| Somerville Poets
and Mothers/ Finding the Muse at Home Interview by Doug Holder, June 2001, Somerville, Ma. Somerville, Massachusetts is a city noted for many things, its Victorian homes, its ethnic diversity, and its vibrant and active arts community. In our midst are a number of well known, prize winning authors and poets. In one short breath, one could mention Pulitzer prize winning poet, Lloyd Schwartz, or novelist Elizabeth McCracken. But there is also a group of writers who are not in the limelight. Folks who juggle the demands of family, jobs and the call of the Muse, in a precarious balance. They practice their art often without recognition or monetary compensation. They are not writing in posh writers communities like YADDO, or retreats of that ilk. They are plodding away within the context of their everyday life. They write for the love of it, and they write what they love. And that is their, children, family, Somerville, in short what constitutes and is important in their day to day routine. Two such people are Somerville poets, Linda Haviland Conte and Joanne Holdridge. Both Holdridge and Conte are long term residents of Somerville, and seem firmly rooted in the community. Both are married with children. The two poets have been published in the CITY OF POETS anthology put out by the local Singing Bone Press, and have appeared in the IBBETSON STREET PRESS, A Somerville based poetry journal. Joanne Holdrige has over 100 poems published in a wide variety of publications, including: PINYON POETRY, RATTLE, SPARE CHANGE and many others. She has read at a number of local venues including the Somerville Central Library, McIntyre and Moore, and the Newton Free Library. She currently teaches at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Linda Haviland Conte has a varied background as well. She has helped run the MIT Media Lab reading series in the 80's, worked for Harvard Magazine, and has seen her own work published in a number of publications. She was a featured reader at the prestigious Newton Free Library Series, and has also read at a number of local venues in addition she is an editor for the IBBETSON STREET PRESS, and along with her husband Ray, manages their website. Linda is presently a graduate student at Lesley University in Cambridge,Ma. I talked to both of these poets in the comfortable Somerville home of Joanne Holdridge, on a sweltering early Summer's evening. DSH:First off, how and why did you become poets? Linda:When I was a junior in college I took a class at New York University, entitled: Political Ideology and Literature. The professor, a flamboyant type, picked apart my poetry, and said, "Now, this is poetry!." It made me feel wonderful. Later I studied with William Merridith at Conneticut College and he was very encouraging. So that's how I got started. I always loved to read good writing, and in college poetry became a possibility. It was expressing something I didn't know was in me and that was exciting. Joanne:I wrote my first poem when I was twelve. It was like an opening for me. There was an interview with the late poet( and Somerville resident), Denise Levertov, in which she was asked what made her write, she said," I feel compelled to." I guess that's the way I look at it too. DSH:How do you guys find the time to write, with all the demands of family, jobs and or school? Linda:Unfortunately, I often don't. Sometimes I have something bubble up and I stop in the course of the day to write about it. One day I was out at the Burren ( a pub in Davis Square) and I said to my husband, "Hold on, I have to write something down." I made him wait while I scribbled. I found I write better with the structure of a class, like at the Cambridge Center For Adult Education. Joanne:Teaching is helpful, because my teaching is related to writing. I teach English as a Second Language. I usually write at the SOMEDAY CAFE, a coffee house in Davis Square. I write almost every night, in spite of the noise and activity there...I guess I thrive on it. The house has too many distractions, dirty dishes, toys and interruptions by the phone. My ritual is I walk to the SOMEDAY CAFE, write for at least a hour, then walk home. My husband takes care of my son Benjamin, so I can have this time to myself. It is sort of walk, write, walk, write...this works for me. I start to feel strange if I go a couple of days without writing. DSH:Does your role of a mother, feed your role as a poet? Conversely, does your role as a poet feed your role as a mother? Linda:There are only small moments that feed my poetry. In teaching my children to love books, I remember what I first loved about it, and that helps me as a poet. Certainly, the kids are subjects of poems. It is difficult to have children and have a serious intellectual pursuit. You have to balance. I think some people are not honest with themselves, about how they are doing with one or the other. Sometimes you give too much to one, but they are both very demanding an important things. Parenting and poetry are beautiful parts of my life. In poetry I try to say things quietly enough to allow the reader hear their own echoes in the poem, and in parenting it's more like, "Get down from there now!" Joanne:The hardest thing about kids is the lack of solitude, the constant interruptions. My son, also, has been great material. Poetry helps parenting because its about pausing and seeing. Having a child makes it very hard to pause and see when they are always with you. Poetry is about seeing grace, beyond the whole range of necessary mundane activities that involves parenting. It makes you see your kids in a poetic way. Poetry is also a good way to deal with issues like tenderness and things that overwhelm you....it is not always easy to a find a person to do that with. DSH:Does a lot of your work deal with your family, husband and kids? Linda:Only a few. Recently I have been writing about my immediate family, my brothers and sisters, etc... As a parent you are working through your old stuff, where you might not otherwise. Joanne:I've written a lot about my family, my son Benjamin, husband and brother. The poems have to come to me, usually in groups. Often I write a series of poems about my aunt, or someone that comes to mind. DSH:Does Somerville inform your work? Linda:I've lived here a long time, so it pretty much has to. I wrote a poem about College Ave. recently. There are a lot of people in the community who encourage me to keep writing. Joanne:Somerville is a paradise for me. It is the first place that I feel like I belong. I live here and I feel whole. It does not have the claustrophobia of a small town. When I leave Somerville, and then return, it is a relief. The suburbs have an expectation of conformity. There are so many different people in Somerville that conformity becomes more of a moot issue. That has been a great relief. I do worry about the changing face of Somerville, because of the rising rents. Many long term members of the community are being forced out. This effects the very thing that makes Somerville an interesting place to live. Linda:Its good that the face of Somerville is being improved, but to the extent people are being forced out it is not. Poetry by Linda H. Conte and Joanne Holdridge January 21, 2001 It is a snowy Sunday. 6AM. About 7 inches coming, they say. I hear only blusts of wind, crackling chimes, and forced hot air churning through the ducts. Even Somerville silences her shrieking harpies: no cars funneling down College Ave. like bleating sheep through a ravine; if the lunatics are cursing and spitting and shaking their fists as they trudge the streets, I cannot hear them, and hope they have been carefully sheltered from the great glistening white muffler, a clean shroud which even the city will not escape. Linda Haviland Conte. IT AS IF HE REMEMBERS EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS reading my son a book about a girl who falls in love with her dog's puppies "at first sight" Benjamin stops me and says what does that mean--love at first sight-- and I say it's when you fall in love the first time you see somebody I ask him if he believes that's possible he pops his thumb back in his mouth tickles his lip with the special rolled up corner of his blanket nods his head confidently, says sure I know it's true, surprised I ask how and he says because that's how you felt the first time you saw me. Joanne Holdridge Child Home My children may walk through rooms of this house for the rest of their lives, as I go through my childhood home time and again in my mind. Or they may not cling to ceiling cracks and newel posts as I do. Their minds may ride some futuristic monorail, traveling at light speed, not accumulating incidental anchors. Maybe something like sunlight scattered by a crystal as bits of rainbow on a white wall will bring them back from their life's work to the home where they were surely loved. Maybe I'll still be there. Linda Haviland Conte ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This interview originally ran in the Somerville News HOME PAGE & ARCHIVES
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