 Sofia M. Starnes is a writer of Philippine-Spanish heritage. An American citizen since 1989, she was born in Manila and received an advanced degree in English Philology from the University of Madrid. A recipient of a Poetry Fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, she has won several other awards for her poetry. Her chapbook, The Soul's Landscape (January 2002), was selected by Billy Collins as one of two co-winners of the 2001 Aldrich Poetry Competition; her full-length poetry book, A Commerce of Moments, won Editor's Prize in the 2001 Transcontinental Poetry Award competition (Pavement Saw Press, August 2003), and it was subsequently named Honor Book in the 2004 Virginia Literary Awards Competition. Other recognitions include the 1997 Rainer Maria Rilke Poetry Prize, Editor's Prize in the 2002 Marlboro Prize in Poetry competition, the 2004 Conference on Christianity and Literature Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart nomination. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals, among them The Southern Poetry Review, The Notre Dame Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Laurel Review, Hubbub, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, The Madison Review, Hotel Amerika, The Hawaii Pacific Review, The Marlboro Review, and Green Hills Literary Lantern (Pushcart Prize nominee). Sofia Starnes lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, with her husband, Bill. She offers writing tutorials and comprehensive editing services to writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, through Creative Writing Critiques. Buy her book here. See some work here Emily Dickinson's poem #1142, which is short enough to quote fully below and to memorize easily. It was the first poem to entice me into the world of poetry—as a hope-to-be poet—a long time ago. I found it to be essentialist, bare-boned, spiritual, and I loved the use of the house as a simple human metaphor. Even now, when a poem threatens to build itself upon empirical clutter, I am reminded of the verses "A past of Plank and Nail/ And slowness—", and Dickinson keeps me focused on what matters. The Props assist the House Until the House is built And then the Props withdraw And adequate, erect, The House support itself And cease to recollect The Auger and the Carpenter— Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected Life— A past of Plank and Nail And slowness—then the Scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul. I am not sure I will be responding adequately to this question, since most of what I read falls—to some extent—under the "literary" category, even when the material is not considered such and is often excluded from the canon. In any case, I will share some of my reading preferences, those books I consume for pure pleasure, and which I am not compelled to read as a writer. My esteem for the authors I mention, however, is no less than it is for many other "literary" creators. Substance comes in many shapes—some of them deceptively unponderous. I enjoy fantasy stories, in particular those of Ray Bradbury, because the author creates totally imaginary yet equally verisimilar landscapes and populates them with ordinary characters who must then react in extraordinary ways to their fates. These stories have the quality of great tragedies: what is best and worst of humanity is exposed, through the story's characters, in their edge-of-life (though not life-on-the-edge) situations. I also enjoy good, sometimes ghostly, mysteries—especially those in the style of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes—which unfold in gas-lamp and fog-night Victorian settings. I am attracted to the well-conceived plot and its cogent resolution, and to characters who, while having to remain tethered to their societal roles, believe themselves to be untethered in their intellectual pursuits and deductions. And they act accordingly, out of that assumed freedom. I find the same satisfaction when I read the work of Ruth Rendell, a writer who achieves all of the above, using contemporary plots, with exceptional mastery. Her psychological thrillers, especially those in short-story form, are among my personal and perennial favorites. Then, of course, if one means really non-literary, there are things like Gourmet magazine, baseball play-by-play accounts… and where would I include catalogues for writing implements and stationery supplies, travel brochures, or Bas Bleu and the Common Reader? Extremely important. Someone once said (I wish I knew who): experiences without ideas are mere anecdotes. So, a philosophy—that is, a worldview based on a consistent attempt to synchronize the reality of our minds with the reality around us, by means of a unifying idea—is essential. It bestows on us, on our observations, perceptions, etc., and on our writing, a life we/it/they would not possess otherwise. I also believe that, though not necessarily explicit in the poem, its philosophy comes to us unfailingly through the mood of the poem—i. e., through its mode of being. Dante, above all—because of the way the poet assumes history, faith and cosmology in a single masterpiece. And I find special pleasure in the musicality of the Italian terza rima. I am also attracted to the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, authors of faith and drama; to Rainer Maria Rilke, because of the strength and lyricism of his verses; and to Spanish poets, such as Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jimenez, for reasons of personal heritage. My cultural roots draw me as well toward José Rizal, Philippine patriot and poet, and to the poem he composed on the eve of his execution, "Ultimo Adios"—a poem I often heard my father recite. "A lot" is a relative term here—perhaps it is, or is not—depending