More About Lisa Poetry Archives

Lisa Steinman Annual Report from Halfway, Oregon Steinman's Lament: A Ghazal Annual Report from Halfway, Oregon Ice, wind & snow & snow & floods & sleet, as if earth's not for human habitation. The house chitters and bumps under your feet sending letters of congratulations or condolence: "Dear Earth, I'm glad to hear . . . " "Please tell me if I can do anything to help." But next morning you're all still here; the world takes its own sweet time about dying. When you entered Halfway, signs greeted you: FOOD. AMBULANCE. You worry about the food. The Rail Motel lies on the tracks, and lies too about free coffee. Yet sometimes, when Halfway is where you are, the sun rises; the clouds back off. All seems possible then. Steinman's Lament: A Ghazal I am dining with friends, talking; no one leaves early, but rain arrives: a patter on sodden leaves. Losses rain down on us. I try praising them. Or I'm carefree, but then miss cares when even one leaves. Imagine. The shopping list is gone. The change for the parking meter. Then all transportation leaves. I am thinking derailed, thinking off-track here although, still clinging to the maple, there are some leaves. Still, all receipts--gone. No proof. No purchase. All things, a riot of small defections. So Steinman leaves. Lisa Steinman teaches at Reed College in Portland. Her sixth book is Masters of Repetition (St. Martin's). Her most recent books of poetry include the chapbook Ordinary Songs (26 Books), which was an Oregon Book Award nominee, and A Book of Other Days(Arrowood), which won the Oregon Book Award in 1993. Her work has received recognition from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanties. We asked Lisa these questions about writing. Her answers follow. CD:WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT TEACHING? Lisa Steinman: What I most enjoy about teaching is talking with other people about, and sharing my love of, poetry. Teaching is one of the best ways to share with other people the pleasure I find in poems and poetry and to have them show me things I'd not heard or felt or thought before (since I think, among other things, poetry allows for nuances we don't allow in most aspects of our lives). CD:WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE POETS? LS: My favorite poets change from year to year, but at the moment Josephine Miles, Marianne Moore, C. S. Giscombe, and Thylias Moss would certainly count among my favorite modern/contemporary poets. CD: WHY DO YOU WRITE POETRY? LS: I'm less sure how to talk about why I write poetry (Maybe because I love language? In any case I have written ever since I can remember; it doesn't seem entirely a choice.) And while I do think poetry has a purpose, it is not that easy to quantify: I like William Carlos Williams' response: "The use of poetry may be its uselessness."