Associate Professor of English, Gina Buccola has
a chapbook of poetry being released this spring from
Finishing
Line Press. I was able to sit down with her to ask her about her creative
process, what role research plays in her writing, her inspiration, and advice to
creative writing students.
Martinique:
You have published a few other books recently that are all heavily researched
non-fiction works, is this your first creative publication?
Gina: Yes, of
book-length. I have published some individual poems in regional journals.
“Conjuring” (the poem which shares its title with the collection) was published
in the Journal of Kentucky Studies.
Martinique:
Can you say more about how the title of that poem came to share its name with
the collection?
Gina: I do write a lot about women, but that
poem is not about women or witchcraft in the sense of conjuring in witchcraft,
but about a former professor of mine who was the Poet Laureate of Kentucky. I
was asked to write a poem for his instantiation. James Baker Hall
was a professor of mine in college and had this amazing ability to memorize
poems. Sometimes in class he would recite a poem and he would just sort of
close his eyes and sometimes hold out his hand in this way that it was like he
was pulling poems out of the air.
Martinique:
Your other academic publications required an extensive amount of research, is
there any research involved in the process of creating your poetry?
Gina: My teaching
and academic work can really tax my creative ability. It is often difficult to
switch gears from that type of work to creative work. It often feels literally
like that ‘clunk’ you get when you’re driving a stick shift and you switch
gears and the whole car responds. So I take inspiration where I can find it and
a lot of these poems are inspired by research I was doing for other projects.
Many of the
poems are imaginative biographies of notable women. For example, I was watching
a documentary about Mata Hari and I had no idea that she did espionage work in
the war. She really used her persona
for spying, and I took that story and wrote one of the poems in this collection
about her. Some of the poems aren’t imaginative biographies about specific
women either but based on imagined women. For example as a graduate student I
was looking at lots and lots of rolls of microfilm of newspaper stories all
day as I was doing research on literacy in that time period for a professor. I came across
information about the suffragettes in Appalachia and invented a character who is the subject of another poem.
So the
research is very different from conventional academic research because I draw from that research, but I’m not
really researching and documenting or foot-noting in my creative writing.
Martinique: Most
of your published work and the classes you teach here at Roosevelt are
about the early modern era, British literature and Shakespeare. Is
there
any connection between your academic work and your creative work?
"We have an embarrassment of riches in Chicago with the opportunities to hear other writers"
Gina: Not really,
I think of them as very separate. But I have started work on a novel that takes
place now but is a bout a researcher engaged with Shakespeare – there is this
whole genre of Shakespeare detective novels. This is my first time putting
these two areas of my work together. The novel draws parallels between the main
characters and Shakespeare’s characters. I did begin this novel as sort of an
escape from research work I was doing last summer where I was reading
handwritten seventeenth century manuscripts all day, which was exhausting and
this was sort of an escape from that.
Martinique:
Who are some of your favorite poets and why?
Gina: I have
written about some of my favorites in these poems. Dorothy Parker is one. It's
wit that I love; the way she undercuts convention and has a really shocking
last line in her poems. Sylvia Plath, too, she tends to go in and out of
fashion but I still think her work is really important from a feminist point of
view. She really dealt with a lot of issues that women faced and pulled the lid
of some of these issues.
Their style may not have an apparent affect on me,
but what they do with their poetry is interesting.
I am really
drawn to artists whose works change things socially because I still believe
that art can do that. Adrienne Rich is one of these poets. She really
documented her personal journey as an out lesbian. I saw
her read years ago at the Chicago Cultural Center. She was in this
room where there were pictures of all these male poets up high on the walls and
she made this comment that I wish I remember, something about ‘look at all the
men up there, but it’s a woman down here people came to see read’. Those kinds
of interventions are really valuable.
So, with my
favorite poets, their style may not have an apparent affect on me, but what
they do with their poetry is
interesting.
Martinique:
How long have you been working on the poems in Conjuring?
Gina:I wrote some of these poems as much as eighteen years ago. I’ve been writing poetry since I was
a kid. I don’t have an MFA, but I’ve
always taken poetry workshops, so I’ve formally studied poetry which I think is
important to do. The workshop
environment is important because our culture really relegates poetry to hobby
status but the workshop environment forces you to prioritize your writing.
Martinique:
What advice do you have for students who are also creative writers and would
like to get a book of their own poems, or a novel published one day?
Gina:
I would say
take creative writing workshops. When you participate in these
workshops you
become a part of a community of writers that will move forward in time.
For
example, Maurice Manning, who won the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 2001
wrote a blurb about my book and he was someone I was in writing
workshops with years ago.
Incidentally, he is also another one of the poets whose work really
interests
me.
I know Janet Wondra
tells her students this (and I agree): submit your work regularly.
Always be on the outlook for places you can send your work and as soon as you
get a rejection from somewhere, and you will get rejections, just take it out,
put it in a new envelope and send it off. Of course if they suggest changes or you
want to rework it you can do that too before sending it off.
Also, read a lot, and go to a lot of readings. We have an
embarrassment of riches in Chicago with the opportunities to hear other writers. You have a great opportunity
to learn when you hear another author read their work, and there is often a Q and A
where you can ask questions of that writer, too.
I also think it is a good idea to keep a journal – even if
it’s just on your pda or something. I’ve written poems from something I started
or a note I made years before. Sometimes you have much more to bring to these
notes much later.
- To buy a copy or Professor Buccola’s book, click here.
- Look for a copy of her book in the Roosevelt Library this
spring.
- Learn more about the poets that Prof. Buccola discusses here
(look for Articles or Online Reference Sources).