Menu
Bookstore
Advertise
Summer 2005- July
Summer 2005 - July
Table of Contents
Editor's Message
Editor's Poem
Medalists - 1st Muses
Poems
Poem Reviews
Book Reviews
Interviews
Advertisements
Interview Conducted by Andrew Angus
LS: Yes. I'll just name the journals that have interviewed me so far this year. Underground Window interviewed me for the March 2005 issue. Sunpiper Press Magazine interviewed me as its Feature Poet in the April 2005 issue to celebrate National Poetry Month. Lummox Journal is also working on an interview with me for an issue this year.
2.) AA: Were you interviewed in television shows or newspapers?
LS: No
3.) AA: What is the title of your first poetry chapbook (30-40 pages)?
LS: "The River, the Rock, the Tree" (1995)
4.) AA: What are the titles of your other succeeding poetry chapbooks? (indicate also the year of publication)
LS: In the last 18 years I have published almost 30 chapbooks and books of poetry and prose, so I will only mention a few of the poetry chapbooks: "How to Create the Life You Desire" (1995), "Songs of Power" (1996), "In the Company of Cats" (2002), "Cat Daze" (2004), "In the Garden" (2004, The Moon Publishing)
5. ) AA: How many pieces of the chapbook "Cat Daze" have you sold so far?
LS: If you don't mind answering the question. (You may skip the question if you don't like to answer this question.) Hundreds. It came out the last week of April in 2004 and has become my most successful chapbook so far. Some of my customers have bought as many as 11 copies at a time to give as gifts to their cat-loving friends.
6.)AA: At what age did you start writing poems?
LS: 30
7.) AA: At what age did you start writing seriously for a living?
LS: 30
8. )AA: How did you learn to write poetry?
LS: I am completely self-taught, and have never taken a poetry workshop or class. I learned to write poetry by studying the work of great poets, living and dead. And I still do.
9. AA: Why do you write your poems in free verse instead of rhymed verse as seen in your poetry book "Cat Daze"?
LS: I like the challenge of free verse. I try to structure a poem like an abstract painting, combining elements that seem to have little in common. But I glue these unlikely lines together with internal rhymes, so by the time you finish reading the poem it makes perfect sense, and the story line is clear. I believe it is a waste of my time (and certainly my readers'time) to compose poems no one understands. So I work very hard to write understandable poems that sing and dance and fly around the room.
10.) AA: Who are your favorite dead poets? Why?
LS: Yeats and Roethke for the music in their poems. Longfellow for his marvelous narrative poems. Whitman for the spiritual joy in his poems.
11.) AA: Do you have favorite living poets?
LS: Yes. Mary Oliver and Charles Wright.
12). AA: Why do you like these particular living poets?
LS: Both are spiritual nature poets who enjoy internal rhymes and the music of words as much as I do.
13.)AA: Who among the poets (dead/living) influenced you?
LS: Mary Oliver and Charles Wright continue to influence and inspire me. I have learned so much from their poetry, and continue to learn from their work. I believe I own just about every book they have written, some out of print by now. In fact, I credit Charles Wright's fabulous poem "The Southern Cross" with my decision to become a poet. I found it in an old Pushcart volume in a used bookstore. He grew up in the Appalachian Mountains like I did, and many of his poems are about that part of the country, as well as the Blue Ridge Mountains where he lives now. He also structures his poems like paintings. When I discovered "The Southern Cross" it was the first time I had read a poem that said what I thought a poem should say (in terms of landscape and spirituality), and it was structured in the way I felt a poem should be crafted. That poem truly changed the course of my career.
14.) AA: Do you plan to write poems in metered verse or rhymed verse?
LS: No. Free verse offers so many possibilities that I am far from bored with it. As a poetic form, it perfectly expresses the internal rhythm of the words I hear in my head as I compose my poems.
15.)AA: What awards have you received related to poetry?
LS: I have received many, but will only list the ones from last year (2004) in the interest of space: My poetry chapbook "Cat Daze" was a Finalist in the Plan B Press Chapbook Competition and received a publishing offer. My fiction chapbook "White Porches" was a Semi-Finalist in the Winnow Press Chapbook Award in Fiction Competition. And my poetry chapbook "In the Garden" was a Top-Finalist in the Blue LightPress Poetry Prize Chapbook Competition, and it was published last year by The Moon Publishing.
