three of us each connected with and supported. Diann and I both grew up in San Francisco, with ties to Chinatown. Anthony grew up in the South Bay, with less of a personal connection to San Francisco Chinatown. We also conceived of the project as having a national focus; we were looking for diverse contributors, not just in terms of cultural identities, but also regional location. So we initially set out to find a beneficiary that contributed to the needs of immigrant restaurant workers, supported Asian American communities, and had a national focus. We looked at entities doing direct service and doing other kinds of more capacity building work. We didn’t want to default to a San Francisco Bay Area based organization just because we happened to be located here. We ended up choosing CCDC because of its long-standing work in San Francisco Chinatown and its tremendous work on the Feed + Fuel program, feeding low-income folks living in Chinatown single room occupancy hotels. We recognize that San Francisco Chinatown-based organizations have been at the forefront of advocacy on behalf of Chinese Americans and Asian Americans nationwide since the beginning of Asian immigration to America. 

In what ways can readers support the Asian American community during the pandemic? After the pandemic?

Anthony: Over the last year, I was shocked to have discussions with individuals who never or rarely thought about discrimination against Asian Americans. I hope we can learn more about both the history/legacy of discrimination against AAPI communities and also the parts of these cultures that inspire pride and celebration.

Diann: During and after the pandemic, readers can support the community by patronizing Asian American businesses and following Asian American creators on social media. Of course, the issues are systemic and deeper than capitalism or social media algorithms. Readers can, as Anthony suggested, dig into the history/legacy of discrimination—read anything by Helen Zia or Ronald Takaki and watch the Asian Americans documentary on PBS.

Shirley: Good question. There are many ways in which readers can support the Asian American community during and after the pandemic, some of which Anthony and Diann have already touched on. I think reading about history and discrimination and patronizing Asian American owned businesses are important. I would also add a few more things: slow down and listen. The experiences of Asian Americans (if we can still use that term—a conversation for another time) are multiple and diverse, and we must make space to hear about them. Also: history is now. So when you go to read about the history of Asian Americans, remember to look for sources about what is happening now—and not just about shootings and violence perpetrated against us. Try reading Hyphen magazine, Asian American Writers Workshop’s The Margins. See what’s happening at sites like Asian Americans Advancing Justice—Asian Law Caucus and Asian Prisoner Support Committee. Stand up for people if you see them being bullied or harassed. I recommend the Hollaback Bystander Intervention training.

Have you experienced any lunchbox moments of your own as Asian Americans in a workplace or school setting?

Diann: I’ve experienced my own lunchbox moments from outside but particularly within the Asian American community—from the expectations of me being able to fold immaculately crimped dumplings or steam a perfectly tender whole fish. I never learned to use chopsticks the proper way, and I got called out recently about that—I retorted back to the person that, well, at least I knew how to eat. Even for someone who has cooked professionally, this idea/ideal of perfection while performing Asian identity is stifling, and cuts into complex memories of family, language, and diaspora. It’s something I’m still grappling with to this day.

Shirley: I have experienced lunchbox moments mostly in the workplace or private context from people who would never identify as racist in any way. They were microaggressions—for example, expectations that I would know something about a particular kind of frozen dumplings “because you’re Chinese, you should know” said with absolutely no irony. Another time, the person in charge of ordering a work lunch refused to even consider Chinese food “because it’s so greasy.” She clearly had never had beautiful, nongreasy, delicious Chinese food. I don’t know if this relates to lunchbox moments, but I definitely relate to Diann’s grappling with internal perfectionism and its relation to creation of food. Also, even the notion of perfection could be subject to greater scrutiny. What is perfection in light of differing experiences of what is authentic and real, both in terms of food and in terms of identity?

Will there be a follow-up publication?

Anthony: We are undecided at this time but thank everyone for their generous support.

Diann: (laughs) We had joked that maybe we could start a podcast themed around current events in food media. Stay tuned. In all seriousness, as Anthony had said, we are undecided at this time.

Shirley: Ha, Diann. I would just add that we are undecided, but you know, if someone chose to fund our working together and you know, perhaps help mentor us on the next publication, that might help move us in a certain direction.

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Shirley Huey (she/her) is a Chinese-American writer, editor, consultant, daughter, sister, friend, collaborator, cook, music and theater lover, cat mom, and former civil rights attorney. She believes that place and race matter and that we can make the world a better place from wherever we are, right at this moment. Born and raised in San Francisco, Shirley’s writing can be found in such publications as Berkeleyside, Catapult, Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel, The Universal Asian, and Endangered Species, Enduring Values, an anthology of San Francisco writers and artists of color. She has received fellowships from VONA, Kearny Street Workshop, SF Writers Grotto’s Rooted and Written, and Mesa Refuge, and is working on a memoir in essays about food, family, and social justice.

Diann Leo-Omine (she/her) is a culinary arts creative and writer rooted in San Francisco (Ramaytush Ohlone land) and the colorfully boisterous Toisanese diaspora. She now resides in the North Central Valley (Nisenan land), in between the ocean and the mountains. Her writing can be found in The Universal Asian and the Write Now SF anthology Essential Truths.

Anthony Shu’s (he/his) first experience in the culinary world came as a breakfast cook at a nonprofit summer program where the “kitchen” consisted of a Presto griddle set up outdoors. He graduated from Princeton University in 2016 and after a brief career in more professional kitchens, Anthony started working at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley and has been focused on client storytelling and multimedia production for the last few years. Also a freelance food writer, his work has been published in Eater SF and the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Rachel Vinyard is an emerging author from Maryland and a publications intern at Yellow Arrow Publishing. She is working towards her Bachelor’s degree in English at Towson University and has been published in the literary magazine Grub Street. She was previously the fiction editor of Grub Street and hopes to continue editing in the future. Rachel is also a mental health advocate and aims to spread awareness of mental health issues through literature. You can find her on Twitter @RikkiTikkiSavvi and on Instagram @merridian.official.

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Thank you to Anthony, Diann, and Shirley for taking the time to thoughtfully answer Rachel’s questions. Please visit the Lunchbox Moments website to learn more about this initiative and purchase a PDF copy of the zine today!

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Thank you for supporting independent publishing. Visit yellowarrowpublishing.com to learn more about submitting, volunteering, and donating.

Taking Moments to Listen: A Conversation with Ute Carson

“I’m never someone who sends out a mission to my readers, but I want them to stop a moment when they read and maybe say: what do the words mean? Could that be applied to something in my life?”

Ute Carson, German-born, now Austin, Texas resident, is the author of Yellow Arrow Publishing’s next chapbook, Listen. The desire she has for her readers to pause and engage with her words is evident within the lines of the 44 included poems. Listen’s imagery forces readers to stop and sit with her words for a few moments before continuing to evaluate the book’s themes: engaging with nature and loved ones and reflecting on one’s past experiences and their subsequent formative effects on the ensuing years. Ute’s words convey to her readers her enchantment with the world around us during every stage of our existence.

A writer from youth, Ute has published two novels, a novella, a volume of stories, four collections of poetry, and numerous essays here and abroad. Her poetry was twice nominated for the Pushcart Award. Yellow Arrow is privileged to publish Listen, now available for PRESALE (click here for wholesale prices) and released October 12, 2021. You can find out more about Ute at utecarson.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for Friday sneak peeks into Listen from this week until October 8. Recently Editorial Associate Siobhan McKenna took some time to get to know Ute and the significance of Listen.

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As a young child in Germany during World War II, Ute was bombarded by the tragedies of the world: her father died in the war before she was born, her mother’s second husband was also killed, her two uncles perished in the brutal Stalingrad winter, and she, her mother, and grandmothers were forced to flee their home—losing everything—as the Russians invaded. Yet, Ute remembers, “In spite of a very dramatic childhood, I was embedded in this incredible love. Even when I saw the most terrible things. I saw for the first time wounded soldiers—crying, dying. And that left a deep impression on me. But at the same time, I was always protected by these females around me, so I was able to choose that same influence that warms and protects you all through my life. And I have tried to impart that to my children and my children’s children.”  

We carry the house of childhood within us,

and spying through its translucent walls,

we keep life at a distance or embrace it.

(The House of Childhood)

As the women in her family worked together to shelter Ute from the dangerous times, they told stories, and Ute began to understand the power of writing. “My maternal grandmother, my father’s mother, and my mother were all steeped in German poetry, stories, and I absorbed all that.” In addition to the songs and tales that she was “fed,” Ute’s writing was influenced by an elementary school teacher who “always ended each class with a story” and helped her publish her first story in the German magazine, Der Tierfreund (Friend of Animals). From that moment on, Ute says she has never stopped writing.

We all have been warmed by a fire we did not build.

Parents set a fire

that sends out sparks to dispel darkness,

and lights the way for the young into the world.

(Flames Rising)

In Listen, Ute weaves a poignant narrative of what it means to be engaged with the world by drawing on her childhood influences, educational background, and experiences as a friend, lover, and grandparent. Many of her poems emphasize understanding one’s place in the life span and the collective conflicts we face as humans. This is only fitting as Ute herself studied various psychological theories and was a clinical hypnotist at a trauma center in Austin for many years. Being able to write about universal struggles is an important aspect of Ute’s poem as she often changes perspective or leaves the speaker deliberately ambiguous. In the poem “She Still Lives Here,” Ute writes as a husband mourning the loss of his wife. “I changed perspectives because I try to generalize. I don’t always bring it back to me.” She continues to say that writing poetry “is not just telling about your experience, which is very valuable—you start with your experience—but your experience has to be formed. It’s not enough to just put it out there. What you do as a writer and a poet is to transform [the experience] into something that is universally human and that’s how it appeals to my readers (not just to my family) who can then relate my personal experience to their own. I am a critic of people who just write about their experience and do not attempt to empathize to the human condition.”

