Interview: Megan Webster

Megan Webster— Poet, ESL Consultant, Editor, and Founding member of San Diego Writers’ Cooperative Interview by Terrie Leigh Relf ©2003 Terrie Relf writersmonthly.com All Rights Reserved

WM: How did you come to poetry?

MW: Poetry has always been part of my life. I was born into an extended family on a Welsh farm, where all cultural activities emanated from two nearby Presbyterian chapels (Bwlchycorn and Peniel). The highlight of the activities was the Eisteddfod, or traditional cultural festival. My cousin and I – we were an extended family at Llwynsarnau -- would spend evenings writing light verse, particularly Limericks, for the children’s poetry contest, and my mother would coach me for the recitation contest. I still remember some of the poems: "Y Gwcw" ("The Cuckoo"), "Nant y Mynydd" ("Mountain Stream"), and "Y Gwanwyn" ("The Spring"). These are nature poems that rural children could easily relate to.

WM: Did, or do, you have specific mentors?

MW: By pure accident, while at nursing school in London, I tuned in to the BBC production of Under Milk Wood. I was mesmerized. After that, I read all of Dylan Thomas’ work. He was definitely a mentor. He was also the man my stepfather boasted he knew and drank with at Brown’s Hotel, Laugharne, where the poet lived. Laugharne is only a few miles from Carmarthen, the town my mother moved us to after my father and grandfather died.

WM: What poets do you admire?

MW: I admire Dylan Thomas a lot, his stunning images, emotional honesty, wit, and craft. Other English Welsh poets I admired then–and still do–are Emyr Humphreys, John Ormond and John Tripp. But there are countless poets I admire from the Classics down, including peer poets in San Diego.

I admire Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, first female protest poet of the Americas; Borges, Neruda, Juan Gelman—the dignity and tenderness of his grief poems about Argentina’s Disappeared, which include his son and daughter-in-law--and Martin Espada. And of course Emily Dickinson. Who doesn’t admire Emily?! I’m constantly dipping into her work. I could go on and on. In some unconscious way, I think we take something from every poet we encounter. I know Kim Addonizio has given me courage and a standard to aim for; Tony Hoagland, who I discovered earlier this year, has shown me new ways to convey dissent.

WM: I know our readers would like to hear about your writing process and practice.

MW: I doubt that my writing process is in any sense unique. In part, writing is the way I deal with life’s blows, whether they are mine, someone else’s, or the world’s. Once I’ve spilt my outrage, pain, or whatever, onto the pages of my journal (my best friend), I’m more able to come to terms with it. Mind you, if it’s excruciating pain, I have to write it over and over before I can live with it. Then later, when I read what I’ve written, I identify lines for poems. I never have to look for something to write about.

WM: What else inspires you to write?

MW: A phrase in a periodical, words overheard in a store, will often trigger a poem. It was hearing someone say, "Raquel Welch still has the greatest tits and ass" that set my imagination going on "Rising To The Occasion"; and Risa Goldberg reading one of her insect poems that sparked "Bathroom Companion". I don’t deliberately sit down and tell myself to write a poem unless I’m in a class or workshop. However, when the prompt is right in such situations, poems have popped out of my subconscious. "At The Time" was one of them. Tender moments, the beauty and cruelty of Nature, are also good sparkers.

WM: What else?

MW: Injustice, suffering - as shown in "Anatomy Lesson", "Adoption Parties", "Chechnya 2000", and many others. Death of family members, close friends. My grandfather hated me because I looked like my father, whom he vehemently disapproved of. His death triggered some colorful poems. The death of a significant other who died unexpectedly in my arms, sparked five poems at different stages of grief. The marvels as well as cruelties of Nature. Moments of tenderness or joy. The bizarre and the humorous – I love taking a funny line or situation, and writing a poem that will make people laugh. I don’t try to give it a deeper layer; funnily enough, though, it will sometimes turn out to have one.

WM: I knew you were from Wales, and that you have traveled quite a bit over the years. What sorts of adventures have you had? Jobs?

MW: I left the UK for a job in Denver, sponsored by the British Council, and later moved to San Francisco to work at The University of California Hospital. It was in a Spanish class in San Francisco that I met my ex-husband, both of us bent on going to South America. We pooled funds, bought a blue Chevy (that had only been used to deliver flowers…) and headed south for Tierra del Fuego. A long story. I did, however, keep a journal of our adventures, and did intend to publish it. But the idea kept slipping down the priority list as we battled for survival in the various jungles. To cut the story, we ended up penniless in Venezuela, and later moved back to Mexico. Nurses were paid a pittance in Mexico, and macho attitudes towards the profession were unbearable. So I enrolled at The University of the Americas and got a master’s in Intercultural Ed: TESOL. I taught ESL in Mexico, and afterwards, at Northeastern University, Boston. Most of my creative energy went into teaching and textbook writing during that period. Now, I do mostly freelance editing.

WM: You mentioned the journal of your adventures, what other special projects are you working on?

MW: I’m still adding to Journey Back to Childhood in Llwynsarnau, the memoir I began a couple of years ago about my childhood on a Welsh farm. The poems are written in a child’s voice and cover the years between three (my first memory) and eight. I’m also working on a book of poems related to mental illness. My son suffers from manic-depressive illness, as do several of my friends. I’m appalled at reports of police shootings of the homeless mentally ill, and feel compelled to write about such tragedies. The book will not only show how the uninformed public views behaviors of the mentally ill, but also the exasperation of their families and friends, and the despair of the mentally ill themselves.

