Before I pose any questions to photographer Fritz Liedtke, I want you to read his remarkably candid, challenging “artist’s statement” about his latest photography exhibit: Skeleton in the Closet.

Liedtke’s art was on display in Portland, Oregon last month, but the project is still growing and is sure to resurface with startling new images. In fact, you can peruse the photographs right now on his website, or on the site specifically devoted to this exhibit.

But first, Liedtke’s statement. Then, I’ll pose him some questions about his provocative work.

Skeleton in the Closet
Ordinary People, Disordered Eating
Photographs by Fritz Liedtke

“I’ve seen thinner.”

The woman looking at these photographs paused, closed the book. “It’s true,” I replied. “Some of these men and women are healthy now. Some are very sick, and yet look healthy. Some, even with anorexia and bulimia, can be quite heavy. And some people who look quite normal—people you know, even—have an eating disorder in their history.”

I’ve seen thinner. We all have: the emaciated frames, the walking skeletons, the naked bones, the withering models. We’ve all seen these shocking, grotesque images, and there are enough of them in the world. The men and women in this series have looked this way before; some still do. Beneath the layers of clothing and confusion is skin stretched over bones, which they are loathe to reveal. They have, as it were, a skeleton in the closet.

These photographs are about normal people, people like me. I attended college right out of high school. During that first winter away from home, I began to find myself depressed, lonely, and in poor physical condition. This went on for some time until, finally, at the college nurse’s suggestion, I went to talk with someone in the counseling center. The gentleman there was gracious, asked good questions, and listened well. Over the course of the next few months, we were able to unravel the tangle of my thinking, and along the way discovered that, among other things, I was anorexic.

That word hit hard. I had never really thought about anorexia, and certainly never thought of myself as someone susceptible to it. I had assumed such eating disorders as anorexia and bulimia were for women who didn’t like their appearance. With some research, however, I discovered that anorexia is more about issues of control, which did apply to me. I was a quiet, intelligent achiever, and I didn’t want anything to get in my way—least of all food and thoughts of food.

This body of work is about normal people, who sit down with me over coffee, and pour out their secrets: abuse, neglect, insecurity, cruel and thoughtless words, terrible things they’ve done to their bodies and families, the results, the healing process, the enduring ache within. They tell me—a complete stranger—things they have told no one else. I am their confessor, their confidant, their priest.

“I’ve seen thinner” isn’t just a phrase uttered by those who view this work; it is the mantra of those who suffer from eating disorders. It is their constant obsession, the drive behind their heroically intense efforts to control their lives and minds and bodies. They’ve seen thinner models, actresses, parents, friends; they’ve seen themselves thinner when they were younger; they’ve seen thinner clothes; they want to fit in. They want it so bad, some are willing to die for it. Even the briefest perusal of pro-anorexia literature reveals how driven and competitive and disciplined and anxious these sufferers are. Their walls are plastered with glossy prints of thin models, their floors littered with magazines, diet books, exercise equipment, and scales. They’ve seen thinner, and it is their promised land, just a few more pounds away.

In a society saturated with shallow, narrow definitions of beauty, anorexia is an increasingly prevalent trend. Movie stars, magazine ads, Atkins diets, internet pornography, fashion models, MTV… the pressure to look thin and attractive is an oppressive force that is increasingly difficult to resist. Everyone wants to be an American Idol. And obsession with appearance is not the only motivation for restrictive eating. Dancers, gymnasts, wrestlers, and other athletes find themselves in unhealthy eating patterns in order to stay competitive.

Conservative estimates suggest that three out of every one hundred Americans have eating disorders. Approximately 8 million women and girls and 1 million men and boys suffer with anorexia in the United States alone. While anorexia affects females from 6-76, it is primarily confined to the domain of adolescents. One percent of female adolescents in America—one in one hundred—struggle with it.

Bulimia affects another 1% of American women. Four percent of all college age women struggle with this disorder; 30% of all American women dieters practice binge eating.

These disorders are a silent epidemic; they are rarely discussed, fraught with shame, and often go undetected in those who suffer with them. Of those who do not seek treatment, twenty percent may die.

In the end, however, anorexia and bulimia are not about numbers, percentages, and statistics. They are about individual people, each one with a name and a face and a home, struggling for control over their bodies and minds and lives. Their stories include, of course, their families and friends, their counselors and classmates, their spouses and children. These are the stories I want to tell. With respect and compassion, I want to tell the truth.

Fritz Liedtke
www.fritzphoto.com/thinkontrol
fritzliedtke@msn.com

This series is still in process.

If you would like more information, or would be willing to participate, please contact Fritz at fritz@fritzphoto.com, or (503) 267-5078.

Funded in part by a grant from RACC.

(Click on these images to enlarge.)