How do we venture into the lives of others

and still remain true to ourselves?

[. . .]

We build barriers, high and solid,

wire fences between properties,

[. . .]

My favorites are the ones made of rope

that I can climb over or crawl under.

(Self and Others)

In addition, many of Ute’s poems use her current role as a grandparent to view the world. In “Breaking Away,” Ute writes that grandparents are the “hub in the wheel of life” as they “relieve busy parents” and “indulge the young.” Ute believes that grandparenthood is easier than parenthood and says that she loved being a parent, but between teaching, writing, getting a graduate degree, and having three girls that she was “always torn in different directions.” Now, when one of her grandchildren “bursts through the door everything else can be wiped away. Even the ailments, which you know when you are 80 years old, they are there, and you forget for a moment because a child beams and throws [themselves] into your arms.” She says it is not simply that you have more time, but also more “psychic energy” to spend on your grandchildren because “you are no longer preoccupied with your development” and the questions of, “Who am I as a writer? Who am I as a parent? Who am I as a wife?” Because “as a grandparent, you have pretty much shed that search for the self and know who you are. And that is very comforting because you can then convey that to your grandchildren.”

How difficult it is to picture our parents as young lovers,

or the bearded homeless man as a smooth-skinned baby.

It takes a leap of imagination

to peer through the fog of time

and see each stage in life

linked from first to last.

(Snapshot in Time)

But despite loving the view from grandparenthood, Ute also writes of the limits that she has encountered with aging. In “Relinquishment” she laments no longer being able to wear her favorite heels and in “The New Normal” attempts to race her grandson only to find that she immediately falls. When asked about this experience, she says, “I had it in my mind that I had been a runner and that I could still run, and I fell absolutely flat and that’s the flexibility we need to learn in old age. That yes, you still know how it was when you were able to run, but you can’t do that anymore . . . there are final limits.”

The wind of mortality

sweeps through the woods,

stripping away leaves

and downing limbs.

Sap turns to bleeding tears.

(Bleeding Trees)

Throughout the collection, Ute blends childhood memories with her insight that comes with aging, which begs the question: What does it mean to live a full life? To this, Ute answers that she loves being able to care for her animals and garden. She snuggles with her cat, grooms her horses, and tells her roses, “I’m sorry, but you need a haircut.” But, above all, she says that a full life to her has meant her experiences with her mate. “My husband—who has been at my side for so long. We have had things that we have had to struggle with in terms of ailments and all kinds, but we do life together still and we still very much enjoy what we’ve always enjoyed. My husband had an incredibly busy professional life. And, not that we weren’t connected during that time, but there is a different connection now. Now the time together that we spend [is not between] him flying off to the next meeting or to colleagues. It’s a kind of circle that you come around to appreciate your partner—whoever it is . . . I don’t mean you have to have one [singular], but the partner that comes around as we age is important. Someone that you can fold wash with and do other everyday tasks even when you’re old.” She adds, “[My husband and I] still fight over politics. We still have our own things that we do. But it is still valuable time spent together, [we ask] how do we want to structure our last years together? And that includes the family, the animals, the garden, the reading, all that, but a primary focus on the partnership.”

Life stories are recorded in the crevices of my brain

and emotions bounce back from hollows in my body.

I am filled with the echoes of my loved ones.

(Echoes)

Ute interweaves among her themes of youth, love, and aging images of verdant forests, abundant flowers, and other nature scenes that give color and scents to her sentiments. The significance of the abundant nature imagery is echoed by her decisions on the title and the cover art (designed by Yellow Arrow Creative Director, Alexa Laharty). When asked, Ute explains that Listen came from a question when she was giving a reading for her last book, Gypsy Spirit. “One of the listeners said, ‘I read your book, and I am slow, is that a detriment?’ And I said, ‘No, on the contrary, if you’re attentive, if you’re reflective, if you listen, much more will come with a second reading.’ It’s ok to be slow and to reread and maybe pause at an image. Or reflect: What did you mean by this word when you could have used another one?” Furthermore, Ute says she has often used listening to nature as a way to heal.

“Go, and put your ear to the tree, which is [on] the cover [of the chapbook] and listen to what that tree has to tell you. What energy does it send to you? We have done it with the grandchildren very often. When I couldn’t solve [a problem] even with my hypnosis, I would say let’s go outside and you put your arms around the tree, and just listen very carefully. Because the tree maybe tells you something. Maybe a stomachache, and [my grandchildren] often would come back in and say, ‘It’s gone.’” Ute further expands that with nature we have a reciprocal relationship: “Many of my nature references are allegories. . . . In the story about my grandson hugging a tree when he had a stomachache, I tried to show that everything around us is alive and has its own energy. Our grandson could bring his discomfort to the tree and in turn receive solace. The book cover image has a different focus—listening instead of hugging. [Depicted on the cover is] a woman (or girl) [leaning] her ear against a tree. There is a symbiotic connection. She might feel the ‘Earth move under my feet’ as Carol King sings and the sun might touch her face or she might be listening to birds chirping, the wind whispering.” Ute emphasizes that art is symbolic of being able to pause and pay attention to the natural world around us.

. . . when light and warmth return with the dawn,

butterflies flutter about.

Nature thrives in abundance.

(Magical Greenery)

And it is not only with the title and cover art that Ute had very specific intentions. Everything she has done to have Listen come alive has been deliberate—even her decision to publish with Yellow Arrow. Ute expresses that when she was first introduced to Yellow Arrow, she saw the logo and immediately realized that it was the symbol associated with the Camino de Santiago that helps guide “the wanderers and seekers” along the way. Ute and her husband completed the pilgrimage in the late 1980s and soon discovered that Yellow Arrow’s founder, Gwen Van Velsor, had also taken a pilgrimage there. “So when I saw the yellow arrows coming from that old tradition it connected with me that the chapbook is also a pilgrimage. The poems are a pilgrimage from childhood to the dying and we stop along the way.” She continued to say that not only did Yellow Arrow’s connection to the Camino de Santiago solidify her decision to publish with us, but also its mission to emphasize women. “I love to comment on that because there are not that many journals that are geared toward women.” Ute further says that she has often heard of two main theories that women will follow about art: a theory by Virginia Wolfe and one from Anaïs Nin. “According to Wolfe, all art is gender-free. But I have chosen the other tradition: Nin. And [Nin] believes that art overlaps—men’s and women’s art overlaps, but men and women have a slightly different perspective on things. And, she said that women write with their blood. You dip your pen in your blood and you write with it. So, if you are of that tradition—as I am—you have a different perspective on the [Yellow Arrow Journal] and why it’s just for women. I want women to be aware of that tradition. And you do have to come in your mind to make a decision about which one you want to follow.”

 By exchanging stories,

We can reach understanding.

(Talking and Listening)

***** 

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you, Ute and Siobhan, for such an insightful conversation and to Siobhan for sharing it. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Grub Street: Inspiring All Kinds of Writers

Interviews from fall 2020

Yellow Arrow Publishing has had several interns from Towson University’s Grub Street, so we wanted to share more about Grub Street and Grub Street Literary Magazine. Grub Street and Yellow Arrow Publishing have a shared connection through a love of the arts, specifically literature. Our fall 2020 marketing intern, Elaine Batty, interviewed Gel Derossi and Grace Jordan, current Editors-in-Chief, to get a better insight into the creation of Grub Street. You can find the latest issue, Volume 70, on the Grub Street website. A huge thank you to Grub Street staff for working around their busy schedules to tell Elaine all about Grub Street.

EB: What is Grub Street and how does it work?

Grub Street is Towson’s student-produced, award-winning literary magazine that publishes editions annually. This year is the 70th edition of Grub Street. Edition 68 won a Gold Circle Award for the 17th year in a row that Grub Street has been recognized. Six students accepted in edition 68 were also recognized and awarded. Grub Street publishes a print edition each year, but we also run a website in which we feature more works from writers and artists. Students enroll in a year-long class under a faculty advisor—this year and in most previous years, our faculty advisor is Jeannie Vanasco—and through this class, students receive roles within top managing positions, genre teams, and marketing and publicity. 

Grub Street accepts works submitted online in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art, as well as genre-defiant works. Anyone can submit to Grub Street, not just Towson University students. Our high school contest also features work from one to two high school students; all of our submissions are reviewed by an accomplished author—last year’s was Jung Yung, critically acclaimed author of Shelter—and winners receive a $100 dollar prize. 

Our genre teams work together in reading submissions and deciding what works to feature in print and/or online. We also maintain a “blind review process” in which the top managing positions move over submissions from our Submittable account and remove any identifying information so that all works are chosen based on the works themselves; this levels the playing field and makes everything fair. 

Putting together a literary magazine requires honesty from its staff. It requires clear communication and conversations about topics of personal and societal importance. With the way Vanasco facilitates our conversations about submissions and taste and aesthetics and oppression, [we] personally, and [we] sense others do as well, feel encouraged to speak up, even if [we] don’t speak perfectly and even if [we] might be wrong. Grub Street feels like a community. We talk to each other with what feels like an elevated form of respect. We honor the opinions of our classmates and [we] hope that everyone feels like every opinion of our staff is equally valuable. We all stand behind our mission of inclusivity and diversity and representation for marginalized identities. 

EB: In what way do you feel Grub Street benefits Towson students as well as the community?

