Lyn Lifshin Interviewed by Laura
Stamps
Lyn Lifshin is
a poet "dynamo." Her poetry career spans more than thirty years,
and in that time her poems have appeared in almost every small
press literary journal and magazine in print and on the internet.
With well over one hundred books and chapbooks to her credit she has
also edited four anthologies, one of which has been in print
for over twenty-five years. Nevertheless, the last twelve months
have been a challenging time for this small press veteran, a
period ripe with unexpected changes and rewards that will affect
her extraordinary career for years to come. After returning
from a trip to New York, Lifshin was kind enough to talk with
me about this remarkable year.
LAURA STAMPS: In the spring of 2002 you learned your
publisher, Black Sparrow Press, was closing its doors. After
thirty-six years and at the age of seventy-one, John Martin,
the founder and owner of Black Sparrow Press, had decided to
retire. He sold the rights to the backlist of three authors,
Bukowski, Fante, and Bowles, to Ecco Press at HarperCollins.
The remaining backlist and its authors went to David R. Godine.
The news rocked the small press world for months. Let's go back.
How did your relationship with Black Sparrow Press begin?
LYN LIFSHIN: I am always amazed when I hear someone has
said I write to publishers asking them to publish my books or
chapbooks. In truth, I often send very large submissions to
magazines, and some of these have become books and chapbooks.
Out of the more than one hundred books and chapbooks I've published,
I have only submitted three that were uninvited. As a distraction
the year of my divorce I decided to enter the Houghton Mifflin
Newcomers Award competition and an American University competition.
For the Houghton Mifflin contest I picked a variety of poems
I called OFFERED BY OWNER. Around the time of the divorce we
were selling one house and buying another, and the phrase seemed
to resonate with many meanings. I was a finalist in both contests,
and learned I was down to, I believe, one of two in the Houghton
Mifflin Award. On July 14, 1975, Bastille Day, the day I got
divorced, I learned I had not won either. I was very disappointed.
These were the first manuscripts I had put together, and I had great
confidence in OFFERED BY OWNER. I decided I would immediately
send it to a publisher I respected immensely and also felt I
would fit with: Black Sparrow Press. Black Sparrow told me they
liked the poems, but were overbooked, yet encouraged me to send
more poems later. Soon after that, Women's Audio Exchange, a
book and recording company, approached me, and in 1978 the poems
were recorded and then released in 1979.
STAMPS: Yet your first Black Sparrow book, COLD COMFORT,
was published over twenty years later in 1997. What happened?
LIFSHIN: Why did it take me so long to get back to Black
Sparrow and send John Martin a new manuscript? It's a mystery
to me, especially since I had admired the quality and design
of their books for years. The turbulence of that period, my
relationships, my mother's decline, coupled with other presses
asking to do books kept me from getting back to Black Sparrow
sooner, a sad regret. It wasn't until many years later when
a class I usually took before ballet was cancelled that I ended
up in an independent bookstore in Dupont Circle in Washington,
DC. Months earlier, a rather unpleasant interaction with that bookstore
buyer had led to the poem "Trying to Get the Bookstore to Buy
my Book," which appeared in Gargoyle Magazine and BEFORE IT'S
LIGHT. Even though I vowed I would never buy from this bookstore
again, I had two or three free hours that night and decided
to look through its large poetry section for the presses I would
want to be published by. Without question, once again, about
twenty years and one hundred books later, it was John Martin's
Black Sparrow Press books I was drawn to. I wrote John Martin
right away, and he agreed to look at a manuscript. He suggested
using only poems that had been out of print for ten years and
poems that had never appeared in a book. From the moment my manuscript,
COLD COMFORT, was accepted I felt unbelievably lucky and privileged
to be a part of what I considered to be the best of the small
presses.
STAMPS: What was it like to be a Black Sparrow author?
LIFSHIN: I was now working with the most responsive,
generous, kind, perceptive people I could ever imagine. I only
wish now, when I learned Black Sparrow was being sold and absorbed
by two other presses, that I had, as John Martin had said too,
been sending books for fifteen years. It haunts me knowing I
could have had a solid series of Black Sparrow books now. Every
aspect of working with Black Sparrow was a dream. Books were
in the bookstores that ordered. If I needed books sent to a
university for a reading, I never had to wonder if they'd be
there. For my second Black Sparrow book, BEFORE IT'S LIGHT, and
a book party planned dangerously close to the publication date, John
Martin magically managed to get the book to me in time. In 2000,
when I proposed a reading of Black Sparrow writers for AWP,
John sent boxes and boxes of books, and generously let the authors
sell their own books and keep any sales. I had hoped, as we
had agreed, to only publish with Black Sparrow and was more
than happy with that arrangement. For a few years I turned down
many requests to do books and chapbooks, and for several years
stopped sending out poetry submissions to concentrate on readings
and workshops to publicize the book.
STAMPS: What a shock it must have been to hear after
six years with Black Sparrow that it was over.
