10 Questions for Stevie Edwards

- By Edward Clifford

Three days into stripping
the third layer of painted wallpaper
in a poorly ventilated powder room
and I am a sorrow river. My husband
sticks his head in to ask why
—from "On Crying While Stripping Wallpaper," Volume 64, Issue 1 (Spring 2023)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
The first poem I had published in a literary magazine for adults (I had poems published in Teen Ink at some point, but I can’t remember anything about them) was called “C-a-n-c-e-r,” which was published in The Cartier Street Review in 2009, under the name Stephanie Edwards. I wrote it about a time during the summer before my senior year of college when the nurse practitioner doing my annual PAP Smear announced mid-examination that she thought I had cervical cancer. I ended up being completely fine, but it took several weeks for the test results to get processed and mailed to me; during that time, I thoroughly convinced myself I was going to die of cancer at twenty-one—and not just any cancer, cancer with shame attached to it. I wrote the poem to try and process the shame and fear that I was feeling. Although the poem is not particularly confessional, it came from a very vulnerable place.

At the time I wrote the poem, I had a summer research stipend to study the works and archives of James Wright (the subject of my honors thesis) and was living in an environmentalist co-op, where gardening was a required duty. The combination of reading a lot of James Wright (I was obsessed with his third book, The Branch Will Not Break) and gardening led to the poem’s nature imagery. I used weeding crabgrass out of our vegetable garden as a metaphor for removing cancerous cells. The unnecessarily alarming medical appointment that spurred this poem also happened to occur during the Cancer Zodiac season, which happens to be my mother’s Zodiac, whose mother happened to have died young of brain cancer—which is all lingering in the imagery of the poem. I Googled the poem today and was worried I’d be mortified by it, but all-and-all, I still think it’s a pretty decent poem. The only thing I am truly mortified by is my emo author photo.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
There are so many writers who’ve influenced me that it’s hard to choose, but two of the writers I come back to again and again are Muriel Rukeyser and Lynda Hull. They’re two of the poets I turn to the most when I’m really struggling to write; something that unites them is that both writers have incredibly strong lyricality and imagery, paired with a lot of tenderness and fire. They’re the kind of poets I want to be. I have definitely listened to Poetry Foundation’s Essential American Poets episode on Muriel Rukeyser at least a hundred times because it has great recordings of her reading her work.

My first teachers of poetry during undergrad were Julie Stotz-Ghosh and Helena Mesa at Albion College (I also would be remiss to not mention Danit Brown, though she is a prose writer); my undergraduate writing mentors were amazingly generous with their time and feedback. I feel lucky to have found myself in their classrooms. 

As far as graduate school, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon had a strong influence on my writing as my MFA advisor. She pushed me to think of each line of the poem as an individual unit and to think more seriously about form. During my PhD, I also had the opportunity to study with Jehanne Dubrow, who deepened my knowledge and appreciation of form and prosody.

Also, outside of academia, at different stages in my writing development, Marty McConnell and Rachel McKibbens were incredible mentors to me; they both taught me to write bravely, to write the poems that I was afraid of writing. They taught me to write with heart and guts, which I am still trying to do.

What other professions have you worked in?
Beyond teaching at the college level and editorial work, I have worked as an administrative assistant for a non-profit, a literacy specialist, a retail salesperson slinging good walking shoes and overpriced blue jeans, a box office manager for a summer concert series, a high ropes course instructor, a library circulation desk worker, a cashier and waitress at a small café, and a handful of other things.

What inspired you to write this piece?
This piece was literally inspired by trying to figure out why I was sobbing while stripping endless layers of painted wallpaper in a small powder room I was redecorating. The answer was, more or less, that I wanted to be redecorating our guest room for a baby but wasn’t sure if my husband would ever want one or if I would be a good enough mother.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
After undergrad, I moved to Chicago, and my time there greatly influenced me. I became part of a larger poetry community and felt pushed to better myself as a writer. It’s where I read, shaky voiced, at my very first open mic, and where I started to learn to really listen to poems, to appreciate their musicality. It was the first time I really wrote with an audience in mind, which helped to sharpen my poems.

I also would say that growing up in Lansing, MI has influenced my writing. Like many Rustbelt cities, Lansing was hit hard economically by the closing of manufacturing jobs, particularly in the auto industry. I grew up seeing a lot of issues with poverty, drugs, and violence, which showed up a lot in my earlier writing. I also think that my upbringing has made me really appreciate the degree of privilege I now have, which is a subject that some of my newer writing addresses.

Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
What I listen to while writing varies a lot based on the project. My current manuscript-in-progress (Love & Other Revisions) involves a lot of listening to Fiona Apple. I was listening to a lot of Hole and Liz Phair when I wrote my book that’s forthcoming in October 2023, Quiet Armor. 

Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
When I am having trouble writing, I find the following things help: pacing around my house, reading poetry collections I love, listening to recordings of some of my favorite poets, reading the poem I’m writing/editing aloud, taking long baths, making good snacks, and putting on nice perfume.

If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I’ve always wanted to be a singer-songwriter, but I am unfortunately not that great at singing. I think it would take divine intervention for that to work out for me, but if I could actually sing on key, that’s what I’d choose.

More realistically, I love cooking and baking, and making beautiful food is an art. 

What are you working on currently?
I am trying to revise the story of the homemaker for my current work-in-progress, tentatively titled Love & Other Revisions, which I hope will become my fourth book. Love & Other Revisions is largely about exploring ways of reimagining the role of being a wife and celebrating the domestic. Several of the poems in it ask questions about the ethics of having children in a world that is both literally and figuratively burning and how living with mental illness complicates the choice of whether to have children. Really, this project is about what it means to be a childless feminist in my mid-thirties and also to be a devoted partner who loves a lot of frequently gendered tasks, like cooking and shopping.

What are you reading right now?
I just finished reading Yellow Rain by Mai Der Vang, and right now I’m reading Belly to the Brutal by Jennifer Givhan and Against Heaven by Kemi Alabi.