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10 Questions for Jody Winer


Can I stop a dog from gnawing its tail?
you ask. Save a child from blindness? Rescue
a meadow? You want to understand your
range of motion. You will face rogue rivers,
scheming mosquitoes, rice shortages. Not
to mention surgeons with unsteady hands.
—from “Welcome to Guardian Angel School”, Fall 2018 (Vol. 59, Issue 3)

 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My first published poem described a photograph as viewed by the narrator, and then from the point of view of a man in the photo at the moment it was taken. I still like to work with a framework, structure, or form—sometimes one I invent. The poem uses assonance, internal rhyme, and slant rhyme—devices of sound that I continue to favor.

What writers or works have influenced the way you write now?
Almost any poet I read is instructive. I am grateful to Wislawa Syzymborska, Charles Simic, and John Berryman for their darkly humorous treatment of serious subjects. I’ve learned from the unexpected ways Elizabeth Bishop and Billy Collins embark from the everyday. I admire the musical language of Rowan Ricardo Phillips and Kay Ryan.

What other professions have you worked in?
I’ve worked as a librarian, video editor, and pseudonymous author of (untrue) True Stories Stranger Than Fiction. My main career has been as a self-employed marketing writer, which allowed me to get a dog. I received a paycheck as a dog wrangler when my dog was in a TV commercial. I once gave a New Yorker cartoonist an idea and he used it. With a friend I created The Care Organizer, a notebook to help caregivers.

What did you want to be when you were young?
A writer, though I had no clue what it involved. Travel to exotic destinations, cigarettes, intense conversations with charismatic people, passion, and wine loomed large in my romantic imagination of the job. Some of those things have in fact been entailed, but not in the ways I expected.

Both my parents loved literature and wrote for their own pleasure. I inherited files of their manuscripts, the old typewriter ink fading.

What inspired you to write this piece?
Walking in Manhattan, I spotted a sign over the door of an imposing brick building: Guardian Angel School. I made note, and on my way home thought about what the curriculum might be. One painful aspect of human life is how hard (often impossible) it is to protect and keep safe another person—even those we love most. Our limited abilities are humbling. What can we control in our situation? How should we act? The poem raises these questions.

The narrator likes imperatives, and that bossy voice helps the writer (me) explore the theme of powerlessness. The loose, slightly broken sonnet form contains and counters the sense of chaos and despair.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
I love New York, where I’ve lived most of my adult life. Walk just one city block, keep your ears and eyes open – and a metaphor, snippet of conversation, act of compassion, odd behavior, or intriguing piece of detritus will present itself. I’m fascinated by Japan—both real and imagined—where I traveled this year.

The profound mysteries of the natural world—and life as part of it—also influence my writing.

Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
No. Playing music when I write interferes with the rhythms of words in my head—though for many years Philip Glass’s incantatory The Photographer helped me rev up prior to starting.

If you could work in another art form what would it be?
Making something solid and wordless from clay or wood appeals. Or I might stray further and work as a scientist—parse the world from a totally different perspective.

What are you working on currently?
I want to loosen up and energize my language, deviate more from narrative constraints, and be playful. I wrote sonnets for two years and am moving on from that. Breaking out of habits is a challenge, but fun. I’m also assembling a book manuscript. Like many, I’m working to keep faith that poetry has value in these dark days.

What are you reading right now?           
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon and Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English edited by Agha Shahid Ali. I am re-reading Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith. I’m a loyal fan of Poem-a-Day from the Academy of American Poets. The monthly guest curators choose wildly diverse and surprising works.

 

JODY WINER’S poetry has appeared in Epoch, the Massachusetts Review, Open City, Phoebe, Poet Lore, Spoon River Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, South Carolina Review and Mudfish. She has won fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.


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