Writers on the Writing Process: An Interview with Poet Molly Spencer

Poet Molly Spencer

Molly Spencer’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Cave Wall, Linebreak, The Massachusetts Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. A native Michigander and one-time Minnesotan, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and their three children. She writes about poetry, the writing life, and parenthood on her blog.

Laura Davis: Where do you write? Paint us a word picture. Put us there. And that other place you like. Or just send a real picture.

Molly Spencer: Either here:

I'm almost embarrassed to share this. But here is my desk (above). Please note: hair brush and barrette from this morning's hair styling session with my 7-year-old; my 10-year-old's prescription (thankfully remembered this morning with breakfast); emergency ibuprofen supply at the ready; random hourglass, provenance unknown; many love notes from 7-year-old; notes to self about submissions hanging from snowflake made by 7-year-old; husband's rain jacket hanging on my chair — EGREGIOUS VIOLATION!; totem crow. This desk is literally within reach of my kitchen counter to the left, and my kitchen table to the right. 

Or here:

My favorite spot at the library. My happy place.

LD: How do you begin writing? Warm-up exercise? Daydreaming? Any strange rituals involving smelling a drawer of fruit? Do you just dive in?

MS: I always begin by reading the work of other poets. Often I’m reading my way through a collection, but sometimes it’ll be a literary journal or just a stack of poems I've printed from various online sources and set aside for later. As I read, I write down interesting words and phrases, sometimes whole lines. Then I use those scraps of language to do some free-writing. I call this process my “morning reading and writing,” and it is the foundation of all my work.

LD: What is your favorite exercise that gets the words flowing?

MS: I’ll often use a word bank of 7 to 10 words – usually a combination of interesting words from whatever I’m reading plus a few from my own personal universe deck (which I wrote about here). I also go through recent free-writes, pulling phrases and words that catch my interest. Then I’ll start writing anything that comes to mind, and try to use the words and phrases that I've identified. Once I've done that, I often load the lines I've written into a list on this site and press the “randomize” button. This process sifts the lines and somehow helps me to see which ones are most important, I think because it releases me from whatever progression originally asserted itself in the writing. By this time I’m often well on my way to a draft and I usually start cutting like crazy to find it.

Another thing I do a lot of is what I call “word work.” For a few words that seem important to what I’m writing, I’ll look up etymology, alternate definitions, synonyms and antonyms. As I’m doing this work, phrases or other words will often come to me, so I’ll jot those down in the margins. Often they make their way into whatever I’m working on. This is also a helpful exercise for finding just the right word while revising.

LD: How do you decide that you are finished working on a story, essay, or poem?

MS: I don’t find the word “finished” to be a helpful one when it comes to my writing. Instead, I think in terms of: Is this poem send-out-able? Do I believe in this work? Those, for me, are much more helpful questions than, “Is it finished?” because what I've found is that poems have a life of their own and they often come knocking on my door months or years after I last worked on them, insisting upon some revisions. 

LD: What’s the strangest thing you've used to write a poem or a story with and/or upon?

MS: My pant leg. Unless you want to count my children’s minds – I've been known to make them memorize lines that are coming to me as I’m driving.

Post-Workout Confessions

Life is not crazy lately. It is just life. Well, there are a few extra stressors I could do without, which is why my already Moderate-Strong levels of anxiety are reaching Richter magnitudes at the Major-Great 9.0+ end of the scale.

Anxiety is not something people talk about for some reason. True anxiety, that is. The kind that cripples people, causing them feel they are on the brink of terror, constantly irritated, fatigued, and sometimes just plain mean to the people around them. People who don't realize they are in a constant, low-level state of anxiousness might begin to think they are actually just a horrible, sad person.

Why don't we talk about it? I don't understand that. Being ashamed of how we feel just makes it worse.

So here is the truth.

I don't love San Francisco. I've lived here for a year and haven't been to Golden Gate Park. Most days I stay at home, because I work from home, but also because facing this city is exhausting. Facing a city that doesn't get me. Feeling so completely displaced. The city does have it's moments. They are usually when I leave the city and remember that the ocean is so close I could reach out and taste the saltwater.

Making friends is hard. Good ones, the kinds you can be an anxious mess in front of. I have a handful here that I am grateful for. I need more.

Writing poems is beyond hard right now. With the chapbook coming out, I keep thinking, "But these are the best poems I've ever written. How can I top these?" Plus, when a writer has a small sphere without much stimuli to stir up new connections and ideas, the poems tend to be a bit navel-gazey. That's all I write these days. So I mostly don't write.

I'm not in love with my life. I feel most ashamed of this. In theory, I *should* be. Shouldn't I? I teach poetry, I write for an awesome company (from home!), my partner is more supportive and loving than I ever thought possible, and I live in this amazing city. Yet, I'm still trembling. From the "little t" trauma of starting over completely. It's only been a year, but in this past year I've left school, my family, my friends, my hometown, moved across the country, to a state that might as well be another planet, to a city that doesn't get me, moved in with my partner, started a new career, and damn, that's not even half of it.

Lately I've been waking up way too early, averaging around 5-6 hours of sleep a night. I do not function well when I'm this sleep deprived. I wake up and begin to feel the pulse of anxiety creep into my veins telling me to wake up, get going, start working, go go go. Falling back to sleep becomes impossible.

At some point, an anxiety-ridden person gets either depressed or angry. The anxiety becomes too overwhelming to deal with, so bed is the safest place. Or the anxiety becomes so overwhelming that you run. Literally run. Run off all that stored energy that your body seems to think you need right now. Your body is telling you, "Feel threatened! Go go go!" So you do. You run or swim or climb flights of stairs, make your heart beat faster and sweat until your body surrenders. Waves that little white flag and screams, "For the love of life, please stop! You are safe now. Stop stop stop!" And you have a few moments of calm inside.

Working out is a weird term for what I'm trying to do. Yes, I want to be OUT of this shitty feeling. But it doesn't happen like that. It returns. One jog will not be the healing balm for my anxiety. It's more like a work-through, I think. Or working-through, even. A perpetual state of maintaining, care-taking, self-loving. Owning your out-of-control pulse. Telling your body that you are safe everyday, if you are lucky enough to be safe, that is. And I am. Both lucky and safe.