A CONVERSATION WITH FRITZ LIEDTKE

Overstreet:

What drew you to this subject?

Liedtke:

When I was a senior in high school and a freshman in college, I dealt a little bit with anorexia myself. I didn’t know it at the time; I didn’t really know anything about eating disorders at the time, and didn’t think I had one. But with some counseling in college, I discovered that I did, and was able to resolve some things in my life that helped me let go of the need to control my food intake. As is often the case, it had nothing to do with appearance, but more to do with control over my thinking and eating.

So, fifteen years later, I was between art projects, in need of some direction. This idea kept nagging at me. So I decided to give it a go. To pursue a project for a few years, you know you have to be passionate about it to do so, and this struck me as something I could sink my teeth into.

Overstreet:

There must have been some discomforting moments and challenging conversations along the way during this project. What was the most difficult part of this work? And what surprised you along the way?

Liedtke:

One of the surprising things about people struggling with eating disorders is that, often times, they believe so thoroughly in what they are telling themselves (that I’m fat, ugly, unworthy of love, need drugs to keep going), that nothing you can say will help them. They won’t hear you. I’ve sat face to face with these beautiful people who were headed for death, and could do little more than listen. Of course, my role as an artist and photojournalist was to listen and tell their story, not be their counselor. But the depth to which we are able, as humans, to deceive ourselves, is quite surprising sometimes.

Another thing I found interesting in the interview process was how much people would share with me. I would sit there and ask questions and listen, and people would start telling me things that they hadn’t told anyone else, not even their spouses. I felt like a priest in a confessional. Obviously, they wanted to get things off their chest (with some encouragement from me), and I was honored to be able to listen.

Overstreet:

Did the process have any particular effect on any of the models involved? Did they learn anything from the process?

Liedtke:

I went into this project to tell stories, not to help people. It wasn’t a social service project or outreach in any way. It was just a project I wanted to pursue, photographs I wanted to make. But good things have happened along the way as a result. A number of people have sought treatment as a result of our work together. To others I’ve been able to give an encouraging word. Recently I’ve begun keeping a list of quotes from people who have written me regarding their involvement in the project.

Here are a few:

I appreciate how you helped me face the reality of my assault and how I was handling it. Working with you was a real turning point for me and I will never forget you because of that.

I got your wonderful photo and story today! Thank you so much for putting my story, my experience, into a photo and words so eloquently. I cannot thank you enough!

Thank you so much for including me in this. I really was surprised at how much I connected with you even at our first meeting. You provided a release for me that I may not have otherwise found. I truly feel like working with you allowed me to let go of my eating disorder in a way that I can celebrate forever. Thank you.

Overstreet:

These pictures are bound to unsettle people who look at them. Have you had any memorable responses to the work?

Liedtke:

Tears are usually the best response to my work, and I am honored by them.

Overstreet:

Is this project part of a larger, personal “mission”?

Liedtke:

I do enjoy telling other people’s stories, and creating memorable images. But is this series part of a mission of some sort? Not really. I’m not going to be the Eating Disorder Poster Boy (although I’d be happy to photograph the person that does want to be…). I like creating work that surprises and pleases me, and hopefully does the same for others; that’s what I pursue as an artist. The other stuff — helping people — is gravy. And grace.

Overstreet:

Are you finished with this particular inquiry? Or is this the beginning of something larger?

Liedtke:

At the moment, I am still photographing for this particular series. There are still some gaps I’d like to fill in the work before I will consider it finished. It’s also a series that’s perfectly suited for a book.

Overstreet:

For those who can’t make it to Portland, are there other ways they can look at your work?

Liedtke:

I have the series on my fine art website: www.fritzphoto.com/art.

Overstreet:

Is there anything you’d ask of your audience before they approach these images? Anything you’d want to give them by way of caution or information?

Liedtke:

I hope they’ll look at this work as a story. When interviewing and reading for this project, I began to see similar patterns in everyone’s stories; there are 6 or 8 things that tend to crop up regularly. And everyone has an interesting story, of which I could only illustrate a small part. So this series is really a bunch of small chapters that tell a larger story of what it is to battle with (or give in to, or have victory over) an all-consuming foe, an eating disorder. With that description, it sounds like an epic novel. And in truth, if you consider these people’s lives, they often are dealing with an epic, life-and-death, often life-long struggle.

Overstreet:

Was this work inspired by, or influenced by, other artists?

Liedtke:

There are many photographers that have combined photographs with text to tell people’s stories, so that’s nothing new. But no, I would have to say that there were not any particular influences that I am drawing from directly for this work. I spent a lot of time coming up with a look and feel appropriate for this series, something I hadn’t seen before.

