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ellene
glenn moore
2021 / interview series / POETS & THE PANDEMIC
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WHAT YOU WRITE:
[I write] poetry and essays.
WHERE DO YOU CALL HOME?
As of June: Philadelphia. My husband, daughter, dog, and I moved 1170 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia in the middle of the pandemic, which is exactly as harrowing and disorienting as you might imagine. It took a minute, but I think Philly does feel like home now.
WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU DID TODAY?
I packed my daughter’s bag for school: a change of clothes, wet bag, warm hat, snack, and an extra mask.
WHAT CREATIVE WORK WERE YOU DOING THIS TIME LAST YEAR?
This time last year I was putting all of my energy into finishing up the first draft of a multi-part personal essay that spans the day of my thirtieth birthday, using specific moments in the day (Civil Dawn, Solar Noon, etc.) as springboards for exploring some of my writerly obsessions. A former professor of mine, poet and essayist Julie Marie Wade, has said that one of her former professors believed all writers have six life-long obsessions. This idea took hold in her head and a few years ago she published the magnificent book of poetry SIX. Well, the idea took hold in my head, too, and so I used the occasion of my birthday, and the essay-in-sections form, to explore my six: the failures of memory, language and how meaning is made, the natural world, the body, motherhood and daughterhood, and what I suppose I will call “the shadow self” (I don’t know; see Jung, I guess, for more details). I think the impetus to explore these ideas with prose, rather than poetry, was due to the constraints of being a writer with a very young child. Time to myself came in unpredictable and sporadic bursts, and I found it easier to be productive in those moments if I had a longer piece of writing to plug into, rather than having to start from scratch each time.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE HARDEST PART OF THIS YEAR REGARDING YOUR CREATIVE WORK?
Oh, well… if before the pandemic my “creative work time” was unpredictable, during the pandemic it has been nearly non-existent. Nearly—over the summer I was lucky enough to have one week of a few uninterrupted hours each day, thanks to the support and flexibility of my husband, and this fall my daughter has been in school intermittently. It’s an old tune, but it continues to be relevant: motherhood can be a crucible of trying not to be subsumed by another’s needs. In 2020 this has become less of a cerebral exercise in identity and more an issue of necessity as I try to maintain normalcy for my daughter.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOUR CREATIVE WORK THIS TIME NEXT YEAR?
I’m just going to trust that I’ll be doing creative work at all, and leave it at that.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST STARTLING THING YOU'VE LEARNED OR EXPERIENCED SINCE THE PANDEMIC BEGAN?
I always knew in an abstract way that it’s important to be kind to myself, but I think the pandemic has grounded this platitude for me. We just don’t survive crises without treating ourselves with compassion. Hopefully, this practice also deepens our capacity for treating others with compassion.
HAS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECTED YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE? HOW SO?
Yes it has, for the reasons and in the ways mentioned above. Time. Logistics. Is this boring? I’m reminded of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—it would be interesting, and probably healthy, to attend to my psycho-emotional state and how that impacts my work, but realistically I’m much more concerned right now with when I can safely do groceries, whether my daughter’s school will be open or closed, or what to do with her while the gas man turns off all of our appliances, including the boiler, and looks for an apparent gas leak on Thanksgiving Day. This is what most immediately impacts my ability to create right now, and it’s all I have energy for most days.
HAS COVID-19 CHANGED HOW YOU VIEW AND/OR NAVIGATE THE WORLD? HOW SO?
It has been… unavoidably disappointing to see the pandemic get folded into this vortex of extreme polarization in the United States. In this time of physical isolation (to stay on theme, I’ll caveat that this has been a time of physical isolation for my family, for the most part), I feel particularly invited to also withdraw when faced with disagreements over what I think of basic facts; the meanings of words; reality. Writing this down, I’m actually pretty troubled by it. Maybe I’ll make more of an effort not to do this, so it doesn’t become a permanent change in how I navigate the world.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD WILL LOOK LIKE 5 YEARS FROM NOW? 10 YEARS FROM NOW? HOW DO YOU THINK THAT WILL AFFECT CREATIVE FIELDS SUCH AS WRITERS, ARTISTS, ETC.
I couldn’t begin to make a prediction. I’ll share this: my husband, who is not an artist but is a human in the world, commented the other day that after nine months of work-from-home, nobody in his meetings bats an eye now if a kid accidentally wanders on-screen for a moment or a spouse, forgetting herself, laughs loudly in the other room or a dog barks at the mailman before being shushed. That’s part of our lives. Time and space to work is vital, but it’s untenable to ask people to completely divest themselves of all the things that make their lives theirs the second they walk through the door—or sit at the home computer. And I don’t think it makes for better work. It definitely doesn’t make for better art. Artists have always known this, and it’s sort of nice to see others take up that perspective. I hope it lasts.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST REWARDING PART OF THIS YEAR?
No one is going to say that all of us being in the house at all times is simple or easy, but there have been moments of such intense familial delight that we never would have experienced otherwise, I can’t help but be grateful for that.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF / YOUR WORK IN 5 YEARS?
You know, so much has changed for me in the last five years, both unexpectedly wonderful and challenging, that I’m just going to have to refer you back to my answer for Question 6. I don’t mean to sound blasé or unambitious, but years are made of days and all I can do is work as hard as time and ability allow each day. Right now, that’s me being kind to myself.
WHAT NEW SELF-CARE HABITS OR PRACTICE HAVE YOU PICKED UP SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE PANDEMIC?
I’ve been listening to much more music in the last year than I had previously made time for. Music has always been a source of real joy for me, but throughout my twenties I didn’t really nourish my connection to it. Doing so during the pandemic has certainly been an expression of self-care.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO UNPLUG: BOOK: MOVIE: ETC.
I adore reading work for young people, particularly fantasy; searching for clips of The Office on YouTube so I can better follow The Office Ladies podcast; listening to the sister albums-in-quarantine folklore and evermore by Taylor Swift, who is one the greatest American songwriters of all time. Fight me.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR MOST RECENT WORK AND WHERE PEOPLE CAN FIND IT.
Thank you for asking! You can read two sections of that essay I mentioned: “Nautical Dusk” in Cordella Magazine Issue 14 and “Astronomical Dusk” in Hayden’s Ferry Review Issue 66, both available to read online. Poems I wrote during the One Week of Creative Productivity this summer are forthcoming in Grist and West Branch.