artist's interview: ELIZABETH BREESE, #2

Beth as "beehand" for my story, "the fruit forest." 
illustrated by: Marissa Arterberry

i am tickled pink to share with you my second artist's interview with Elizabeth Breese. Beth is primarily a poetess, quite published at that (!), and she also works a lot with paper arts, which i love. Beth grew up in Wisconsin, resides in Ohio, and is truly one of the smartest, funniest, most interesting women i know. for fun, here is my first interview with her way back when ~ CLICK HERE. 

Bethy, xo to you, and thanks for this delightful interview.

Beth, by: Lily Glass

1. kelly:: girl, i miss you. you've always been such a source of intrigue to me. so smart. so honey-dipped. … wtf is going on with poetry these days? like, yours?

Beth:: Wtf, is right! In terms of quantity, we’re talking a trickle of poetry right now. The work is very, very slow. I do a lot of thinking and percolating before actually sitting down to write. The physical writing (or typing) of a poem seems to be the shortest part of the process, kapow!, while the collecting, thinking, and noting is ongoing, never ending, just a train rumbling along in the distance. The kawpows are few and far between and that’s frustrating. I think if I developed a schedule, rather than writing when I felt ready, I’d have a lot more work to show. That said, I have been quite fond of the last few poems I’ve written. They seem to come out whole.

I think I’ve also become less persona driven and more language driven. It seems like if I ever have a motive or goal for a poem, it will be utterly terrible. Clunky. Sad. Deflated. If I can remind myself to return to the language, it can become magical. Open. Vibrant. Still, I’d say a few themes or ideas continue to surface naturally. Faith and the faithful (people who have faith in anything). Negative space (the valley of the mountain). Paper (artifacts of—, documents, origami).

Beth's bunnies #origamilife

2.  kelly:: i'm really proud of you, because you're a published poet. what goals (and hopes) do you have for your poetry in the near future?

Beth:: I think to write with more discipline and regularity would go a long way towards achieving my two really basic goals: get better and submit more. Maybe if I were more specific about my goals, I’d have a better chance of achieving them. "Get better" is a little low stakes, huh? Goal 1: get better goals.

3. kelly:: it is my opinion that you have a really cool job. you are surrounded by beautiful things, inspiration. what do you learn there? tell the peeps about it a bit …  

so, this foto de Beth drives me nutz. #lesigh #gorg

Beth:: I am super grateful for my job. I am the assistant manager of a stationery and gift shop in Columbus, Ohio. A big portion of my job is working with customers as they select/design their wedding invitations. It’s a really happy time in these peoples’ lives and I benefit from being around that energy. I also am fascinated by family dynamics, which are certainly on display during our appointments. I’m an avid people watcher.

4. kelly:: i love your presence on Pinterest. you post of lot of woodland animal prints that are darling. you also post origami projects. what is it about woodland animals? and when did your interest in making origami art come about? i wonder, is it soothing to work with your hands on intricate things? 

Beth:: Woodland creatures! I’m from Wisconsin and my mom is from the Northwoods. We spent a lot of time at a cabin my Grandpa built in the Nicolet National Forest. There were times when I found the woods really frightening and ominous, but the presence of diminutive, weensy fuzz balls is distracting and reassuring. They seem to have a playful energy, which is joyous to observe. I mean, everyday is Friday for a chipmunk. 

And, origami! I started doing it to quiet my mind after my Dad passed away. Writing was absolutely too hard and I felt I really needed a hobby to pass the time. So, I attempted my first fold, "cormorant on a rock," at a crafternoon among friends and I’ve been folding ever since. My mind isn’t necessarily geared for origami—I mean I’m not a math person, so I go through a lot of paper—but it’s hugely satisfying to stick with a model and figure it out. Origami tessellations are my latest interest. I’m probably most proud of tackling a tessellated hexagon. 

dino origami by Beth

5. kelly:: what's it like to have a man in your life who you love so much? 

