Beth Kanell
ORP: What inspired you to begin writing or creating? Has that source of inspiration changed throughout your life?
Beth Kanell: With a preschool teacher for a mom, I was making up poems even before I could write them down. As a teen, I wrote them to flirt! As a young mother, they salvaged a part of me that wasn't sticky and exhausted. When widowhood struck, they absorbed my grief and turned it into gems. And now writing poems keeps me alive and resilient. Worth every struggle.
ORP: Do you write or create with an audience in mind? If so, how do you consider the relationship between that audience and your work throughout your creative process?
BK: I write for all the inner ears that love the sound of words and are curious about how life can make sense, amid all the confusion and conflict of our time.
ORP: What does success as a writer or artist mean to you?
BK: Teasing local audiences, I say my competitor is Robert Frost, because "everyone" knows his work; in reality, each time someone reads one of my poems, that's success for me.
ORP: Who do you consider to be your creative ancestors and contemporaries for your art and/or writing? How does your creative work converse with theirs?
BK: Will you laugh too hard if I say Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas? Let me be strong and curious and caring ... with smiles in the corners.
ORP: Does writing or creating energize or exhaust you? What aspects of your artistic process would you consider the most challenging or rewarding?
BK: Both, both! I can't stop when a poem is going well, and it's a good day if I've written a poem during it. But I also labor at shaping and learning (I listen hard to top poets talking), and I savor the exhaustion that follows a long surge of strong work.