Illuminating Fiction

Kathleen Spivack: Pulling Yourself In

151 Kathleen Spivack Pulling Yourself In In 1986, Kathleen Spivack was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her fourth book of poetry, The Beds We Lie In. While Spivack feels very much a part of the tapestry of current writing, she believes that the most important thing that occurred in her writing career was her long-term study with Robert Lowell, starting when she was age eighteen, and having the opportunity to look at the first drafts of famous authors. Spivack is the author of The Honeymoon, a collection of short stories, and several additional published works of poetry including The Break-Up Variations, Swimmer in the Spreading Dawn, The Jane Poems, and Flying Inland. She has recently completed both a memoir about her relationship with Robert Lowell and a third novel, Unspeakable Things. Her short stories , poems, and essays have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. Kathleen Spivack has been a Visiting Professor of American Literature/ Creative Writing in France since 1991. She has held posts at the University of Paris VII-VIII, the University of Francois Rabelais/Tours, the University of Versailles, and at the Ecole Superieure (Polytechnique). She was a Fulbright Professor in Creative Writing, France (1993–94). Spivack is also a private writing coach in Boston and Paris. Spivack has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, Discovery, the Bunting Institute and the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities. I interviewed Ms. Spivack while sitting at her kitchen table in Watertown, Massachusetts. Sherry Ellis: You’ve written short stories, novels, a memoir, poetry. What is your favorite genre and why? 152 Illuminating Fiction Kathleen Spivack: I think I’m basically a poet; I started out that way. Why? Because poetry is one moment turned over carefully, it is a prism, it’s an association of images. But some things have lent themselves to story or to essay or to novels; things that I want to talk about that are more narrative that I can’t do in poetry. Ellis: What do you mean by thinking in images? Spivack: Poetry is the stone in the lake and it’s the ripples; prose is the lake. Poetry is very small and concentrated and intense; a small moment with a lot of reverberations. You might say that a short story is more like a poem, in that it is also one moment. You don’t have a lengthy time frame, unless, let’s say, you’re Alice Munro. Generally you have your characters, you have your setting, and you’re looking at a fixed point in things. And in poetry you’re very, very small. Ellis: Are there similarities in the actual writing of short stories and poems? Spivack: They’re not similar. In a short story you’re setting up a long walk, and then you expect the walk, and you have to finish the walk. Sometimes the walk is boring, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s too long, but you’re committed to finish the walk. Sometimes there are moments of magic along the walk, which is the poetry in the short story. Or you’ll find yourself going toward an end that is totally magical, the ripple. But short story writing is more discursive; it’s a journey. A poem is a deep glimpse, a deep reflection, in the meaning in the moment. Ellis: How do you think your prose has been informed by your poetry? Spivack: In terms of the use of words it’s given me a lot of freedom, a lot of texture, a lot of color; I love language and it’s definitely affected my use of language. But you know, I don’t consider myself a prose writer even though I’ve published a lot of prose. If I were pulling out a piece of work to show you it would be a poem or it might be a creative essay; probably not a short story. Ellis: How has your process varied between writing short stories and novels ? And how have you known if something you’re writing is a short story or a novel? Kathleen Spivack 153 Spivack: That’s a good question. In the short story it’s the moment explored; perhaps there’s two people, or a longer moment. There’s definitely something that’s happened, there’s development, there’s change that’s happened...