My next guest will be Fritz Liedtke, the extraordinary photographer whose work is on display at www.fritzphoto.com/art.

Can we handle the truth?

In Sara Zarr’s first novel, Story of a Girl, one young woman’s life is almost spoiled by the truth… at least when it comes to the details of her biggest mistake.

When young Deanna’s misguided adventure with an older boy in a car is exposed for all the world to see, she is forced to live with the consequences. Her peers, her community, her family… no one can meet her gaze in quite the same way again.

But are the consequences appropriate for the crime? Why are girls condemned when it comes to sexual indiscretion, while boys run free? Why can’t her father forgive her, and move through the crisis with her? Has the truth of the matter really been perceived at all? Wouldn’t the truth, in totality, allow for the possibility of healing, and include all of those who bear some responsibility for what happened?

These are compelling questions, and challenging issues to explore in any medium. Writing about them for young adults is an especially difficult endeavor, as parents may flinch to find their teens reading about such tough stuff.

But Sara Zarr strikes the perfect balance, writing about this territory with the authenticity of having been there. She seems to have a photographic memory when it comes to the nuances of high school experience. And while Deanna’s trials are fictional, Zarr writes about these emotions and exchanges with a knack for observation. With powerful restraint, she shows respect to her characters and to her readers, leaving certain details unspoken in trust of our own imaginations. But she brings characters to vivid life through charged conversations and situations in which the stakes are very high indeed.

Story of a Girl may be on the shelf in the Young Adult section of bookstores. But it’s an essential addition to the genre that will challenge adults as profoundly as it does youngsters. This is the world teens live in. If this book makes you uncomfortable, take a walk through your neighborhood high school sometime. See if you can handle the truth.

I had the privilege of corresponding with Sara Zarr recently, and to congratulate her on the honor of being a National Book Award finalist with her very first book. Sara and I met in a fiction workshop in Santa Fe in 2005, guided by the great novelist Erin McGraw. I was working on the sequel to Auralia’s Colors, quite a different kind of storytelling entirely than what Sara was up to. But I was taken by Sara’s lively, engaging prose, and we became fast friends. Turns out we were born in the same week, and signed our first book contracts inthe same month of the same year. We’ve been chatting about our experiences and challenges ever since, and I’m a big fan of her blog. (I even took the profile picture she’s currently using on Facebook!)

So, it is with great pleasure that I welcome Sara Zarr to The Eagle and Child, and I hope you read her book, so you can say “I read it before she became a superstar.” (But you’d better act fast, because it’s happening as we speak.)

Overstreet:

Congratulations on having Story of a Girl chosen as a finalist for the National Book Award! You must be on Cloud Nine, or even Ten.

Take us through your reaction to the news, and your feelings as the news sank in. Did you even let yourself imagine such a thing before it happened?

Zarr:

Thank you! I have, of course, imagined getting awards and honors and I’ve even let myself imagine things that are not in the realm of reality such as what witty stories I can tell on Letterman. However, at the time I got the call about the National Book Award, I’d completely forgotten that it was that time of year or even that the NBAs existed. It’s great to get that kind of news when you’re not expecting it. I think it’s still sinking in. About a week after the announcement, I had a little meltdown about what it all means and I had a “fear of success” moment. My husband, a genius, said, “If you think of this (success) as a compliment, and not as success, then you could count it learning to accept compliments gracefully.” So that’s how I want to continue to see the nomination — as a wonderful compliment.

Overstreet:

In Story of a Girl, we get an up-close-and-personal perspective on Deanna. And because of her mistakes and the pressures of teen life, she’s misunderstood and judged by those around her.

In a lot of stores like these, misunderstood characters are defended passionately by the storyteller, and the peripheral characters are shown up as being irrational and wicked and cruel. You see characters through a more forgiving lens. You see flaws in your “heroine,” and you seem to find redeeming qualities in other characters as well. Is that difficult for you as a storyteller? Are you tempted to make somebody a scapegoat?

Zarr:

No. To me, that’s not interesting. That’s a tale, not a story. I’ve always been a fan of realistic fiction as a reader—even the fantasy novels I liked were filled with characters who had changing and complex motives. Madeline L’Engle’s books, for example, are filled with gray areas and characters who don’t always make the best choices. And I guess my handling of Deanna’s story reflects my worldview — that nobody is innocent, and it’s very rare that one person or circumstance is completely to blame. Who can say they’ve never hurt anyone? Who can say they’ve never made a self-interested choice that had consequences for someone else? In fact, Tommy, the boy who is Deanna’s antagonist, is one of my favorite characters. Making him into a real person and not just a cardboard cutout of “bad boy” was one of the more challenging and enjoyable parts of the process.

Overstreet:

What stories and novels were “stairsteps” for you? What books made you say “I want to do that when I write”?