WM: What about advice for poets and writers--especially ones who are trying to get their work "out there"?

MW: I took Anne Wilson’s workshop on publishing when I was trying "to get out there", and remember her recommending we send out poems in batches of ten. For example, send one batch to ten different magazines; another batch to ten other magazines; and when poems came back rejected, put them straight into fresh envelopes and send them out again to other journals or anthologies. "Make this a routine," she said, "and you’ll be surprised." I couldn’t handle the intense routine – far too time-consuming. But I know a few disciplined poets who followed it and received thirty to fifty acceptances a year.

Today, there are dozens of e-zines soliciting submissions, so "getting out there" should be relatively easy.

WM: I don’t want you to get away without discussing the challenges of translating poetry.

MW: While in graduate school in Mexico City, I took a poetry translation course with poet Salvador Elizondo. We translated from Spanish into English, and I soon encountered the challenges. In my first assignment, I translated the first stanza of a poem word for word, and you can imagine the results. That was the first lesson. The translator has to understand the meaning in the line, then find the right words to convey it.

I designed and taught a translation course at the Aglo-Mexican Cultural Institute in Mexico City. We used Ethel Brinton’s book on translation (I’ve forgotten the title). I taught the Spanish into English part, and a native Spanish Speaker did the English into Spanish. We used different registers: ads, letters, newspaper reports, technical articles, and poetry. Poetry was by far the most challenging. A great deal of experience is needed to do a good translation – I mean a translation that is not merely a translation, but a poem that stands in its own rights.

When Olga Garcia coordinated the American team for The Second Bi-national Poetry Reading at the Casa de Cultura in Tijuana, we all pitched in with the translations. Some of us were native English speakers, others native Spanish speakers. Two or three poets would offer their translation of a given piece, then we’d all look at the final rendering to make sure it worked. Joan Lindgren was at the reading, and I wondered what she thought of the translations. She is a translator I greatly admire.

WM: How did the San Diego Writers’ Cooperative come into being?

MW: San Diego Writers’ Cooperative was founded in 1988 in response to the closing of The Writing Center in Hillcrest, which literally happened overnight. Karin Zirk, Sylvia Levinson, Terry Hertzler and I had been deeply involved with TWC. We met to share our grief and see what we could do to fill the void, and address some of the problems created by the sudden demise. Having no funds, we decided on a Web site resource for writers. Our goal was, and still is, "to serve as a resource for San Diego County writers, readers and everyone with a love for the written word." We started with a "Venues" page and a "Calendar" page, and gradually expanded to Local Authors, Editors, Agents, Publishers, Message Board, Submissions and Links. In 1999, we held our first Annual Writing Contest. Soon after, Karin set up an Email List, where writers can go to share ideas and network.

WM: What other groups are you involved with?

MW: I’m a member of The Lo Verne Brown Poets Circle and several poetry groups. The only other organization with any literary claims that I belong to, is The Cambrian Welsh Society of San Diego, at whose annual celebrations, I have read Dylan Thomas’ work, my own poems, as well as poems by other contemporary Welsh poets.

WM: I know that you’ve have several chap books published. What about other books you’ve authored? Additional publishing credits?

MW: While working in Mexico, I co-authored Talkabout, a series of three ESL texts for listening and speaking, published by Oxford University Press. The books targeted the foreign market in general. We later adapted them for the U.S. market. Then in 1999, Houghton Mifflin published So To Speak, a two-book series for communication skills, that I co-authored with Judy De Filippo, a colleague at Northeastern University. The books contain a number of Limericks, humorous verses, and chants, which we wrote to teach different American English sounds.

I published Mandarin Canyon, my first chapbook, in 2000. The River’s Way, my second chapbook, was published by The Inevitable Press, Laguna Poets Series #209, in 2001.

WM: Could you talk about reading and/or performing poetry in public?

MW: I don’t consider myself a performance poet. I don’t memorize long pieces, chant, or move around the stage. But I do try to live my poems, adopt the appropriate tone, bring alive the emotions in them -- dramatize, if you will. Each Christmas since I arrived in San Diego in 1996, I have done dramatic readings of A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Latterly, with the accompaniment of Risa Goldberg’s imaginative special effects. I try to give a distinct voice to each character in the story. The piece is filled with vivid images, compound adjectives, and alliteration, and is a joy to read.

WM: What do you see as the differences and similarities between performance poetry versus poetry that is meant to be read on the page?

MW: Performance poetry can be more entertaining and more memorable. Audiences love a show. That’s not to say that reading from the page is necessarily less successful. A while ago, I went to a featured reading where the poet read clearly, made eye contact with the audience, and so on -- but when I got home, I couldn’t remember a single poem. I do feel, regardless of the kind of poetry presented, the reader has a duty to do more than just "read" his or her work.

WM: It’s time to ask that proverbial question (and you’re the first person I’ve asked this of…): What do you see as the role of a poet in society? In other words, who—or what—is a poet?

MW: Ah, the old controversial question! I don’t think the poet is hampered by any particular role in contemporary society – "O.K, you’re a poet, so this is what you’ve got to do…"

Whatever its genre, art reflects the times and culture in which it is created. An imposed role would only dampen the creative process. I know it would for me.

What do we expect from the poet? We want the poet to move us in some way: to give us pleasure; insight; show us we are not alone; make us laugh (sometimes laugh at ourselves!); make us angry or sad. We expect some sort of emotional identification and nurture, I think.

Read Megan Webster's Poetry

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Read Megan Webster's Poetry