Interview with Juliet Wilson

I don't remember when I first discovered Juliet Wilson's blog - Crafty Green Poet - but I've always found it worth visiting for many reasons including the haikus and other poems, beautiful photos, descriptions, and discussions of nature (she lives in Scotland), posts on crafty projects, and reviews of movies and books (for reviews also check out another blog she runs, Over Forty Shades). I'm happy she accepted my invitation to be interviewed here.

For starters, here's some background on Juliet:

Bio
Juliet is a writer, crafter, adult education tutor and conservation volunteer. She has written poetry since she lived in Malawi for two years, but recently has started writing much more fiction and non-fiction. She is currently working on her first novel. She blogs about literature, nature, environmental issues and recycled crafts at Crafty Green Poet and edits the poetry journal Bolts of Silk.

Now on to the interview...

HK: Why do you write?
JW: I write basically because I feel I have something to say and because I enjoy it. I like putting words together and polishing them to create something that hopefully other people will enjoy.

HK: Why are you drawn to poetry in particular?
JW: Poetry was what first spoke to me I think, thanks to a school teacher who used an excellent poetry anthology in introducing us to poetry. Plus I have always been a relatively concise sort of person, so the fact that poems can be really short appealed to me. (My favourite poetic form is the haiku, both for its brevity and its connection with nature.)

HK: What do you think your strengths are as a writer, and what do you hope to improve on?
JW: I think the fact I'm very concise benefits my poetry. However, now that I'm working on a novel, I'm starting to think I need to expand my writing sometimes! In general I think there's always room to improve and I enjoy attending writing classes.

HK: Through your art (and your blog) you communicate a love of nature and a commitment to environmentalist principles. In what ways has your art been an effective vehicle for addressing and promoting various environmental issues? (e.g. have you found that your work has changed people's minds, made an issue better known, etc.)
JW: This is an interesting question and it can be difficult to find out the answer, particularly looking at the bigger picture of environmental issues! I do know, though, that several people have read books after I've posted reviews about them (one reader of my blog seems to read almost every book that I review!). A couple of my readers have left comments on my blog to say they've started getting out into nature more often as a result of reading my posts.

HK: You also make a lot of crafts (and recycle materials while doing so). Describe what you feel are some of your cleverest moments of craftiness.
JW: I recently blogged about bookmarks I made from left over thread and chunky beads (which inspired a few people to make their own!). Even more recently I've been making bookmarks threading small beads onto discarded fishing line that I found by the Water of Leith, the river I volunteer to help look after. These are probably my best examples of using imaginative recycling to make pretty things that people want to use.

HK: If you could assemble a panel of any three poets (dead or alive) to give you feedback on your work and discuss poetry with you, who would they be and why?
JW: Margaret Atwood because she knows how to make every word count and every poem of hers feels significant. Chrystos because she has such a wonderful way with words and such a clear sense of connection with nature as well as a genuine engaged commitment to human rights, yet even her most political work is lyrical. Edwin Morgan because of his amazingly inventive poetic imagination. I think those three would make for a very stimulating discussion on how to make the most imaginative and powerful poetry.

Thank you, Juliet!

Week in Seven Words #119

asynchronous
More sunlight is what I need. So I go for a walk. Turns out the weather is cloudy and cool, but at least it doesn't rain, and I enjoy being outdoors. As soon as I get home, the sun comes out.

crisp
Papery green leaves layer the trees outside my building. I want to pluck a leaf off its branch and write on it. If I knew origami I'd fold it into a turtle or set it on the wind as a swan.

emanate
In her sleep she sings, proving that music will always find a way to be heard.

exacting
We may be at different stages in life, but here's one way we're alike - we're too hard on ourselves. She's been told she's strong, but she says she doesn't feel strong inside. I tell her that her actions are what count. In spite of any fear or misgivings she's always done her best; she has behaved with courage and dignity and love. It's unrealistic to never feel fear, to always feel strong, especially for someone in her circumstances.

inedible
The store is closing for the summer, and the only things left on the shelves are food products depicted on their labels as starchy yellow lumps with unappetizing names.

infarct
The elevator sounds like it's suffering a heart attack. Will it hold out long enough to get us to the right floor?

nerds
A comment about someone's Facebook photo turns into a discussion of the Battle of Gettysburg and then the Civil War more generally. I'm among my people.

Week in Seven Words #106

bewilderment
Of all the emotions I read in the puppy's eyes (or read into them), bewilderment is most prominent. Why doesn't she get to piddle on the floor and run around wherever she wants and chew on the DVD player? Why do her keepers alternate between belly rubs and scoldings?

chafing
Some of them yield to a lack of responsibility, the close of their life where they can be tended to and spend their time drawing, watching videos, or staring out of windows. Others bristle, even gently, against the activities suggested to them. They shrink away or turn stony when someone addresses them in a patronizing babying voice. Their body or mind might be turning on them, and there might be no one left who bothers to visit, but they aren't going to settle happily before a pile of coloring pages and play with crayons.