16.) AA: Define poem and prose in your own words.
LS: A poem is tight and crisp, and the verbs are active and vibrant. A poem sings and flies around the room. Most prose sprawls loosely on the page. It's wordy and often sprinkled with passive verbs.
17.)AA: Is self-publishing (self-financing) the best path for first-book poets? If yes, why?
LS: I encourage all poets to self-publish, especially if they are just starting out and haven?t won a chapbook competition, or another small press publisher hasn't offered to publish a chap of theirs. That's because after you have been publishing poems in journals for a year or two, you begin to build a following for your work, and it only makes sense to have a chapbook to sell to these new fans. A chap will also expand your market at readings. What is the point of giving readings if you have no book to sell to those who enjoyed your poems? Poets must take control of their careers if they ever hope to become a success, and part of that includes self-publishing. Plus, poets tend to make more money on the chaps the publish themselves.
18.)AA: Is your chapbook self-published or published by a big publishing company?
LS: "Cat Daze" is self-published by my company Kittyfeather Press. But "In the Garden" is published by The Moon Publishing in Tucson, AZ. And for the last few weeks I have been negotiating a contract with a publisher in North Carolina interested in publishing my new book of cat poems titled "The Year of the Cat."
19.)AA: Do you write other literary genre?
LS: I also write short stories, novellas, poetry book reviews, interviews, and articles.
20.) AA: Which of the above genre were published?
LS: Kittyfeather Press publishes my novellas and short stories in book form, but that may change soon with this new publisher. Some of these are "Tuning Out" (a collection of short stories and a novella, 1996), "Evergreen" (novella, 2003), and "Angel" (novella, 2004).
21.)AA: How many book reviews have you made for magazines before?
LS: So far I have written about 40 poetry book reviews and interviews with poets.
22.)AA: Have you published a book that is not a poetry book? If yes, can you name the title of these non-poetry books?
LS: Yes, I have gathered many of my nonfiction articles in an anthology of poems, fiction, and nonfiction called "I Can Do Anything" (2000). I have also published a report for poets called "How to Become a Successful Poet" (2002) for $5.00, which contains many of the marketing strategies I have used to sell poetry books and build Kittyfeather Press into a successful publishing company. Information about this report and other poetry books and novellas is available on my web site (www.kittyfeatherpress.blogspot.com).
LS: I enjoy reading it, but have no desire to write it. I don't think it is obsolete. There will always be a market for good metered verse.
2. AA: Are poetry books difficult to sell? Why?
LS: The obstacle all poetry book publishers face is the fact that most book-buyers are afraid of poetry (because they think they don't understand it), or they think they don't like poetry (because they are afraid of it). To answer your question, no, poetry books are not hard to sell. They are not hard to sell when they are based on a particular theme (like gardening, cats, dogs, etc.) and geared toward a segment of the market that enjoys those themes (gardeners, cat and dog-lovers, etc.). Poetry books have never been difficult for me to sell, because I have always published my books according to the themes that my market (cat-lovers, gardeners, spiritual women) enjoy. But some poetry books are very difficult to sell. Books that have no theme, or poetry that is depressing, violent, or so abstract no one but the poet can understand it. I think this is where the misconception lies when people think poetry books are difficult to sell. Most of the people who buy my poetry books have never bought a poetry book before, because of they thought they didn't like poetry. But after they read a few of the poems in my catalog and on my web site and buy a book, many become repeat poetry book buyers. I think there will always be a good market for positive, well-crafted, free verse poetry.
3. AA: Have you been invited before to judge poetry contests?
LS: No, not yet.
4. AA: What poetry/literary organizations did you join? Are you an officer or a member of the board of directors of these poetry/ literary organizations?
LS: I have been a member of various national poetry organizations from time to time, but at the moment I am not.
5. AA: Do you like to travel? How many countries have you visited so far?
LS: I only like to travel to Asheville, North Carolina, and New York City. I love the mountains around Asheville, because I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in north Georgia. I also love the bookstores and art galleries in Asheville. Likewise, I love the art galleries and bookstores in New York, especially Midtown Manhattan, where we usually stay. I have visited and lived in many cities around the country, but I?m not much of a traveler, and really have no desire to travel beyond the United States. So I have visited no foreign countries. That may be because I have built a wonderful life for myself here, and I am very happy with it. I also believe in living in the moment and the divinity of simplicity. So I never need to get away from my life for a vacation somewhere else. I am a deeply spiritual person, and I derive great joy and happiness from my everyday life. I know that may sound boring to some, but it is the theme of most of my poems. I guess you could say I walk my talk.
