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Sensational Poets


Ella McCrystle


Ella McCrystle is a poet who draws her inspiration from life and gives back.

Some of her poems appear to be questions to people in her life, such as in Unwritten Letter to Mother,
Truisms from My Father, or Dear Sister, You Forgot. In others, such as Predictions, Grasping Time,
Not the Confessional and Planes of Existence, she appears to take the role of all-knowing Mother
responding to these inner questions.

Enamoured by her wit, wisdom and honesty, I invited Ella McCrystle to share some of her poems with
us and to discuss her views on poetry and writing. Here are two new poems followed by her interview.
Predictions Grasping Time


If you liked Ella's poems be sure to check out her website Invoking the Serpent.

 Here's the interview:

 1. What is the essence of the philosophy of your poetry?

I don't really know that I have a philosophy yet. Maybe I never will. For me writing poetry is always
an endeavor to express the biggest or the smallest things.

I write a lot from my own experiences...some have been horrendous. Some have been ecstatic.
I see the world through what one person, very long ago, described as "Ella Eyes." They didn't
mean it as a complement, but I take it as one now. The smallest thing may overwhelm me. I
write about it -- even if it's a button someone lost on the street. I wonder, where is the person
who belongs to this button? Do they notice the button is missing? Is someone's mother rooting
through her stash of buttons in an old tin can trying to find a matching one to sew on tonight?

I've written poems about life from my experiences of being sexually abused to growing up in my
family, to the great smell of raison bread baking, to being Irish Catholic to the beauty my Ella Eyes
see in a mountain of trash.



2. When you started writing, did you know about the forms of poetry and the technicalities
involved there in?

Yes and No. I knew about them. I read them. I have been reading poetry for a very long time,
but I am not someone who is comfortable in form. I would love to be, and I am known to exercise
(behind closed doors) in these forms to employ some discipline into my free verse. I do not feel
like I am anywhere near the level of the poets I admire who manage to put feeling and expression
into form -- where the form frees the poem instead of trapping it. I am not a person who is easily
put into a category; so maybe my poems don't like to be either, but I respect it with an awe that
is hard to describe.



3. Do your poems have a specific form, i.e. lyric, ballad, sonnet, ode et al.?

No. All of my published work has been free verse.



4. Do you frequently use imagery/symbolism, simile and metaphor?

Yes. In fact some people would say I go overboard. I also tend to see sounds, feel and taste
colors; so I frequently "mix metaphors" to some people's chagrin. I use a lot of allusion too,
sometimes I allude to things only I could possibly "get." This is another thing that bothers some
people. How can I say this without sounding like a buffoon? Everything in the world for me is a
metaphor, a symbol, a sign. When I am attuned, this is a gift and a curse. Sometimes people
believe me insane because I see this "other side" of everything. Let's use that button from
above...it is a sign of humanity, of home life, of orphans, of family, of being alone, of cold or
warmth, of privilege or poverty...I don't know exactly what it's a sign of, but I know it's a sign of
something, and I am inundated with the possibilities of that button.



5. Do you specifically concentrate on rhythm and rhyme of your poems?

Not usually in a first draft; however, and this is a pretty big however, "i live in music" to quote
the poet ntozake shange. Everything has music infused for me. Everything and everyone. I can't
stress that enough. Every experience in my life comes with an internal soundtrack. So, my poems
do too.

I love sounds. I eat them. They roll around in my head. I am attracted to people because of the
timbre of their voice and the words they chose far more so than any physical attribute or other
aspect.



6. When did you start writing poems?

I think, and this is a rough estimate, that it will be four years ago next April (2004.) How's that
for precise?



7. Why did you start writing poems? Was it a form of catharsis, or an inspiration?


It was all about catharsis, and it usually still is. I started through journaling, never having written
anything besides school reports in my life. I had this journal, and I didn't really know what to write
in it, but I liked the empty pages and the sound different pens made on the paper.

My first poem ever was prompted by a man I saw as very powerful humiliating me in front of a
large group of my peers. I ran from the meeting to be angry and sob in private, and when I started
to write that day, a poem came out -- along with it came the unexpected bonus of a bit of self-
esteem and perspective on just how much "power" that man really had over me.



8. Do you prefer, in your poems, to appeal to the intellect or emotions of the reader?

Both. I don't like intensely flowery emotional reads. I am not into sugar-coating on many things
besides doughnuts. I do tend to write with boxing gloves and large mallets sometimes. I call them
my "splat" poems. I "splat" it out and there it is -- a big ball of emotion with nothing else going for it.
Ick.

On the other hand, a purely intellectual poem is worthy of, well, a research paper. In the best of
all possible worlds, a poem does both, I think. At least in what I like to read. However, the process
for me is my poems express my emotions first. I'm an emotional woman. I try to tame them a
bit during the edit process so nobody else has to be "splattered" like I am in the original process.



