Volume IV, Issue 4 - Fall 2005 - "Heat"
Spotlight: Lillian Baker Kennedy

From the Editors | Feature | Spotlight | Poets | Reviews | Yawp

Excited Utterances:
In Conversation with Triplopia, Lillian Baker Kennedy makes the case for friendly—as opposed to cross—examination

As a family law attorney, Lillian Baker Kennedy already knew of the importance of language. However, the words of the muse did not arrive in her life until later, when with two degrees under her belt, and a thriving practice, poetry struck her out of the blue in the year 2000. Shortly after penning her first poem, it didn't take her long to publish three books, co-edit an anthology, become "Curator of Poetry" at the Atrium Gallery and step into Stonecoast's MFA program.

In her legal life, it is not unthinkable for Kennedy to ask the truth of her clients, and yet it is within poetry that she herself can access her own truth -- the truth of the storyteller.

We recently discussed the precision of language, the residency program of Stonecoast, and the art of the question with Lillian Baker Kenndy. We invite you to join our conversation...

Triplopia: There’s an interesting statement of yours over at PSH, in the bio on your Poet of the Week page, in which you say "I wrote my first poem in 2000. I didn’t know it was a poem. I just knew it had to be written." Since then, you’ve gone on to publish in a number of venues, have co-edited an anthology, edited an e-zine, and have two books to your credit. That strikes me as a fairly intense five years' work, especially given what many would regard as a late start.

Lillian Baker Kennedy: One of those books, Tomorrow After Night, is self-published, although I was offered an outside contract for it.

T: What happened to prompt you to devote this much effort to something you'd not pursued before?

LBK: Sometimes I think my encounter with poetry was akin to Saul on the road to Damascus. My primary attitude toward poetry was probably shaped by high school English -- irrelevant and a bore. So the writing or the intense reading, after my "conversion," was not really effort. I fell (hard) in love with the Muse. And, I'm well aware of my age and feel that pressure of time to educate myself and to keep at it, trying to get at that poem I feel may be waiting. People have told me I'm "prolific." What's prolific thirty plus years after not writing at all? I understand I have been fortunate in people who have generously taken an interest in my work.

T: Was this a matter of not really being interested in literary work, or did you work in prose before 2000, but not poetry? It's difficult to imagine such an intense period of work in creative writing would have been entirely without precedent. How did this creativity express itself prior to that first poem?

LBK: I wrote creatively at a very young age. Then, after a death in the family, that voice was silenced. I kept a journal or scraps of paper like a journal, off and on over the years, but I had not thought of writing creatively or publishing. I did write a couple essays right around that first poem. They might have been published first. My essays have a more relaxed, humorous voice. But the first poem was just as I said, out of the blue, insistent. I think a confluence of circumstances cracked the rock.

T: I can’t help but note the passive voice construction in "was silenced," and the sense of outside imposition that suggests. Did you feel that the silence you describe was imposed, and do you feel that the nature of that silence informs your work today?

LBK: Yes to both.

T: What do you tend to find yourself writing about in the essay form? Are these readily available, and if so, where can readers access them?

LBK: The Goose River Press 2003 anthology, Best of Goose River Press, has a couple essays, "Grandma Vee" and "The Man in the Basement." I have written essays about family, the neighborhood, the plumbing problems of an old house, cabin fever. The other essays were published in Maine papers.

T: You mentioned self-publication, though you’ve also been published through Pudding House, I believe. The route of self-publication, fraught with its own perils, is also part of a tradition in American letters, most notably in the work of Walt Whitman, and thus not something that is immediately dismissed, though there’s a lot of self-published work that is sub-par. Another route, if you can land it, is an outside contract with a publishing house. You’ve experience in both routes: how do they compare? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each, in your experience?

LBK: Anytime you talk about going to paper publication, you're talking a dollar investment. Although you can publish a chap for a relatively small amount of money, it gets more serious when you publish perfect bound. If you self-publish, you have more control over book design. Also, the particular contract I was offered for Tomorrow After Night included sale of the copyright. That means that should you want to republish your own work, you will need permission. If money matters, you need to market. I enjoyed the Pudding House experience. The manuscript was submitted and selected based entirely, as far as I know, on the work. I retained the copyright. They did a good job on design. Apart from the initial contest fee (which I didn't win, but they published anyway), there was no required financial investment. I would consider selling the copyright to the right publishing house for a future book, but I'm not otherwise interested in self-publishing. At the same time, I just published with three other friends a little chap called Leavings. In short, publishing as a business doesn't interest me. If I had it to do over again, I would only self-publish a chap, and I would be careful about where I published the first perfect bound book. I am, however, still very thankful to have a book with Bak art on the cover. Publishing and self-publishing raise a number of questions that go beyond economics. I think a fair amount of poetry may be published based on the relationships among poets, and that, like the Leavings project, can be a fine, warm experience. Generally, I prefer that people publish my work because they are drawn to the poetry.

