I had decided to retire the literary Would You Rather series, but didn't want to stop interviews on the site all together. Instead, I've pulled together 40ish questions - some bookish, some silly - and have asked authors to limit themselves to answering only 10 of them. That way, it keeps the interviews fresh and connectable for all of us!
Joining us today is Miriam O'Neal. Miriam’s work has appeared in LA Review of
Books, The Galway Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The Waxed Lemon, and
elsewhere. The Body Dialogues (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2020),
was nominated for a Massachusetts Center for the Book Award. Her first
collection, We Start With What We’re Given, (Kelsay Press) came
out in 2018. She also is a 2019 Pushcart nominee was a finalist for the 2019 Disquiet
International Poetry Prize, and the 2020 Princemere Poetry Prize. A portion of
her translation of Italian poet, Alda Merini’s, Rose Volanti appeared in
On The Seawall. She hosts a monthly reading series, Poetry the Art of
Words, in Plymouth, MA for poetry, flash, and short prose. Her current writing
projects include translating a literary guide to Venice (In the Footsteps
of Writers), a long essay on the life of British artist, Elizabeth
Rivers and her time on the Aran Islands in Galway, and a new collection of
poems in the voice of Lot’s wife. Her most recent collection, The
Half-Said Things was published by Nixes Mate in April, 2022. See more
at miriamoneal.com
Why
do you write?
Writing is a way of being for me. So, I’d say,
when I write I know I exist.
What’s
something that’s true about you but no one believes it?
I am not
afraid of the dark, nor was I as a child.
What’s
your kryptonite as a writer?
There’s
a committee in my head that still doesn’t get that I am a writer. They took up
residence during my adolescence and have refused to move on. Eviction hasn’t
been entirely successful. They move on for a while but circle back now and
then. Sometimes, when they show up, I kick them into the basement and lock the
door to get things on paper.
What’s
the best money you ever spent as a writer?
Any time
I can spend $ on travel, I will. My first trip to Italy changed my perspective
on both myself and how I wrote, because I found myself writing to describe and
to connect rather than only introspectively. I had always thought I wanted to
go to Poet’s Bay on the west coast of Italy, do the whole Byron/Shelley tour,
but ended up choosing Puglia, the heel of the boot on a flight of fancy (I
wanted to sleep in a Trullo!). It turned out to be the best choice for me and
I’ve returned there many times. Virgil had a farm in Puglia and his ‘Georgics’
are based, in part, on the farming life (and the farming gods of course) of
that region. So many lovely rabbit holes to fall down there! I completed a
manuscript of poems that are in conversation with Linda Gregg’s beautiful book,
In the Middle Distance, during my last, pre-pandemic visit to
Puglia.
If
you could spend the day with another author, who would you choose and why?
What on
earth would they do with me? If I could spend part of a day with the poets,
Linda Gregg, James Wright, or Virgil and just compare notes on our impressions
of various kinds light on the Adriatic, and then pick capers from the caper
bush beside the trullo I stay in when I go to Puglia and watch the sun disappear
behind the hill, that would be nice. I blame the aforementioned committee for
my hesitance to take the whole day.
What are some of your favorite books and/or authors?
For that old time religion, Virgil and Ovid; the former’s Georgics, the latter’s poems in exile. Poet Linda Gregg is a touchstone for me. Her gaze is direct and her heart is forgiving. Her images arrest the eye. I love Joy Harjo’s clear and encouraging voice. Ross Gay’s intelligent joy. Natalia Ginzberg’s sorting of rich, tiny details. Italo Calvino’s stories always convince me to suspend my disbelief. Poet, Alda Merini’s surrealness wakes me up.
What
are you currently reading?
I’m
reading one hundred visions of war, by French writer, Julien Vocance, translated
by Alfred Nicol (Wiseblood Books, 2022). It’s a collection of haiku
Vocance wrote in response to his experiences in World War I. So, a Japanese
form in the French language translated into English, expressing a universal
horror. Also a collection of translated Italian short stories edited by Jhumpa
Lahiri. In different rooms at different times of day.
What’s
the single best line you’ve ever read?
So far
it’s one from Ranier Maria Rilke: “This is the crux of all that once existed/
that it does not remain with all its weight,/ that to our being it returns
instead,/ woven into us, deep and magical:”(Edward Snow, trans.). I know that’s 4 lines, but it’s one sentence
that invites us to imagine how to live with what we’re given in life.
Do
you read the reviews of your books or do you stay far far away from them, and
why?
Few
reviewers review small press collections of poetry, so I don’t have much to
stay away from. So far, my few reviewers have been complimentary.
Are
you a book hoarder or a book unhauler?
If you
saw my study today, you’d say I am a book hoarder. But that’s because you
didn’t see my study 6 months ago. It’s a cyclic process for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miriam O’Neal’s The Half-Said Things is a book both meditatively considerate and bitingly eloquent. These are domestic poems on the of wilderness, poems from empty rooms in crowded houses, poems delighting in language and ripe with depth. “So I take my missing with like a parting/ gift of roses” she writes, reflecting lyrically on life and death from a calm, wisely wary place of earned experience, strength and knowing acceptance.
—Stephan
Delbos, Poet Laureate of Plymouth, Massachusetts
buy a copy here
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