Lola Haskins has published five full-length collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Extranjera (Story Line, 1998). Story Line also reissued Hunger, which won the Iowa Poetry Prize in 1992, and will publish Desire Lines, New and Selected Poems in 2002. A further volume, The Rim Benders, is forthcoming in October, 2001 from Anhinga Press. Ms. Haskins has taught Computer Science at the University of Florida since the late 1970s, and lives on a farm outside Gainesville with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and a large number
of fish.

Further information as well as links to more poems may be found at her website.

 

What's your view of the internet as a venue for poetry?

Positive:
From the perspective of a reader, I think the internet is a terrific way to locate new poets, especially for people who don’t happen to live in cities, but even for them. Case in point: I can’t find many magazines whose editorial viewpoint I just love in MY local bookstore. And I live in a college town. On the other hand, the thought that the internet may replace print books completely makes me shudder; I would hate to have to read only on the screen. It just doesn’t have that new-book smell, or the texture, or real pages, and climbing a tree or crawling into the attic with a computer just wouldn’t be the same.

From the point of view of a writer, internet publishing can be instant gratification. It can also find us writers, readers who’d never otherwise have come across our work. I’ve had, from time to time, wonderful emails from people who’ve seen my poems on line.

Negative:
First, publishers don’t keep always their sites up, so published work can suddenly vaporize without warning. Second, there’s no quality control on the web and for a reader who doesn’t know what he/she may be looking for, the proliferation of stuff can really daunt. Anyone who tries searching the web using “poetry” as a keyword had better not have anything else to do today.

You've recently completed a book of advice for beginning poets. Why did you feel the need to write it and what do you hope it will offer someone just getting into poetry?

Well, the story of that book goes back to a year ago this New Year’s when my son, who was visiting from New York, asked a friend of his to stay. This friend, Rob, is in his mid-thirties, lives in Boston, and, like my son, is a musician. He’d been thinking about writing poetry and had a lot of questions. So I took him out for coffee, and he asked them. And when I looked across the table and saw he was writing down everything I was saying, I suddenly realized how many people I’d given advice to over the years. And it was a lot. For some reason, I’m an advice magnet (and not only for poetry). I’ve had strangers come up to me on the street and start telling me their life stories.

After Rob had gone home, it then occurred to me that there are probably a lot of people like him out there, who are interested in writing, not necessarily for publication even, and may not know anyone to ask. I was there myself. I never studied poetry formally so I really didn’t know how other people did it, and I didn’t know how to approach publishing or anything else either. And I thought, I wish I could help all those people because I know so exactly how it feels. I know that it can be embarrassing to buttonhole some stranger and ask him/her the kinds of things I, at least, wanted to know when I was starting out. So I decided to write it down, so people who might have these questions could look at one person’s answers in the privacy of their homes, without having to say anything to anyone.

In answer to your second question….What I hope the advice book can do for people is first and critically, take away the fear of failure that may keep them from getting started. I want it to tell them that it doesn’t MATTER if they ever write world-class poems. Who CARES. What’s so wonderful about writing is that it helps be more fully alive. And besides, that I want my advisees to know that most of what any of us produces is going to be garbage. And that that’s okay too.

Once that’s taken care of, I’ll go on to some practical suggestions-- how to start writing poems (physically and psychologically), how to edit, how to put a book together, and, how to publish, publically or privately (and privately is FINE and not publishing at all is also fine). I’m subtitling the book “a beginner’s guide to the poetic life” because, though there’s a lot of practical advice in it, I mean to suggest writing poetry is ultimately not about finding a career, it’s about seeing what’s around you in a personal way-in other words it’s about living.

To what degree do you believe poetry can be "taught"? How large a part of being a poet is something one is just born with?

To say that poetry can be taught implies, for me anyway, that it can somehow be disseminated by a content provider. That’s just not true. Most of poetic “talent” is really hard work and devotion over a lot of years. When I started writing, my poems weren’t good at all, or certainly not good by the way I look at poetry now. But I kept at it for twenty years and they got a little better. That fact, incidentally, is why I would NEVER look at someone’s work and think, even to myself, that that person doesn’t have what it takes. It’s truly a matter of dedication. Anyone who decides to be a poet, in the sense of making poetry the center of his/her life, is going to have to care that much. And that’s probably going to amount to giving something else up.

That said, I think that there are people who do have a gift for words and seemingly can just spew them out. I may be wrong about that, though. Maybe that’s just what I think not knowing their process firsthand. It’s worth saying, though, that I don’t think talent is enough. If you really want to make a mark, you have to be tough-minded, dig deeply, and keep growing. And glibness, word-spewing, is never enough either (though I do have to say that there are some poets in the US today whose careers are based on work which seems to have cost them very little emotionally-and they’re certainly much more famous than I am, if that matters).

How does poetry happen for you? Do you control the process, or does the process control you?

When I’m first working on a poem, what I have to do is let my mind ride. Once it’s done its riding, though, I step in and edit hard. Then I let it ride again. Sometimes this process works. Sometimes, for months on end, it doesn’t. What I wish is that I could be uncontrolled at will. What I mean is that I can handle the editing. It’s the getting started that’s so hard for me.

Do you share your work in progress with anyone? How much are you influenced by other people's opinion, whether on work in progress or finished work?

Sometimes I do. After many years, I know myself pretty well, work-in-progress wise, and I know when I’m satisfied with something. If I feel a line or so is right for me, I won’t listen to anyone who says it isn’t. BUT most situations are in between, and I listen very hard to suggestions in those cases. I’ve dropped lines I liked a lot but wasn’t quite settled into, because someone made it clear to me why they should go. From time to time, too, I’ve had absolutely brilliant suggestions from friends and I’ve gone right home and fixed whatever the problem was-not always using those suggestions, but finding them wonderful fuel. I’m very careful about who I show my work-in-progress to, though. That’s something I talk about in my book.

As far as people judging finished work. Well, of course I’m happy when they like it. Sometimes, obviously, they don’t and aggressively don’t. Then, I’m human, and it hurts.

What brought you to poetry in the first place? When did you first feel the need to write?

I’ve loved it all my life. I didn’t write any, though, after maybe 10 years old-I drew. When I was 23 I went to Greece to live. I’d studied Greek drama in college, and wanted to see what the place it came from was like. When I saw the landscape, it swept over me. Now, I see, I thought. And I started writing on my own.

What's made you grow as a poet from that beginning?

I think, reading, which fed my lifelong passion for words until it burned out of control. Also, a desire to leave something behind, which has grown over the years.

I think a lot about growth. I have a horror of repeating myself-I’ve seen poets do that and I think it stagnates them. I hope I’ve avoided stagnation-but of course, it’s hardest to judge my own work. How do I really know? I can’t. I do know that if what I’m working on makes me nervous, I’m on a good track.

Is expression through poetry something which is unique for you, or do you find that expression having similarities with other things you do in your life?

I think poetry IS unique for me. There’s nothing that makes me feel as completely alive, as finding a line I like makes me feel. I should add, though, that I’ve had a lucky adult life-a kind husband and two talented and loving grown children. I’d have pursued the poem, like the fish that may or may not exist, with or without them, of course, but they’ve been rocks, lovely, lichen-frilled, mountained, rocks.