The ways in which Grub Street benefits students is vast: Grub Street gives undergraduate students the opportunity to get their hands into all types of work within the publishing and literary field. You don’t need prior experience to be involved in Grub Street, but you will leave with concrete experience within copyediting, reading submissions, marketing, [and] designing, and leave with a physical, new print edition of Grub Street that you and your team created together.

Grub Street also strives to engage within the Baltimore community. We distribute our print edition at book festivals, conferences, and other Baltimore-based universities, and are also working on distributing our issues to prisons.

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Yellow Arrow’s Editor-in-Chief, Kapua Iao, also asked Brenna Ebner (fall 2020 publication intern and current CNF Managing Editor for Yellow Arrow, and Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street, volume 69) further questions about her experiences.

KCI: Where does the name ‘Grub Street’ come from?

It was originally an address in London back in the 18th century where low-end publishers and “hack writers” were found competing to make a living from their works. People there dealt with hard critiques, became targets of satire, and scuffled over plagiarism. Their literary world was cutthroat with aspiring writers constantly putting out new work to get noticed and no copyright laws to protect anyone’s writing. Our name commemorates that and the ways in which writing, publishing, and editing has evolved from that structure but still remains just as competitive and passionate. Dr. George Hahn, an English Professor and past chair of the Department of English, has a great explanation of Grub Street’s name included in each issue as well.

KCI: Can you explain more about how students get involved with Grub Street?

It’s a class at Towson actually! You can take it either first or second semester, but it typically is best to do both in order for sake of consistency in the magazine. If being on staff isn’t of interest to those who want to get involved, they can easily submit multiple pieces (there is of course a cap to the amount depending on the genre) and become a contributor. That option is available to everyone, too—not just students. Copies are free as well so if participating in those ways still aren’t of any interest, anyone could become a reader and supporter of Grub Street that way. We welcome everyone at the launch parties to celebrate with us (when they aren’t shut down for [COVID-19 regulations]) and to enjoy PDF copies online.

KCI: How does someone become Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street?

Recently it’s been . . . based on previous experience (have they taken Grub Street before?), performance as a student (good grades, attendance, etc.), and graduation date, which Vanasco, current faculty advisor, considers and then chooses based on that. The position requires you to be able to commit for the full school year, so we want someone that is reliable, committed, hardworking, and available. They’ll be in charge of the whole process: picking staff positions, making sure we stay on schedule, having final say on pieces we include and editing them, how the website is run, communicating between genre teams and the creative services department and faculty advisor, organizing the launch party, everything! The faculty advisor helps immensely though so it isn’t quite as overwhelming and the managing editors take on a large bulk of the process as well, such as the high school contest, weighing in on design and layout decisions, communication between staff, and much more. The whole staff is a strong support system but ultimately the Editor-in-Chief has to oversee it with the faculty advisor supervising and guiding.

KCI: What has your experience taught you?

Grub Street was what ultimately helped me figure out what I wanted to do in life after college. It gave me the direction and experience I needed to understand that editing and publishing was the career I wanted to pursue and could, and I can’t thank Vanasco enough for giving me that opportunity. I also don’t think anything could have prepared me for what to expect stepping into that kind of leadership role, too, but it helped me grow immensely on a professional level and taught me a great deal about myself. I never realized how much work went into publishing and editing until I got to be part of the process. When I pick up any piece of literature now, I think about all the people who put in the work to get it into my hands and in that polished state. For literary magazines and journals, specifically, I think about how between the covers is a space that has been created by multiple people for multiple people to express themselves and help them feel like they belong somewhere and to something. There’s a whole new appreciation for something I certainly took for granted previously and I want to continue to be a part of it.

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Elaine Batty is a student at Towson University graduating with a BS in English on the literature track. Her poetry has been featured in the College of Southern Maryland’s Connections literary magazine. In her free time, she enjoys reading all genres of fiction, writing poetry, and playing with her two cats, Catlynn and Cleocatra. Elaine’s two real passions are literature and travel, and she plans to look for a job following graduation that will allow her to pursue both full time.

Gel Derossi (they/them) is a white, trans, neurodiverse person who reads, writes, and draws with a mission to create more representation for marginalized folks. They currently study creative writing at Towson University.

Brenna Ebner is a recent Towson University graduate and Editor-in-Chief of Grub Street Literary Magazine, volume 69. She has interned at both Mason Jar Press and Yellow Arrow Publishing and is looking forward to continuing to grow as an editor and establish herself in the publishing world.

Grace Jordan is one of the 2020–2021 Editors-in-Chief of Grub Street, along with [Gel]. She is a sophomore at Towson University, studying both Dance Performance and Choreography and English with a minor in creative writing. She is also a part of the Honors College. Find her on Instagram @graciejordan.

You can find Grub Street on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

*****

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

everybody dies. ~ A Conversation with Briana Wingate

Originally from December 2020

“I’m tellin’ you. Ain’t nothing a fierce woman has to say that goes unheard.”

From “In the Valley,” everybody dies. (2019)

A Yellow Arrow Publishing Editorial Associate, Bailey Drumm, interviewed author Briana Wingate about her 2019 book everybody dies. (currently sold out!). Briana Wingate (or b.a.w.) has recently decided to take ownership of her full name. She lives, writes, and socially distances in Baltimore, Maryland, with her lucky black cat and collection of adult coloring books. She finds inspiration in Black women, neo soul, and popular 90s television. When she’s not scribbling in a journal somewhere, she can be found curled up with a good book and a bottle of wine. She has very strong feelings about The Golden Girls and is willing to discuss them via Twitter or Instagram @briana_shmiana.

YAP: How was everybody dies. conceptualized?

Call it morbid, but I think a lot about death as just a part of the human process. It’s this one thing that we all do no matter who we are, who our loved ones are, or what’s going on around us. everybody dies. was basically my way of asking, “What if someone dies because that’s just what people do? What if the focus of the story was somewhere else?”

YAP: What is your routine writing practice like? Has it changed since this publication? If so, how?

It has! Believe it or not, I had more time to write while I was still in school, so it came a lot more freely. I didn’t have to think too hard about finding the time; I just did it. It was easy to make writing a priority in my life because there was so much outside motivation to just create, even when it didn’t come easy. Now, my motivation is mostly internal and always finds a way to fall in priority behind something else. It’s so much simpler to blame work and general adult life for not writing these days than it is to say I’m afraid of not being good enough at something that actually holds my heart. There was a period of time after completing the MFA program where I wasn’t writing at all, and it made me feel as though I was betraying myself. These days, I’ve been writing just for my own eyes, just to practice with no real expectations. When the stars align just right, I talk out ideas with friends as a sounding board. But I’m not ready to fully workshop what I have just yet, let alone submit. Almost, but not quite. It still feels a little uncomfortable sometimes. A little more hesitant. A lot more eraser smudges. But, I’ve been scribbling in my journal before bed each night, and it feels a little easier each time.

YAP: What was the easiest story to write?

“Things Falling from the Sky.” I had a lot of fun writing that one.

YAP: What about the most difficult? How did you tackle it?

“Dying Season” changed in so many ways so many times. Characters were swapped out, entire scenes were cut, and I was frustrated through it all. I had trouble getting to an ending that felt right. I can definitely say I leaned on my cohort a lot for help. But ultimately, I ended up walking away from the story for a couple weeks and going back over what inspired me to write it to begin with. A friend and I were talking and realized that someday, people who were part of such defining moments in our youth will eventually die without anyone calling to let us know. I found the ending when I realized that the feeling I was looking for was acceptance.

YAP: Were there any pieces that you considered for the collection that didn’t make the cut? Why?

Definitely. I had a two-page piece that I was certain was going to be the first story in the collection, but it just hadn’t been fleshed out enough in time for production deadlines. It’s still sitting in my files, so I may revisit it someday.

YAP: How did you land on this title? Were there any other contenders?

I don’t remember any others sticking with me as much as everybody dies. It’s something you can’t really argue with, but it’s still a conversation starter. There’s a death in each story, but each story is more about the surrounding events. By saying ‘everybody dies’ in lowercase letters upfront on the cover, it was like my way of saying, “Everybody dies. But that’s not always where the story is.”

YAP: I heard, when producing these, you had a handmade element. What was it?

I made a few handbound copies and tied live flowers to the front covers. Inside, I added sheets of vellum at the beginning of each story that were cut out to form an erasure poem from each first page.

YAP: What’s something you hope your readers get out of this collection?

A good laugh. A good hurt. A good conversation.

YAP: Do you have any new projects in the works?

[From March 2021:] I started a new podcast with a local visual artist/musician/good friend, Lové Iman. You can find us at ewwcreatives.com, follow us on Instagram and Twitter @EwwVarietyShow, and listen to The Eww Variety Show on all major platforms.

YAP: Is fiction the only form you practice?

Fiction is where my heart has always been, but I dabble in nonfiction as well. Nothing serious. Just my own long-winded introspections.

YAP: Would you choose to self-publish again in the future? What was that process like for you?

Who knows? I’d never say never, but there’s pros and cons to everything. I’m admittedly a control freak, so seeing something that was just mine go from concept to tangible object was definitely a rush. However, having worked behind the scenes with local presses before, helping other people see their work come to life, there’s definitely a level of comfort in knowing there are other people invested in your brainchild.

YAP: What do you hope people take from this chapbook?

Everybody dies. That’s not the whole story. How are you living?