T: Keeping the conceit of Saul on his way to Damascus in mind, and with full acknowledgement of the real difficulties one faces when trying to wrestle one of those illuminating moments into the tricky confines of language, I feel a real fascination in trying to understand others’ experience of such moments. You’re suggesting a real turnaround in attitude at this moment, in which poetry suddenly becomes relevant, whether to yourself or to the human species as a whole. How would you describe that sense of relevancy? Is it solely personal, or do you feel it pertains to some wider community?

LBK: I have no doubt that poetry had relevancy before I stumbled into it. I think many people hear "poetry" and respond as if someone said "opera." They think they won't "get it." And I'm going to tell you what I really think -- it is a big mistake to try to bring poetry to the general public or to students through Shakespeare. Shakespeare is not an introductory course.

To the extent that poetry through recitation is ritual, I think it has the power to build community. Its absence might contribute to social fragmentation. One might also speculate that its absence or its confinement to small clusters is a reflection of that fragmentation. Because I believe that poetry has the power to give voice to fundamentals, I believe it is the former. We should not be satisfied if our work is read only by other poets. I have only the slightest glimpse of this notion, but I'm thinking of the turn to the song, "God Bless America" after 911. What was that about? I think, in part, it was a turn to the comfort of ritual, to as common a prayer as we seem to have these days. Or think about funerals. Often one hears "The Twenty-Third Psalm" recited, even at secular funerals. Then, think about the language of our public discourse. Much of it does not build community. It's harsh, war-like, even among ourselves in America. So, what does poetry say to that, muffled under the covers of journals? Or spoken in small spaces? I'm as guilty as the next, but it's on my mind. What does America need from poetry or lose in its absence from our day-to-day lives?

T: Given the non-interest you felt before this moment, what do you feel nudged you in the direction of poetry, specifically?

LBK: I respect Eliot's work, particularly "Four Quartets," because I think it reflects a trust that one can ask the biggest questions of poetry, bigger than one can ask of prose. Questions of physics, history, philosophy and religion as well as the most basic questions about what it means to be mortal, same and different, alone and in relation. When I am writing well, when it "flows," it feels akin to praying with a few "responses." And those morsels are a kind of grace. I like that space. I'd like to get there more often -- not for publication but for the experience. When I read a beautiful poem, say "Solo La Muerte," I feel the way I feel looking at a painting by Samuel Bak. It looks back. I don't know if you understand the latter, but it is my personal standard for all poems. A "real" poem takes its place in the world - maybe not big and important - maybe like the wild morning glory I discovered amidst some mussel shells down on the shore at Schoodic.

Maybe I haven't answered your question at all. I'll try this -- when I write, it feels like a personal, intimate event, perhaps communion. If I get to a poem, I'm into community.

T: What being do you see yourself engaging in these moments?

LBK: Being, probably. I was a philosophy major in college. "The look", the notion of "thou" in poetry are probably related, maybe somewhat corrupted, ideas gathered from those studies.

T: As is clear in your bio, and in a number of the publications you appear in or edit, you are a lawyer by occupation. How do you see your profession and your creative work as informing each other? Both poets and lawyers tend to have a fairly intimate relationship with language--how do you see this sense of intimacy being similar or dissimilar?