chirography
I don't know what he's writing about, as he sits in the subway car with a notebook propped on his knee, but his hand-writing is beautiful. I hope the words are beautiful too. I think he could make art of a grocery list with his languid looping script.

heartfelt
Because she can't see so well, she dictates the Valentine to me, a week before Valentine's Day. I write her words out on a red, purple and pink construction paper heart, and I wonder if the person she's writing to is real, or still alive and living at the address she remembers. She has a great memory for addresses. Her words are straightforward - "thank you for visiting me, I'm sorry I couldn't see you at the time" - and I hope this person is real and that the Valentine arrives at the right place.

landmarks
An empty bandshell, the grand avenue of elms, an angel in a dead fountain. The bridge I cross shows up in sharp reflection on cloudy water.

promise
I hope to be worthy of the risks I'm taking.

ruction
Geese and ducks struggle over crumbs from bread and muffins. Two of the ducks whirl in a circle of combat on the water, a taut coil of movement, until one of them breaks free and skips away like a stone across the surface of the lake.

Week in Seven Words #95

cornucopian
My plate has something of everything: turkey and spicy beef, mashed yams and herbed potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and a slender wedge of potato pashtida (a Jewish/Israeli frittata/quiche type of food, cooked here without a crust). Apple cider is served for drinks, and for dessert there's some of the sweet corn bread that was baking while we ate dinner.

countenance
Infants can look more solemn, critical and perceptive than the adults around them.

cupcakes
While gift-shopping at a bookstore I see cupcakes everywhere: cupcake calendars, cupcake recipe books, cupcakes on cards. Maybe there's always been a plethora of cupcake products, and I haven't noticed. Now they leap out at me in shades of pastel lavender and dark blotchy chocolate, kittenish pink and creamy white, sporting sprinkles or periwinkle candles.

offshoot
We leave the paved path by the lake and go down a muddier offshoot; damp and soft, it coils past rocks and crackling bushes with berries.

orthography
I love the painstaking way they spell and write, focusing intently on each letter as if they realize how vulnerable language is to error and miscommunication. And each word they spell correctly is a door springing open.

refraction
My new glasses seem to have finally made peace with my brain and eyes.

salvaged
She uses scrap paper, old shoeboxes, felt, string and other odds and ends for her crafts projects; things that her family might have thrown out become the cards and presents she gives them on special occasions.

Week in Seven Words #89

coiling
They're sitting in the kitchen making long colorful paper chains to loop around the walls of their sukkah. The decorative chains spill over the kitchen table and pool and heap on the floor.

decumbent
Hit by an illness first thing in the morning, I find that the world is shaky when I'm out of bed. I stay under the covers, reading by the light that slides in through the blinds.

furtherance
I learn again that it's best not to put off doing something good and worthwhile with the complacent thought that there will be another opportunity for it soon.

illustrative
As I'm reading them picture books about a spiffy giant and a Gruffalo and a snail that travels the world on a whale's tail, she asks me why the pictures show some things but not others; for instance, if the story tells you that a fox ran off and hid, the picture only shows you the hiding part but not the running part. After I tell her that everything can't be shown, and that the people who write and illustrate the books have to pick and choose, her older brother starts to talk about how in movies you can't see what's going on with all of the characters either; when one character's story is on screen, other characters are off-screen, with things happening to them that we can't even see but maybe will only hear about later.

lucent
On my walk home, bright globes of light burn on either side of the path. It's nighttime and a fresh new day has begun.

precipitation
The tables and chairs are beaded with rain water.

unawares
Scrabble Junior can be as challenging as regular Scrabble, simply because Scrabble Junior lulls you into a false sense of security.

Week in Seven Words #16

kingdoms
Shoeboxes, straws, stickers, yarn and strings, the earnest work of crayons and markers and some glue, and what she has is a kingdom - with a main hall, a throne room, and more rooms beside - and the inhabitants are some of her favorite creatures.

melodies
She sets events to different melodies; she sings the words and melodies she knows, or fits new words to familiar tunes, or makes up the words and music on the fly, her favorite stuffed dog snuggled at her elbow.

myself
"No I can do it." And for extra emphasis - "By myself."

nook
I settle on the ends of sofas, curling up with a book or for some conversation or television. There's also the corner chair at the table, the seat tucked against the wall; I'm nestled against the table-edge and next to the poster with the woman and child walking through the poppy fields.

phonetics
The fun of spelling out words with sticker letters. He places the 'o' too low relative to the other letters; it looks like the word is spilling down. So I tell him that now, when the word arrives at that 'o', he'll need to make his voice swoop down to a deep pitch ('ohhhhhh'). When he places an 'r' too high, I tell him that now the 'r' will sound like a high-pitched shivering bumblebee ('eeeerrrr').

relish
She describes the delight of a cookie, a glass of milk, and a book. How she'll lay the cookie carefully on a napkin, slowly pour the milk, set them side by side on the table and spread the book open in front of them. And if there's an interruption - the phone ringing or someone calling her name - she doesn't mind so much, because she knows that the book, the cookie, and the milk will still be waiting on the table.

repose
I wake up in a softly bright room, with a vase of sunflowers at the foot of my bed.