YAP: How would you summarize this collection in less than 50 words?

everybody dies. is a collection of short stories that each include a dead body but aren’t about death. There’s a little bit of humor, a little bit of heartache, and a little bit of weird inside, all meant to tell the human story.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Briana for taking the time to share your stories with us. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Cherishing the Present: A Conversation with Ellen Dooling Reynard

From February 2021

Ellen Dooling Reynard sits in her kitchen nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Behind her, a black cat jumps onto the counter. She grins, “He wants to play with the keys.” Her warmth spills through the computer screen that connects us as Ellen mentions that he, along with her other cat, are sources of inspiration for her writing and laughter. Ellen, the author of the next Yellow Arrow Publishing chapbook, No Batteries Required, released April 2021, spoke to Yellow Arrow Editorial Associate, Siobhan McKenna, while taking a break from packing up her California home. This wonderful chapbook is now available for PRESALE. Information about a virtual reading at the end of April is forthcoming

No Batteries Required examines the world around Ellen from the perspective of her inner world. As a senior, she looks back on her life, its joys and sorrows, its loves and losses, while she navigates the unknown currents of old age and ponders about the journeys of life, death, and what lies beyond. Ellen spent her childhood on a cattle ranch in Jackson, Montana. Raised on myths and fairy tales, the sense of wonder has never left her. A one-time editor of Parabola Magazine, her poetry has been published by Lighten Up On Line, Current Magazine, Persimmon, Silver Blade, and The Muddy River Poetry Review. She is now retired and has relocated to Clarksville, Maryland, where she will continue to write fiction and poetry. She is currently working on a series of ekphrastic poems based on the work of her late husband, Paul Reynard (1927–2005).

In a week [from this interview], Ellen will be moving east to separate herself from the worsening wildfires and to be closer to family. Yet for someone who is moving across the country, she appears very at peace. “That’s life,” she says when asked how she is faring with the move. “Selling a house and packing a house and then dealing with something that’s wrong with the house. I can worry about all of that and then I realize that this is the second to last week that I’m going to be here—so that’s right now. What is going to happen is going to happen on the trip.” After a beat, she adds with a laugh, “I am a little nervous.” Siobhan asked Ellen to talk more about her appreciation for the mundane moments of life, her curiosity toward the natural world, and her ability to see aging as a gift—the themes of No Batteries Required.

YAP: The first section of your chapbook is called “moments and non moments” with even the non moments being full of meaning. How have you found your non moments to be “presents of presence”?

Because I’ve had a life-long spiritual direction that my mother was also involved in—the teachings of [G.I.] Gurdjieff . . . [a] middle eastern teacher of philosophy and knowledge. [His teaching] is a lot about being in the moment (before it [became] a buzzword in modern psychology) and living life right now; not yesterday and not tomorrow. What is in front of me right now? Who am I right now? These kinds of moments, the non moments, [are] what end up being “presents of presence.” [Presents of presence is about] finding yourself if you are really irritated because you are delayed by something. Maybe you are going to be late for an appointment. Or you may not even have a reason to be annoyed and you just don’t like slowing down. So, in the middle of a moment like that you have to realize that you are alive, and you are breathing and there are birds singing outside and interesting things to be feeling about one’s children and all of one’s loved ones. There is plenty of material in the present moment even if even if you are waiting at a broken traffic light.

YAP: How does it feel to look back at seemingly non moments: family breakfast, dishes, chores, Montana winters, and find meaning within them?

I learned deep down an appreciation for being where you are because we would be snowed in all winter. We were six children and my mother homeschooled us, because there was no way we could get anywhere. The nearest school was a [one-room schoolhouse in town], 10 miles away. We didn’t get down to town the whole winter. We would have to put away a lot of food and my mother had to figure out how to age the eggs in barrels. She had to cook and can, garden, milk cows, separate cream from milk, make butter . . . [having been gently raised back East, as a rancher’s wife], she learned how to do all that stuff—it was amazing.

YAP: Your second section called “Life’s Journey Home” centers on growing older. When referring to yourself in your bio you call yourself a “senior” and you call Fredrica a “senior” in the poem of the same name. Do you see yourself in Fredrica now as you have entered this older stage of life?

No, not Fredrica, but my mother and my aunt. My Aunt Peggy lived to be 103 and when she was in her 70s, she decided she was going to grow old gracefully. She was a very busy woman—did all kinds of project. . . . she kept chugging along all those years and always with a lot of laughter and a lot of good humor. And I’ve become the Aunt Peggy of my generation among my sisters’ children, and I don’t mind seeing myself that way. [Old age is] a kind of special time and a privileged time because you don’t have to prove anything anymore.

YAP: In “Old Age” you write, “these are the best years,” and talk about allowing the world’s youth to carry the burden of knowing “the unknowable” so you “old ones” can move “into a new world.” These words are beautiful and reminiscent of a future realm after this life. Paired with the title of this section, “Life’s Journey Home,” I’m curious as to what you believe our next life entails and if there is a spiritual aspect to your words?

There is a Native American belief that when you’re born you come through the Milky Way and there’s a person there called Blue Woman. [She] encourages the new life to go ahead and be born. Then, when somebody dies, they go back through the same portal and Blue Woman is there to welcome them back to the same world that they came from. That’s—in a way— my view: that after death of the body there’s some kind of life that goes on. It may not be angels with halos and sitting on white clouds, but there’s something that continues. . . . [Gurdjieff said] that depending on how we live there are various places where the spirit ends up. The ideal is to go back to the center of the universe—what you might call God; that original force that started everything.

YAP: In your poem “Montana,” I love the juxtaposition of the beauty of the natural world against the reality of the natural world. You talk about the mountains as “blue-shouldered and white peaked” but also “uncaring in their majesty” and the sun melting away snow that once again reveals the graves of your mom and your husband. Why are these contrasts important to you and how do you see the beauty and reality working together? 

I think that was part of growing up on a ranch. Seeing a lot of birth and death juxtaposed with animals on the ranch. [We lived on] a cattle ranch so we saw animals being born and I was interested in one being butchered, but my mother didn’t want me to watch. My father also had a very beloved dog who was a wonderful cow dog. My father accidentally killed him when he was backing up some huge machines and [ran over] the dog. . . . I saw a lot of extreme opposites in relation to nature. I think it happens within human beings also—there’s joy and there’s sorrow and they define each other.

YAP: Your final section is called “Seasoned with Humor.” How are you able to find humor within the trials of getting older?

I think my Aunt Peggy, who was a big influence in my life, was the one with the best sense of humor. . . . I went through a period of life where I was a sad person and being around my aunt was always a big help. Even when things were really hard, she had a sense of humor. At one point for instance, she fell and broke her back in her 90s, so she had to be in her room for a long time on a hospital bed. She asked if they could push her hospital bed around so she could look out the window because there was a squirrel feeder. There was one squirrel that would do all of this crazy stuff, and she would sit there and laugh—with a broken back. She was no sissy.

Also, with aging, I am lightening up. I don’t know exactly why. Because when you’re young and busy with a career and having children—there’s a lot that makes you go like this *Ellen furrows her brow and points to the space between her eyebrows* and it makes you get this crease. [With age] it seems more possible to just relax in front of something that is difficult. They say that things don’t hurt so much when you relax. It is when you tense that you make all your nerves jangle and relaxing feels better.

YAP: How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing various things for a long time. I was an editor, and I wrote some [articles] for the magazine I was working for which was Parabola Magazine. I only started writing poetry a little more than a year ago. I took a memoir class and started to privately publish for my children the story of my life and their life. My [memoir] teacher was really good, and I found out that she was going to be teaching a poetry class at the local OLLI Institute—the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (it’s a non-for profit that makes it possible to have classes for senior citizens at very little cost). Anyway, [my teacher] was going to give a poetry class so I thought well, let me try writing poetry. [My teacher] was very encouraging and we became very good friends. Eventually, one thing led to another and she actually proofread this manuscript for me. Because of the classes, I’ve [joined] some writers groups mostly for people like me—not so young. It’s been very inspiring. I love it.

YAP: What does having your poems published for others to read mean to you?

It’s a real shot in the arm. I just started writing poetry and already to have something that other people can read; I love it. It really inspires me to keep on going and keep on writing.

YAP: What was the inspiration behind the cover with three pencils?

I was just fooling around with my camera, and I [visualized] pictures of pencils. I got different pencils and lined them up in different ways. And then, [Kapua Iao, Editor-in-Chief] got [Yellow Arrow’s Creative Director, Alexa Laharty] to draw it and I really loved it. It was just a little visual moment that I was having with my pencils and my camera—I was just doodling around. I’m so glad [they] wanted to run with that idea.

YAP: Why did you decide to publish your work with YAP?

Because you accepted me! I sent it out to lots of different places and didn’t get any other offers. I’m thrilled. I also noticed that [Yellow Arrow had] lots of workshops and events so I’m hoping that once we are allowed to go out and meet people that I would love to find some writing groups!

***** 

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Ellen and Siobhan for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Evoking Provocations from Patti Ross: A Conversation

Overwhelmed by the gentrification occurring from 2010 to 2013 in the areas around North Avenue and St. Paul Street in Baltimore, Maryland, Patti Ross recognized that the people from the neighborhood were being slighted by their own city. While the tenants preached their woes of displacement and fear of homelessness, Patti listened, wrote, and became an activist for their concerns in order to let them be heard. From this, St. Paul Street Provocations, Patti’s debut chapbook with Yellow Arrow Publishing, now available for PRESALE and ready for release in July 2021, was born.

Patti Ross graduated from Washington, D.C.’s Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts and The American University. After graduation, several of her journalist pieces were published in the Washington Times and the Rural America newspapers. Retiring from a career in technology, Patti has rediscovered her love of writing and shares her voice as the spoken-word artist “little pi.” Her poems are published in the Pen In Hand Journal, PoetryXHunger website, and Oyster River Pages: Composite Dreams Issue, among others. You can find Patti at littlepisuniverse.com or on Facebook and Instagram.

