Interview: Joanna C. Valente
Joanna C. Valente is sometimes a mermaid and sometimes a human. She is the author of Sirs & Madams and received her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College. Her full-length collection Marys of the Sea is forthcoming from ELJ Publications in 2016. She also has a chapbook, Xenos, forthcoming from Imaginary Friend Press. Some of her work appears in The Huffington Post, Columbia Journal, among others. She founded Yes, Poetry in 2010, and is the Managing Editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Her ghost resides at her website: joannavalente.com (bio from Deadly Chaps).
TCJWW: When did you begin writing, Joanna?
Valente: I began writing when I was a child. I was only eleven years old and somehow decided that I wanted to be a poet. It all started when I was given a copy of Emily Dickinson's collected poems by my mother, who didn't realize what she had just gotten herself into; for whatever reason, Emily really spoke to me. Of course, I don't think I understood any of the poems at the time, but I knew they were magical, that I discovered something life-altering.
Ever since I could remember, I loved art—I was a voracious painter and avid reader, so in some ways, writing was a natural progression. As I became older, I felt a strong need to express myself, and writing allowed me to do this more acutely than with painting (which I still do to this day.) Not surprisingly, I was a shy kid, and because of this, I didn't have a tremendous amount of friends; being a bit lonely and having a lot of free time was in some ways the best recipe for becoming a poet, because I had the time and turmoil to learn to write.
TCJWW: Who are some of your favorite authors and poets?
Valente: This is such a tremendously difficult question, because there are so many. Some living and dead poets I enjoy are John Milton, Richard Brautigan, Mathias Svalina, Natalie Eilbert, Anne Sexton, Charles Simic, Walt Whitman, Jason Koo, Abigail Welhouse, Richard Siken, Lisa Marie Basile, James Wright, Kim Hyesoon, Cathy Park Hong, & Thomas Sayers Ellis.
In terms of prose writers, I really enjoy Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Henry James, Sandra Cisneros, Jeffrey Eugenides, Sean H. Doyle, Francesca Lia Block, Larry Siems, Andre Breton, Thomas Mann, & Jonathan Safran-Foer.
In general, I love surrealism & magical-realism—anything that portrays mundane moments as bizarre and otherworldly enthralls me, because life is anything but boring and ordinary. And writing should be both enjoyable and uncomfortable, because it's a learning experience as much as it is entertaining.
TCJWW: What may inspire you to write?
Valente: Telling truth, empowering the voiceless, advocating for women are all my motivations for writing. We all feel the need to communicate our truths in some way, whether it comes out through painting, fixing cars, or baking bread. For me, writing allows me to express myself and the issues I perceive in our current society as concisely and acutely as possible.
TCJWW: Do you record your thoughts and impressions in a notebook?
Valente: I don't actually, and wish I did sometimes. I do write in the notes section on my iPhone everyday which serves the same purpose, but probably indicates a certain kind of impatience. I usually do this when I'm on the subway or walking somewhere (I think best in transit). There's something about traveling that forces you to go outside of yourself, to fall into some kind of existential trap.
TCJWW: What has been the critical reaction to your writing?
Valente: Judging from reviews and comments and what writers have said to me, it's all been very positive, which I'm so grateful for. There is a need for writing that focuses on the POV of women, non-cis gendered women and men, and the LGBTQ community; Sirs & Madams focuses on that perspective and I think other writers found that refreshing.
TCJWW: Do you feel that you may be searching for something through your writing?
Valente: Every artist and writer is searching for something and usually that something is a truth about ourselves, about our current society, and how to live with all of that. What we're searching for changes with time, as we change ourselves. Right now, I'm searching for what it means to be a woman right now, for women who are mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, sexual partners. How labels define us and yet how we often want to break away from those labels, because they limit us in so many ways. We see this all the time—if a woman is defined by her role as a mother, it's often so hard for people to then see that woman as sexy, as a person who has her own desires.
TCJWW: Does writing come easy to you?
Valente: My friends would say yes, because I'm always writing. That doesn't always seem easy, though—I think I'm always writing because I feel like I never just "say" it exactly the way I want. It's like I'm a painter who can never paint a sunset with the exact colors I'm imagining; I'm sure most writers and painters feel this way. Obviously, if we all got it right the first time, there wouldn't be so many Picasso paintings or Frost poems.
So, it's easy to write but it's hard for me to write what I want, if that makes sense, without initially censoring myself or writing without editing at the same time. It's easy to think of the people in your life, such as your parents or partner, and think: "What would they say if they saw this?" Usually if I ask that, it means I'm saying the right things and shouldn't stop.
TCJWW: What are your future plans, Joanna? Will you be publishing another book of your poems?
Valente: My plan is to just keep going. What else can I do? The next two years are actually going to be quite busy for me, because I do have three forthcoming collections coming out: The Gods Are Dead is now available from Deadly Chaps Press, Xenos will be out early 2016 from Imaginary Friends Press, and Marys of the Sea will be out around June 2016 from ELJ Publications.
So, you know, I'm around and I plan to stick around for awhile.
Photo credits:
Author photo courtesy of www.fruitapulp.com
