Ash Bowen's poetry has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Blackbird, and Black Warrior Review, among other publications. He lives and works in Texarkana, AR.
Jennifer Jabaily's poetry has appeared in Mannequin Envy and Fickle Muses. She's a second-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Ashley Anna McHugh is a third-year MFA student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Measure, DIAGRAM and Memorious as well as other publications.
Johnathon Williams's poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2009, the Pebble Lake Review, and Unsplendid. He lives in Fayetteville, AR, with his wife and daughters.
The Unclutterer Workspaces pool on Flickr depicts many lovely spartan work areas. It’s not limited to writers, or even creative types in general, but I needed something to tide me over while I send out more requests for entries in our Where the Magic Happens series.
Room design can have a powerful effect on concentration and mood, according to a feature in the April issue of Scientific American Mind. The included research finds that ceiling height, views of greenery, and lighting all have measurable effects on thinking.
Although gazing out a window suggests distraction, it turns out that views of natural settings, such as a garden, field or forest, actually improve focus. A study published in 2000 by environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, now at Cornell University, and her colleagues followed seven- to 12-year-old children before and after a family move. Wells and her team evaluated the panoramas from windows in each old and new home. They found that kids who experienced the greatest increase in greenness as a result of the move also made the most gains on a standard test of attention.
Presented in support of my obsession with the places where writers work.
When Johnathon said, and I quote, “Ashley, I take back everything I’ve ever said about your space being messy”, the sentiment didn’t quite seem heartfelt, but–moreover–he was not joking around. My workspace is always an enormous pile of disarray. Proof:
Since the picture cannot possibly do justice to the filth in which I write, I have attempted to draw this eyesore into some semblance of order with arrows and labels. Useful? I hope so.
To begin: The “desk” is actually two end tables pushed together, which requires the low chair. I like to be hunched over my poems as I’m working. The reasoning behind this is unclear.
The empty packs of cigarettes are a sure sign that things are going well. Although I’ve recently begun rolling my own cigarettes in an attempt to hurry my death by nicotine, the overflowing ashtray continues to be a signal of significant progress. I like to think it means that I’ve been too busy writing to empty the ashtray or clean up.
On the other hand, I might just be lazy. It is impossible to tell. Assuming it is the latter, I’ll justify myself with Virginia Woolf: “It is in our idleness…that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.” That’s it.
The excuse regarding the empty Coke can, many of which typically litter the desk I treat with such derision, falls into a similar line of thought. I am pleased to say, however, that my Coke addiction is fading fast: I’m on to sweet tea now.
Perhaps surprisingly, I can’t write anything even remotely worthwhile when I’m drunk, which isn’t to say I can do so sober, but I think I edge a little closer without the whiskey. As my alcoholism becomes more fully developed, I’m hoping the liquor will become a regular part of my writing process, since writing drunk seems like a positive thing in theory.
Books are stacked helter-skelter and set askew around the general vicinity. When I’m stuck, it occasionally helps to pick up someone else, to do a quick imitation. Also: this sometimes leads to a poem worth following up on, or reveals a structure that might be useful to my current pet project. Hardy is of great use when it comes to this, which is why he’s right next to the laptop.
Also: Because I’m stuck more often than not, I’ll have up multiple versions of the same poem while I’m working. For me, a line from a previous failure can generate new ideas in the current take–even if it’s just a rhyme or a juxtaposition of words.
I’ll leave the rest to you to justify, as I seem to be at a loss. While I would like my workspace to be clean and shiny, chaos is absolutely necessary to my writing, in which I typically seek order–especially given my control issues. It seems I am a bundle of contradictions, right down to the lipstick prints on my rolled cigarettes.
Where the Magic Happens: Karen Rigby
As far as obsessions go, collecting photographs of writers’ workspaces is fairly benign. Regardless, it’s the subject of one of our many recurring features here at Unstressed. If you’re a publishing poet who wouldn’t mind sharing a photo (and an optional description) of your workspace, please drop us a line.
First up is Sandra Beasley, whose poems appeared on Linebreak on June 10 and Aug. 19.
Here’s Sandra:
I don’t know if it’s truly where magic happens, but that’s how the Linebreak editors phrased it when they asked for a snapshot of my writing space. What does happen at my desk: drafting, cussing, sneezing, gesticulating, wikipedia-ing as an aid to drafting, wikipedia-ing as a distraction from drafting, reading lines aloud, tapping out ten syllable-lines out with my left hand, and drinking of scotch.
A rundown of some visible elements:
I really do keep my desk this clean. Don’t get me wrong, there are stacks of to-do paperwork elsewhere, but having a blank surface is key to giving myself permission to write. If I were trying to draft a sestina while also eyeing my incomplete 2008 tax return, the sestina would never happen. If the walls seem a little bare, I am trying to pace myself. We’ve only lived here since March, so I’m waiting until I have just the right things to hang up.
When we moved in, I worried that the lack of a window would keep this from working as my studio. But I get plenty of natural light (there’s a skylight above that staircase in the upper left of the photo). It never feels claustrophobic, and it is also the first space I see when I walk in the door–so naturally, the first place I sit. Much more organic than creeping off to an attic.
The books to the left of my desk are only a fraction of my poetry collection. I have far too many books, and since I can’t bear to get rid of anything signed to me, it is safe to say I will always have far too many books. They’re grouped according to the color of their spines. It is an indulgence, but as easily as I can remember the author’s last name, I’m able to picture how the book looks in my hands. You’d be surprised how quickly I find what I need. And when I can’t locate a title right away, the search causes me to stumble across three books I’d kind of forgotten about, but want to re-read. Who says any system having to do with poetry has to be efficient?
What I love best about this space is that it is, truly, a room of my own. It doesn’t double as a sewing room, or a guest bedroom; the boy has his own desk, on another floor entirely. It is a room for writing, and that is a rare and lucky thing.