by Ellyn Lichvar
Every writer has an
occasional dry spell—those periods of inactivity that bring on strong feelings
of doubt/guilt/frustration/fill-in-the-blank. We know we should be writing, we want
to write, but nothing will come. We walk around the block, read, make a
sandwich, have a drink or a nap, and tell ourselves tomorrow is a new day.
In
late 2009, I got pregnant. In anticipation of conception, I’d gotten my body
ready the best way I knew how: I hit the gym, ate well, took handfuls of
vitamins. But I never thought to prep my mind as rigorously as I prepped my
body. Feeding my brain with the food I knew it needed—poetry, above all
else—never occurred to me. I read the What
to Expects and the Birthing from Withins but never once
sought out what I now know I craved: poetry (or fiction, essays, anything) that
had absolutely nothing to do with
having children. After my son was born, my body, the one I’d spent so many
hours cultivating for the blessed event, returned to [mostly] its original
shape. My mind, however, was a different story. Four sluggish years later, I
feel like it might be coming back. Might.
I
know I am not unique. Every parent feels this at some point. Regardless of
career, gender, or social status, most of us put ourselves on the shelf in some
capacity in order to parent to the fullest of our abilities—whatever that means. For me, doing so amounted to the driest dry
spell I’d ever experienced. So dry, in fact, that I barely realized it was out
of the ordinary. I didn’t read. I was tired. I’d forget to feed myself for
feeding the baby. How could I write anything,
let alone string together metaphors and images about motherhood—because, let’s
face it, what other subjects could my flabby mind conjure?—in a way that was
exciting for anyone to read besides my mother? Breastfeeding is beautiful and
natural and everyone would love to read seventeen straight poems about the
dimples on my son’s precious hands as they squeezed every last drop from me,
right? Of course not. And that was the best I had. So I just stopped.
Without
discussing time constraints and schedules and balancing acts, how does one
relearn how to write from her bones when her bones feel like they belong to
someone else? The simple, paradoxical answer is simple and paradoxical: there
is no answer. No one can tell you how to do it, you just have to start doing
it. In the end, it comes down to the old cliché of balance. You can’t turn off
one light in order for another to shine brighter. You can’t stop being a parent
in order to be a better writer any more than you can stop writing to be a
better parent. Each are integral parts of life and each informs the other.
Now
that my writerly brain has [mostly] returned, I got to thinking: do men have
this same issue? Do writer-fathers deal with the same mental blocks that I
experienced? In order to answer these questions, I turned to good my good
friend and fellow parent-poet, Dave Harrity. His answers to my questions drove
home one important point: every parent has to “make it work” and making it work
is likely different for every parent because, well, every parent is different.
The trick lies in the how you make it
work, the balancing of lives and the reorganization of priorities.
Ellyn: My writing came to a
complete standstill during my pregnancy and only returned in the last year or
so—save some spurts here
and there—yet I know several people whose writing absolutely took off the
second they became parents. Where do you fit on that scale?
DH: I think I was
steady all the way through, but I was never carrying a baby, so I won’t pretend to know what that’s like. The process of
becoming a parent and becoming a writer are very similar, but maybe all
processes of “becoming” are similar. If there is a way to measure my becoming, it
would be in the pages of my journal, which I don’t typically go back and
read. I had my big-time freak-outs like everyone who's ever had a kid.
How does the concept of “balance” figure into your life
both as a parent and a writer?
DH: Balance is a tough
thing for any parent to find, I think. And balancing parenting with writing is
especially tough. Before I had kids, I would write for several hours each day—some in the morning, some in
the afternoon, some at night—and would balance that with my original baby, teaching,
which was far more simple. Once I had kids, however, I was determined to
continue writing so I went about redefining what my writing schedule meant to
me. I started writing in the morning, and did so with my daughter next to me in
her little basket. I’d wake up at about 5 am and go till about 7 am. Once she
was old enough, I got her a journal and we’d have “writing time” together. She was maybe 2 and a half when this started.
She’d color, I’d write. It set a precedent
that morning time was creative time. It’s still holds today. She’s 6 now, has a little
brother (who went through similar training!), and now they do journal time
together, or simply play.