LIFSHIN: In the spring of 2002 I was planning poetry
parties and readings for my third Black Sparrow book, ANOTHER
WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME. John Martin and I had agreed on this
new title for my fall book instead of my original title, BRUISED
VELVET, because he had a novel in his backlist with a similar
title. I always try to do everything possible to publicize a
book: large mailings, readings, parties, press releases, flyers,
trying to be as helpful to all the publishers of my books as
possible. I had just returned from the Austin Poetry Festival,
where I had been handing out flyers for this new Black Sparrow book,
when on May 3, 2002, I received an email from John Martin. He
had wanted to be the first to let Black Sparrow authors know.
I was shocked. As soon as I saw those words it felt like an
obituary. I never met John in person, and yet I felt my life
was tied to him. Our correspondence was brief, often on blue
postcards. Michele Filshie and everyone in the office seemed
like friends I had known for a long time. I understand his decision,
and he was very kind to call later about my concerns. He is
a wonderful, generous person. For example, when COLD COMFORT
came out, he sent me the loveliest note from Bill Press about the
book. Later Bill held up a book of mine on the CNN program, THE SPIN
ROOM. I tried to get a tape of that program from CNN. I told
John Martin about it, and though I never received the copy I
ordered from CNN, John sent one to me.
STAMPS: And now there is the new Black Sparrow/David
R. Godine imprint.
LIFSHIN: Yes, and I am very grateful that ANOTHER WOMAN
will come out from Godine. I know they are in transition, and
patience is necessary. I recently talked on the phone with Chris
Carduff, the new editor who will be in charge of the Black Sparrow
list. He is wonderful about returning emails. I respect and
appreciate that, and look forward very much to working with
him. David R. Godine has an excellent, longstanding reputation
in the small press. His catalogs are lovely, and I am very excited
about that too.
STAMPS: Tell us a little about the new Black Sparrow/David
R. Godine book, ANOTHER WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE ME.
LIFSHIN: John Martin liked variety, and he seemed drawn
to poems about family and relationships. I picked many new poems
about love relationships, family complications, mother and daughter
relationships, and poems about growing up in a small town. I
also included poems based on paintings, especially Romare Beardon's
pieces, a North Carolina painter whose work I discovered in
the two rich years I lived in the Pennsylvania Quarter of DC,
which is minutes from many major museums. Along with the fantasy
and myth poems, like the title poem, I do have many poems that
seem autobiographical. I am always amused when someone calls
me a confessional poet. The first few years I published, all
the letters sent to me were addressed to "Mr. Lifshin." No one had
any idea I was a woman.
STAMPS: That summer, as you were still recovering from
the news about Black Sparrow, Robert Bixby of March Street Press
contacted you about publishing a new book of your poems in the
fall, A NEW FILM ABOUT A WOMAN IN LOVE WITH THE DEAD. How did
that book come about?
LIFSHIN: I always liked Robert Bixby's books and his
magazine, PARTING GIFTS, in particular his choice of spare tight
poems. It was an August afternoon several years earlier, and
I decided I had enough poems for another Black Sparrow book.
I wanted to send out new poems, something I had stopped doing
for over two years when I decided to concentrate on putting
Black Sparrow books together. Traveling around the country to
read, so often I would hear that people knew my work from anthologies
and magazines, and not from my books, even though I had published
so many. I clearly remember sending a few magazines large Priority
Mail envelopes, mostly to editors I knew were open to this.
But I also sent one to Robert Bixby full of poems that seemed
spare like the ones he published. When I received no response, I felt
I had offended him with so many poems, and he had probably shredded
them. Then, last summer, when I heard that he was planning a
book of mine from the poems I had sent as a poetry submission,
the timing couldn't have been better. It was just after the
terribly disappointing Black Sparrow news, and I was thrilled
to have a substantial new book coming out soon, especially since
ANOTHER WOMAN was not going to be published as planned in the
fall of 2002. Bixby arranged the poems in a narrative format,
almost a novel in verse, and it is beautifully printed and hand-bound.
The poems touch on the "every woman loves a Nazi" theme, a relationship
that is obsessive, the kind many women who have fallen for a
bad-news boyfriend will find almost gleeful, if not a balm.
The book is available on Amazon, and it can also be ordered
from my web site: www.lynlifshin.com. Or it can be ordered from
March Street Press.
STAMPS: A month after the March Street book was published
you were asked to update your memoir.
LIFSHIN: In 1988 Gale Research Series, a bibliographic
tool found in most libraries, contacted me about writing an
autobiography. I had been interested in trying a novel or autobiography
and felt it would be somehow easier to write about my past with
my mother still alive. Also, I wanted to write about my grandparents
and things about the past only my mother would know. I loved
doing it. I finished the piece in 1988. Or thought I did. Then
I added more in February 1989. At the same time the documentary
film about me, LYN
LIFSHIN: NOT MADE OF GLASS, was moving toward its premiere.
My mother was showing signs of failing, but I tried not to see.
I called the memoir ON THE OUTSIDE: LIPS, BLUES, BLUE LACE.