Beth:: I should be effusive, but it’s not really my way to talk too much about lurv and romance (especially on the internet), but I do feel both safe and exhilarated and it’s a lovely combination. I often think how bizarre it is that we are both only children and our moms are, too. We’re going extinct. Pterodactyl love.

foto: Lily Glass

6. kelly:: i know Ireland is a special place to you. tell us about that.

Beth:: I like Ireland so much partly because it seems like sadness is such an accepted part of its history and culture. That resonates with me. I don’t have a sad history, per se, but I think my personality and emotional life tend toward the gloomy. 

  
7. kelly:: come vizzy me in Costa Rica sometime!! do you like to swim?
 
Beth:: DOY.  

8. kelly:: i think about money every day. you do too? what would you do with $20,000 if it came to you today?

Beth:: I do and I think that money would go straight to buying a house. I’m tired of sharing walls with strangers. And, a trip to Costa Rica.

9. kelly:: what are you reading right now? what are you watching?

Beth:: I am reading and really, truly loving Mary Szybist’s "Incarnadine." It has been nourishing and refreshing. I say reading, because it’s the book I carry room to room and take with me on trips. I have already read it once, but I so enjoy opening to any page and reading what is there. I also have recently purchased and intend to read a book I’m really excited about—"The Paper Garden" by Molly Peacock. It’s nonfiction and is, I understand, about an elderly woman in the 1790’s whose grief essentially led her to art and the creation of over 900 botanically correct, cut paper flowers. (I’m basically copying the jacket of the book, so you know.) Anyway, I’m intrigued!

As for watching: it’s all M*A*S*H*, all the time right now. It strikes me as pretty ahead of its time. 

box of Beth's origami

10. kelly:: have you tried out any new baking projects lately? do you have specialties?

Beth:: I haven’t tried anything new in a long time. I really enjoy baking muffins—they’re so wholesome. I really like the idea of using edible flowers and have made lavender muffins before. They were a delight. 

11. kelly:: bee, are you fluent in French? where did you learn it? you love it why?

Beth:: I feel at one time I wasn’t fluent, but quite conversant. It’s been a long, long time since I was able to practice/speak on a regular basis, so I’m so very rusty. I learned it at a French immersion camp in northern Minnesota. I’d go in the summer for a month at a time. It was everything summer camp was supposed to be: sunny, buggy, rustic, cheery, crafty. I think because of those summers, I had a certain nostalgia for French. I stuck with it because I had such fond memories of using it, though by the end of college I was definitely burned out.

Dad and Little Beth

12. kelly:: okay, please note that i am transitioning to a less playful topic. you lost your Dad awhile back. you were very brave and open about it on social media and in letters/emails. has time been a healing salve for you? do you commune with him still on a daily basis somehow? i image so. 

Beth:: Just over three years ago— time is healing and bewildering. It seems impossible that I haven’t seen him or spoken with him in that long. I really resent the passage of time, it keeps taking him further away. At the same time, yes, I am grateful that the pain isn’t so acute. I sometimes speak out loud to him. I’ve left notes for him places. These are very literal ways of trying to speak with him and I don’t have the expectation that they “work,” except that it’s soothing to me. I think more than anything, I feel him with me. And not in a ghostly sense, but in the sense that he feels a part of me, an organ. 

   
13. kelly:: what are 3 of your favorite memories of him that come to mind right off?

Beth:: He would wake me for school by throwing "pillow bombs" on me. It made me so angry, but it was wonderful. 

He packed my lunch and would write letters from my dog and put them in my lunch box. Everyday. He started sending letters from this same dog (long deceased) when I moved away for graduate school. 

We played a game of tag in winter. I think we called it "fox and goose." We’d start by making little trails in the snow. Then, those were the only places you were allowed to run during the game. We’d sometimes get my nextdoor neighbor, Ben, who was also an only child, to join in. I was always really proud of how playful and fun my dad was.