Explain a little bit
about your writing habits. Has your process or approach to writing changed
since becoming a parent?
DH: The process hasn’t changed, but my approach
to what I make is different. I don’t feel the pressure I used to, for the most part, to
produce, publish, etc. I try to redirect my energy into the process of
creating. The frustrations and blunders of parenting seem quiet when I’m writing, distant and
small. So I use the daily writing time to work out my personal crap and move on
to making poems. Rarely do I write about my children in poems, though, which I
still find odd.
What specific
difficulties and benefits have arisen for you as a writer since becoming a
father?
DH: The benefit is
that the pressure is off. There’s simply bigger shit to worry about. The difficulty is
the letting go of how you used to love/value a thing (writing) and allowing it
to evolve into a new form, a new way in which you interact with others and
yourself. But I suppose there are benefits to that, too. I’m glad that I’m a different man than I was
6 years ago. I'm glad for the new meaning.
What advice would you
give to an artist/writer who is about to become a parent for the first time?
DH: Remember that the
time you have with your children can’t be relived, so take it while you have it. There will
always be things to write. Human beings—your human beings—are more important than your writing. Figure out a way to
make a little progress with your writing each day and be content with it (it
should be noted that that advice is right from the Debra Kang Dean playbook).
Good things all take time, children or poems.
Your children are still
young. Do you imagine them one day reading your work? If so, does this inform
your process in any way?
DH: Oh god, I’d guess they’ll read something I’ve written, though hopefully
they’ll be over
me by the time they’re of age to care. Ha! I tend to spend a lot of time in
my journal, which will be the evidence to damn me or exonerate me should I ever
be imprisoned. I do think about what I write and know that they may read it, if
they can stomach the boredom. But I resolved myself long ago to the idea that
the truth (about anything) sets a person free. And the truth about me—I have to trust—will be no different. They
will see the good, bad, ugly, and beyond; some of it shameful, some of it
lovely. And, well, that’s who I am and I won’t let it be another way. If I’ve raised them right, they
won’t want it
another way either. I’d like to think they’ll get a more complete look at the relationship I have
with their mother, with them, with friends, family, etc. I like to think they’ll mine the ore rather than
fuel a grudge. All in all, I think about myself reading something like this
that my father wrote (though I don’t think he ever journaled once in his life) and feel like
it would be compelling and enriching for me rather than revolting or damaging,
so that keeps me going as well.
What do you feel is the
most import thing parent-artists can do to keep their creativity fruitful?
DH: The reality is
this: you can’t chase two rabbits, not well anyway. There’s an ebb and flow that is
both necessary and appropriate to transitioning between roles in life. I chose
to try jui
jitsu with writing, using what many
people see as destructive to the time aspect of creative life (having children,
that is) and turn it into my strength as a creative—my lesser weight against the
titan of having kids. I made writing part of their life, too. Mandatory journal
time was my little experiment that happened to work. Other writers I respect
made similar adjustments, William Stafford and George Oppen are two that
readily come to mind.
Parent-writers need to
adjust their standards of what can, should, and needs to get done. The children
are the important thing, and a gentle touch with them is what really matters.
Rane Arroyo once told his students, myself included, to live first and write
second. For me at this point in my life, this means be a parent first and a
writer second. Not a sexy idea, really, but raising kids is more important to
me than publishing poems. I take my vocation as a parent as seriously as my
vocation as a writer and a teacher, and I’ve found that the three work pretty synchronously almost
all the time—they inform one another in a really lovely way.
Explain, in a nutshell,
why it is you write poetry. What compels you?
DH: Other than loving
to play with words, I like the idea that poetry is the little proof that I
exist(ed) in the world. Most days that’s enough for me, though not all days. On days I feel
anxious, isolated, or anything like that, I take extra time to be with my
family and reengage my own purpose. Over the years the meaning of writing has
changed from a thing I do for a job—for relevance, for spectacle—to a thing that helps me
stay rooted in the world, conscious of the people around me that need my little
presence to feel safe, or whole, or happy. There are a few people like that—family, friends, students—and I see writing as a way
to root me in their life, in my own life.
Dave's book, Making Manifest, is available here: http://store.seedbed.