A Yellow Arrow editorial associate, Bailey Drumm, recently interviewed Patti about her upcoming chapbook and what her home on St. Paul Street meant (and means) to her. You can also hear more about St. Paul Street Provocations and Patti tonight (February 9) at 7:00 p.m. with the Wilde Reading Series, also featuring Yellow Arrow’s very own Gwen Van Velsor.

YAP: What was the catalyst for the creation of St. Paul Street Provocations?

I am an advocate for the homeless and marginalized. I have long considered myself an advocate and am a member of the Poor People’s Campaign. I wanted some of those [people] that I met when I lived one block off North Avenue, in a somewhat blighted neighborhood, [I wanted their] voices to be heard, for them to be seen in some way—recognized. When I would chat with my homeless or economically and mentally challenged friends, they would all reveal a feeling of invisibility to society’s majority class.

YAP: What does Baltimore, especially St. Paul Street, mean to you?

Baltimore is my adopted city. Once I learned its history—I understood it better. I understood why there were streets that appear to be allies. I understood what Penn Ave and North Ave meant to the community. St. Paul Street and its community allowed me to rediscover and shape who I am. I often go back to the area and just sit and reflect. I can see evolution and the lack of progress at the same time. There is romance there for me.

YAP: This collection seems incredibly personal, genuine, and emotion-provoking. How would you describe the feeling of seeing the pieces put together in one place?

It is exciting and surrendering at the same time. The collection is very personal. Most of the poems were written out of experience—either my own sights or the stories of others.

YAP: Why ‘Provocations,’ specifically? What does that word mean to you in the context of the title?

[Provocations] is important in the title because the poems are about frustrations, irritations. The poems speak to injustices and the affronts that those who are marginalized deal with daily.

YAP: Along with writing, I hear you are part of the spoken-word community, sharing your voice as the spoken-word artist “little pi.” How did you originally get involved with the spoken-word community? 

I just jumped in. I went to the high school of performing arts in D.C., so I have known about performance poetry for quite some time. However, when I moved to Baltimore, I was looking for a way to share my thoughts and I started attending open mics. I was too scared to read at the time—I think I let my [age], being much older than those on stage, create a lack of confidence. Once I moved back to Ellicott City, an area I had lived for over 15 years, I felt comfortable performing and reading in front of an audience. Root Studio owned by Karen Isailovic was my first stage, and they held an open mic every Friday, so I started there. Once I built up my confidence I started going to Red Emma’s and that is where I saw and communed with some phenomenal slam champions and spoken-word artists.

YAP: How has spoken word helped you creatively, therapeutically, etc.?

Creatively it has helped [me] to discover and define my public persona. I am clear on what I want to advocate for and who. I also see it as a path to advocate and remind society of those on the fringes. Therapeutically? I’m glad you asked this. I get so much joy out of not just presenting my work but listening and sharing the work of others. I believe in a higher power and the stars of the universe. I think much of what we do as individuals is kismet.

YAP: What would you consider to be the heart or heat of this chapbook? 

It is all about recognition of what is happening in the streets or our cities and the things we choose to ignore. It is about a haunting that we need to rectify. For example, the poem “Indemnity,” or sometimes I call it “Football,” is all about remuneration. In that poem, the idea of a football game—played by men whose ancestors fought in the Civil War and by men whose ancestors were former slaves prior to that war—the lineage of one group can be easily dismissed.  In “Ghosting” families of color have accepted permanent separation for hopes of heritable betterment, right? Slave families were forcibly separated for the betterment of the slave owner and here we have post-slavery families willingly separating themselves.

YAP: Was there any particular piece that was hard to tackle and get to its final form?

“History Month” was tough. I was trying to say a lot in that piece, and I had a hard time finding a way to get it all in without sound preachy. I also understand the need for the naming of the month, but I do not like it. I would prefer the history of this country be told correctly without the revisions. I had conversations with elders who understood what I was saying but did not agree that the recognition month should be eliminated.

YAP: What does the featured mural (on the cover) mean to you, and to this collection? Were there any particular emotions it evoked, or direction of words it inspired?

The mural is the creation of Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn of jessie and katey; they are Baltimore-based muralists. They created the mural on the grounds of the dilapidated park across the street from my former apartment. (A side story is someone [once] planted rose bushes in the park and nurtured them until they grew beautiful blooms. I never saw anyone doing the work, but one day the roses were all in bloom and the park looked beautiful even with the trash and drug needles strewn between the grasses. The very next day, sometime in the early morning, when we woke up, the heads or blooms of all the bushes had been cut off and left on the ground. It was a sad and frightening sight.) I watched them daily create something beautiful out of something blighted. The mural is called “Walk the Line,” and in that neighborhood at that time, you very much had to walk a certain line. You had to be an insider. You had to know your way around. For me, the mural evoked a way out of whatever situation you [might] find yourself in.

YAP: Will you be including any other artwork of your own in the collection? If so, is it inspired by any particular poem or the collection as a whole?

I hope to have at least one piece of my artwork in the book and it is a bleeding or beating heart. In honor of George Perry Floyd, Jr.

YAP: Why did you choose Yellow Arrow to publish St. Paul Street Provocations?

I love the concept of a woman[-run] publishing company. As a feminist, I am always seeking opportunities to collaborate with like minds. I was elated when they decided to publish the book. I had been trying to figure out a home for the collection. In many ways, I had shifted in my writing, but the experiences still clung to me and I needed to find a place for the words to rest. I will never stop performing the poems until the injustices are corrected.

Something special though about [Yellow Arrow] is Ann Quinn—the poetry editor at [Yellow Arrow and] an elegant poet. I fell in love with a poem I heard her read from her book Final Deployment. The poem is called “Ma,” and it is about the ‘in between spaces’ the cracks, the voids where there is nothing. This resonated with me and my life on St. Paul Street. My apartment was in the front of the building on the first floor so I would sit in my very tall windows and watch people walk past and never look up. On the north side of North Avenue, was the beginning of Charles Village and daily, people were on a trek to get there—to Charles Village, not here, one block south of North Avenue. When I read Ann’s story of being a poetry ‘late bloomer,’ and I was even later than her (LOL), I thought perhaps [this] could be it. So, I sent the manuscript and prayed. I also loved the work that [Yellow Arrow] was doing in Highlandtown, creating [an] artistic community around writing. I regret I never made it to the house.

YAP: Though the chapbook is to be released in July, the prerelease coincides with tonight’s (February 9) Wilde Readings. Is there anything you would like to note in preparing for this event, especially given the current state of the world?

I think it is sad that [some of] these poems were written about a time roughly 10 years ago and, sadly, the [same] social justice points are still relevant today. We have made little progress in the way of providing for our sidelined brothers and sisters.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Patti and Bailey for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. If you are a journalist/writer/bookstagrammer and interested in writing a review of St. Paul Street Provocations or any of our other publications, please email editor@yellowarrowpublishing.com.

An Interview with Eva Niessner

Interview from fall 2020

Our fall 2020 marketing intern, Elaine Batty, recently interviewed author Eva Niessner. Eva is a writer living in Timonium, Maryland. Her work has been featured in Baltimore Magazine, Grub Street Literary Magazine, Phemme, and Crepe & Penn. She teaches English at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Huge thank you to Eva for sharing her insights with Elaine and for sharing her story as a writer.

EB: How did you get started as a writer? Do you have any favorite writers or any you draw inspiration from?

I know this is going to sound pretentious, but I don’t really ever feel like I ‘got started.’ I just was. Writing is as much an aspect of my identity as it is something that I do. That doesn’t mean I was naturally a fantastic writer with no practice and never had to learn or put in any effort, of course. It just means that learning and growing felt completely natural. I think of a baby just learning to walk. The baby isn’t born walking, and it takes a lot of stumbling and plopping over and whacking its head on the coffee table to go from crawling to running. But the baby never worries or wonders, “Wouldn’t it be great to be a walker?” It just happens. That’s kind of how I feel about developing as a writer. I had to smack my head on a lot of metaphorical coffee tables, but I always knew that’s what I would be. Even when I feel doubt or angst about a specific piece, I have very rarely doubted that I am a writer.

I think Mary Roach of Stiff fame might be one of my biggest inspirations, period. She really did set the tone for balancing the funny and the weird and the informative, and the qualities that I want people to associate with me are funny, weird, and informative. So she’s quite an idol of mine. If I could write any creative nonfiction piece half as entertaining as her stuff, I’d die happy. I’ve also been a huge fan of David Sedaris for many years, though ‘fan’ has sort of shifted into a Deadhead-ish follower (I’ve been to readings in three states) and then into a loose friendship.

EB: What do you think the implications of being a woman writer/woman in the literary world are and what does this mean to you?

For a long time, I didn’t really think about this. I spent my youth reading female authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Madeleine L’Engle, Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, and Judy Blume, and so it took me a long time to recognize that there was really anything distinctive or unique about making it as a woman writer. That’s a privilege of my age, I think, being a child of the girl-power 90s. I grew up in a household where my ambitions to write were deeply and loudly encouraged, and then I had a lot of fantastic female writing teachers and professors. But as I grew up I realized how much intersectionality mattered and how necessary it was to go looking for more [women-created] works. A woman of color writing about her experiences, or an immigrant woman writing about her experiences, or a queer woman writing about her experiences—these are not really taught in schools as frequently. Maybe you’ll read Zora Neale Hurston in high school, or maybe you’ll read Amy Tan. That’s often it. It usually takes having a special teacher who will encourage you to go further and seek out the kind of books that aren’t part of the curriculum. I never saw my own queerness in anything I read in high school, only in books I was guided toward or that I discovered on my own. And I still got far more representation than many. As a white woman, I know it’s so easy to get complacent and think, “Oh, I read plenty of women writers.” Sure, but if you’re leaving out works by women of color, or queer women, or trans women, or women from other religions or cultures or backgrounds, you’re only broadening your horizons slightly.