Zarr:

When I first read Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, something clicked on for me. He was so skilled at creating a mood and capturing some of the darker feelings of adolescence. I also love Anne Tyler and how she imbues real family life with so much depth and truth, while also being funny and kindhearted toward her characters. And she’s just great with language. I admire Ian McEwan and Tom Perrotta for many of the same reasons, though it’s kind of funny that when they do it, it’s “literary”; when Tyler does it, it’s “domestic fiction.”

Overstreet:

Do you think that faith makes you a different writer? Do you see connections between your spiritual convictions and your writing?

Zarr:

This kind of goes back to your question about the flaws and redeeming qualities in my characters. My understanding and experience of faith involves a compassionate and gracious God, who is also just. If I’m the creator and god of my own little universe of characters, I want to be compassionate, gracious, and just, too. Which means seeing realistically the flaws in each character, while also seeing their potential for good. The justice comes in when it comes to consequences of things characters do and say. I don’t pretend to understand how it all works on a theological level in real life, but it seems that sometimes God lets us experience consequences to their full effect, sometimes he softens the blow, and sometimes he shields us completely. So all those things are options for me in a story. In Story of a Girl, various characters are all definitely experiencing consequences: Deanna’s father loses his relationship with his family because of his refusal to show mercy. Deanna has been dealing with fallout from her dealings with Tommy for years. These aren’t punishments, just consequences. And then as the all-powerful creator of my little world, I get to orchestrate things so that my characters, who I love, get to experience grace. I love that about writing, and I don’t think I’d be that kind of writer if that’s not how I saw and experienced my own faith.

Overstreet:

You’ve written a bit about your own “awkward years” as a teenager. What are five or six things you would include in a teenager girl’s survival kit?

Zarr:

It would have to be entirely made of magic, since there is no real way around adolescence. It would include a potion that guarantees a good hair day, enchanted glasses that let you see that even the popular girls as insecure as you are, and an invisibility cloak to get you through those days that make you want to hide.

Overstreet:

Are you paying attention to the reviews? What observations have pleased you most, and are there any that have frustrated you that you’d like to answer?

Zarr:

I’m paying attention in the sense that I do read them, but I don’t think about them much after that. Some reviewers seem to “get” what I wanted to do with the story more than others, but really a book (or a movie or album) is experienced in so many different ways I don’t know if there is a correct interpretation. Probably the biggest thing that comes up is a focus on the “a girl’s undeserved reputation” aspect of the story, which to me is just a vehicle for telling the real story about home and family and the longing for reconciliation. But I don’t have a problem with that, because any time you can make the conversation topical it gives the book more exposure and a chance of ending up on reading lists and all that good stuff that keeps it in print and in readers’ hands. Also, “answering” reviews is probably always a mistake. It just makes authors look insecure and defensive. (Which we probably are but no one else needs to know that!)

Overstreet:

Some readers will find your descriptions of tough situations too tame, too “safe.” Others — especially parents — may flinch and find your story and your descriptions too raw and unflinching. Do you find it difficult to strike a good balance in writing about volatile matters like teenage sexuality? Do you struggle with questions of “too explicit” or “not explicit enough”?

Zarr:

There is a balance that has to be found. For me, that usually comes in revision. I ended up taking out a lot of the explicit language in the last draft, and just left in the instances that I felt really had to be there to be true to the characters and circumstances. I changed the rest that were there for effect or because I hadn’t given it much thought in earlier drafts. You want to give the book the best chance of actually getting read. It must have worked, because I haven’t had any real complaints about the content either way.

Overstreet:

Following up on that, surely you’ve encountered YA novels that are much more explicit about sexuality. Are you troubled by any of the things you find shelved in the YA section? How does a writer… and a reader… come to find the right kind of balance and discernment in these areas?

Zarr:

I do sometimes have issues with content in YA. I do believe that YA authors should have freedom of expression, and shouldn’t be forced to clean things up just because the audience is younger. YA readers, for the most part, are not children. They are teenagers, and the majority of potentially objectionable content in YA books is a lot tamer than what teens see, hear, and do at school. That said, my personal comfort level with content all relates to context. If the story has a soul, if the characters are real, if the way they talk and act feels true to the story, then I generally have no problem with realistic language or behavior. Sometimes it seems like it’s just there for no real purpose, and that does bother me. However, that has less to do with it being “YA” than it does with the artistic choice to include something unnecessary for the story. I have the same issue with books and movies intended for an adult audience.

Overstreet:

Your writing is admirably efficient. You must have trimmed a great deal. Were there any scenes or pages you found it difficult to prune? What might show up on the “Deleted Scenes” feature of this book’s DVD, so to speak?

