10 Questions for Amy Gordon
- By Amal Zaman and Danielle Brown
A story my father likes to tell
on late fall evenings. His brown,
Jewish, thumbtack eyes pin you
with the details. The german countryside. A simple inn.
- from "What He Saw" which appears in our Spring 2016 Issue (Volume 57 Issue 1).
Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.
One of the first pieces I wrote was when I was a senior in high school and I often stayed up at night and wandered around (I was a terrible insomniac) and I experienced a sort of mystical vision. I tried to write a sonnet about it. I have never written anything like it since then.
What writer(s) or works have influenced your own?
The work of C.K. Williams, Seamus Heaney, Wislawa Szymborska, Shara McCallum, Derek Walcott, Pablo Neruda
What other professions have you worked in?
I have been a drama teacher for middle school kids most of my adult life—I am now teaching English to 7th graders. I have also written about ten novels for kids.
What did you want to be when you were young?
I wanted to be a writer who lived in a big, Victorian house and who owned many cats. One of these things has come true.
What drew you to write this piece?
My father did tell this story, about how he was touring through Germany when he was a young man, and he stayed in the same hotel as Hitler and saw him, through binoculars, having a party on a balcony. It was just before things got really bad in Germany. The way he told the story, about actually seeing Hitler’s blue eyes, (and I had always assumed they were brown), was riveting, and I was also caught by the idea that he witnessed the progenitor of so much evil on the eve of the enactment all that evil.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your work?
I think of childhood as a place and return there again and again.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
I like to listen to Brazilian artists—I love their rhythms.
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
At the moment, my mentor. I am in a low-residency M.F.A. program at Drew University. Or my generative poetry and/or critique groups.
If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I would be a dancer. Or a cartoonist. No words or few words!
What are you reading right now?
I am reading W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, poems by Dean Young, and The Book of Men by Dorianne Laux
Amy Gordon has published numerous books for middle school and young adult readers. Her most recent book, Painting the Rainbow, won the 2015 Paterson Prize for Young People. She runs an after-school theater program for kids in her hometown of Gill, MA. She is currently enrolled in the MFA Program for Poetry and Translation at Drew University.