One of the areas I’ve seen more debate over the role of women writers is in fan fiction. I write quite a bit of that, and often there’s a weird stigma given to adult women who choose to do it. You sometimes see criticism that’s essentially, “Don’t you have kids to take care of?” when an adult woman wants to write, like, erotic fan stuff. I’d love to see a shift in that thinking that says women are either homemakers or deviants. I certainly don’t think of myself as either of those.

EB: What are your favorite things to write and why?

For a long time I pretty much only wrote fiction. Then in college and graduate school I was reading a lot of memoirs and creative nonfiction pieces, and that just clicked perfectly. I love talking about myself, but I am also wildly intrigued by trivia facts. My whole family is like this. We’ll just sit around and quiz each other. Creative nonfiction is a great way to just muse about trivia for me. You can take your obsession du jour and expand on your thoughts. Somewhere along the way, that blob of rambling and opinion can be shaped, like potter’s clay, into something that’s actually interesting and cohesive. That’s so rewarding to me—seeing all of my random thoughts and bits and lines that I was proud of actually connect and become a full and vibrant work. It’s almost like . . . the good version of [the] imposter syndrome, the feeling that only you know how rough and random it started out. Someone can read it and say, “Oh this is so well-done,” and you can sit there and think, heh, this used to just be a bunch of facts about birds that I taped together and now look at it.

EB: What is your writing process like and what do you do to get motivated?

When I took writing classes, I would always feel like a real loser when I’d learn about how, I don’t know, Ernest Hemingway would get up at 5 a.m. and write until noon every day and then go sport fishing or punch someone in the face over and over until it was dinnertime. I never had the kind of discipline to get up early and write, and I suspect I never will. It took a long time for me to realize that you don’t have to do things a certain way to get results. I’m not a morning person, and I do almost all of my writing in the evening, after I’m finished working for the day and I don’t have that stuff hanging over me.

I usually get ideas when I’m driving to a very familiar place or washing dishes or when I’m in the middle of any fairly mindless task. There’s something great about being in that mode, with your body on autopilot and then your brain allowed to wander. I usually let an idea simmer for a long time. The story I wrote for this newest issue of Grub Street, for instance, “Ballad of the Weird Girl,” that was maybe a year and a half in the making. Originally, I was just going to write about how weirdly connected I felt to true crime podcast hosts because I would listen to them talk all night and their voices became so familiar to me. But I started working backward and thinking about, well, why would that kind of thing be so appealing to me in the first place? So that was how that came about.

EB: In what ways do you think writers, specifically female writers, can change the world?

Something that I think is a huge problem in the world of writing in general, though it also applies to movies and TV shows and things like that, is the idea that men are the default and that anyone can project their own hopes and dreams and fears onto a male character, while female characters are somehow only for women. I don’t disagree with the idea that a person who doesn’t identify as a man can connect to and love and empathize with a male character. I do all the time! But there’s an assumption that starts when kids are little, that boys will not like stories about girls because they can’t relate. Well, we can’t relate to anything we’re not exposed to. 

To the actual question, then—I think female writers specifically can change the world by not compromising their vision or experience or their stories because they’re ‘girl stories.’ The more ‘girl stories’ that get put out into the world, the more readers will realize how rich and different and worthwhile they are. 

EB: Where can our readers find your work?

I’ve been published in Grub Street twice as well as several online journals and zines—Crepe & Penn and Phemme. Right now, I’m hoping to wrangle some short pieces of nonfiction into a collection.

---

Elaine Batty is a student at Towson University graduating with a BS in English on the literature track. Her poetry has been featured in the College of Southern Maryland’s Connections literary magazine. In her free time, she enjoys reading all genres of fiction, writing poetry, and playing with her two cats, Catlynn and Cleocatra. Elaine’s two real passions are literature and travel, and she plans to look for a job following graduation that will allow her to pursue both full time. We at Yellow Arrow want to send a huge thank you to her for all her hard work over the past few months. Mahalo nui loa!

You can follow Eva Niessner on Instagram @asongoficeandeva.

*****

Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

the samurai: a conversation with Linda M. Crate

They say to let go of your past, but I think that this is a mistake.

Sometimes the past tethers you on the right path for your future.

The word ‘samurai’ can loosely be translated into meaning “those who serve.” In Linda M. Crate’s soon to be released chapbook, the samurai, illustrated by Ann Marie Sekeres (annmarieprojects.com), this interpretation is especially pertinent as her collection of poems stems from a dream in which a samurai appeared and inspired her to heal from past experiences to activate her full potential. Linda’s upcoming Yellow Arrow Publishing chapbook about rebirth, past lives, and learning from experience is now available for PRESALE and will be released October 2020.

A Yellow Arrow editorial associate, Siobhan McKenna, interviewed Linda about the samurai, reading messages from our dreams, and learning to choose how we move forward after darkness threatens to saturate our lives.

YAP: The basis of this chapbook came from a vivid dream you had, could you speak a little more about that? 

When I have dreams, most of them I remember in bits of pieces, but I don’t really remember them very well. But the [samurai] in [this] dream was very quiet and subtle—she had a presence. I’ve [even] had a few daydreams about the figure from this book. She is very prominent when I see her in my dreams, but the one dream I had at first was just the one where she’s fighting for her emperor—the ruler of her country—and ends up falling off the roof. The dream was terrifying because I felt the falling [of the samurai] and it triggered something. I woke up scared and had to remind myself that I wasn’t falling off a building. It was very lifelike and it felt like it was happening to me in the moment. 

YAP: Why do you believe you were having these dreams?

I believe that we have past lives. I didn’t always believe that, which I talk a little bit about in the chapbook. And when a fellow student at school mentioned a past life, I thought, eh, I don’t know about that, but this dream was so powerful and she was so prominent that I thought, well you know maybe there is something to that. Because why else would I be having a dream about somebody who is so different from me and [had] a very different life? Now, sometimes [dreams] are just your subconscious babbling but sometimes they are messages.

YAP: What made you want to turn this dream into a collection of poems? 

I thought that I needed to honor [the samurai]. I felt like I needed to put down in words what happened in my dream and make it more of a reality—I wanted to share my experience. And I feel like there are unexplainable things in life and connections that we don’t really understand, and I feel like our past lives could be key to parts of our personality.

YAP: Why did you think the format of a series of poems rather than a short story served this dream better?

I think that with a short story you start at one point and then end up at another and what you originally set out to write isn’t always what comes out in the end, but you can get some of the concepts that you want in there. But ultimately, the characters take the reigns and make it theirs—at least mine do—mine are very vocal. So I thought I’m going to sit down and write this and see if this works. And I feel like as a cohesive form, [a series of poems] did work as a stream of consciousness [for me to convey] what I needed to say. 

YAP: Zen Buddhism, introduced into Japan from China, held a great appeal for many samurai and in Zen Buddhism, there is a belief that salvation comes from within, which is a prominent theme in your chapbook. Did you think about this belief system as you were writing?

Oh very much so—I’m very Zen! In college, I took a lot of theology courses because I wanted to know what other cultures believed in. I wanted to know more about what people believed and why people are the way they are. I’m also very connected to nature, and I feel like we have to save ourselves. As much as we like the hero to save us, sometimes we have to be our own hero because there isn’t always going to be someone there for you. Unfortunately, people have let me down a lot in my life, and I’ve had to rely on myself. And in a way it’s sad, but I’m glad I’m this way because it [has made] me stronger. 

YAP: Historically, samurai were mainly men, and female warriors were known by a different name [Onna-bugeisha]. Did you research more about Japanese culture after dreaming about the samurai woman and how did you navigate using this traditionally masculine term? 

I did. I feel like [the term] samurai just captured how I felt about her and how she felt about herself. I know there is a different term, but why does it have to be that way? Why does it have to be that the man gets more recognition than the woman? Why does the woman have to be lower than a man? It was very important for me to place [the women in my dream] on equal footing, and I knew people were more familiar with samurai. It’s important to have a term that people understood. Some people might have found it interesting [to use the female term] while other people would’ve said, “I don’t know what that is.” A lot of people do their research, but then there’s others who just want something to read that they can relate to or are intrigued by. 

YAP: In this chapbook, there is a theme of choosing “tranquility and places of hope” such as in the poem, “the kindest moonlight.” Do you think we have a choice when it comes to focusing on the light versus dark in our lives?

Oh, absolutely. I mean no one chooses to go through dark periods and dark phases, but I feel like there is always that little glint of hope, that little horizon, that light at the end of the tunnel. And I think if you try to focus your sight on your future and getting out of the present darkness—that’s a lot easier. If you dwell on the darkness, the bad times, the bad things, you’re going to feel like there’s anger dragging you down because there’s no hope. And I’ve never wanted to live in a world without hope. I’m the eternal optimist I guess. The one that’s always going to push forward; always going to believe that we can achieve better things and better worlds. You can’t choose if you have a mental illness or somebody dying, but you can choose to either dwell or choose to overcome. My mom told me when I was younger that you have two choices: you can be a victim or a survivor. So I’ve always chosen to be a survivor because I refuse to be in that vulnerable place where nothing can be better than this right now. 

YAP: What are your thoughts on the cover image and how your chapbook is represented at first glance?

