North Carolina poet and speaker Terri Kirby
Erickson is the 2013 Leidig Keynote Poet for Emory & Henry College in
Virginia, and the author of four collections of poetry, including A Lake of Light and Clouds (Press 53, 2014) and In the Palms
of Angels (Press 53, 2011), winner of three international awards.
How would you describe what you do?
Mostly what I do
is watch, listen, and remember. Only a
small part of the writing process for me, actually involves writing. First comes the inspiration, then the words
flow from that image, idea, or feeling.
Also, I like
HGTV. It’s like visual valium. The worst thing that can happen on these
shows are mold and termites.
Is this different than what other people think you do?
Probably. People often ask me if I have a “set” time to
write every day, and my answer is always, “Um…no.” In fact, I sometimes go for weeks without
writing a single poem. Or I might wake
up in the morning with a poem in my head and work on it for hours—maybe even
write two or three poems in succession.
So, I tend to be a binge poet rather than a disciplined, “I’m going to
sit here until I write something,” sort of writer. Trying to write poetry when I don’t feel like
it seems to stifle my creativity.
How do you know if you’re on the right track with a project?
When I’m on the
right track, there is nothing else but the words in my head and how fast I can
write them down. Time has no meaning and
I am completely in the moment…no worries, no distractions…just me and the “world”
I’m creating in a poem.
How do you go about making choices?
That really is an
indescribable process. Why I choose one
word over another has to do with sound, meaning, rhythm of the line, how the
word looks on the page…so many variables.
If you’re talking
dessert, however, I’ll choose a piece of chocolate ganache cake from Whole
Foods every time (since my Grandma’s famous chocolate poundcake is no longer
available), unless my mother has baked cookies.
No contest there.
How do you know when you’re done?
Reverting back to
poetry (!), when the poem says exactly what I want to say, the way I want to
say it.
What’s your workspace like?
I have a small
home office with cheerful yellow paint on the walls, a writing desk, and a computer;
photographs of people I care about; artwork that moves me, including a painting
my husband did from a photo we took on our honeymoon; a rocking chair where I
rocked my daughter for hours when she was a baby; various momentos from friends
and family, including a gorgeous needlepoint picture of blue sky and clouds,
with clothes hanging on a clothesline. A
very kind reader made this gift for me, which I absolutely cherish, as a
tribute to my poem, “Thread Count.” And
of course, the room is overflowing with books, books, and more books.
What are your essential tools?
All I need are my
five senses, heart, intellect, memory, and a computer. It’s nice, also, when my husband, Leonard, is
in the house. Hearing him puttering
around is very comforting to me, and I’m one of those people who writes better
when I’m happy.
What’s the most surprising tool you use?
Honestly, after over
half a century on planet earth, not much surprises me, anymore. I did write a poem once, using a brown
eyeliner pencil and a torn napkin, while driving to Winston-Salem to meet a
friend. I did most of the writing at
stoplights, but still, I don’t recommend it.
What was your biggest mistake or the one you learned the most from?
My biggest
mistake as a young person, was imagining that everything and everyone I love
would be around forever—that we were all immortal. I took a lot for granted until my brother,
Tommy, died suddenly when he was twenty. Now I do my best to enjoy life as much as I
can, to live mindfully in the “now,” and to cherish the people I love and the
time we have together. Also, I don’t generally
hold back from saying anything I need or want to say as long as it isn’t
hurtful to anyone, and I do things even when I’m afraid of doing them. Perhaps in some ways, I’m trying to live both
my brother’s life and mine—to somehow make it up to him for missing out on so
much.
What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
“Go ahead. Pet the neighbor’s puppy. Their electric fence is turned off!” said an
actual adult blood relative when I was four years old, who thought it would be
funny to see a little kid get an electrical shock. My parents told me never to touch that fence
around the puppy, so I knew better. But
I didn’t listen to my inner voice and paid the price for it. Now, I listen. Also, I glow in the dark.
What’s the best?
Whatever else you
do in life, get an education. Oh, and use
sunscreen on your face every single day, even when it’s raining.
What do you wish that you would have known earlier?
How fast your
children or in my case, child, grows up.
It seems like my daughter’s childhood lasted about ten minutes. I regret every bedtime story I didn’t have
the energy to read as slowly as she wanted to hear it, every second with my
little girl that I didn’t savor to the fullest because I was too exhausted. I should have taken more vitamins and
photographs, and let housework and other stuff slide more often. At 31, she swears I was the “greatest mother
in the world,” but the synonym for “mother” has to be “guilt.”
What are you working on now?
At the moment I’m
putting the finishing touches on my new collection of poetry, A Lake of Light and Clouds, which will
be published by Press 53 in the spring of 2014.
I got a call a few days ago from my uncle, visual artist Stephen White
(who does the paintings for all of my book covers, and whose work has been in
MoMA). He told me that the painting for
my new book cover was “finished and drying.”
I can’t wait to see it!
I’m also working
hard to keep from eating, out of a sense of deprivation, entire sticks of
butter. I discovered recently that my
cholesterol is a “tad” too high, so my previous addiction to chocolate ganache cake
is not going to work for me, anymore—at least, not on a regular basis. Now snacks consist mostly of fruit, Melba
toast with a tiny dollop of sugarless peanut butter, and rice cakes, sigh. I refuse, however, to give up my mother’s
carrot cake cookies. And thankfully,
poetry is fat-free…
I like the idea of a binge writer who really just takes in inspiration the rest of the time. I feel like this is often very true of a variety of types of artists. Enjoyed the interview and fat-free reading.
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