Winner of the 2014 Subito Press Book Prize, Sarah Bartlett’s Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out, her first collection of poetry, is a debut that doesn’t feel like one. Divided into three sections, each mellifluously gripping and poetically idiosyncratic, Sometimes We Walk presents its reader with a world divided by love and contentment, satisfaction and ambition. “Survival depends on a number of duplicities” is a consideration prodded in the volume’s first section, and this sentiment is tossed and teased throughout the collection. In her laudatory write-up for the book, poet Emily Kendal Frey asserts, “This is what I want from poetry,” and I concur. I asked Bartlett about the writing and publishing process for Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out, how her work has changed over the years, and the best and worst pieces of writing advice she’s ever received. And also insomnia; always insomnia.
Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out is your first full-length collection, but I know you’ve been writing poetry for years and have published extensively in the field prior to Sometimes We Walk. As such, has your goal always been to publish books or poems? Both? Or? Further, in our Internet Age do you think publishing a dead-tree based collection is as important as it used to be?
I suppose my goal has always been to write poems that feel authentic, engaging, and expressive. And then to figure out how to share them. But yes, I’ve been very lucky to have poems appear in amazing print and online journals over the years! As most writers know, sending out is a labor of love, and I certainly worked/work at it. Publishing online was relatively new back when I was in school, and it’s been such a fantastic way to reach a wider audience. I get a lot of great solicitations for work and nice notes from people who read my stuff online, and that is exciting. I remember feeling suspicious at first—like if the poem wasn’t on paper somewhere, it didn’t count—but that wore off quickly. That makes me sound so old! Wow. But it’s true.
As far as whether I think publishing an actual full-length book is important, I have to say yes. There’s still an expectation in the writing community that books should be realized. Also, writers are usually inveterate readers, and “book as object” is definitely real thing. At least for me. Books are part of our lives in a different way—they don’t run out of batteries, you can indulge in marginalia, lend them to friends, spill coffee on them, etc. They become both relics and totems. I think holding a book in your hand is a physical manifestation of hard work. It means something. But, online publishing is powerful, effective, and easily accessible. I’m speaking as someone who loves books. I buy a lot of poetry at Powell’s and elsewhere. So, in that vein, having my own book has been really satisfying.
Sectioning—Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out is broken down into three sections—“Freud Blah Blah Blah” (which appeared on its own as a chapbook from Rye House Press), “De Animation,” and “The Other Transcendence.” I’m curious, then, why exactly you ordered the book the way you did; what did that ordering offer you as the book’s author? Additionally, how important, in your opinion, is it for poetry manuscripts to have (specific) sections that deal with and/or engender (specific) themes or ideas? Would your ideal reader read the book from front to back, paying a good deal of attention to each of the volume’s sections? And if they just skip around from poem to poem, is something potentially lost?
It took me awhile to order this manuscript—the book starts both tight and compact and then slowly unwinds. Punctuation disappears in the final section. That is all intentional, as a primary theme of the book is transformation. So the poems themselves and the order they appear needed to reflect that, which was certainly a challenge. That took some thinking and a lot of shuffling. But I think you can absolutely pick it up and open it to a page and enjoy a poem without reading the whole thing. Would a reader have a different experience if they spent more time with the book versus reading a few selections? Of course. I think most authors would prefer that their whole book is consumed, right? But I like the idea of someone flipping through and really jamming on a random poem without any context. That’s very immediate.
I don’t think poetry manuscripts need to behave a specific way. I think they need to express what the author wants to express in the way that feels right. Ideally the order of poems or the use of sections (or not) delivers the strongest experience for the reader. No sections? Great. Sections? Great. If there were one right way to do something, this would all be pretty boring. For this particular book, sections were the best solution. It’s possible my next manuscript won’t have any!
Unlike a healthy majority of poets, you don’t work in academia and thus have a somewhat different relationship with the art form from that of other writers (i.e. you’re not trying to get a tenure-track job , and I assume your job duties/responsibilities don’t change depending on how much poetry you do or do not publish). Correct me if I’m wrong, also, but you received your MFA some years ago at this point, right? If all of the above is correct (and definitely correct me if that’s not the case), I’m curious how important poetry is to you on a day-to-day, week-to-week, year-to-year basis? Do you feel the same way about it that you did ten or twelve years ago, or has your relationship to it changed in some (good, bad, or otherwise) way?