LBK: If you had asked me this question three years ago, I might have said my poetry has nothing to do with my lawyering. Over time, I see more integration, but they are not identical. First, I agree that we lawyers should have the capacity to be very precise with language. I certainly try in my practice. Over the years in the courtroom, I have had success with surprising cross-examination because, in my opinion, I have a good ear for the exact word chosen by the witness. Also, I have begun to notice how I have probably always tended to take a litigation case and develop it as a narrative, both inside and outside the courtroom. Finally, when I meet with clients and particularly when I meet with children, I think of myself as listening with the "third ear." Part of the prelude to the first poem was a lecture I had been giving to guardian ad litems on interviewing children. People asked how I got so much information from children. I had to think about, become more conscious about, exactly what I was doing. That lecture was called "The art of friendly, as opposed to cross -- examination." Essentially, it is open listening with a fascination and a respect for the way children use language, their concepts of time in particular, the non-linear presentation of their speech and the less defended emotional quality of that speech compared to adult speech. So, these are the intersections probably in general. For some time, I was very resistant to writing in meter. One of my early mentors often writes sonnets. I would send him these long, rambling free verse pieces, and he'd say (I think, in exasperation;) would you at least count the syllables? And I would try to explain that I feared if I superimposed too much structure on the poem, the linear lawyer might take over. I am less fearful of that these days, and last semester at Stonecoast, I took a course in meter with Annie Finch who is a nurturing, trustworthy instructor. Annie has a theory that the use of meter permits other images to rise up. I have a very competitive nature that I think serves the law work very well and doesn't serve poetry. It's one of the reasons I submit poems and try to forget about it. I think poetry is best written on the knees, with a great deal of humility. A litigator's sword is the word. A poem might be a plowshare. But both poet and litigator, in a way, must be brave.

T: I can see how such a sense of tension—between, among other things, humility and insistence—might be both a great reserve from which to draw and a huge source of difficulty in generating poetry, and, although that tension often expresses itself in very different terms than you use, it does seem to be an informing aspect of the work of many poets. In engaging the tools of meter and form, what strategies do you find yourself employing to assure that the tension—between the primarily linear approach in law and the more associative approach of poetry—remains an asset? How valuable have you found Finch’s theory in your own work? Has it held up, in your experience?

LBK: I don't have enough experience working with meter to add much to this dialogue. I have had some interesting experiences working with the pantoum, which did produce different images. I think one of the ways meter, form can effect disruption of the linear is by a kind of distraction. The form has your focus. The image rises up out of the corner of your eye. In meter, you're looking for the count, the emphasis. That search can lead to words you might have missed. I have had these experiences in a limited way. More of such work is on my "to do" list.

T: Turning back to that line from your biography, you stated that in writing your first poem, "I didn't know it was a poem. I just knew it had to be written." This suggests that, at the outset, at least, poetry was a near compulsion, and its expression a necessity, rather than a particular desire. For many who struggle to gain the attentions of the muse, this is an enviable position in which to find one's self, as there are, in the course of many poets' lives, long dry periods when nothing really seems to demand that it be said. How heavily do the concepts of inspiration and crafting do battle within your work?

LBK: Stonecoast has been a challenge. They want me to revise. They want me to think about craft. I actually enjoy thinking about craft and critiquing other poets' poems -- dead poets primarily. One editor told me she respected my craft. My ignorance amused me, but this only reinforces that the Muse knows more than I do. I don't want to be a "crafty" poet. Too much control is the art of "cross examination." When I have an assignment, I try to be compliant. As a result, I have found myself writing less with less pleasure. But, I have immensely enjoyed the studying. It's just when it comes to writing, writing comes from another place, a quiet place, a place of deep listening without any thought about publishing. That's what drives me. I want the poem to surprise, to inform me. When that is happening, you might find me pulled over by the side of the road because I can't wait to get it down. It makes me late for dinner, but the kids are grown. I have yet to cross the threshold to really productive editing of my own work. Maybe I never will. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I hope that if I pursue my craft studies, I will sufficiently incorporate that knowledge so I don't have to think too much about it when I feel moved to write. When I used to write term papers, I'd have them basically mulled over and wrote them very quickly. I do the same thing with written argument -- just pausing to double-check the evidence. So, some people probably write slowly, one word at a time. Others revise and revise. I don't think we all have to write in the same way. Things ferment. When it's time to bubble over, keep the glass ready. For some, it might be like that.

I will say, since I've attended Stonecoast, I am getting other feelings for poetry. I have only recently been able to go to the piano and pick out the actual music for part of a poem. I also have the relatively new experience of feeling the texture of a poem as if it were a fabric, a tactile sense like the difference between holding silk or corduroy. Is that craft? And I do agree with Yeats, that we must not be "slovens" about form and tradition. I just think when you write in form or focus on craft while you're writing, you have to be careful to avoid the "dead (fish) eye." Tomorrow After Night was initially an experiment in stream of consciousness writing. I've also written sonnets and pantoums. I like their spiraling nature, the possibility of an incantatory effect, although I haven't yet mastered them.

