September Feature: Interview with Kathryn Merwin

We are proud to present our exclusive interview with Issue 3 contributor Kathryn Merwin!

Kathryn, a writer and editor from Washington, D.C., was born in 1993. She is currently enrolled as a dual-degree seeking student at Salisbury University on the eastern shore of Maryland, where she is studying English and Art. She plans to begin pursuing her MFA in the fall of 2016. Kathryn’s writing generally focuses on themes. She enjoys the use of motif, color imagery, and often draws upon her genetic and familial background for inspiration in her writing. She finds ancestry and bloodlines particularly compelling, and is presently working on multiple poetry series. In 2015, Kathryn and two of her Creative Writing peers at Salisbury University, Charlotte Covey and Erin Traylor, founded Milk Journal, a journal of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Kathryn’s honors and awards include the 2015 Nancy D. Hargrove Prize for Poetry, awarded by Jabberwock Review, as well as induction into the Lambda Iota Tau Honor Society. She was invited to attend the 2015 Virginia Quarterly Review Writers’ Conference. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in publications such as Barely South Review, burntdistrict, Jabberwock Review, Slipstream, The Blueshift Journal, Wayne Literary Review, and Cheat River Review, among others.

Find her work on our homepage (theblueshiftjournal.com) and read what she had to say below:

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To start at the beginning: tell us how you got interested in poetry.

I would say it started when I was in my junior year of undergraduate study at Salisbury University. I had always been passionate about writing, and it always figured a way into my life in one form or another. I had made the decision to major in art during my freshman year, even though I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. By the time I took my first writing workshop course, I was a semester away from graduating with my BFA. But during that course, I started to explore poetry, which I had only casually written in the past, and I fell in love with everything about it. My professor, Dr. John Nieves, is definitely the person who got me into the world of creative writing and convinced me it would be worth it to add an English major and pursue poetry.

You say ancestry and bloodlines figure prominently in your writing. Can you expand upon that?

I have a wonderfully strange genetic background, which shaped me in every way. My family is really diverse, with roots in places as opposite as northern Sweden and Louisiana’s Cajun country. I was inspired to write about the crossroads of these colorful and dynamic cultures and the way they react when combined, which is sometimes kind of explosive. I’m interested in the common traits and instinctive behaviors that cross the boundaries of nationality and ethnicity and remind us that we’re all human, all cut from the same basic cloth. I’m particularly stirred by the mysterious gumbo of southern culture on my paternal side, which factors into a lot of my writing.

You started your own literary magazine, Milk Journal, this year. Tell us about it—what was your inspiration?

I was with some students from the creative writing department at Salisbury in Minneapolis to attend the 2015 AWP conference when the idea was born. I was wandering the streets of the city after a poetry reading with my two friends and fellow poets, Charlotte Covey and Erin Traylor, when we had the idea. We were all interested in experiencing literary journals from the other side, as we had all been published in journals and were interested in editing as well. I had no idea how much work really goes into a literary journal! I’m glad we decided to do it, though. I love editing and have much more of an appreciation for those who commit to doing it, as well as those who entrust their work to us.

What other projects are you working on now? Plans for the future? Right now I’m working on a series which chronicles the twenty-two Major Arcana Tarot cards. I find Tarot reading, and anything magical and supernatural, really interesting, especially in relation to history and time. I was introduced to the concept of writing in series by Dr. Nieves through one of his workshops at Salisbury, and am really exciting about generating some more projects like this. I’m also actively applying to MFA programs, hoping to start in the fall of 2016. I’m not exactly sure where I want writing to take me. It’s a lot more like following it and seeing where it goes. So far that philosophy has worked out pretty well.

You mention you are seeking a degree in Art as well as English. How do these two artistic sides, one visual, one literary, inform each other?

They balance one another out in a lot of ways. I take a lot of art history courses, which involve tons of research and developing theses, so they definitely cross one another that way. In regard to the visual element of art and the literary element of writing, I don’t think I would write the way I do if I didn’t also draw. I mainly work in realism and portraiture, and in order for a portrait to be moving, it should have life to it and tell a story without words. It’s very similar to writing, except in poetry, you’re creating an image with the words. They create a beautiful kind of equilibrium that I really love and find inspiring.

How do you balance writing with other aspects of your life?

Writing fits naturally in with everything else. When I haven’t written for a few days, I start to feel tense, like something is rattling around inside me that I need to let loose. It keeps me sane, what with busy class and work schedules, and is highly therapeutic for me. It’s a little weird to me now that there was a point in my life, not too long ago, during which I didn’t write regularly.

What is the hardest thing you’ve found about being a writer? How do you think you’ve grown as a poet since you’ve started out?

Writing can be a little unpredictable as a career path, and it’s often frustrating to want to generate but be unable to summon the words at that moment. There is such an element of inspiration to writing, and it often doesn’t come when you need it to. When I look back at my writing from a year ago, I’m really happy that it’s changed so much. I think it’s good to be more fluid than stagnant, obviously, but it’s more than that. Writing involves openness to change and a constant evolution.

Any advice for young writers?

If you love to write, write. Don’t try to sound the way anyone says you should. Don’t strive for what’s “right”. Have a love affair with the words, instead of trying to tame and control them. Be honest, let things flow organically, and pursue you writing until you feel you have learned every last thing there is to know about it. Ideally, that day will never come.

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