9. Do you, at any point, see yourself as adopting poetry as a career? If no, why not?

Wow. I would LOVE to adopt poetry as a career. The only reason I can't see a poetry career in
my future (again, we have to assume Candide here :) is that I do like to have a place to live and be
able to feed my animals. I like to eat too. Poetry, at this point, is not a viable way for me to earn my
living. I'm a beginner, and even the very best poets also teach or do other things. I would love to
take a degree in transformative language -- poetry therapy. I could see myself doing that very
easily, because poetry has certainly transformed me. I would love to bring the healing and downright
transformative capacity of poetry/writing to abused children, those living with life-challenging illnesses,
senior citizens, the disenfranchised anywhere. That's really what I would love to do, and that is a
career involving poetry that I would be honored to be able to learn.



10. Where all has your work been published?

MiPoesias, Wicked Alice, Snow Monkey, MiPo~Print, SpaceBreather, Ink Magazine, The TMP
Irregular, Writer's Hood, Epiphany Magazine, The James River Poetry Review, Survivor Wit,
Sometimes I Sleep with the Moon, Literati Review, SaucyVox, The Writer's Cabaret and some others.



11. Did you normally send or file your poems immediately after writing, or did you show it to
someone for critique?


I believe firmly that my poems need time to "ferment" as I call it. They need time to whisper to
me in the middle of the night and tell me what they meant to be before I got in the way. I never
ever ever ever send anything out without another pair of eyes and ears going over it. I rewrite like
crazy. On average I rewrite at least three times before I would send something out. Many times
it's more than that.


12. Have you ever been a member of a writing group?

I am currently a member of several, though I've not been as active lately as I would like to be. I will
always stay in a critique group, at least one. At the moment I am on two where I've been for a few
years -- since I first started really. I also have a small group of women writers I stay in constant touch
with (daily) and we bounce final drafts off each other and help with editing each other's work as well
as being supportive to each other with the sometime-difficulties and confusion the writing life can
bring.



13. Who helped you along the way in your evolution as a poet, your mentor?

Wilma Weant Dague, Arlene Ang and Bunny Goodjohn have been there since the beginning for
me. (Arlene currently has three poems published that are dedicated to ME! WOW!) More recently
Rae Weaver and Sarah Nash-Lee have come into my life as poetry guides. Each of these women
is an amazing writer in her own right. I am always so honored that they take the time for my
"scribbles."

There are others I watch though, and I consider them my mentors from afar. Everyone who bares
their vulnerabilities through art is a mentor to me. Just as important as the written word are music,
nature and visual art. Can I call Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky a poet? I think I can.
(Odd, isn't it, how my favorite painters all start with a "K"?) Then there are Puccini, Verdi,
Rachmaninoff, Lizst, Richard Strauss, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, Tori Amos, Jimi Hendrix...all
are poets to me whether they use words or not. The moon and the stars - what better poetry could
one want? I've had one relationship with a person whose "glints" seem like poetry...I'll take my
lessons from wherever they come.



14. In your opinion, what is the importance of technicalities in poetry?

Ah, such an important question. I am learning the importance of technicality more and more as I
write, read and explore more.

If there were no technicalities, there would be no poetry. There would be endless screeds. A line
or stanza break can make a point that almost nothing else can. Silence has a sound all its own.

A fresh metaphor can open doors that were previously locked tight. Throw an extra word in here
and there, and you no longer have the poem that once was. Every word counts in poetry, every
single word. I am not saying that we can't break all the "rules" (I have yet to find the agreed upon
list of rules, though.) What I am trying to convey is that there is a reason prose is written as
prose and poetry -- even prose poetry -- as poetry. I can't tell you why. I just know it when I feel it.



15. Any particular poet that you like?

Tori Amos (the musician) is a great poet and pianist who reminds me to be brave when I need
to write something that may not make everyone happy. I mention her above other poet/musicians
because I really credit her with opening my ears to my own voice(s.) The poet John Sweet is my
idol. I worship him and his intense honesty and brutality wrapped into a poetic package. I watch
and learn from Alice Fulton who never fails to make me gasp. I love Deborah Ager's work. Ai --
for her many facets. I'm enchanted by the rhythms in Edgar Allan Poe and our hometown connection.
I love Lisa Glatt's work, and Michael Ayres makes me sob. I'm reading Jendi Reiter's new book and
going bonkers over it

Since the earliest days of reading poetry for me, it's always been Anne Sexton and Dorothy
Parker, but I kept adding and still do: César Vallejo, William Carlos Williams, HD, Denise Levertov,
Walt Whitman, Julia de Burgos, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Charles Bukowski, Lucille Clifton,
Pablo Neruda, Stanley Kunitz, Anna Akhmatova, Ruth Stone, Stephen Dunn, Denise Duhamel...
There are the poets I return to time and again. I could go on and on -- I gobble up poetry. There's
no "one particular" -- there are so many wonderful poets, and every day I find a new one to fall in
love with. I'm like a small child in a pile of puppies.



Sincerely,

Ella McCrystle