14. kelly:: … another transition … what is your favorite Arhia Kohlmoos drawing? also, favorite painting?! do tell.

"Mind Mansion Mandala for Memory Meditation:
artist: Arhia Kohlmoos

Beth :: I love her drawing "Mind Mansion Mandala for Memory Meditation." It reminds me of some children’s books that show cutaways of living spaces. It feels secretive and magical. Her painting "Lady with a Langur" is fantastic—her imagery and use of space feels centuries old, while the colors and whimsy feel timeless. She’s one of the most incredibly talented people I (sort of) know. I loved college, but realize from a distance that I wasn’t connected with a lot of people I would have truly enjoyed knowing. Arhia is one of those people.

"Lady with a Langur," artist: Arhia Kohlmoos

15. kelly:: in closing, let's pretend we're going out on a dinner date in Paris. what are we eating and drinking? and omg, let's be soooooo leisurely about it. i want to stay for at least two hours, beginning at dusk … then we go dancing …  

Beth:: Aren’t we eating tarts with sugared flowers for dinner? I’m not sure if you’re eating cheese, but I’m going to have an entire cheese plate for dessert. We’re certainly drinking champagne with petals floating in it.

lady-roars, 6

^ Beth Breese ~ ~ ~

!!! welcome to lady-roars, 6 ~ !!!
i initiated freeform conversation with fellow women creators about art, identity, and whatever else.

I am from Wisconsin, though I currently live in Columbus, Ohio. I have a chapbook just out from Kent State University Press called "The Lonely-wilds." I'm always surprised at how difficult it is to describe my own art (poetry) and my life as an artist. Yet, if it were easy, maybe it would mean I was missing some really interesting nuggets or some essential nuance? Then again, just because it is tremendously difficult (don’t you find?), I don’t ever feel if I’m representing my work and my life with total accuracy. I try though:

I won't go all chronological on you, but I don't know if I'd be calling myself a poet if I hadn’t registered on a whim for a literature class at Lawrence. English 250 was Major American Writers and the syllabus did include major writers—Emerson, Thoreau, Dickenson—but who’s a/what’s a Lorine Niedecker? Not only did I feel moved by her spare and lyrical poems (read, read, read), but the fact that she was a Wisconsin girl, too (I think we would have been friends), really touched me. Before Lorine, I didn’t know the Wisconsin landscape was worth writing about, even though it was my landscape. So, that’s Lorine. And that’s Professor Faith Barrett who taught the class and who eventually taught my first poetry workshop at Lawrence. And who encouraged me to consider an MFA program. And that’s Professor Kathy Fagan, poet-lady-extraordinaire, my mentor through the MFA program at The Ohio State University. She’s a life-changer. I really do feel I owe my poet-life to these three women.

I wrote before college, but I wasn't calling myself a writer until just a couple years ago, and now I can’t imagine doing anything else; I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t registered for that class (Yiker’s Island!). It’s not likely that I’ll be able to support myself as a poet, so I envision balancing teaching and writing. At the moment I am adjuncting at a couple local colleges, but I find this arrangement exhausting (I just began work on two poems for the first time in months!). So, my ultimate goal is to teach writing and creative writing at a less harried pace and with more reliable income. For me that means getting a full-length book out and getting on the job market. This is a multi-year plan and, at the moment, I’m okay with that.

check out my full-length artist's interview with Beth ~ HERE ~

artist's interview: BETH BREESE

Beth & kelly @ Lorine Niedecker's home in Wisconsin

Elizabeth Breese, a Wisconsin native, is making it work in Ohio. She graduated in May 2010 from The Ohio State University's MFA in creative writing program. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Barrow Street, FIELD, and Hayden's Ferry Review. Her chapbook, The Lonely-wilds, will be published by the Wick Poetry Center in February 2011. Please enjoy the poem below, an original by Queen Breese.

