Sledgehammer Lit – Page 2 – Fevers of the Mind

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Marie Little

with Marie Little:

Q1: When did you start writing and first influences?

Marie: I started writing poetry when I was about 11 and realised that I was quite good at it when I was accused of plagiarism! The poem was called The Dancer in the Night. In high school I was influenced by Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney. My very first influences, though, were the poems Mum used to recite to me from memory at bedtime – Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt and Amy Elizabeth Ermyntrude Annie by Queenie Scott-Hopper, among others.

Q2: Who are some of your biggest influences today?

Marie: I keep going back to the poems of the late Andrew Waterhouse.

Q3: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing/art? Have any travels away from home influenced work/describe?

Marie: I grew up in rural Northumberland and spent a lot of time outdoors in our garden, or in the fields. Lots of my current poetry is influenced in some way by those memories. In my twenties I moved to London while in the middle of a Creative Writing MA; my writing improved by way of added grit, colour and experience!

Q4: What do you consider the most meaningful work you’ve done creatively so far?

Marie: I feel it is too early to say. I am only just finding my feet creatively again after so long.

Q5: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

Marie: I remember answering the What do you want to do when you grow up? question with I want to be a poet, when I was still at Primary School. I am only just beginning to think that this might be an option!

Q6: Favorite activities to relax?

Marie: I love to walk in the fields and lanes near to where I live – sometimes with my family, sometimes alone in the morning.

Q7: Any recent or forthcoming projects you’d like to promote?

Marie: I have only started writing again in earnest and submitting work, since Spring this year. I am looking forward to a summer of work being published in: Ink Sweat and Tears, Sledgehammer, Five Minutes, Cool Rock Repository, Anti-Heroin Chic, Catatonic Daughters and The Birdseed Magazine. (All are on Twitter).

Q8: What is a favorite line/stanza from a poem of yours or others?

Marie: At the moment I am enjoying a line from an old poem of mine He says I have a measure of red, a marble streak running to extreme parts. This came out of a writing workshop with Andrew Waterhouse during my MA.

Q9: Who has helped you most with writing?

Marie: I owe a lot to my High School English teacher, Yvonne Rushmere, who helped my self confidence no end. My husband is my biggest Champion.

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Karen Steiger

Q1: When did you start writing and first influences?

Karen: I fell in love with writing as a young child, starting with an illustrated biography of our family cat, Garfield, which sent me to the Young Authors’ Conference in 3rd grade. (I’ve always been a sucker for any kind of conference or convention.) The following year, a creative writing class with Ms. Jancose continued to ignite my passion. I started writing terrible novels, which led to slightly better stories and first chapters of novels written throughout my life. I only seriously started exploring poetry in 2017 when my friend Amanda Dickson started a poetry writing group. My first influences included C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary and Star Trek.

Q2: Who are your biggest influences today?

Karen: My biggest influence today, not just in art but in life in general, is Monty Python.

Amazon.com: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Special Edition): Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Mark Forstater, Michael White, Michael White Productions;

Q3: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing/art? Have any travels away from home influenced work/describe?

Karen: I grew up in Northwest Indiana, in a small town called Griffith, in the shadow of Chicago and undoubtedly in a cloud of pollution from our oil refineries and steel mills. (I’m sure riding my bike in the wake of the town’s mosquito fogger truck didn’t help either!) Nevertheless, it was a great place to grow up in the 1980s as a free-range kid. It’s a region of hard workers who battle lake effect snowstorms and mid-summer heatwaves and the disdain of Illinois city-dwellers and fellow Hoosiers alike. I also felt like an outsider during much of my adolescence as a small, nerdy bookworm with absolutely no athletic ability. I think that this upbringing helped me to develop my ambition and perseverance, the latter being the most important quality in a writer/poet. I’ve been a huge Anglophile for most of my life (see: Monty Python obsession), so one of my most influential trips was a six-week study-abroad program in London when I was 19. I’ve written a number of pieces about London and that trip in particular, including “Maida Vale,” which was published by the Wells Street Journal in 2019. https://t.co/YwQVYiCsgK?amp=1

Q4: What do you consider the most meaningful work you’ve done creatively so far?

Karen: The most meaningful work that I’ve done creatively so far is explore my breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. I have a full-length collection about this experience that I am starting to shop around for publication, and I hope that someday it can provide comfort and some humor for someone facing the same experience. Here is a link to “Mastectomy,” published at Sledgehammer Lit, as an example. https://t.co/G6aAwf3Xoy?amp=1

Q5: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer/artist?

