Where and when were you born?
I was born on Halloween 1956, in the outskirts of New York City, after a very long labour which gave me a lifelong fear of being trapped upside-down.
Could you tell us something about your background?
I breathed and wept and bathed in poetry almost from the beginning. My mother and father both loved poetry, though she was primarily an artist and he a professor of philosophy specializing in Wittgenstein. I began writing and learning about poetry very early, and never stopped studying it until I finished my PhD.
Were either of your parents or grandparents (or any other relatives) writers? If not, were any of your relatives actively interested in literature?
Both my parents wrote poetry, my mother more seriously.
Are any of your siblings writers or involved in a
creative profession?
Most of my siblings are creative. One is a dancer/actress, one a screenwriter/director, one a sculptor and artist who has recently begun writing and translating poetry. One is a lawyer who loves horses, but even that one keeps starting and stopping various creative writing projects. . . .
What was the first poem (or who was the first poet) that turned you on to poetry?
Robert Louis Stevenson, which I read to myself. . . The Night Before Christmas, which my father would read aloud to the family every year…Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, whom one of my sisters would read to me….Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind, which I read in school . . .
What age were you when you first began writing poetry, and did you receive any encouragement?
I wrote my first poems at age 8. I was encouraged by some teachers, a librarian, and always by my family.
When you started writing poetry did you have dreams about becoming a "professional" poet? If so, did anyone advise you against this course of action?
Around the age of 14 I began to talk about becoming a professional poet, and no-one discouraged me.
Did you ever get a poem published in your school magazine? (If so, please tell us the title and the year of publication).
I published “Difference of Dress” in a children’s library magazine, the Horn Book, in 1966, and “The Branches of a Special Tree on a Winter Afternoon” a few years later in the same magazine.
Did you go to university, and if so, which subject(s) did
you study?
For my BA I studied Middle English poetry, Metaphysical
poetry, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Modernist poetry, and versification, as well
as linguistics, anthropology, deconstructionist literary theory, the history of
science, philosophy, Old English, Middle English, French, and Greek. For my MA I studied poetry writing,
Renaissance poetry, 18th century literature, poststructuralist
literary theory. poetic form, German, and Latin. For my PhD I studied eighteenth and nineteenth-century American
poetry and culture, new historicist literary theory, Marxist, formalist, and
feminist theory as well as feminist political praxis, and a self-designed
reading course in the history and theory of prosody and versification in
English.
When did you first start submitting to poetry magazines? And can you tell us how many rejections you received before having something accepted for publication? (And if you received many rejections, was this off-putting?)
After having the poems published at ages 9 and 11, and a couple of poems published in college magazines, I didn’t start submitting to magazines until 1986 when I was 30 years old. My sister promised to take me out to dinner if I collected 100 rejections. I collected 385 rejections before I stopped counting and saving them in 1990.
What was the worst rejection you ever received? (Please quote it, if you can).
I had sent a rather creepy narrative poem about Sleeping
Beauty, called “Beauty is Sleeping,” to a small magazine, which wrote back to
me that “you can’t write about beauty in the 20th century and get
away with it.”
What was your first published poem? Which poetry magazine published it? And what year was it published?
My first published poem was “The August Porch,” (The Yale Lit, 1978), which I included in my 2003 book Calendars. The poem published after that was“The Native American Birds,” ( South Dakota Review, 1987), which has since been anthologized in Red, White, and Blues: Poets on the Promise of America. That poem has been waiting for the right collection of my own to fit into, and it will be included it in my next book, American Witch.
Round about the time that you started seriously writing poetry, who were your literary heroes? And would you say they had an influence on your writing style?
Bob Dylan, Dickinson, Whitman, Tennyson, A. E. Housman, E.A. Robinson, Keats, The Beatles, Otis Redding, The Supremes. Yes, they definitely influenced my writing style.
Have you ever attended a creative writing course or been involved in a writers' group? If so, did you find it useful?
