For the last two-and-a-half months, I've been getting more and more into the work of L.L. Barkat, the poet and author of four books, including Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing
L.L. Barkat is a staff writer for The Curator, a culture magazine based in NYC, and also authors several blogs. My personal favorite of hers is Seedlings in Stone. You probably should subscribe.
I'm so excited to talk to her about creativity, poetry, and how to balance all those projects and commitments we all have. I hope you enjoy the interview!
Hi Laura. Thanks for joining me! So your book of poetry, InsideOut, came out of your practice of spending fifteen minutes outdoors every day. That sounds very Write Practisian! How did you create poems out of those moments?
The moments created the poems. I found them later, when I was sorting through a year’s worth of journals. The sorting was a terribly tedious process—part of a different book project. Yet as I was sorting, I found these delightful moments already expressed in words that simply needed to be lifted out, set apart, and broken into lines…
and I write
of yellow leaves.
Beautiful. I love that. By the way, I know you use rhyme in your poetry, but many poets seem to have abandoned it. How can writers use rhyme in modern poetry?
Sparingly.
Unless you are attempting to write form poetry, which helps you work a bit harder at capturing rhymes in a way that’s effective.
My rhymes are rarely obvious, since they occur internally. It makes me smile that you even noticed them! Good eye, good ear. Like this, from the poem “Muse”:
in the presence of such disdain,
who can stay sane, pen the next
masterpiece while your eyes
look so vexed. You are not
the helpmeet I ordered, not the
glass of red wine nor the rich, fine…
I heard an interview where you described your poetry process as a moment of connection between an emotion and an image. Can you talk more about that? How can writers create those kinds of connections?
Maybe the first step is to regularly play with images. Don’t worry about finding the emotion; it’s there—buried by the day, the month, or even the years.
You can tap into the emotion through touching images, just writing them down and sticking with them. Make simple lists of what you see on the table or out the window. Do this every day for a while.
Over time, the process of connection becomes more automatic, and emotions attach themselves, express themselves through what you see around you and the sounds you use to bring that to the page.
faded cobalt sky and the sun
leaking tears, yellow, pink.
You write poetry, essays, and blog posts. How do you balance it all?
Do I? 🙂
I’m terribly impetuous. I write what I want when I want. This is why your blog stands a better chance than any one of mine; I use my blogs to process thoughts and test out ideas.
But two of my books came from using such an approach, as I watched my readers take an interest in certain topics I was simply playing around with.
In fact, Rumors of Water:Thoughts on Creativity & Writing came out of a blog post called Ten Reasons to Write (Or Not) a Book About Writing. An acquisitions editor came by the post and asked for a proposal, and that’s when I knew I really had something. A year later, I wrote the book (and blogged very little… how’s that for balance? 🙂
When do you write? Mornings? Late at night?
I’m not fussy. I write whenever I can snatch a few minutes to myself. Rumors of Water was written daily from 4 am to 8 am over a period of three weeks. Other books took over a year, in the evenings. I have this terrible compulsion to finish a project once I’ve started, so you can be assured that any free moment will be fair game, regardless of whether the sun has risen or set.
Do you have any special places where you feel like you can be more creative?
Sure. I’d take Paris, the ocean off California, or a little cabin in the Adirondacks. Well, that is if I could. Really, I just write at the table in my dining room or on the back porch. It’s terribly unromantic.
I love your last name. You aren't, in fact, a cat who lives in a bar, perchance?
Maybe I am. I’ll never tell.
L.L. Barkat is the author of Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing,
PRACTICE
Here's L.L. Barkat's practice prompt:
Sit outside for fifteen minutes. Do nothing. You may feel like this is a waste of time. Perfect. You might find your mind drifting, your thoughts unfolding. Let it happen without making any effort to be productive.
When you come back in the house (apartment, office, classroom), write for three pages straight. This may also feel like a waste of time. But it is freeing you. Find just three lines you like and post them here. If someone else has posted three lines, consider making a small poem of them, right in the comment box, as a way to celebrate their words.
Great interview! I’m going to share the link on Every Day Poets’ Facebook page (I’m one of their editors). I think our readers would love to see this particular blog post.
Oh awesome! Thanks Kathleen 🙂
A moment ago I was watching cedar waxwings built a nest. There is something wonderful to observe each and every moment if you are aware. A friend of mine creates a haiku every day from what she observes.
Gray waxwing nesting hopefully
Wonderful, Aware
A dear friend writes a haiku
The cedar waxwings wove their nest,
a lattice of strong sticks
cupping a downy crib.
