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This week I am bringing you the story of Lisa Cihlar. Lisa is an author & poet. She was kind enough to let me interview her about her latest work The Insomniac’s House.
1Please tell me a bit about yourself.
I grew up in Door County, WI. The house we lived in was surrounded by a cattail and willow swamp. It was an old farm house and there was no tub or shower when we moved in so my father put one in the basement. Just a hose and showerhead hanging from the ceiling joists with a plastic curtain for some privacy. Also in the basement were salamanders, little red bellied snakes, and plenty of bugs. Sounds weird, but that was the life I lived, so it was not odd to me at all.
When did you start writing poetry?
I won a poetry contest when I was in the 4thgrade. All I remember was the line “Flutter flutter butterfly.” I guess I was into rhyming in those days. I also won a contest in high school. An insipid and teenage angst filled poem. I was a little better in college. About seven years ago I began writing poetry seriously. I suppose there is still some angst. It is just articulated in a better way now.
In your chapbook, The Insomniac’s House Swampy Woman comes to play in almost every poem-how did she
come to be and what does she represent to you?
I think of Swampy Woman as Mother Nature on steroids. Nature does not have feelings for humankind. It just is. We are the ones that anthropomorphize the natural world. And we change it to suit ourselves. Swampy Woman carries a lot of sadness in her heart for what has been lost. She is also a sexual being because nature is about procreation. I wrote a poem where she showed up. A few months later she turned up in another one and then I was on a roll and wrote all of them in about a month. I still occasionally write one, but mostly, she is finished with me.
This collection (The Insomniac’s House) of poetry offers such a powerful female role model, what do you hope
she inspires in women?
I think women have a lot of unused power. I think we don’t stand up and say NO often enough. Maybe things are changing. Maybe Rush Limbaugh started a tide of change.
What type of poetry do you enjoy writing the most?
About a year and a half ago I began writing prose poetry and it became my form of choice. I occasionally write lined poetry but mostly I write in little boxes of prose. It feels freeing to me. Surrealism was not something I did much of when I was writing lined poems but the prose poems brought out that side of my brain. I love a pig preaching a sermon or a chicken that is self-aware. I think my poems now are kind of beautiful and the images, no matter how bizarre, are believable when the readers suspend disbelief.
Tell me about some of your favorite poets.
Traci Brimhall has written an amazing book titled “Rookery.” I have a platonic crush on her and she has no idea I exist. Isn’t that the way of the world? LOL! Brigit Pegeen Kelly makes me so jealous with “Song” that I turn green whenever I read her book. But there is a poem “Testy Pony” by Zachary Schomburg that breaks my heart every time I read it. If you want a good cry, search it out. In fact here is a link to it: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21895. I read it again while looking up the link and I still get gooseflesh. What a masterful use of language. Darn him. Now I feel inadequate again.
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What projects are you currently working on?
I have a prose poem chapbook coming out this month (April 2012) titled “This is How She Fails.” It is about a character, or characters, who lose parts of themselves. There is some deep hidden psychological meaning in them that I am choosing to ignore. I am working on another chapbook in my quest to become the queen of chapbooks. Plus a full length book of prose poems is in the works.
Can we expect another book in the near future?
I’m working on it. The writing is the easy part. Finding a publisher is hard.
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Where can someone find more about your work?
Also, if you google my name you will find dozens of my poems that were published in different online zines.
Thank you, Michele for letting me talk about my work. There is not enough poetry in the world and people
should read more of it. It is about letting in the beauty and calmness I think. Poetry does that.