Zarr:

Thanks – I did cut out a lot. But nothing that would be worthy of including here. When I first got into DVDs, I used to watch all the deleted scenes until it became clear that there was a reason they were deleted.

Overstreet:

Due to the cover, the title, the plot… this may be wildly presumptuous, but I would guess that more girls are reading your book than boys. This is your chance! Tell us guys why we should read Story of a Girl !

Zarr:

Well, I don’t think it has any of the usual things that might turn off a guy reader: mushy romance, sentimentality, boy-bashing. Deanna’s brother, Darren, is (in my humble opinion!) a great character, as is Deanna’s long-time friend, Jason. And as I said, I even love Tommy. Really, it’s a family story, and anyone who has ever been a member of a family or been a teenager will find something recognizable. In other words: everyone! Squeamish guys can always take off the dust jacket and cover it with plain brown paper, if they want.

Overstreet:

As it’s marketed to the YA audience, I suspect that a lot of adults might not give Story of a Girl a chance. Do you think it would be a rewarding read for adults?

Zarr:

Again, it is a family story. Some experiences are almost universal. I’ve heard from 70-year-old women who recognize the tension between a teen girl and her father from their own adolescence, and from middle-aged men who sympathize with the dad. And hey, time is short, and this book comes right in at around 200 pages. You can have a satisfying experience in a few evenings of bedtime reading. That’s definitely one reason I still love YA as a reader– it is some of the most efficient storytelling out there.

Overstreet:

Dream big: Who would be the ideal director for a film adaptation? What songs would play on the soundtrack?

Zarr:

I’m pretty much living that dream. Kyra Sedgwick’s production company has optioned the film rights, and I can’t imagine the story being in better hands. As the producer, she gets to pick the director, and I have no doubt she and her partner will find the ideal person if it gets to that point. I still can’t believe my fortune. As for music, I think there needs to be some classic eighties rock for the scenes that take place in the strip mall pizza place. I always imagined Tommy playing air guitar to Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise” on the jukebox and we would definitely need some Journey. And I hear Joseph Arthur’s “You’ve Been Loved” playing over the end credits.

Overstreet:

Will your next project be very different from Story of a Girl?

Zarr:

My next novel, Sweethearts, comes out in February and it is different. The main character is in a different world than Deanna, and has a much different voice. There is one bad guy who is as close to pure evil as I’ve ever gotten — no moments of humanity or compassion for him. It’s not the route I usually go, but sometimes things are perpetrated that are just evil even if the perpetrator has potential for good that has gone completely unexplored. At the same time, I wouldn’t say it’s vastly different. Like Story of a Girl it is very much about family, and reconciling the past. There are some themes I just can’t avoid.

Overstreet:

On your blog, you share the titles of your autobiography… which hasn’t been written yet. The chapter about your most recent experiences is called “15. Adrift in a Sea of Ego and Insecurity: The Full-Time Writing Life (No, really, it’s great!).” What would you hope to title the next chapter, covering the next decade?

Zarr:

“Forty and Fabulous: In Which I Sell a Screenplay and Several More Novels, and Trade In My Bus Pass for a Car”

TWO POEMS BY MARGARET D. SMITH

Pavel talks to me over lunch

My farmhouse is away, so far from Prague
there are no planes, not even cars.

You can hear everything that way.
The pigeons make love on rooftops,

workers talk in fields,
bees make sounds like music far off.

My grandfather loved bees.
He left Prague to live in that farmhouse

to raise bees: bees in boxes, bees in fields.
When he died he left me his farmhouse.

The first time I stepped inside after he was gone,
rooms were dark, my shoes hollow,

and all I could smell
was honey.

•

Yes

A flying squirrel only falls slowly….
A sun is a star, but not all stars are suns.
Waves move in light. Grass grows down.
All those names of things we had been given
were not true, not true, but somehow yes.
We don’t know what, but maybe
there is a name somewhere.

•

TALKING WITH MARGARET D. SMITH AT “THE EAGLE AND CHILD”

Talking about poetry with Margaret D. Smith is like jumping into a pile of autumn leaves. By the end of the conversation, there are beautiful observations scattered everywhere, and you want to preserve each one.

Publishing a conversation with her is like raking those leaves back into a pile, so I can give you a turn jumping.

Margaret’s latest poetry collection is entitled Barn Swallow. You can purchase it from the author: But you don’t have to read the poems to enjoy our conversation here. I enjoy corresponding with Margaret via email because her responses are worth saving and sharing. And her blog is a chronicle of seemingly ordinary moments… moments she shares in her own particular way so that they come alive.

When I proposed this interview, Margaret responded with one of her bright ideas. What if each message we sent to each other ended with a question… not just from the interviewer, but also from the interviewee?

