Sally Molini’s poem “At Ruann’s Having Tea with the Future” was published this morning on Linebreak. Molini’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in LIT, Beloit Poetry Journal, elimae, and 32 Poems, among other journals, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is co-editor for Cerise Press, an online international magazine and lives in Nebraska.

Since Johnathon started with this question last week, and because I’m curious about such things: How did “At Ruann’s, Having Tea with the Future” come into being? What prompted it?

There actually was an initial image for this poem. I once walked by an oceanside deck full of tables set for dinner, a bright white napkin folded in the shape of a sail sitting on each plate. For some reason I never forgot those napkins. This was at the Hotel del Coronado near San Diego; I’ve never stayed there but it’s quite a place, a sprawling Victorian beach resort with lots of flagged turrets, carved balconies, gazebos and open vistas full of what must be recreational splendor.

Anyway, the poem grew from that one image, the original setting and contents of the piece changing over time. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to say until I added a bit about the current job market, and so, far from the pricey red peaks of the Coronado, the ailing economy found its way into the poem. I also liked the idea of someone reading tea leaves for a person who doesn’t pay enough attention to or maybe doesn’t understand completely the accumulating signs and directions of her own life, which is something to which I can relate.

Do you have a usual writing process?

I usually start out with a line, an image, or a phrase. I’m a slow worker, am unfortunately not prolific; a poem can take me a while to finish. Often it helps to get away from the screen or keyboard, so I’ll walk around the living room and stare through a window out into the backyard while working on something. I like getting past that beginning phase of the poem, enjoy revision the most, when there’s something coming together on that no-longer blank screen. I least like starting out with a new piece, having to develop and expand that first flash of an idea or line. There’s resistance and doubt to push past, which is probably typical for other writers.

In other poems of yours that I’ve read - ”Elegy for an Estranged Friend“; “In Lumbini, Doing the Continental Shift“; “Remains at 920 Prospect“; “Bird in the Hand Alley” – you seem to see the human elements of a poem through the lens of dense natural imagery. What draws you toward these images, or how do they arrive?

Not sure why I’m drawn to certain images or how they arrive — seems the best lines or phrases sort of pop up out of nowhere as I work, which doesn’t sound very intellectual. Ideas come from the usual daily bumping into people and objects. Memory obviously triggers a lot, people and events that have ripened with distance and so come to mind with a little perspective or malleability.

The natural world can offer clues about what’s happening on different levels, physically, spiritually, etc. In the poem, “In Lumbini” mentioned above, there’s a glowworm crawling on a bathroom floor — there are various meanings in that glowworm and its world, which is also my world. We’re connected, that little bug and I; the possibilities, the how and why of that connection calls to me.

I tend not to analyze or think too much about the creative process; it definitely has its mysteries and I like keeping it that way, don’t want to try and solidify some view.

Which poets or poems have influenced you the most – in life or in writing? How do you see these poems or poets working to inform your poetry – or do they?

A teacher once told me that the poets one reads and studies become a kind of chord of voices which shapes one’s own voice. I like that idea, a sort of ongoing weave of developing sensibility. To name just a few poets whose work I love and keep close: Gerard Manly Hopkins, John Keats, Elizabeth Bishop and T. S. Eliot. Contemporary poets: Tom Lux, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Dean Young, Eleanor Wilner. Sometimes a poet’s attitude or views can be more influential than their work. For example, I love Keats’ poetry, yet reading his biographies and prose writings have had more of an effect on how I view and read poetry.

Let’s assume that your favorite poets are, as we have always suspected, superhuman. If you could steal five literary superpowers from your favorite poets, which superpowers would you steal and from whom?

I wouldn’t mind being empowered with:

1. The narrative scope and skill of Elizabeth Bishop.
2. Hopkins’ breadth and depth of diction and sound.
3. Eliot’s abililty to blend the big and small picture — I guess most poets strive to do this, but Eliot has a certain style of penetration, has so captured the strange bleak meanderings of modern times.
4. Eleanor Wilner’s lifelong dedication to civil rights coupled with her writing’s cosmic/mythical point of view.
5. Tom Lux’s reading prowess, so direct and honest; his vocal rendering of a poem the simultaneous sound of heart and irony.

If someone at a bar were to ask you what you do, would you tell him or her that you’re a poet? If so, when did you decide to call yourself a poet? If not, why?

I call myself a writer. I like what Louise Glück’s said in her essay “The Education of The Poet” — I use the word “writer” deliberately. “Poet” must be used cautiously; it names an aspiration, not an occupation.

Finally, here’s our (soon-to-be) traditional rock-star question: What’s the greatest amount of money you ever earned from poetry, and how’d you spend it?

“Little World, Flitting Away,” a poem about the ever-increasing number of extinct species and our dying natural world, made $100 when it took 3rd place in Fugue’s annual poetry contest a few years ago. Not sure how I spent the money; probably on books.

An Interview with Joe Wilkins