I don’t know that my relationship with the art form is different, because I don’t teach. I have both more and less freedom, I suppose, in a world where everything is relative. I got my MFA in 2005, and I took a different path for a number of reasons. Now, I have a fairly demanding day job/career path in marketing/branding/design that comes with a lot of responsibilities. My career advancement is not tied to publication, it’s true. In that sense, there’s less pressure. But I think there’s always pressure on poets to publish regardless of what their job is or how much of their time it takes up. My friends who teach struggle to find time to write around grading papers and meeting with students, planning courses, etc. I hear a lot about that. We all have to juggle and figure out how to prioritize writing around life’s demands.
My relationship to poetry has certainly grown and shifted as I’ve grown and shifted as a person. But my desire to write hasn’t wavered—it’s still an essential part of my life. I still write regularly—sometimes prolifically, sometimes sporadically. I’ve always been that way. I have never written on a schedule, and I wish I were more disciplined. A small victory is that I’ve trained myself to write on airplanes, mostly on the short flight to my firm’s Seattle office. This is almost a weekly thing, and it’s a lot of fun to use the time sans internet for myself. I rely more on my phone’s “notes” app than I ever thought I would to jot down ideas and drafts. I probably send out less than I used to, but there’s less franticness there at this point.
Do I have less flex time than a teacher? Probably. Am I a little jealous that friends can write during the day? Absolutely. But it doesn’t make me less committed. The idea of a nine-to-five job doesn’t feel bohemian, and I think poets like myself who aren’t in academia get tired of addressing that. I find inspiration all the time at my job—I’m always learning. When I visit classrooms, I’m extremely energized and excited. Talking about poetry with young writers or designers is about as good as it gets, and I ask myself why I’m not teaching. Perhaps I’ll get the opportunity someday. For now, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I won’t lie—it can be difficult to balance what is essentially two careers, but I’ve managed to feel my way through so far. Perhaps moving a little slower than I’d like with book tours and putting together manuscripts. But I’m doing my best and will keep trying to refine my approach.
Some of the poems in Sometimes We Walk have these little non-sequitur moments that, after reading the book, I couldn’t get out of my head. “Can I live vicariously through your ekphrasis? / Art is an arm but a shitty hugger” and “We all hold / a promise and a lie between our legs” (both from the book’s opening section, “Freud Blah Blah Blah”) were major gold stars for me, as well as the lines “I haven’t forgotten snow on the tongue— / tell me where to find the ad you are in. / I want your commerce on me— / it feels good to be dirty on a Sunday” (from “Wintertime Makes Me Honest”). There were various other standouts as well. I’m thus interested in the generative aspects of poeming for you—is there a normal process it takes, or is every poem different? I personally write poems (in my head, with a piece of paper in my back pocket) while walking my dog and thereby often have a lot of urbany nature going on in my work. Even if you don’t have a set writing schedule, is there a specific way that a poem normally begins? Do you ever start with the last lines first or vice versa?
I’m so glad you liked those lines! I think my entry into a poem is usually through a particular line or even a word or two. Where it comes from, or where it will end up in the poem, is never established up front; something will float into my head and then lodge there. Sometimes it germinates for weeks, sometimes only an hour. But when it’s time, it’s time, and I have to write it right then. This could take anywhere from thirty minutes to six hours. When I’m not at home, this makes me really anxious! Like it might escape me.
I pick up snippets of conversations, notice a leaf, read poetry that sets me off, dream. Part of the joy of writing for me is never knowing exactly where the next poem will come from. I think I’m slightly addicted to that reveal, which contributes to my resistance to a formulaic/disciplined writing process.
I’ve asked this of several poets but I’m forever interested: do you have, or would you care to identify, favorite words you return to again and again in your work? Words that you like, for whatever reason. I asked the same thing to Eileen Myles before and she hates and won’t use the word “shard”—too stereotypically poetic—and likes and often employs “you” and “dog.” Michael Earl Craig stated that he’s not fond of “snack” or “moist” but goes wild with “little,” “tiny,” “violently,” “briskly,” and “slowly.” Are there words, then, that you come back to again and again? Any words that you revile and won’t deign to write or type down?