I might have tried to answer her questions. But as I read her replies, I thought it might be better just to let her questions hang in the air… something for the reader to take away and think about.

So here we go…

Overstreet:

As a longtime reader and admirer, I probably presume to think I know you. And I would be wrong. Would you please re-introduce yourself? Who the heck are you, anyway?

Smith:

I’m Margaret, which means “pearl,” which means a many-layered, opalescent source of irritation.

But my last name is Smith; my whole name means “pearl maker,” so I’m really an oyster.

As a writer, artist and musician, I find myself doing art in a struggle to understand how to be in love with God, who refuses to be understood, even as he begs to be in relationship. God’s presence in me is like a grain of sand. He neither shows himself visibly nor goes away, and this agitates me daily. So I cover and cover that holy irritation with layers from my own core. Don’t we all?

Overstreet:

You have a new book called Barn Swallow.

But I’m still recovering from your poetic exploration of the imagination of Gerard Manley Hopkins, A Holy Struggle: Unspoken Thoughts of Hopkins. If a reader wanted to discover that beautiful book, do you know how they could get their hands on a copy?

Smith:

I’m working on a third printing of A Holy Struggle, which should be out in plenty of time for the 120th anniversary of Hopkins’ death (2009).

In the meantime, readers can go to amazon.com or bn.com or any number of online bookstores that sell used — I mean pre-loved — books.

What Barn Swallow has that Struggle doesn’t have is a distillation of twenty years of poems, written in my own voice. I wrote Struggle in Hopkins’ journal voice, causing readers everywhere to ask, if they happened to skip the preface, “Did Hopkins write this book, or did Margaret?”

Overstreet:

How has Hopkins influenced your own poetry? And who else has helped tune your writing instruments?

Smith:

Besides the influence of Hopkins’ poems on my poems, there is the overarching influence of his life on my life. I’ve been struck by what he writes in his letters and journals. There’s his dry humor, no matter what he was going through at the time. There’s his genius, which is impossible to fathom. And there’s the way he willingly chose to sacrifice, time and again, rather than to gain fame or stature as a poet. He didn’t pretend to be humble, fingers crossed behind his back, secretly aiming for fame, but fame happened to him anyway after he died. God is funny like that.

Whenever I think I’m done mining Hopkins, another gold vein opens up. I’ve written a screenplay based on Hopkins’ time in Wales, where poetry spurted out of him after his seven-year silence. I’ve attended the International Hopkins Summer School in Ireland for three years, presenting lectures on Hopkins to international academics one day and to young, gifted Irish students the next. On the Oregon Coast at a reading series, I recently read poems of Hopkins, talked about his life, and performed music based on his poems. And I’ve got another book on Hopkins in the works, which I’ll talk about some day when it’s ready. I’m not tired of him, and he’s not done with me, so this love affair might continue throughout my life.

I’ve been influenced by a number of poets, from Rumi and Basho to Dickinson. I’m often quoting bits of poems to myself. There’s Frost: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that sends the frozen groundswell under it.” Or Edna St Vincent Millay: “I know what my heart is like after your love died: it is like a hollow ledge holding a little pool left there by the tide, a little tepid pool, drying inward from the edge.” Or Sandburg: “In your blue eyes, O reckless child, I saw today many little wild wishes, eager as the great morning.” Or the Swedish poet Edith Sodergran, who actually died in the 1920s of starvation because her poetry was labeled “too natural”: “My soul was a light blue dress the color of the sky. I left it on a rock by the sea.” I’m influenced by as many good poets as I read. Linda Hogan’s line, “Birds fly in and out a thousand windows” is one of my favorite pieces of poetry.

What does it mean to be under the influence of another poet without going under?

Overstreet:

You’ve lived a lot of places, and now you’re the Poet Queen of Astoria. You seem to like it there. Why are you moving now?

Smith:

I don’t think anyone has called me the Poet Queen of anyplace, but thanks for the compliment.

Katherine Bond wrote recently about my essays on the Oregon Coast: “Sometimes you long for solitude – great extended stretches of it in a location where the pace is much slower: where you can walk into town and visit with the sea lions on the dock over a cup of good coffee, where eagles swing suddenly over your roof and deer curl trustingly on your back lawn. Margaret Smith lives in such a place….”

Astoria has been a good place, but now I feel God kicking me out of the nest, as it were, drawing me out of the boat onto the stormy waves to the next step, with no clear message except to trust him. It seems the Portland area is the place to be going next, but I’m open. I’m in the middle of moving in the next few weeks with nothing more than a certain intuition that I should go, so prayer and chutzpah is needed. “Lord, if that’s you out there, tell me to come out on to the waves to you.” What is it that drives a nomad away from one watering place toward another?

Overstreet:

Whose imaginations have had the biggest influences on your writing? Who set the kindling in place?