Exodus

Left places, found later by the word of a mouth

—Plymouth and Berlin—write of passage,

sickness, harvesting, and marriage

to the Mother or the Father.

The news is distantly related to others

in the mother-tongue. Far flung

cousins note the spaces in between.

💧

6 things kelly loves about Beth ~ ~ ~ 

* you have the most incredible collection of earrings ~ i remember feeling drawn to you initially because of an especially large pair that made you look all mystery-bird.

* you are such a birdy-blossom ~ ~ ~ (!)

* ... such honesty about emotions and sensitivities

* such yummy poems and progress, you ~

* i love our combined efforts to remain in touch after undergrad ~ this is a valuable thing to me ~ to have such a sweet poet-friend.

* i really trust your existence + growth.

5 things that Beth likes about kelly ~ ~ ~

* You’re the fiercest gentle/gentlest fierce person I’ve ever known.

* Your willingness to go big, to lay it all on the line.

* I love your snowflake tattoos.

* You’re a pilgrim after art, nature, and good people.

* Though it’s been a long time since we’ve been next to each other, I think it’s safe to say you still always smell good. Like rose lip balm.

1. dearest Beth, what significance does honey have in your life and in your poems?

Honey. It’s the purest sweetest thing I can think of. I really really like the idea of honey, but I don’t eat it all that often, and I don’t think it’s especially significant in my poems. That’s not very exciting. I like that it is goopy in a non-threatening way.

2. i should please like to know your top 11 poets. (where does Lorine fit in there?)

The only one that’s in order is Lorine Niedecker. She’s number one forever and always. Ok. Check it: Pablo Neruda, Wislawa Szymborska, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Matthea Harvey, Charles Wright, Harryette Mullen, Frank O’Hara, Amy Clampitt, and Elizabeth Bishop! This was hard. I bet if I did this in an hour I would have a different list. Except for Lorine and Pablo. I want to be their lovechild, Lorblo Nerudecka. Sick?

3. when did you begin writing poems? i had the pleasure of first reading your poems when we had workshop together at Lawrence University ~ ~ ~ your specialty then was something you called, Vignettes. as in: you wrote these delicate little morsels of compact-yummy-poetic-yum. are you still writing these lil droplets?

Elementary school: birth of the cool.

I think I still write in morsels, but they are getting strung together now with associative twine. It’s a potpourri! Ok, but lest it sound all willy-nilly, I really do work hard on making it possible to get from point A to B. I mean, it’s probably not a breeze, but I do care.

4. talk to me about grad school, girlfriend. i mean, gimme a summary of your experience, from teaching to workshop ... to winning dollars and publishing ... are you graduated yet?

Grad school has been the best experience of my life, but it also coincides with the some of the most difficult experiences. Still, according to my math, graduate school comes out ahead. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Teaching is more challenging than I anticipated. I experience fluke days of stage fright which can be super demoralizing—because I take it too seriously? Is that possible? But, oh! I have had some wonderful workshops. They have been the favorite part of my week for the last three years with some very notable exceptions. When a workshop goes badly, it goes down in flames. Publication is a toughy. I think, at least in some MFA programs, you’re not supposed to want to publish. You’re supposed to focus all your attention on craft, like there’s something a little untoward about publishing, but I do enjoy finding places for my poems. There I said it.

5. how has your grad school experience impacted your writing? are poetry and processes now changed? do you feel that this experience benefited you? have you acquired new mentors and poet-friends?

Somehow, I landed among some of the most kindred spirits a girl could ask for. I have a wonderful group of writer-friends (they’re so kind and funny) and have maybe forced someone into being my mentor. Do mentor and mentee have an official-on-paper agreement?