on the parameters used. I could not say for sure. I do read "a lot"—as much as time allows—but I am zealous of my writing time, as well. Plus, I like to read fiction, articles on the classics, and essays on religion and philosophy, among other things. Although I am anxious to know what my fellow poets are writing and enjoy the discovery of new work, I do not spend time reading work that does not appeal to me emotionally and intellectually, or that does not address fundamental issues. However, when I find a poet whose mood (i. e., mode of being) connects in essence to mine, I am eager to read as much of his/her work as possible and to view the world through his/her eyes. However, I must confess that reading poetry is not always an easy task for me, because whenever I do so I find myself questioning my own role as a poet constantly against the way other poets fulfill their roles. (Excessive self-analysis is not always healthy.) Thus, I am compelled to read poetry in small doses, with emphasis on reflection, savoring, transcending. I know that everything I read will affect what I write, one way or another, for good or ill, which means that the impact that reading has on one's writing can never be overestimated. Thus, reading—with the realization that a degree of osmosis is likely to occur—cannot be taken lightly. On the other hand, the elevated price for a degree of selectivity is the sad realization that, no matter how hard we try, we will miss someone's work, work that could actually transform us. I doubt that anyone would spend much time thinking about what I have or have not read, but—if this is confession time—I confess to not having read Don Quixote in its entirety. Yet. This extraordinary work seemed to have been analyzed so thoroughly by people I knew, even in sobremesas—after-dinner conversations—at home, that I found little incentive for personal discovery after that. However, I confess, as well, to a sense of deprivation—and I add "leer el Quixote" to my New Year's resolution list every year. I would prefer not to. Instead, I would read her some favorite poem—something that is both musical and strong, like William Blake's: Tyger, Tyger burning Bright in the forests of the Night… And then I'd explain—if I had to—that a poem is a way of expressing what is in the heart of things and of people and of places, with words that sound like music to our ears but that pound inside our heart. And with silences—the pauses between phrases, between pictures, between things happening—so that we, too, can stop and imagine and feel something new, something that was not there when the poem started. Of course, a far simpler route might be to replace the explanation with the following simile: a poem is like the last, crunchy mouthful of ice cream and sugar cone, when you discover all that rocky-road flavor tucked inside the tip—exploding! I am very wary of self-aggrandizement or of elitism, of thinking that I, as a poet, have a role that is somehow more significant than that of any other writer or citizen. I don’t believe this to be the case. On the other hand, I do think that poets have a specific role (everyone does!). In the poet's case, that role is one of bearing witness, through language, to the possibilities of the human heart. In other words, we are, to some extent, responsible for revealing, through the words we use, the interconnectedness of lives, because through this interweave, we are made larger than ourselves—hence, wiser, better, kinder, more fully human. Fortunately (for me, at least), I am naïve enough to believe that poetry can and should give us glimpses into that reality. I would like to respond to this question as if it were: of your writing, rather than in your writing. Hence, I would say that the relationship between the text and the body of a poem is the same as what I perceive to be the relationship between the soul and the body. The text—the word—is the soul of the poem, but without the poem's body—the contours, the open spaces, the caesurae, the silhouette on the page—this text/soul could not survive. It could not be Itself or anything else for that matter. One of my poems, The Soul's Landscape, likens the relationship between the soul and the body to that of a marriage, with the soul pursuing the body, to create a self. The poem's metaphor applies with equal force to poetry, to the relationship between the text and the body of the poem. Therefore, I'd like to complete my answer to the final question of this interview with this poem, which appears below. I would also like to thank Lance Phillips for the opportunity to express these thoughts and share this work with you. The Soul’s Landscape Ah, what the soul gives for shape – to be handled head-first at the temple, to be cumbered with cotton, white puffs from plantations in heat; what it gives, for the flick, flick elastic on wrists, loose-leaf palms it befriends, at its youngest – for the sake of all this, and this place. Love me now with your hands (says the soul, half-exploring its landscape), better me with embodiment; come, angle the ribs where they beach into longing; come, finger the oval description of death, smallest hope for cessation. When the room is redundant of space, and its walls wish for closure, thumb my corners up, inward, wade your lips through the ridge where they meet, to allow recollection. I must love with the tissue and the gloss that embody: cellule, elegy, ghost, danger, languish... all those words out of context for souls, god-forsaken, whiplash of the neck – Interim is the word I would use the most cautiously; how precarious its hum, ear to earth, plumbing earth, earthwise. From: A Commerce of Moments Pavement Saw Press, Ohio, 2003 First published in Pavement Saw Magazine |
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