Hmmm. That’s a great question—I certainly revisit phrasing. I’ve caught myself using “somewhere else” in a few poems lately. I also seem to be really interested in the color red, probably because I’m interested in bodies. Internal versus external. I am generally sensitive to super “poemy” words and try to avoid anything that sounds too precious. If there’s a straightforward way of saying something, I’ll go for it, though I’m nowhere near as matter-of-fact as Eileen Myles. Often the images or metaphors I’m utilizing are a little surreal, and if I added words like “momentous” or “blossom” to them, it would be clunky as hell. And probably unintelligible. Are there words I don’t like? I myself am not a fan of “moist.” It sounds and feels unpleasant! Does anyone like that word? But if a poem needed it, I wouldn’t shy away. Everything is on a case by case basis.
Favorites. Might you have a favorite poem (or a couple of poems) in Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out? If so, why that particular one (or ones)? What does it perhaps offer you that the others don’t, and were the circumstances of its writing different in any way?
This is a hard one! Is it cheating if I pick one per section? Hope not. The first short poem is from Section 1:
Suffering is having your body full of nails.
Just replace your blood with nails and see what I mean.
What a mirror. What a black lake full of stars.
I’ve visited classrooms at the Portland Art Institute quite a bit to collaborate, and when students got to choose a poem of mine to work with, many of them chose this one. I think it gets at a rawness of being a human. We can all identify with how pain is transformative. I’m always humbled when something I write is adopted into someone else’s landscape.
From Section 2, excerpt from “Being Unhorsed Vs. Being Unsaddled:”
You are standing by yourself.
Every morning you are on
the opposite side of the fence.
You don’t know how it happened,
you just know it’s happening.
This poem examines the shock and physicality of loneliness in a way that continues to resonate for me. When you are grieving, there’s a feeling of intense isolation that I was trying to express, and it still rings true.
From Section 3, excerpt from “Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out”:
Today I ruined a few things
separate from my intention
I hear that Mercury is in retrograde
I stayed up all night worrying about falling asleep
Soon I’ll be a message
on Winter’s answering machine
As you might imagine, I’m pretty fond of the title poem for the collection. I chose these particular lines because I like the humor and the honesty—there’s a baldness to the third section that is both dark and self-aware. Plus, I quite literally stay up worrying about whether or not I’m going to fall asleep. That is real.
I do, too, sometimes—it’s the worst. Insomnia’s fleeting eternity. A few final questions. I know you wrote the collection over an extended period of time, but who were you reading a lot while writing Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out? And as a writer, do you find you’re more influenced by your friends—some of whom, I know, are also writers—or more by authors, dead and alive, whom you haven’t met and likely never will?
I’m definitely influenced by both living and dead authors, like most of us. For this collection: Frank Stanford, Ben Mirov, Julia Story, Rilke, Anne Carson, Simone Muench, among many others, were happening quite often. I read my friends’ work all the time, either in draft form or published. We all push each other, and I’m so lucky to have that connection. Their insights and commentary are powerful, wise, and momentous. Some friends have read my work for a decade, and can give me incredible feedback. I’m lucky.
What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve ever received? Why, for your own concerns as a writer at least, was it so bad? And vice versa—what was the best piece received? Why?
Hmm. Tough. I think I blot out bad advice, so I can’t bring anything specific to mind. The worst isn’t advice per se, just commentary. That I should make my writing easier to understand. I don’t think it’s all that hard to understand my stuff for the most part, number one. Number two, then it wouldn’t be authentic. Also, I’ve been in conversations where myself and other women were told that writing “too feminine” was a problem, and that we should try and stay gender neutral. It’s pretty easy to ignore things like that.
Some of the best advice was from my thesis advisor at Emerson, John Skoyles. He spoke to me a lot about the entrance to a poem sometimes not being ultimately necessary once it’s complete. I still go through and do significant deletions in that vein. It helps my poems stay sharp and keeps me from being lazy. I’ll save the lines in a “scrap” file and go mining when I need inspiration. He also advised special attention to first and last lines, and that is absolutely something I practice.
Ultimately, the best advice is just to keep going. Keep pushing. To not give up in the face of rejection or writer’s block. We all tell each other that, and it’s essential to remember when things aren’t going well or easily.
Finally, I guess I’ll end with the perfunctory—what’s next? Anything new on the horizon in terms of readings, poems, chapbooks, full-lengths, other? And with regards to the publication of Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out is there anything you might do different, knowing what you know now?
I’m pulling together a second full-length manuscript—starting in a few days, actually! So that is exciting/daunting. Regarding Sometimes We Walk With Our Nails Out, I think I would’ve been more aggressive with self promotion. I didn’t exactly know when it was going to be released for awhile, and I played it pretty cool. Self-promo is hard for me. But I need to get over it.