This week, Managing Editor Chalkey Horenstein spoke with author Nin Andrews, who visited the campus on Wednesday, April 21. Andrews is well known for works such as The Book of Orgasms and Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane, and has just recently released her latest work Southern Comfort. Read on to hear Andrews discuss her latest work, as well as her creative writing process as a poet.
“Southern Comfort” is about my experiences growing up down south on the farm. It was a divided household ó my father was very southern and my mother was very Yankee Northern. My mother was very literal minded, and my father made up stories and believed in every superstition known to mankind ó ghosts, fortunetellers, those kinds of things.
How long were you working on it? What turned out well about the book, and what would you change if you could?
It probably took about six years to write. This is the first book I’ve ever written where I feel like I’ve finished it. I feel pretty good about it. But I’ve never written a poem I wouldn’t change.
Why prose poetry? What in your opinion defines prose poetry from poems or prose?
I think that, for me at least, it was because I grew up around a lot of storytellers. My father came from a tradition of story-telling ñ you never just sat down and said “I went to the store and bought a shirt.” You tell what the store was like, what the day was like and by the end of it there was a whole story. And that was entertaining. So there’s that, and plus my mother studied with Richard Lattimore [Greek translator] and raised me on Greek myths, fairy tales, tall tales and parables. A lot of the prose poems take on those specific forms.
Prose poetry also makes fun of other literary and non-literary forms ó there are prose poems that take off on horoscopes, obituaries, fan letters, christmas cards, biographies and autobiographies, newspaper articles, and even ads. They take advantage of other literature and and torture it. They use and abuse it. I think prose poems have a lot of fun ó not that other poets can’t, but there’s a lot of humor in prose poetry.
Talk about your path to being a published author. For the aspiring writers on campus, what advice can you give?
It’s kind of like a curse ó if you’ve got the curse, you’re going to keep doing it. And if you don’t, you might have all the gifts, but you won’t keep doing it. For me, I don’t feel good if I don’t write a certain amount. It’s a existential problem. I feel like life is happening so fast all the time, and I need to slow it down and look at it and think about it, even if it’s just one paragraph at a time. I would also say that being a photographer or a painter or a dancer would serve that purpose as well.
I feel like there’s all this input, and I want to answer and express myself somehow. It’s frustrating. That’s what gets me to the desk. My inspiration is other artists who are able to express themselves beautifully, and I think “I want to do that too.”
How has your past experience affected or influenced your work?
All of the books have different sources of inspiration. The most traditional form of inspiration is your past and your childhood, and I swore I would never write on my past ó but whenever you say you’re not going to do something, it gives that more energy. You say you’re never going to eat chocolate, and then there’s chocolate everywhere. And that’s how they all work.
“Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane” was a more or less political book, and I’ve always hated political poetry. So sure enough, I had to write one of those. “The Book of Orgasms” was a challenge ó a friend of mine wrote a really sexy story and I swore I wouldn’t write anything like that. She said “I dare you,” and I took it on. So I had to work against the grain.
If you had to pick a poem you wrote to represent your best work, which would it be?
There are poems that read better than others, but not necessarily my best poems. I really don’t know. I’m always shocked when people make selections about my work ó they’re never the ones I like.
I really like the poem “Southern Accent” [in Southern Comfort]. It has strong memories – it reminds me of a time when my parents were both trying to teach me to speak with their accent[s], so I had two of them.
Who are your influences?
Henri Michaux, Julio Cortazar ó these are both from the anthology I mentioned. They could take lemonade and take the water out of it. It was so concentrated ó a whole novel in just a paragraph. They were funny and fun and accessible in a way that I admire.
I also fell in love with anthology that’s no longer in print ó “The Prose Poem An International Anthology” by Michael Benedict, an anthology of prose poems from around the world. Most of the prose poets that are living today are also in love with this book. This book was put together really badly, so that after you read it it falls apart ó and he refuses to republish it. We all jokingly compete over who has the most readable version of the book. I’ve seen many with rubber bands around their books. I’ve got a hardcover book, and I’m afraid to touch it. We’re all upset that it’s not being published anymore ó it’s kind of a magical book. Some of the best prose poems are from [these] French and Spanish languages, and the German, and they’re not collected like that in any other place. You can find pieces of them, but not your favorite ones all in one place.
Did you write in college? If so, how has it affected your writing in the “real world”?
I did write in college. I didn’t write well, and I knew I didn’t write well. I would look at other works and think “How did they do that?” and I tried to fit it into my work. I was terrible at it, in part because it wasn’t me, but I liked trying. I didn’t mind failing.
I had a professor tell me that most students would write something and think it’s great right away, then be distraught when they found someone didn’t like it. They didn’t want to change a thing. And the problem with me was that I was too much the other way, and I never knew when to stop picking at my work.† But the effect of that is that I don’t mind rejection as much as other people these days. I can see where there’s room to improve. I really just like putting words on the page, even if they don’t work at the time.
What plans do you have for your next book?
I’ve been writing a lot of different things, but I don’t have a vision of how different pieces are going to come together in one book just yet. I like to go for certain themes, and I’m not doing that right now.
Anything else you’d like to say?
I think being a writer is both really hard and really fun. Sometimes, I think to myself “Why do I do this?” But at the same time, I can’t think of anything more fun. It should be outlawed, it’s so much fun.