When it was done,
he built a tiny cedar chest
and she filled it with poems that were dreams for eggs unborn.
He hoisted the chest
onto the edge of the nest
and she wondered
when the wind blew
which way it would fall.
Definitely going to try this one, Joe. And thanks for introducing me to a new poet.
Do it!
You bet, Andrea. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Absolutely lovely. I think I need to spend more time wit h images.
Wow! She seems like an awesome person. Definitely someone worth ‘looking up to’. Thank you for sharing!
Excellent interview, Laura, and thanks,Joe, for another great interview…my takeaway: need to write down those images floating around in my head…
Thanks! I know. Those images are key. I’ve been putting them into either my journal (along with a drawing if I have time) or, more often, into Scrivener. They’re super easy to keep track of there.
Practice:
In the sunset sky, pink clouds, looking like tufts of cotton candy, drifted lazily. The rest of the world seemed light-years away. My senses were filled with all the sights, sounds, and smells of my childhood.
The pink years of childhood
light years away
smelling of cotton candy and sunsets, seem now like lazy sky
Now, all the world sounds
in my senses, loudly calling
Gabbygee
Gabbygee
The rest of the world calls
How is it that sunsets transport us to childhood? Life is wire bent into a circle, one end sparking as it touches the other.
I reach out my
Hands
And I grab a
Handful
Of cotton candy
Clouds
I shove them
In my mouth
Melting
Sweet
I taste the heavens
Melting
Sweet
My “practice” was serendipitously done earlier today when I received an email from a friend addressed to her ‘fellow word nerds’ with the subject line of “Runcible to Rumpus”. It was a link to an article on made up words, like those that Dr. Suess used. I was so inspired by the fun words and ideas, that I wrote a limerick…not, I suppose, the most literary type of verse, but it was fun!
Word Nerds
There once was an assemblage of nerds
Whose garden was a rumpus of words
They planted the vowels
Scattered consonants all while
Digging up meanings for their runcible surds
WhenItriedtoplantawordgardenitturnedintoonelongrowthatstretchednorthwardandneedstobeprunedsoastobetterabsorbtheenergyfromtheauroraborealisbecausethereisnotmuchsunlight.
LOVE this Steph.
Thanks, Joe. This was a fun practice!
A mated pair of mallards launch themselves into a sunset of dried lavender buds ground into an orange-sherbet swirl.
A dandelion, gone to seed, spliced into a perfect hemisphere. Does this mean half a wish was made? And do we recognize when only half a wish is granted?
The air at the edge of night when it washes warm across my face but tastes cold at the back of my mouth.
The Answer
There once was a pair of Mallards
Who took a dandelion shower
When their wish was made
The lavender said
Half a seed, half a wish, half the power
Steph, I love this and would like to publish it in Every Day poems, maybe with a few modifications to turn it into a 3-part poem. Can you contact me at llbarkat [at] yahoo [dot] com? Thanks 🙂
oh. and this is Every Day Poems…
http://us2.forward-to-friend1.com/forward/preview?u=9e5e4dd4731a9649c1dd1cf58&id=a47323bd77
@akaellisfisher – that is awesome! Thanks for the smile. I see I am having trouble with the “reply” button again…now in Chrome )-:
Busted traffic light flashing on and off.
Empty road.
Group of people laughing as they walk by.
Line 1: I hear it first, a slight humming, a few seconds before the flicker of quick, quick movement catches my eye.
Line 2: A hummingbird darts in and out among the bright fuchsia petunias that hang off the patio fence, its wing’s beating so fast they seem transparent.
Line 3: Ignoring me, it flits frenetically from flower to flower, dipping deep into each center, its tiny body almost disappearing as it sips the nectar and gathers the pollen.
My little poem . . .
Hummingbird hums, beating its wings,
In search of the pollen it collects
From flowers dancing in the gentle breeze,
En masse, so close together they appear to be
Silent partners enjoying the movement.
Hummingbird, hum, so more flowers
Can grow.
Everything’s a blur
Colors splashed
On one another
Like buckets of paint
Splashed on a wall
Sounds mixing
Scents pulling
Me towards them
Beatings wings
I fly
Sweet nectar
Drips
Down my beak
I like this, JB, especially the ending. Great job!
Thanks Joe 🙂
Below, small indigo quills
Rest on the red mulch
Above, The pawed bird’s nest,Still in the shrub,Looks like a teardrop.That’s natureBrutal, cruel, and unforgiving.