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CONVERSATION with JOAN GELFAND poet, dreamer & pragmatist
by Kit Kennedy
I’ve caught up with songwriter, producer, essayist, community organizer, blogger, President of the Women’s National Book Association, and Bay-Area poet, Joan Gelfand. She’s promoting her newest poetry book, A DREAMER’S GUIDE To CITIES And STREAMS (San Francisco Bay Press).
Whew that’s a full schedule, Joan, thanks for sitting down and talking to Betty’s List.
My pleasure, Kit.
Let’s get to the writing. What’s your earliest memory of pen to paper?
I began writing at age eight. By fifteen I was writing love poems.
Do you have those poems?
No, I didn’t save them.
Then….
I left New York at 18 and fell in with the lesbian community in Berkeley.
Okay, you’ve piqued Betty’s List’s interest. Details?
I arrived in Berkeley in 1972 with a friend I’d met in New York. Joy knew a couple of musicians who were living in Berkeley. There I met Karen, or Cloud as she was known then, who told me “You have to take your writing seriously. Type it up.” Because of living with women who were working as serious artists, I began to take my work seriously. I started doing readings and publishing. I lived with a couple of women from the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective who recorded my poem “Strong & Free.” I was 20. For a while, I was bi-sexual, but there was a lot of pressure at that point to be separatist. I did that for a while and then gradually moved on to define life on my own terms.
What happened next?
I wasn’t emotionally ready for the attention of being a published writer, or for sacrificing my life for my art. For one thing, I needed a job! There never have been many poets who could support themselves on poetry alone.
Do you identify now as an artist?
Absolutely.
There’s much discussion about the artist as tragic figure. What’s your take?
I think that experiencing a certain amount of suffering as a young person compelled me to look inward, to examine my life. For me, writing has always been a way to work through problems and dilemmas. Losing my father at a young age (I was 11) meant that I spent a large portion of my growing up years just wanting to fit in. I didn’t like being different. Of course, over time, I’ve come to embrace my differences. But that tragedy has certainly informed my work.
How long ago did you meet your husband Adam?
Ten years. In ten years I’ve written a novel, short stories and two books of poetry.
Betty’s List, especially its Book Club, is a community of avid readers. Who are your favorite writers? Let’s start with the poets.
Kay Ryan, CK Williams, DA Powell, Elizabeth Bishop and Billy Collins are the poets who inspire me. They keep language fresh. But my first love, for reading, is fiction. I love to get lost in a good story. My favorites are Richard Powers, Nick Hornby, Richard Russo and Michael Chabon. Annie Proux and Sue Monk Kidd also. I think The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) is perfection. I also read spiritual books including my teachers Norman Fischer and Alan Lew.
How does reading and writing prose influence your poetry?
It makes it stronger.
What’s the perfect day for Joan Gelfand?
On a good day, Adam brings me coffee. If I’m relaxed, I can write 3 or 4 poems. I revise and refine. Edit. For years, I wrote and lost scraps of poems. No more. They go quickly into the laptop or they’re “toast.” I also do quite a bit of promotion for my work; readings, classes, networking. I enjoy all of it.
Breakfast theme again. After a morning of writing/editing, what then?
Fresh air. I usually walk and I do yoga three times a week. I also try to make time for reading. I have so much to keep up on – novels, magazines, poetry, blogs and newspapers. There’s never enough time.
Let’s talk about the submission process: acceptance and the flip-side, rejection?
I had to mature and gain emotional resiliency to handle the writing-submission process. The path is a rough path. But after some years I came to realize that as challenging as the submission process can be, it’s a necessary part of putting work out into the world. It just doesn’t always go as smoothly as you might hope.
Looking at your bio (Joan recently coordinated the poetry track at the successful San Francisco Writer’s Conference, is soon-to-be teaching a class, “Build Your Writer’s Resume” at Bookshop West Portal and IndyArts in the Mission, as well as serves as the current President of the Women’s National Book Association) and knowing you as the networking maven, would it be fair to say, you “multi-task?”
Indeed, you know me!
So, multi-tasker, what’s in the creative pipeline for Joan?
I just started working with another writer on an anthology about bi-sexual women in the arts. I’m also working on a short story manuscript, and another volume of poetry. As you mentioned, I am teaching a class called Build Your Writer’s Resume at West Portal Bookshop (June 17) and also at IndyArts on June 11th. And, of course, I blog, and I tweet!
That’s multi-tasking on steroids. How many cups of coffee does Adam bring you?
Two.
So what’s on Joan’s writing wish-list?
More time.
What is your favorite Joan Gelfand poem?
I love them all at different times. My currents favorite is “All Tied Up” (from A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities and Streams.) It’s inspired by the artist Eva Hesse’s work. I write a lot of ‘ekphrasis’ poems – poems inspired by art. And, like a lot of poets, I love to use double entendre and layers of meaning.
Along the way, what advice did you receive and do you follow it?
I didn’t get a much advice actually. I figured a lot out for myself. Took me many years. However, when I’m asked to give advice, this is what I say: get to know yourself. Spend time alone. Be grounded in yourself. And be willing to face rejection and keep working.
What advice do you have for poet-President Obama?
Keep your patience. Support the arts! Buy my books.
Thanks Joan.
To keep-to-date with Joan Gelfand and to schedule a reading, contact Joan at: www.joangelfand.com
Her poetry books are available through independent bookstores and the national book chains.
A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities and Streams, San Francisco Bay Press (Onancock, VA and San Francisco, CA), 2009.
Seeking Center, Two Bridges Press, 2004.
Information and membership Women’s National Book Association, contact:
www.wnba-books.org
www.wnba-sfchapter.org
Ode to Toast
Let’s toast toast the bread we roast
The best burnt thing that I ever known.
Let’s toast the aroma that can get a dog
Out of its coma, the smell of comfort
And sustenance, the sweet smell that wafts
Into the morning and changes the day.
Let’s toast heat and cooking and making something out of nothing.
Let’s toast the toaster while we’re at it
Raise a glass in honor of the skinny wire coils
That bring out bread’s best.
And then let’s toast Tesla’s mother
And her Napa marmalade, cooked down apricots,
That taste of sun that lightly
Loves but never smothers.
French butter on top of toast.
Let’s toast coffee in bed while we’re on the subject of breakfast. Yes!
Bio & Past Articles
Past Articles
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Conversations With. . . By Kit Kennedy
Kit Kennedy is a walker, reader, poet, cook for her friends, and lover of cheese. Her poems appear in All Things Girl, Arsenic Lobster, Bayou, Bombay Gin, Cezanne's Carrot, Erosha, FriGG, Gay & Lesbian Review, The Hiss Quarterly, Mannequin Envy, Pearl, Poetry Super Highway, Right Hand Pointing, Runes, Saranac Review, Sinister Wisdom, Triplopia, Van Gogh's Ear, and The Wild Goose Poetry Review. She hosts the monthly All Poets Welcome Reading Series at Gallery Cafe in San Francisco. She has published articles in the field of digital information and libraries. Kit works with Betty on the Betty's List Community LGBT Directory.
Kit lives with haiku, a precocious and gorgeous 3-year old tuxedo who, alas, has no interest in his namesake. Her partner is Ann Biderman (of Betty & Ann Present....). Kit can be reached at kit.kennedy@yahoo.com.
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