My process as it was when I arrived here is practically nonexistent. I only wrote in short bursts. That’s not much of a process. Eventually, I “worked up” to being able to write for hours and hours. I’m not always putting pen to paper or fingers to keys for those hours, but I can really sit and think about a poem for the majority of a day. I think I mellowed out; before, I was so frantic to get something written, if it didn’t come immediately it never came. Now, I have patience and wait around for the answer or the line or the word. This is something I couldn’t have accomplished without the MFA experience. It’s time. If I didn’t have the time, how would I have discovered patience?

6. you are taller than your grandparents and shorter than your parents. what the bleep is that like?

Well, I am taller than both of my grandmas are/were. I’m not taller than either of my grandpas, though they weren’t tall by any means. We’re all shorties (unless that means something that I don’t intend), except my cousin’s daughter who is 13 and is probably as tall as I am.

7. family is weird, huh? (amazingly wild.) how do your family relationships affect your poetic explorations? do your folks enjoy that you are Beth-the-brilliant-poet?

My parents are both librarians so they can’t complain if they don’t enjoy it. It’s entirely their fault. There was no way I was coming out a chemist. Family is bonkers and if you have one, they’re going to end up in poems or in your art. Don’t you think? I don’t mean in a negative way necessarily. They just tend to be the paradigm.

There hasn’t been something I wanted to write about but haven’t for fear of upsetting my family; if I think there’s something potentially hurtful, there’s nothing to say I have to share it with them. Is there?

8. alright, what is your favorite fab-food-celebration? you’ve got an appetizer, a salad (what’s in there?), a mega main course, dessert, and any sorta dranky you want. tell me a story! (it’s on me, btw.)

I love this game! An appetizer! Fresh bread with olive oil. Ok, the salad is the mega main course because it’s huge. It’s brimming with vegetables, nuts, seeds, and cheese. The dessert is berries with crème fraiche. We’re drinking a malbec even though maybe that’s not what a restaurant would suggest. I’m not a sommelier, but malbec is where it’s at. Also, for our non-drinking friends there’s lemonade and homemade ginger ale. We’re sitting on a porch. It’s early evening in summer. Everybody’s glowing. Nobody has sunburn.

9. Hyacinth Bouquet, Cocteau Twins, Ireland, Wisconsin. talk to me ...

I’m too lazy to be a connoisseur of any one thing? Honestly, I just latch on to the things that make me smile or bring me peace. Ireland feels a bit like a spiritual homeland. Wisconsin is my actual homeland and I’ve come to love its forests and lakes and green green grass.

10. Beth. experimental poetry. are you an experimental poet? what is experimental poetry? ... and what are your 4 favorite flowers?

I’m so confused by the term “experimental poetry.” I always think every poet (and artist, for that matter) is experimental. We’re all experimenting with words and images and form. Even if you’re writing in meter, you’re experimenting with it. So, yes, I’d say I’m experimental, but I’m not sure what someone with a scholarly or critical definition of “experimental” would say. I write lyric poems. My moves are more associative. So, it turns out all I can say is I’m not a narrative poet.

Springtime flowers are my favorite overall—irises and tulips. I love fuchsia which was ev-er-y-where in Ireland. Also in Ireland is an orange and yellow wildflower called montbretia. I love it! Its blossoms or buds grow in such a lovely largest-to-smallest fashion.

11. Beth, i wonder a lot about poets, you know? ... well, about artists of the Avant-Garde, too. do you see common traits amongst poets? like, are they all wine drinkers or rock collectors or people who barely made it through childhood? what does your observational radar say? and talk to me please about future aspirations.

Well, I drink wine and collect rocks, but I skated through childhood. Ha! I don’t know if there’s any one behavior I can isolate as being a poet thing; then again, a poet friend will tell me what they did that day and I will think “of course that is what you did, because you’re a poet.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and haven’t arrived at a conclusion. Introversion is a possible commonality. To be a poet, I think you’ve got to be comfortable spending a lot of time with your own thoughts. Finally ... My fantasty life is teaching creative writing in a university/college setting and continuing my own writing and publishing. Wouldn’t that be delicious?