We love learning more about our contributors, and an interview seemed like a fun way to hear more about the writers and artists we publish, so we gave them a choice of questions to answer. We hope you also enjoy hearing more about the artists and their works. Read on and get yourself a print edition of Contest Issue #4 for work from Christine Potter
What was the inspiration for the work published in the issue?
This is pretty unfiltered autobiography, which I write in some--but not all!--of my work. My grandmother Nana, a first generation German-American, daughter of the best baker in Yonkers, NY, loved sweets. And she loved animals, especially her backyard squirrels and birds. Nana did things correctly, which was maybe why she kept dosing a fruitcake she had no intention of eating with booze. Since you ask: she also loved shrimp, which she'd discovered on a trip to Florida with my grandpa. She had a second gas stove in her basement that she used for cooking shrimp so it wouldn't stink up her house. But the stairs going down there always smelled of it. And her favorite color was pink. I loved staying at her place as a child in the late fifties and early sixties. She was my inspiration for this poem.
Who or what inspires your work generally?
Believe it or not, Robert Bly, Anne Sexton, and Marge Piercy are behind everything I write. I have poet friends whose work I love. But Bly, Sexton, and Piercy are the poets I read as an undergrad in the early 70's, and they are like going home. Especially Robert Bly. I sound nothing like him, but when I can't get started writing, I very often look at Morning Poems, a collection of work he did late in his life. He said he wrote a poem every morning before he got out of bed. His poems are deeply prayerful and joyful and sometimes even funny. His imaginative leaps are inspirational. I read Piercy and Sexton for their honesty. Piercy stiffens my spine, and Anne Sexton is brilliant and warns me about being too much in my own head. So much contemporary poetry comes from those three.
If you're part of a workshop group or other creative community, tell us about it! How did it form, what all do you do, and how does it help your creative process?
I am a member of a loose group of poets who draft new work at an online forum called The Waters. Every April and November we gather there and write a poem a day for a month. Often, in the times in between, one of us will call a Beach Party, and a few of us will join that person for a 7 in 7--or a poem a day for a week. The rules are you have to read other folks' poems and say a couple of things that work when you post your own--but no critiquing poetry that is so very new. I do my best work in those marathons, I think.
What is your creative process? Do you plan pieces or let them happen as they come?
My process is all over the place. I write almost every day, but I count revising as writing. Some of my poems come out almost finished and some need a LOT of tinkering. This one fell in the middle.
Give us a recipe and tell us why you chose it.
Some years back, I did a cocktail radio show on the internet, where I gave a recipe and played oddball rock and roll. I love a good cocktail. My favorite is the Aviation, a gin drink from the early days of flight. Here's a good recipe for one:
The Aviation
2 oz gin (I like Beefeaters)
3/4 oz maraschino liqueur (or less, to taste)
1/4 oz creme de violette liqueur
one amara cherry (they come in little blue and white ceramic jars; I like Fabbri brand)
Shake the liquids with lots of ice and strain into a
chilled cocktail glass. You may want a little more lemon. Drop in a cherry, trying to avoid including much of the syrup. Cheers!