Yes, and yes.
When did you put together your first collection of poetry? (Please tell us the title of the collection)
My first collection of my poems was Seen Through Quietness (1969), which I showed only to my fourth-grade teacher. My first self-published collection was The Encyclopedia of Scotland (1982), a long poem. My first published collection was Eve (1997).
How long did it take to get it accepted for publication? And, if appropriate, how many times was it rejected? (Please tell us the name of the publisher. Also, if appropriate, could you tell us who rejected it)
Eve took about
seven years to publish. It went through
numerous titles and was rejected by most of the large publishers in the U.S.
before it was accepted by Story Line Press.
How long did you have to wait between acceptance and
final publication?
About a year and a half.
What sort of critical response did you receive?
Some excellent reviews, including Publishers Weekly and Poetry Flash.
Would you say that your publisher actively promoted the
book?
They took out a few ads and organized a few readings. They probably did more than most small press publishers do now.
Did you do readings and signings at bookshops to help promote the book? If so, did you organise these yourself, or were they organised by your publisher? And would you say that they had a significant effect on sales figures?
Some were organized by me and some by the publisher. Certainly, readings help with sales.
How many copies of the book sold?
They had to do a second printing, so maybe 2500 copies sold.
Is it still in print?
It is about to go out of print for the first time in ten years. Copies can still be ordered from me through my website, anniefinch.com.
At the beginning of your writing career did you enter any poetry competitions? Did you enter a lot or just a few? Did you have any success? And, with hindsight, what are your thoughts about the relative merits or demerits of poetry competitions?
I entered a lot the first few years, and never won any. I don’t have a lot of patience for competitions, since they pit poetry which may be of extremely different kinds against each other as if it is all the same. Imagine if there were “music” competitions that jazz, classical, rock, punk, country, and pop musicians all entered together, and only one winner was chosen. It’s rather an insult to the art of poetry.
Do you make an adequate living through poetry related activities such as teaching creative writing workshops? Or do you have to supplement your income through unrelated activities?
I make a living through poetry-related activities including teaching, directing the Stonecoast low-residency MFA program, reading fees, and royalties.
With the benefit of hindsight, are you glad that you pursued your dream of being a poet?
I consider myself deeply lucky to be a poet. It has not been easy by any means, but I have stayed with something I have a passion for. That is the key.
If a young would-be poet approached you, which poets would you recommend as vital reading?
I would recommend they start with a very general anthology such as the Norton Anthology of Poetry, and not be afraid of reading poetry by dead poets, which I tend to find a lot more nourishing than contemporary poetry. (T.S. Eliot said he never read his contemporaries, since they would only confuse him).
Assuming that this would-be poet showed some promise, would you advise him or her to pursue a "career" in poetry?
Only if they felt there was absolutely no other option in life, and only if they genuinely enjoy reading poetry, and only if they find poems coming to them unbidden.
If so, what further advice would you give him or her?
Read, read, read, read, read. Learn to scan and write in all forms and meters, even if you want to write free verse. Read aloud, read aloud, read aloud, read aloud, read aloud. Give at least as much time to learning form as you would to learning to play the guitar. Revise, revise, revise, revise, revise.
Finally (and extremely hypothetically), you are selected to appear on the hit reality TV show, "Desert Island Poets", where you are marooned on a tropical island for three months with a typewriter and several reams of paper. You are provided with all necessary provisions, but you are only allowed to take three books with you. Your appearance fee is more than you could hope to earn in a decade and the show is so popular that all previous participants have become best-selling poets. So, would you participate? And if so, which three books would you take with you?
I would participate and would bring a great dictionary with thorough etymologies such as the Oxford English Dictionary (or the American Heritage College Dicionary, if it had to be one volume); the Norton Anthology of Poetry or the equivalent edited by myself;; and the collected poems of Emily Dickinson.
See: Annie Finch's List of
Publications
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