Member Spotlight: Michele Wolf

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? I have just published my fourth poetry collection, Peacocks on the Streets, from Broadstone Books. For me, writing is key to self-expression, insight, communication, and connection. As the primary means for freedom of expression, writing serves as an essential beacon for the world. On a more personal level, writing provides authors and readers with a shared journey of discovery. With the best poems and works of fiction, first the author and then the reader arrive at a place they thought they had known, only to find it has been transformed.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? When I’m looking for inspiration to write, I often turn to the work of other poets. Sometimes just the rhythms of the poems, independent of what they are saying, get me in the frame of mind to write. I’m also a big fan of taking a brisk walk in nature, to clear my head of noise and help me get in touch with what writing move may be next for me. It’s rare, though, that I experience a true writer’s block. It’s part of my writing pattern to sometimes go months at a time without writing, then to be highly prolific, then to have a quiet spell again. The writing always returns for me eventually. So, I just cultivate a readiness for it. I never fret about its absence.

What is your favorite time to write? I most enjoy writing In the morning, while my family is still asleep. But when I’m on a streak and buzzed with writing, to the degree that the words are exiting through my fingertips with so much intent that it’s hard to get things down fast enough, I can be so focused that I can work almost any time of day, in just about any circumstance.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? My favorite writing advice comes from a one-day master class I had years ago with the late U.S. poet laureate W.S. Merwin. “We don’t write poems,” he told us. “We listen for them.” I found that outlook to be powerful — that the writing process is not so much that we will our work into being, but instead that we get ourselves to a quiet place and listen for the words.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? It’s a time when the literary community is hosting a greater range of voices than ever — it’s a big tent — and I am proud to be part of that community of voices.

Michele Wolf’s Peacocks on the Streets is out now with Broadstone Books.