Smith:

Walt Wangerin, a consuming storyteller, filled with pipe smoke and the Holy Ghost, more an Old Testament prophet than anything else;

Eugene Peterson, a quiet retired preacher who cares deeply about the common reader;

Annie Dillard, who writes like other people drive nails;

Luci Shaw, who for 30 years has shared so many interests (Hopkins, Celtic music and blue glass, for example);

and my mom, who urged me (age 9) to publish my poems on ditto paper, with accompanying drawings. Does anyone remember how wonderful ditto paper smelled, fresh off the machine, the purple ink forever smearing on our hands? I just wondered.

Overstreet:

Let’s talk a bit about the new collection, Barn Swallow.

In these poems, you frequently express a desire not only to observe creation, but to merge with it… to feel what it feels. In the poem called “Unveiled,” you want to feel the urgency of the waves crashing upon the rocks. What’s going on here?

Smith:

For poems, I don’t observe nature with an impersonal eye, record it in a notebook and report on it. That’s what scientists and nonfiction writers do so well. What poets do, when they’re doing their job, is to empathize so deeply with a natural object (shooting star, cliff, tarantula) that they do merge with it. The poets love that thing as deeply as possible until the two become one.

When Jesus says, “Consider the flowers of the field,” he is saying “sit with,” meditate upon, gaze in wonder at them, as if they were each an icon of their Creator. Close off the noisy world for a minute, Jesus says, and pay deep affection and attention.

Once I was given the strange assignment in a poetry workshop to study a daisy for ten minutes. It sounded extreme, and at first I thought I couldn’t possibly study it for more than 30 seconds without knowing all there was to know about it. But after a while, I felt I was above a field of yellow mustard flowers, looking down from a great height. I studied how each petal was hinged to the core. And I began to love that daisy. Jesus said, in effect, study the flowers, and you will come to love them and love their Creator who cares for them and cares for you, making a good love triangle. When I stop and deeply consider some created thing, I discover there’s a metaphor of God in there for me.

It astonishes me how nonchalant nature is. It mirrors God without self-consciousness. Today on my walk, I saw a kingfisher perched a few feet away on a branch over the Columbia River. He was bright blue, with a way of blending in to the river background. I stopped and tried to study him, but he flew away, and all I got was a glimpse. How is God like a kingfisher?

Overstreet:

In “Skin,” you observe children in the presence of Christ, and how they would rather “cuddle and be teased” than be merely “blessed.” What is important to you about the distinction?

It makes me think of the distinction between art and sermons. One teases us, plays with us, intrigues us… while the other delivers or presents something.

Am I crazy, or is there some kind of connection there?

Smith:

One of my favorite paintings of Jesus was on a simple Sunday School poster when I was little. He was looking directly at the viewer, mouth open in happy recognition. I could imagine this Jesus being my friend. I felt nothing for the other Jesus, the one placing his hand on children’s heads as they sat on his lap as if they were getting pictures taken with Santa. The personal Jesus is able to tease me — yes, great art does this, too — whispering, knowing my name before I speak it. The placid Jesus, like a non-threatening sermon no one is affected by, has nothing to do with the world-twisting gospel, nothing to do with art that maddens and gives joy.

When you make art, you have to choose between beige and indigo, old wineskins and new ones. If Jesus were arrested for being a subversive artist, what would be the charges?

Overstreet:

This constant process of looking outward — at the sea, at the bird, at the whale — gives me the impression that creation is, in your perspective, more a form of language than just an environment. But that language always seems to be speaking of something just out of reach.

In “This is where I am,” there seems to be an unspoken second clause — “and this is where I am wishing to be.” In that poem you suggest our longings aren’t just for something we don’t have, but they’re leaning backward, toward something that we once truly knew, the way we can remember a song even if it’s not playing just now. Am I getting the right idea? It reminds me of Plato’s idea that all learning is actually an act of remembering. What does this act of “remembering” through art do for you?

Smith:

There’s a poem I’ve written in A Holy Struggle. Part of it goes like this: “The bliss, a poem is, of being born, coupled with extraordinary tension, which is dying.” After a few lines it continues, “The birth a poem is, of death, which is the death of it.”

Somehow a poem, like a child, can be created — birthed — out of great love and great pain. A poem can cause readers to be pierced with love or pain as they experience a new in-sight, for example, of black winter trees “clapping their branches,” as I’ve written in a poem. Some readers of that phrase will know it hearkens back to the Old Testament’s promise of trees of the field clapping their hands, and those readers will compare the two images, one a promise and one a present reality. In that poem of the clapping winter branches is the seed of life and the seed of death. One reason poems can seem so sad and lovely is their attempt to describe a fading instant on a small page. But doesn’t the fact that a good poem lives on, even after the reader and poet have died, mean that death has been defeated after all?