I absolutely adore the cover image. I think it's a good representation of my dream and of the content in the chapbook. I also love that the exterior has butterflies as they're representative of the idea of rebirth and reincarnation, which are also themes that I cover in the chapbook. I think the idea of connections [to the] past and present is nicely conveyed here. I really appreciate the time and input each of the editors took in trying to help me polish my book. I'm also thankful that Anne Marie was so receptive to my ideas and curious to understand the chapbook and the ideas that were in it. I think that's what makes the illustrations work so flawlessly with my words.

YAP: I know the interior images haven’t been released yet, but how do you think they relate to the themes in your book?

I think [the woman] is a good depiction of the strength and ferocity of a warrior—she also has that schooled face which doesn't betray her emotions, which is something that I touch upon in the chapbook. I think the interior [images work] well with not only the title, but my depiction of the woman in my dream.

YAP: In your profession, you write a great deal of fiction, how do you find the process of writing fiction versus poetry different and/or similar?

It’s different in that with poetry you can talk about yourself and anybody else in your life or situation. But when I’m working on novels or short stories usually a character comes to me and I build around a theme until it develops into something else. And they’re similar in a way because it is a process and it doesn’t always come out right the first time so you have to think [about] what works and what doesn’t work and go from there. But to me, it depends on the day and what I’m feeling—what mood I’m in. Sometimes I feel like writing more fiction and then there’s other days when poetry is what comes more naturally. It’s funny because people ask, “How do you decide?” and it’s just my mind has a switch and whatever the switch says is what we go with.

YAP: In the past, you have published with Yellow Arrow, why did you choose to publish with us again?

I always like them and their philosophy. I’ve always felt that they are very respectful of my work and me. I usually write darker themes and writing [for Yellow Arrow] allowed me to focus on something positive and [the samurai] is a pretty positive figure in my life so I wanted to see what I could come up with. It was a different experience for me and it’s good to challenge [myself] once in a while so that’s what I did.

YAP: What do you hope people take from the chapbook?

We can learn from the past, but our lives aren’t set in stone. If you are going through something negative in your life, it can get better. And sometimes you need to listen to that little voice inside your head that keeps telling you to go forward because it’s important to follow your dreams, to have hope, and begin again. As painful as it is to lose your old self, you have to in order to grow.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Linda and Siobhan for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Transformation Through Poetry: A Conversation with Roz Weaver

Roz Weaver is a poet and spoken-word artist who grew up by the beach in Fornby, near Liverpool, England. She now resides in Leeds where in addition to writing poetry she works as a social worker and is a licensed therapist. Weaver’s upcoming Yellow Arrow Publishing chapbook on trauma and transformation, Smoke the Peace Pipe, is now available for presale and will be released August 2020. Beginning Tuesday, July 21, Weaver will host a six-week “Poetry as Therapy” online workshop with Yellow Arrow.

Yellow Arrow editorial associate, Siobhan McKenna, spoke with Weaver about her new chapbook, spoken word, and her thoughts on using poetry as a therapy tool at a time when our world is in need of great healing.

YAP: How did you begin writing poetry?

I enjoyed drama as I was growing up and about three and a half years ago, I started writing and reading poetry. After I watched a TED Talk by Rupi Kaur, I read some of her poetry and started writing. I think some of the stuff that she talks about in her poetry is something that gave me the confidence to think about how I would word what I wanted to talk about. [My poetry] was all really terrible to start with, but then I went from there.

YAP: How did you start performing as a spoken-word artist?

Similar to how I started writing, I had in my head for about a year a piece that I thought would be really good as a spoken-word piece and there was a spoken-word night in Manchester and I put my name on the list, but I backed out a few days beforehand because I was terrified. It took about a year after that to try again, and I still have never performed that poem! But after that, I never started to specifically design my poems for spoken word, but I would go up on the stage more often. [Spoken word] still makes me feel anxious most of the time—I don’t really like it! But you have to keep putting yourself in that discomfort zone. I do get that buzz from performing, but all before it I’m a bunch of nerves!

YAP: What does spoken word bring to poetry?

I think it can bring something really different from page poetry. There are some great places around where I live that do spoken-word events and the poetry can blend to almost being like music or song—its lyrics, its rap, some of them have live bands that will improvise to the rhythm of how someone is speaking. And sometimes, there will be someone sitting in the audience who needs to hear what you’re talking about whether it’s a shared experience, a reframing of perspective, or they’re ignorant to the thing someone is talking about and they need to have that learning. There is also a community feel [during spoken-word performances] when everybody clicks their fingers when they agree with a bit in a poem—rather than clapping or whooping, which might interrupt the speaker—I find [the clicks] really cute and adds to the vibe.

YAP: How do you translate spoken to written?

When I am doing a spoken-word poem it takes me forever because I start it and then I try to find the next line and it will take me hours or days or weeks to put one together. And generally for spoken word, in order to speak long about a subject, I need to be pretty passionate about a subject that I can’t just summarize on a page.

YAP: Do you find different meanings coming through when performing spoken-word poetry that you didn’t realize when you originally wrote the piece?

[One poetry line] that I may think is a very significant line in a piece, someone else will jump to something completely different and say that was the bit that they really identified with, which is often similar to page poetry. Lines can be interpreted in really different ways and whether its spoken-word or page poetry, once [a poet has] written something we don’t have a say in what it means to other people. I really don’t like when someone introduces their piece and the introduction about their piece is as long as their piece. I think it prevents somebody in the audience from interpreting the piece in a different way and sometimes the way in which someone interprets your poem is better than what your original meaning was and you say [jokingly], “Oh, yeah, I totally meant that.”

YAP: How can poetry be used as a type of therapy?

Poetry is a form of expression, and I’ve found it’s easier to put things into words in a poem rather than speaking to somebody face-to-face. For example, sometimes in a conversation with someone they want to find a solution, and with a poem, you can leave it hanging with the raw emotion and you don’t have someone else giving you advice. Sometimes, you have the words for something, but you don’t know how to feel about it yet or you can be quite numb to something and it’s only after I wrote a poem that I’ve really connected what is going on for me.

YAP: What inspired you to create the “Poetry as Therapy” workshop [now sold out!] for YAP?

I’m in my final module of my creative writing masters and in my first year, we were asked to build a set of workshops. I have quite a lot of personal interest around therapy and poetry therapy because it is a bigger thing in America, but it doesn’t exist in the UK so I wanted to build on that idea. So I created the workshops for a university module and they were sitting there and I thought it would be nice at one point to do something with them. The original ones that I put together were for women who had experienced violence so for the Yellow Arrow sessions I adapted them.

YAP: Who should attend your workshops?

Anybody! I think if people are interested in poetry, creative writing in general, or if people are trying to work through things that are going on for them then it might be a good tool to start that journey. I am a qualified therapist but the workshops aren’t therapy. People don’t have to share anything that they don’t want to. A lot of [the workshop] will be [completing] different exercises and prior readings and going away and trying some of the [activities] out by yourself. I’m sure I’ll do all the exercises along with people—I probably need it right now as well!

YAP: Why were you drawn to publish with Yellow Arrow Publishing?

I love Yellow Arrow. It’s been two years since I was first published by [Yellow Arrow Publishing] in one of their journals. I’ve been published two or three times, and I’ve always found the process lovely. Gwen [the YAP founder] would handwrite thank-you notes and post me this hand-bound journal from America and it’s just lovely. I find it to be a very supportive environment, warm, welcoming, and I love that it promotes writers who identify as women. It feels like so much care is taken with people’s work. They care about you, and I really love the ethos of the organization.

YAP: The title of your chapbook, Smoke the Peace Pipe, sounds like a direct call to action and almost invites the reader to join with you as well, was this intentional and how did you settle on the title of the chapbook?

I wish that is why I chose that! I settled on it after I had already ordered the [poems in the] chapbook to flow from a place of challenge and dark to moving into the light and [“Smoke the Peace Pipe”] worked perfectly as the final poem. I was trying to think of titles, and I liked it as the overall theme of the book—finding peace with yourself. [Smoke the Peace Pipe] has that meaning with me.

Sometimes we are our own worst enemies, and we have all these different parts of ourselves, which we don’t let exist at the same time. We lock-off bits, we avoid things, and we don’t see how we can feel different feelings at once; we feel like we need to be on this linear trajectory. There’s a poet named, Ijeoma Umebinyuo and she has a poem that says sometimes, “Healing comes in waves / and maybe today / the wave hits the rocks / and that’s ok” and I wanted to get that across.

I suppose the peace pipe, in terms of symbolism as well, is a link to something spiritual, nature, mother earth, and to the things that can help heal us. The peace pipe as a symbol is something really sacred, and I wanted to honor where that comes from and not use the phrase lightly. I’m really aware that the meaning and the history are not mine. And I wanted to pay tribute to [the fact] that we learn from other communities and other ways of being, other ways of knowing.

YAP: How did you choose the cover art for the chapbook?

The cover [was] designed by a tattoo artist in Scotland, Joanne Baker. She was a fine arts grad before she got into tattooing. She did one of my tattoos that was in part inspired by Rupi Kaur. I love [Joanne’s] artwork and I wanted to do it with someone British and after thinking about how we could make it work, Joanne was up for it. I sent Joanne a few poems and she came back with a few different ideas and it worked like that. She’s just an amazing artist and she had never done a book cover before so for her it was something to add to the portfolio. It felt really good to collaborate with her rather than pick an image that didn’t have any meaning for me.

YAP: 2020 has been a turbulent year in many ways. What role does poetry play in the face of an ongoing pandemic and fervent call for action against racial injustice?