6. AA: Why is poetry considered therapeutic by some poets? Do you think poetry is therapeutic?
LS: Those poets probably write very emotional poems, and poetry is a means for them to sort out what they are feeling, positive or negative. But I have never used poetry as therapy, and I don?t enjoy reading poems full of angst, depression, or emotional turmoil. I prefer to read and write spiritual nature poetry. Also, when I was young, I witnessed how people can wound one another with negative emotions and words, so I made a decision to seek the positive in every situation, no matter how dark. Consequently, some of my most peaceful poetry books have been written in the midst of very trying times in my life. My poetry is consistently spiritual and positive, and this reflects my view of life. But that's just me.
7. AA: Do you start with an object or a word that fascinates you when writing poetry? If yes, why? If no, how do you write poetry?
LS: Because I am a spiritual nature poet, the themes in my poems remain the same. I write new poems based on those themes, or sometimes a poem begins with an interesting poetry fragment. Other times I begin new poems by combining poetry fragments, since I write every day, and many of those fragments are observations of the natural world. But my poems are always pieced together like abstract paintings; not one color at a time, but one line at a time, until they make sense.
8. AA: Do you rely on a dictionary or thesaurus or other references when writing poems?
LS: The lines in my poems are stitched together with the music of words, so a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary are invaluable. I also make lists of words when reading, and keep those lists in my thesaurus. When I am looking for an interesting word, I often refer to those lists. I once heard Joyce Carol Oates say she reads the dictionary for fun. What a great way to find new words. Most often the words I place in my poems are not fancy words with obscure meanings, but colorful everyday words. I also enjoy turning verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs. You could say creative license gallops throughout my poems!
9.) AA: What is your favorite topic or theme in writing poems? Are cats your favorite topic?
LS I am a spiritual nature poet, so all my poems are spiritual. Beyond that, they can be divided into a few major themes like nature, gardening, and cats.
10. AA: What is your advice to new poets: to improve their craft or to be an award-winning poet?
LS: How funny! Do we have to make a choice? I prefer to think that award-winning poems are also well-crafted poems. By all means, a poet should work every day to learn the craft of poetry and to improve the quality of his/her poems. But I also believe, as poets, we should take charge of our careers, and that means building a solid resume of publication credits and awards. I think it is not a question of one or the other, but a matter of trying to achieve both goals, including winning the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Why not? I think we should all aim high.
11. AA: What is the one feature you admire most in the poetry of your favorite poets?
LS: Consistency. And that is a trait I try to exhibit in my own work. Unfortunately, consistency seems to be underrated in the poetry world. I can never understand why. When I pay $20.00 for a new book by one of my favorite contemporary poets (Mary Oliver or Charles Wright), I know I am going to enjoy every poem in that book, because their collections are consistent in terms of theme and quality. I know I'll never be unpleasantly surprised by a series of depressing poems or violent political poems stuck in the middle of the book. Book-buyers expect consistency, and when you give them what they require, they reward you with steady book sales. At the moment I am working on two new books. One is a novella, and the other is my Collected Poems. Over the months I have been working on the poetry collection I have changed the name a few times, and have finally decided to call it ?Cats and Chrysanthemums: New & Collected Poems, 1987-2005." It will be published by Kittyfeather Press this summer. It may have been difficult to choose the perfect title for such a comprehensive book, but one thing is certain: I have worked very hard to make sure this collection is as consistent as my others. That means I have gone back and read every poem I have ever written, rewriting most of the old poems to bring them up to the standard of the newer poems. My readers expect a high level of quality and consistency from my books, so I am working hard to provide that in this collection of 18 years of spiritual nature poetry. Have I mentioned how much fun I'm having? Every poet should be graced with compiling a volume of collected poems. It's like visiting wonderful old friends again. I am thoroughly enjoying the experience, and hope it blesses my readers in the same way.
The complete interview with Laura Stamps will be available in the print edition of Muses Review.
All rights reserved.