Overstreet:

As I read these poems, I feel like you’re selecting a variety of tiny mysteries, placing them under slides, focusing the microscope, and inviting me to take a look. Again and again, you take us deep into something very small, and you reveal that everything is vast… and vastly important. This raises the question: Why do you suppose this is the nature of your poems? Why are you drawn to “the vastness of small things”?

Smith:

I’ll respond to that by giving you this complete and tiny essay I wrote recently, called “Xillions of Stars”:

“Reading Bill Bryson`s steamy science book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, I feel like kneeling when I find out with all our fine knowledge we have no idea just how many xillions of galaxies there are, and to think that God names the stars and not just by number but probably Aragon and Sweetpea, pet names.”

For the past year I’ve been especially intrigued with “the smallness of God.” That phrase is an important part of the book of small essays I’m writing. The smallness of God means that (number one) God cares intimately for the smallest things that escape our notice as we run noisily through our day, and (number two) God became flesh and pitched his tent among us, becoming small so we, who bungle every deal God offers, could let him feel what it’s like to be human, to be loved and despised in a small frame of bones.

I don’t understand any of this very well; I probably never will. But the smallness of God, the Incarnation, God bothering to be with us, is what I am ruminating about. It spills out into my writing without warning. Why do we still, after Jesus went to all that trouble, love big things like success more than small things like slugs, when we know he wants us to care about the small things?

Overstreet:

The gift of your poems is, again and again, comfort. Contentment. Look here, and you will find some peace … whether you’re looking at a barn swallow (“Desires”) or suddenly noticing the smile of a passing stranger (“Recognition”). I keep thinking throughout the book, “His eye is on the sparrow.” I find that considering these small birds, these fleeting details, and finding that God has given attention even to these, it’s reassuring.

Do you turn to art so that you can share the comfort you’ve found, or do you go there to find it for yourself?

Smith:

I appreciate what you say here, because that peace does come with a price. I wrestle with something; I write a poem. Here’s a complete poem I wrote October 1, as I saw the leaves turning gold too fast:

Dear trees,
please leave
a little this
afternoon, don’t
fade so
gold you drop all
knowledge.
Remember in March
you thought every
small warm tic
of the wind
was a promise,
not an aching
song of a child’s
too-far-gone
call through
bare woods.

The poem gives me some measure of peace, showing me something I hadn’t considered before. In this case, I could tell myself that next March, any brief warmth will be a promise, not a sadness of summer leaving.

When I do read my poems to an audience, I look around the room. After a few minutes, people look peaceful, even if that means they’ve been “found out” because I told the truth. Poets might be seen as today’s prophets, foretelling disaster and promise to people who are going about their business, noses to the grindstone, eyes on the next month’s rent. Poets who are doing their job speak their despair and their hope, not just to shout “I’m in pain!” but to bring peace, or a simple moment of silence. When poets tell the truth with love, it helps heal a hurting neighborhood. If my struggling is translated into peace for others, isn’t that a sharp-edged gift?

Overstreet:

You seem to be constantly interested in not just poetry or music or painting by itself, but in a combination of the arts. Why is that?

Smith:

Art is art, whether it’s a collage, a poem or a song.

Bringing a group of people together — as I do in workshops — to make poem collages of words from magazines, for example, is a way I can help break through an outmoded mindset. Academics have told us since the Renaissance that we need to categorize and cubbyhole the arts. The way we’ve been raised, we are sure that there’s an “-ist” at the end of every art form, that artists work in seclusion (from one another and from the everyday world), and that watercolor and trombones should never mix.

But art wasn’t always like this. A while ago, all of the world’s art meant nothing outside of community. The whole neighborhood got together, dancing around a fire with carved instruments and beaded jewelry, singing and telling stories. There you have dance, visual art, music and storytelling, all wrapped together.

Now, after centuries of picking apart the various art forms and making sure they stay away from each other, we’re starting to return, in the 21st century, to that connectedness among the arts and among artists of different media. In art galleries today, we’re seeing connections people haven’t thought of for years: placing music and voices alongside paintings and sculpture.

Haven’t artists always used metaphor to connect things? The stranger the connection, the stronger it becomes, which is why children think up some of the best metaphors. Who came up with the image of herringbone skies?

Greetings!

I’m about to begin a whole new blogging venture: The Eagle and Child. This site will feature conversations with artists and people of faith about their lives, their creative expression, the works of writing or music or film that inspire them, and their thoughts about the power of art.

And the name? Well, it’s the pub in Oxford where J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and others gathered to discuss similar subjects while quaffing beer. I wish I could have listened in on those conversations, so I want to offer my own for those who might find them interesting.