I think people have had a lot of alone time whether to read or write. And linking back to poetry as therapy, poetry is definitely a way to express frustrations, fears, or keep a record of the small daily things to be grateful for. I think for me I’ve seen more impactful poetry, not around coronavirus, but more around Black Lives Matter. I’ve seen a lot of spoken word that has shown up, and I hope that stays. There are a couple poets on Instagram who I follow with minority backgrounds and some of the work they share is so inspiring it just leaves me at a loss for words. I think poetry sparks debate and conversations. And I think that’s needed whether it is because people are feeling lonely or as a way to continue to inspire us and to think about and change how we do things and move to a new normal in terms of coronavirus or a new normal around Black Lives Matter or trans rights. And none of this is new; it was just buried. The other day I was listening to a poet in the UK, Benjamin Zephaniah. He is a spoken-word/music/performance poet and he wrote a song called, “Dis Policeman Keeps On Kicking Me to Death.” And he wrote that almost 10 years ago in relation to one of his family members who had a similar death to George Floyd, but in the UK. So one story just hits the news, but it’s been happening everywhere all the time, which is really scary.

YAP: Is there a limit to how poetry gives us access to someone else’s lived experiences?

I think someone has to be in a place to hear it, especially if it’s something that challenges their world views or something that could be triggering. At spoken-word events, some people will have trigger warnings before a piece. And it’s ok that we don’t get something that someone is talking about because it is beautiful that there are so many different perspectives—as long as it’s not harmful to somebody else.

YAP: What knowledge or feelings do you hope readers gain from reading your chapbook?

To put some context to it, the trauma I refer to is related to my experience with sexual violence. I didn’t want to expand loads because trauma can come in so many different ways for people, and I wanted it to be relatable to people who have been through anything. I hope that people can know that things get better. In terms of my healing, [it has been helpful] knowing that there are other people out there who get it and that you are not alone. If it reaches one other person and that makes them realize that someone has gone through something similar, survived, and is all right, then that is really important.

There is an article in The Independent that in the UK only 1.5% of rapists that are charged by police are prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service. I don’t know what world we are living in, but it’s not one that feels like it takes this stuff seriously. I think systems are failing so many people. And sometimes I read stuff like that and I think about all of the people who don’t report things to the police and why would they when that’s the statistic. And why would they when a lot of the police in the system treat women like they do—because it is majority women who experience [sexual violence]. For me, it is finding alternative ways for healing when you don’t always get the response that you want from the systems around you, from the people who you would want to get criminal justice from, and from people who are close to you who don’t know how to respond. [My chapbook] is something that can say that you are not alone and there are ways you can explore this and things that you can do to start to feel better.

*****

Every writer has a story to tell and every story is worth telling. Thank you Roz and Siobhan for such an insightful conversation. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts.

Writers in Real Life: Carol Clupny

We’re so happy to announce that Yellow Arrow contributor Carol Clupny, whose essay “Bus, Burros and Broken Beer Bottles” ran in Vol. 1, has a book coming out this month! Carol lives in Oregon, so we conducted an email interview with her.

What is your inspiration for writing?

Having Parkinson’s Disease is like having Robin Hood become part of your life. He steals from the rich part of you the things that make you alive; your ability to move, your facial expression, your tone of voice, your handwriting, your smell and taste and on and on. When your spirit has become poor, and there is not much left of you, he sees the poverty in you and brings you gifts. The gifts are quite unexpected. Some people with Parkinson’s can’t see their gift at all.

The three words “You have Parkinson’s” either shuts you down hard or opens you up softly. When you can see past those words, and they are only words, you become the definition.

The gifts help us define our new selves: a canvas and oils, a guitar, a sense of service, a potter’s wheel, poetry,  compassion, or wisdom to share with the newly diagnosed.   

The gift that came to me was a surprise. Writing!  Up to this point in my life I had only written technical reports and a few brief articles for professional journals. I began to share my travels via social media. The more I wrote the more encouragement to publish came my way. When the subtle encouragement felt more like a hard push I gave in. I found someone to look at my short pieces of writing and she saw the much bigger story. To bring together hundreds of posts and blogs and letters into a cohesive memoir was a huge task, yet one I felt compelled to complete as Robin (aka Parkinson’s disease) kept sneaking in the back door to take away more and more of me.

I have to use this  gift. I have to let people know they can laugh at their challenges. There is hope ahead in that tiny light at the end of the dark tunnel. There is adventure to be had, friendships to be made and hopefully a cure to be found. I want to tell the world about it.

Where do you write?

I have composed pieces from the stoker’s seat on our tandem bike and walking down a trail eating the dust of the person dragging their feet in front of me, visualizing typing and seeing the words on the screen so I can recall just how it happened when I can get to a word processor. I have plunked away with my stylus on my tiny phone keyboard in an albergue with 20 snoring pilgrims and in a tent in someone’s front yard in small town Iowa in rhythm with the splattering rain. I have edited late at night and in the early morning hours when I should have been sleeping like the rest of the pickers at a blue grass festival. Although most of the book was written as I traveled, it was put together in a spare bedroom turned office in our house.  I sit at a dark wood computer desk with piles of papers and a window where I can look out at my two old horses. I type on my son’s gaming computer, with a fancy lit up keyboard and a mouse that accidentally gets set in motion by my trembling right hand. This computer is also a gift as I have lost the ability to hand-write anything legibly. It has to be absolutely quiet when I am at the computer. Even my husband’s breathing at his desk a few feet from mine distracts me.

Carol was kind enough to share an excerpt from her book, The Ribbon of Road Ahead:  One Woman’s Remarkable Journey with Parkinson’s Disease

It started in the pit of my stomach as a queasy feeling and worked its way up to tighten my throat. I tried to ignore the sensation and keep hiking. The trekking pole on the end of my right arm clinked on the pavement. My left foot moved forward. I reached my arm out with the left pole. My right foot didn’t want to move. It was as if my foot had been inserted into a boot of quick-dry cement. Not only did my right foot not want to cooperate, but also the sweat on my face now turned into a running stream of sunscreen stinging my eyes. The sun heated up the surface of this black asphalt country lane out of the village of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. The heat was stifling. A car approached from behind, and the groups of people with their colorful backpacks moved to the sides of the lane to let it pass. The vehicle lost its momentum on the steep incline as it slowed for the walkers, and it had to back down to take another run at it. My throat felt tight and very dry. Hot, steep, stinging eyes, leg won’t work … Oh … my … God. If the rest of this Camino is anything like this, I am in for it! There’s no way I am going to be able to walk the five hundred miles to Santiago de Compostela. “My men,” as I thought of them, were all ahead of me now. My scream was stifled before it got out of my mouth, but I still had some tears left. They rolled down my cheeks as I tried to catch up with the guys. “Charlie,” I squeaked out, then “Charlie,” a little louder. He turned around, and as I saw him look at me, I crumpled right there on the hot pavement: backpack, hiking sticks, and all. Nearby walkers rushed to me. By the time Charlie got there, I was a sobbing mess of panic.

How to purchase the book:  Presale begins March 11

You can order directly from Carol at  https://ultreiablog.org

The paperback and e-version will also be available on Amazon.

Writers in Real Life: Jessica Cappelluti and Edele Morgan

Student and Teacher Writers

Here at Yellow Arrow, we live for moments like these. Meet Jessica and Edele. Both of these poets were published in the latest issue of our literary journal. Edele's poem "Good," leads the journal as we explore the theme of Doubt. This talented high schooler informed us (well after the publication was under way) that her teacher and mentor Jessica Cappelluti also had a poem accepted in the same issue of our journal. Talk about serendipity.

Ms. Morgan shared these thoughts about her teacher:

"Ms. Cappelluti is my English teacher this year and she has had a great influence on me as a writer and a person. I'm lucky to not only have her as a teacher but as a caring and supportive role model in my life. I have her class last period every day so as soon as I get there I tell her all about what's going on, good or bad. She always listens and reassures me if anything has gone wrong and praises my achievements and celebrates with me when things go right. Every class we start with journaling. Ms. Cappelluti is the first teacher I've had to ever give her students time to write about ourselves or things we care about and give us the choice to share or just keep it to ourselves. She has also encouraged us to try to write poetry and actually gave me an extra journal that is now my poetry book. When Ms. Cappelluti first told me about Yellow Arrow Journal I was so excited at the thought of us doing this together and myself possibly getting published for the first time. I started to brainstorm right away and sent in three of my poems. I got the email saying that one of my poems was chosen during my sixth period U.S. history class and immediately called my mom. For the rest of the day I was bubbling with anticipation to tell Ms. Cappelluti and when I finally got to tell her I found out that she got chosen too. We talked about it almost everyday and couldn't wait to get our copies of the journal. I'm so grateful for Ms. Cappelluti and everything she has done for me because without her I would likely not have the passion for writing and for life that I have today."

Ms. Cappelluti shared these thoughts about her student:

"It was definitely synchronous that we were both accepted.  It is funny how it worked out, because my mom has always been my support; she's the one who taught me how to write and helped me to cultivate my voice.  When I was in high school, I wrote at least one poem a day, and my mother was the only person who I would allow to read it.  I've been writing poetry my whole life, but I never thought to submit one for publication. My mom told me about the Yellow Arrow Journal, and urged me to send something.  When I discovered that it was for women, I knew I had to tell Edele.  Edele is a very special young woman.  She is gifted and philosophical and deep.  I begin all of my classes with 5 minutes of journaling, and Edele usually has trouble stopping at 5 minutes.  Thankfully, she is in my last period class, so she will often stay late to continue writing, and then show me her journal.  She comes in to school and tells me that she wrote multiple poems over the weekend, or over a school vacation.  I knew she needed to submit a poem, and I'm so glad she did."

We are so grateful that these women shared this special story with us. We hope you keep writing forever and ever.