Karen: When I joined my friend Amanda’s poetry writing group, I was honestly intending to spend that time to continue to wrestle with the novel I had been working on. But when she read out our first poetry prompt, the words just started pouring out of me with a joy and abandon that I hadn’t experienced while writing in a long, long time. With fiction writing, I often felt like a penguin trying to fly. But with poetry writing, I feel like a penguin swimming. (Even though I’m expecting at any moment for someone to tell me I’m not writing poetry correctly.)

Q6: Favorite activities to relax?

Karen: To be honest, I spend a lot of my free time scrolling through Facebook and Twitter. But I love to play mountain dulcimer and have found a very special community of musicians in my classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I also enjoy reading, volunteering with my local greyhound rescue group, Greyhounds Only, forest walks, and learning foreign languages.

Q7: Any recent or forthcoming projects you’d like to promote?

Karen: I always like to refer people to my blog, The Midlife Crisis Poet, where you can find a lot of my work and a list of my publications. http://themidlifecrisispoet.com

I also would like to direct people to recent publications at Bombfire Lit, and two poems will soon appear in Journal of Erato’s “Coming of Age” issue: https://t.co/sylgxC3Nyj?amp=1

Q8: What is a favorite line from one of your poems/writings or others?

Karen: One of my favorite lines that I’ve written appears in “A Bit of a Meltdown” in Crow and Cross Keys. “I casually disemboweled myself the other day/ in front of a crowd of people.” https://t.co/06isyfWGL5?amp=1

Q9: Who has helped you most with writing?

Karen: I have to thank my writing friends, especially Amanda Dickson, Melissa Kramer, Emily Patterson-Kane, Jesse William Olson, Raymond Wlodkowski, Padraig Johnston, for their thoughtful reading and feedback.

Links:

Twitter: @maisedawg

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Fizza Abbas

with Fizza Abbas:

Q1: When did you start writing and first influences?

Fizza: I started writing at the age of 11 when I saw my then-best friend reciting her own poem during the farewell party of one of our teachers. The rhyming scheme of the poem tickled my fancy and I tried to explore poetry a bit more, Urdu poetry particularly. At that time, I didn’t have a proper understanding of English language, so I used to write scribbles, thinking it’s poetry but as I grew older, I came across works of legends like Khalil Gibran, Shelley, Wordsworth and Alexander Pope who taught me what poetry is all about

Q2: Who are your biggest influences today?

Fizza: While I love Sylvia Plath, Matthew Arnolds and Ben Jonson’s writing style, Billy Collins has become one of my most favourite poets in recent times.

Q3: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing?

Fizza: I was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. My mother was fond of Urdu and Persian poetry as well as classical Hindi songs. She often used to recite/sing verses of her favourite songs/ghazals which increased my interest towards writing.

Q4: Have any travels away from home influence your work/describe?

Fizza: No, not yet but I like the idea. I’m thinking of going to Lahore because the city has such a rich history that I’m sure I’ll find a lot to write about after coming from there.

Q5: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?

Fizza: When I read The Prophet and Broken Wings by Khalil Gibran, I loved how he weaved words together and I decided I would want to do the same for the rest of my life.

Q6: Favorite activities to relax?

Fizza: I enjoy falling into Wikipedia rabbit holes, watching Sci-Fi movies and spending time with my husband.

Q7: Any recent or forthcoming projects you’d like to promote?

Fizza: Recently, my chapbook Ool Jalool has been published by Fahmidan Publishing. Another chapbook of mine, Bakho is forthcoming from Ethel Press by the end of 2021. Similarly, one poem from Moonchild Magazine and three poems are coming out in Sledgehammer’s three consecutive issues this year.

https://www.fahmidan.net/copy-of-ool-jalool-review-copy
https://cabinetofheed.com/2019/10/11/bonfire-fizza-abbas/
https://stoneofmadnesspress.com/fizza-abbas https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZrZRCg9m_Nk5HR3MOkLfsA

Q8: What is one of your favorite lines from a poem/writing?

Fizza:

‘’Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show’’
( To Penshurst, Ben Jonson)

‘’I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit——
Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.’’

(Applicant, Sylvia Plath)

‘’I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit——

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.’’

(Bird-Understander, Craig Arnold)

Q9: Who has helped you most with writing?

My husband, Waqas Rabbani who himself is a fabulous writer. He has not only been a staunch supporter of my work but has been a great mentor to me. He often offers me a critique and helps me steer my ideas to a new direction.