T: In the five years that have passed since that first poem demanded representation (so to speak), how often have you found your poetry presenting you with a similar sense of necessity? Have they all been something that "had to be written," or have some of them come only after a period of struggle? (I find I am very tempted to revert to the language of the courtroom, and ask if any of your poems have proven to be "reluctant witnesses.")

LBK: I think of a woman who taught a little poetry workshop way down east as part of the Schoodic Arts Festival. She said, "Write about what matters." Once you start asking the Muse "What matters?" poetry flows like an ocean through your life.

That's lovely "demanded representation." When I have a "dry spell," I feel separated from myself. Usually that is related to feeling some pressure to "perform" or to publish. Not a good place. Fortunately, it's not long before a poem comes unbidden. And I do have poems that come maybe half-cooked. Some stanzas are clear, the images audible. Others are less certain. I feel like I'm on the way somewhere and get stymied mid-spiral. So, yes, it's frustrating, but I just hope the time will come when more is revealed to me. I don't think what has yet to be disclosed is discovered with a pickaxe. It probably needs patience, to wait with faith that what should be, will. For all of Eliot's craft (and on my "to do" list is taking a closer look at his use of meter within the line), the substance of "Four Quartets" speaks to this theory regardless of his lectures. And I am a fan of Hirsch's theory of "duende." I know he deconstructs, but I don't think the core of duende is craft. You could count Emily's syllables, notice the hymn and its "common" meter, but that analysis will never replicate a single line much less a fascicle. Slant. Non-linear. Non-rational. It can't be bought.

Your use of legal expression reminds me of the only one I have for poetry. I had an editor who was in constant consternation over what I call my "excited utterances." An example is "Sailing Down to Bailey's Isle" - the line "Oh glittering bay,/ what is your promise/ but arrival and departure?" She said, "What is this romanticism doing in this poem!?" But, you know, it's all part of the journey. In law, an excited utterance is an exception to the hearsay rule, admissible evidence. And those little excited utterances led me to study Romantic poetry and to discover Charlotte Smith. Time and again, by remaining open, I have stumbled into some aspect of poetry hither fore unknown (to me, of course). To learn poetry that way is simply extended play with a little passion and a little praying. It's a pretty good way to live.



Notions

When I was sixteen, I worked in notions.
The small spools of thread,
a color to match material of every dress,
lined up in rows. I knew where everything was.

What a salesperson I was for thread!
I carefully matched each one
to un-cut cotton folded on customers’ arms.

Later, when we got an apartment, we hardly knew
that the candlesticks came from noisy, brick mills
with large looms that had to be fixed
by supervisors working in shifts.
Women waited while machines broke down.
Their commissions were docked by the passage of time.

Someone told me souls are threads
spread all across the universe,
like a pattern, a sphere of souls
that cross and re-cross oceans and continents.
Threads clipped like umbilical cords
or torn off between the teeth, a hasty impatience
to finish connecting or ripping out a seam.
I once lined a jacket, orange, in satin. The edges peeled.
There is no end to this poem, only a kind of unraveling
and unlit candles on empty spools.

Notions, Earthly Beatitudes, An Exhibit of Sculpture by Kerstin Engman and Poetry by Lillian Baker Kennedy, University of Southern Maine, Lewiston/Auburn Atrium Gallery, November 2003; Kennedy, Lillian Baker, Notions, (Pudding House Publications 2004). (Permisson for use granted by Lillian Baker Kennedy, October, 2005.)



T: Stonecoast is an ongoing course of study for you, yes?

LBK: Yes. I'm almost halfway through, but I plan to take the next residency off to travel and try to whittle down my self-assigned reading list.

One of the benefits of poetry is that it leads to a community of other arts and artists. Samuel Bak has been extremely generous -- giving permission to an unknown poet to use his art on Hearsay and on the cover of my book, Tomorrow After Night. Poetry has intensified my interest in all kinds of art. Lately, it's architecture. "Clerestory" popped up in a poem. An architect son of a poet friend of mine approached me after a reading to talk about symbolism in his work. That discussion led to more readings in myth and symbolism. I've read with the jazz group in Portsmouth and experimented with hymns played by a church organist. I love the work I'm doing with Robyn Holman at the Atrium Gallery at our local university. She has two art exhibits coming that will include poetry, die-cut, up on the walls. I have a new title, "Curator of Poetry" which is a joke, but I'm doing it. And my latest wish is to attempt a libretto. I have yet to find that musician. Poetry might find its way back to the general public through collaboration with other artists.

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