Welcome back to Unlocking Potential, where I ask smart people a few pointed questions and let their answers do the heavy lifting. Erika Meitner writes poems that notice what most of us step over. So, I asked her four questions designed to nudge our attention (and maybe our lives) a few degrees in the right direction.
Q: You’ve done work that blends documentary sensibility with lyric intelligence. When you’re writing near “real life” (place, people, record), what’s the one ethical or artistic rule you refuse to break?
I often do documentary poetry projects where I go on the road with photographers to cover topical issues in verse (some samples are up here). When I’m working on longer-term documentary poetry projects, I include an essay with the work about my process, and some background on the issue I’m exploring. I would never write a stranger’s voice into a more documentary poem without including context in some way, either in the poem, or an accompanying essay.
Q: What’s a small, ordinary detail you’ve noticed recently that changed your mind about something bigger than itself?
I walk almost daily around Tiedeman’s Pond, which is a conservancy area, and there are always a ton of birds there: blue herons, sandhill cranes, redwing blackbirds, and many other species. Last spring I saw an entire fleet of pelicans fishing as a group, and if you’ve never seen this, it’s an amazing feat of cooperative feeding. In general it made me think about how much better humans could be in working together to accomplish a common goal.
Q: If you could give a reader one “field assignment” to make them feel poetry in their body this week, what would it be?
I would tell them to take a field trip to a frozen lake or pond near them (in Madison, you’re never far from one), hang out on the shore for 10 minutes, and make a list of 5 things they saw, and 5 things they heard. Then I’d tell them to spend one minute making a sketch of one of the things they saw. (This is a variation on Lynda Barry’s Quick Diary method from her book Syllabus.)
Q: Beverage check (personal curiosity: I own Garth’s Brew Bar on Monroe Street): what’s your ideal drink for reading poems?
In the winter, a Guiness. In the summer, a French 75. (I know—it’s two drinks! Sorry!)
Q: How can people find you?
If you want to link to my website, that would be great!
Stay Positive & See You On The Frozen Lake
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