Evelyn Miranda-Feliciano, interview
My interview with Evelyn Miranda-Feliciano is now up on The Sword Review. I'm really pleased they've decided to publish this interview. Evelyn is my other aunt, the one who taught me the basics of writing, like how important imagery is and yes you have to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and she was the first professional writer I dared to show some of my work to.
Looking back I have to smile remembering my shyness, and how I wished I could just bury those poetry notebooks underground because all of a sudden everything I'd written seemed so juvenile and not really worth reading. (I still do get that feeling these days, but maybe I have just gotten more courageous compared to back then.)
I remember leafing through a pink, barbie doll journal ( yes it really was Barbie ), and blushing over love poems written to my crush or whatever...ha, ha...blush, blush. But yes, finally finding some stuff that wasn't purely juvenile. I remember lying on my belly on the hard narra floor of the ISACC office, working together with my aunt on a tree poem which I never sent anywhere because I could still feel how very elementary it was compared to work I'd seen on PATMOS or Isip-Isak.
And then, there was the surprise of writing "Becoming" ( published on PATMOS ) and connecting with that place that transcended the pettiness of me. To write a poem that could be considered a poem created a feeling that was almost cathartic.
My husband asked me about my movement back into writing poetry. So, I said to him that writing poetry is in a way like the return of my soul to my body. It is significant in how it allows me to express and to be.
I'm still unsure about where this takes me. The more I proceed, the more I write, the more I recognize how much I still need to learn when it comes to technique and skill of expression. I recognize too how many, many books of poetry there are in the world and how much I still need to read and read and read.
I find myself asking this question...how does a poet write a poem? And is there a transformation that must take place in order for a poem to become more than a collection of words and thoughts? I think the answer is a yes, but I go on to ask what is this transformation and how do I reach that place?
Looking back I have to smile remembering my shyness, and how I wished I could just bury those poetry notebooks underground because all of a sudden everything I'd written seemed so juvenile and not really worth reading. (I still do get that feeling these days, but maybe I have just gotten more courageous compared to back then.)
I remember leafing through a pink, barbie doll journal ( yes it really was Barbie ), and blushing over love poems written to my crush or whatever...ha, ha...blush, blush. But yes, finally finding some stuff that wasn't purely juvenile. I remember lying on my belly on the hard narra floor of the ISACC office, working together with my aunt on a tree poem which I never sent anywhere because I could still feel how very elementary it was compared to work I'd seen on PATMOS or Isip-Isak.
And then, there was the surprise of writing "Becoming" ( published on PATMOS ) and connecting with that place that transcended the pettiness of me. To write a poem that could be considered a poem created a feeling that was almost cathartic.
My husband asked me about my movement back into writing poetry. So, I said to him that writing poetry is in a way like the return of my soul to my body. It is significant in how it allows me to express and to be.
I'm still unsure about where this takes me. The more I proceed, the more I write, the more I recognize how much I still need to learn when it comes to technique and skill of expression. I recognize too how many, many books of poetry there are in the world and how much I still need to read and read and read.
I find myself asking this question...how does a poet write a poem? And is there a transformation that must take place in order for a poem to become more than a collection of words and thoughts? I think the answer is a yes, but I go on to ask what is this transformation and how do I reach that place?
posted by rcloenen-ruiz at 2:18 AM
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