It made perfect sense to me, because several of my books have
the word "lips" in the title. I have always loved the blues
for what is left out, left to the imagination. And blue lace
is an object I use in workshops that often seems to trigger
personal memories. In October of 2002, sixteen years later,
I was asked to write an update to my Gale Research Series piece,
though Contemporary Poets is publishing them now for colleges
and high schools, as well as the general public. The years after
the memoir first appeared were years of huge change for me:
my mother's decline and death on August 20, 1990, and my move to Washington
DC in 1992, all changes that had transformed my life and work.
The years from 1968 to 1989 seemed an enormous stretch: divorce;
art colonies like Yaddo, Millay, and MacDowell; and almost ninety
books. When I sat down to update my memoir, those years from
1990 to 2002 were so intense, vivid, and memorable. This time
I did not work as I had done with the first section of the memoir
by going back through old letters, outlines, photographs, and
diaries. Actually, I no longer keep a diary, except about my
cat. This memoir was, the publisher requested, to focus on my
work and how my life connected with my work. In keeping with
that theme, the update just seemed to flow.
STAMPS: Finally, many of your trips to New York this
year have been to pack your archives for a major sale to Temple
University. How is that coming along?
LIFSHIN: It's a coincidence, a figurative and literal
wrapping up it seems, that when I was working on that first
memoir, I had recently sold a group of my papers, as I am right
now. When I began writing poetry it didn't occur to me to save
my handwritten manuscripts. I wrote by hand on pads of yellow-lined
paper, folded the poem in four, and stuffed it in a red cloth
bag. When I went on a typing binge I unfolded the yellow pages
and tossed each one out. It didn't occur to me to do anything
else until a librarian asked me about selling my archives. It
was 1979, and he had published some of my poetry as letterpress
broadsides and took on the tedious job of filing and sorting
my correspondence, drafts of poems, clippings, and photographs. He
used to drive to my house in New York and load his car with garbage
bags of crumpled papers, posters, and contracts. Then he would
contact libraries collecting writers' works. In 1979 I didn't
realize the University of Texas at Austin was one of the very
best places to have your collections housed. They made me an
offer that was very high. Every few months I'd send another
box or two and get a generous payment. It was wonderful. Even
though my librarian friend eventually moved on, I continued
to sell boxes every few months, assuming the process would not
change. However, with the move of the archivist who had been
interested in my work and the downturn in the oil economy, everything
changed. Libraries nationwide were buying less. I believe Temple
University was the first place I approached next, and they bought
what I had then, including duplicates of much of what the University
of Texas had purchased, which were mostly copies of books and
magazines. They made a couple of purchases. The last purchase
was in 1986. Since then there have been several excellent curators
interested in my archives, including the Library of Congress,
but nothing was ever finalized.
STAMPS: What initiated this recent purchase by Temple?
LIFSHIN: In 1997 I got back in touch with Temple. In
August of 2000 the main archivist came to my house in Niskayuna,
New York, and said Temple would like to buy everything up there.
The garage and cellar were packed, and you could hardly move.
Two years later, they made an offer. For the last month I've
worked nonstop in New York and Virginia labeling, constructing
boxes, having bizarre talks with UPS over shipping charges,
pickups, and accounts. Eventually, I hope everything will be
together in Temple's Samuel Paley Library: video tapes, diaries,
all the drawings of me by some fairly well-known artists, as
well as paintings and sketches I have done, many handwritten
spiral notebooks, photographs, and so much more. Also boxes of fliers
from readings with Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Bukowski, Gary Snyder,
Ai, Ed Dorn, and tons of phonographs from Yaddo with Molly Peacock,
Philip Roth, John Cheever, and the Papp Public Theater readings.
Not having children to leave anything to, I've usually selected
publishers, editors, and archives as the recipients of most
of what I leave. All in all, there were seventy-three boxes
shipped from New York and thirty-six from Virginia, a total
of 109 boxes for this Temple purchase. I still have thirty more
in New York for the next purchase in August. After that I am
hoping I can send a few boxes at a time as they accumulate.
STAMPS: Now that the archives are packed and delivered,
what are your immediate plans?
LIFSHIN: I'm looking forward to relaxing a little with
my delightful and energetic kitten Jete, writing more poems,
and waiting for the publication of my new Black Sparrow/David
R. Godine book. I also want to get back to typing. I still have
forty-five spiral notebooks of handwritten poems never typed
up from the last ten years or so, and a number of smaller notebooks.
Spending so much time this year packing my archives for Temple
has reminded me in many ways how lucky I've been to have had
very supportive people in my writing life and in my personal
life. I was so lucky to have John Martin at Black Sparrow Press
and now Chris Carduff at Black Sparrow/David R. Godine. I've
been lucky in the past with wonderful, caring editors like Marvin
Malone, Bill Packard, Noel Young, John Gill, and Bill Matthews, editors
no longer alive, and many who still are. Lucky, too, to have
so much energy and the luxury to write!
© Laura Stamps
laurastamps@mindspring.com
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