Interview with Lynn Levin
Photo courtesy of 2Leaf Press
By Alexis August
Editor’s Note: This interview were conducted by editor Alexis August at 2Leaf Press, a Black and Brown female-led press dedicated to highlighting sociopolitical issues with interesting and compelling literature.
Alexis August:
When did you begin writing poetry?
Lynn Levin:
I began writing poetry in first grade when the teacher taught us how to read by sounding out words and playing with the sounds of words. That teacher encouraged us to make lists of rhyming words and make poems out of them. I absolutely loved doing that.
AA: Having translated Odi Gonzales’s Birds on the Kiswar Tree from Spanish to English, which do you find more difficult: writing a poem or translating one?
LL: That’s a great question. I have to answer in a split-decision way. Translating is never easy because you have to work your way around tricky verb constructions and vocabulary that might be regional and not found in dictionaries. This was a collaborative translation, and Odi Gonzales helped me when I got stuck or missed the meaning of some phrase. Also, you need to have some level of proficiency in the source language. So there’s that. But translating is less stressful because the original poet has already done all the hard work, poured in the blood and sweat, and provided a finished and polished product with all the imagery, voice, and turns of thought settled in. Then it’s up to the translator to recreate the work in English, a bit like putting together a puzzle of words.
On the other hand, when I write my own poems, I’m the one pouring my blood and sweat into the project. With that comes the zest of inspiration and energy and the thrill of finding exciting language, but it also means wrestling with moments of self-doubt about the value of the project. Writing my own work involves more internal pressure. In answer to your question: translating is hard work, but writing my own work is harder.
AA: A reviewer with Write Now Philly said they read your latest poetry collection, The Minor Virtues, cover to cover with a smile. Is that the reaction you hope to achieve with your poetry?
LL: Wit and humor are essential to me as a poet. There are not enough funny poems in the world, and I want to help make up the deficit. Most of the funny poems in the collection, such as “Song of My Cell Phone” and “Delicatessen,” mix comedy and pathos, and many of the poems in The Minor Virtues are very serious and even sorrowful. I do feel that poetry has to have some entertainment value, and being able to raise a chuckle from the reader or the audience often adds to the entertainment value.
AA: As a teacher and writer of craft books, what do you believe makes a “good” poem? How do you teach your students to write good poetry? Or do you think that is not a teachable skill?
LL: The definition of what makes a good poem varies widely, and it is linked to the reader’s taste. For me, good poems depend on the skilled use of language and imagery, depth of thought and feelings, some emotional vulnerability on the part of the writer, and, above all, the ability to surprise both the writer and the reader. Good poems can be about monumental things or very ordinary things.
I do think that anyone can learn to write a good poem, but they need to be willing to open themselves to new literary influences, experiment with different styles and techniques, and tap into their fears and wildness. People already have inside them their raw material: their life experiences, deeply held values, and strong (sometimes buried) feelings. Poetry prompts and model poems show people who want to write poems how to shape their raw material into art. Those prompts and models are what my co-author and I give writers in our craft book Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets. I’ve seen this many times in class: a novice poet taps into some deep vein and comes up with a poem that’s just as moving and memorable as anything I read in literary magazines. In fact, over a dozen of the poems in Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets were written by novice poets, some college undergrads, some adults in community writing workshops.
AA: Is your process for writing fiction different from your process for writing poetry?
LL: Yes, in many ways my approach to fiction writing is different. When writing fiction, I need to find some uncommon problem or question that will start the action, and I need to develop thoughtful complex characters. Fiction has a bigger keyboard: in addition to plot and character, you have to think of setting, style, voice, and point of view.
AA: How has the past year and the pandemic affected your writing?
LL: I have been able to write quite a lot during the pandemic, both about the pandemic and other topics. My pandemic works include the essay “Dr. Rieux, Meet Dr. Fauci: Seeing Albert Camus’s The Plague with 2020 Vision,” which came out in October 2020 in The Massachusetts Review blog; a poem,“The Silver Bullet,” which will be published April 2021 in Plume Poetry; and the short story “Mothers and Daughters,” which will come out in Summer 2021 in Valparaiso Fiction Review.
AA: Are you working on any new projects that you are excited about?
LL: I am very excited about a short story collection that I am putting together.
AA: Since it is National Poetry Month, what would you tell the reader who finds poetry too intimidating or difficult to read? What advice would you give them on how to approach poetry?
LL: I would tell these people that they just haven’t met the right poem yet. I suspect that they went through school being made to analyze difficult poems from the tradition with complicated syntax and buried meanings. Poems should not present hurdles to understanding or blow smoke in the reader’s face or make the reader feel inadequate. Poems should give pleasure.
Lynn Levin is a poet, writer, translator, and teacher. She is the author of six books, including Miss Plastique (2013), a 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; and, as co-author, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (2013), a 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in education/academic books. Her previous books include Fair Creatures of an Hour (2009), a 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium (2005), a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s 2005 Book of the Year Award; A Few Questions about Paradise (2000); and a chapbook, The Forest: Poems by Besnik Mustafaj (2001), a translation from the French.
Levin’s poems, creative nonfiction, short fiction, and translations have appeared in Ploughshares, Boulevard, The Hopkins Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, Cleaver, Wild River River, Painted Bride Quarterly, on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and other places. She has received twelve Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania poet laureate.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Levin holds a BA in comparative literature from Northwestern University and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. A former producer of the TV talk show The Drexel InterView, Levin has also had careers in publishing and advertising. She teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Alexis August is an editor with 2Leaf Press currently editing an upcoming series Trailblazers: Black Women Who Helped Make America Great American Firsts/American Icons. She is a recent graduate from the University of Southern California where she earned her bachelor’s in creative writing and master’s in literary editing and publishing. Her work has been featured in Talking Lit, Chatter, Scribe, and Talking Out Loud.
