Aline Soules

Poet and Fiction Writer

Aline Soules

The Meaning of “Past” in Historical Fiction

In Requiem for a Nun, Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” a quote that’s well known, often used, and has even been the subject of a lawsuit (bit.ly/faulknerlawsuit).

As I don’t seek to make money from this blog post, I risk offering this quote because it speaks to me as a historical fiction writer who wants to highlight a time in the past.   

Surely, all historical fiction writers want, among other goals, to encourage readers to remember an event, an era, something large or small, and want them to re-examine and re-think what that past means, and to do so through story.  Which leads me to this quote:  Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it (George Santayana).  Of course, those who do learn history often repeat it, too, but we struggle on in optimism.

Lately, I’ve wondered about what “triggers” a writer’s interest in a particular period or incident.  As I work on my current novel, I know exactly what triggered it:  a story I learned from my mother, who met the original of my heroine during the London Blitz.  The original story is sketchy, but gives me much scope for fiction.  It’s where I started, but, over time, my trigger has grown.  I also want to honor my parents’ generation’s experiences by adapting a few of their stories into my novel as well.  My story is now personal, engaging my passion, which I hope will make my story resonate with my eventual reader.  

Regardless of the source of the trigger, the story has to become personal and passionate to the writer or it won’t be personal and passionate to the reader.  Perhaps a personal connection begins the story, as in my case. Perhaps a writer experiences something directly in his/her/eir own life that provides the trigger. Perhaps a writer reads an article or a book that contains a triggering moment. The trigger can come from anywhere.

Back in the 1980s, Richard Hugo wrote a book called The Triggering Town, lectures and essays related to poetry and writing.  Recently, I re-read his book with renewed respect.  One of Hugo’s main points was that, when you begin writing, you think it’s about the topic you have in mind, but, as you write more deeply, you learn that you’re writing something quite different from your original triggering idea.  

While Hugo focused on poetry, his point is worth thinking about in all writing.  I journal about my writing as a form of “metadata” about my work.  As I look back through my entries, I learn that my theme has evolved and that I am now much clearer about the true purpose of my novel.   I now use my theme to review each scene and choose between include or scrap, so that every scene serves not only the story, but also the theme, and the past I want readers to find.

 

Writing Contemplative Poetry: an Interview with Jerome Gagnon

Interview by Aline Soules

I’m choosing to set aside my discussion of historical fiction today to enjoy the privilege of interviewing poet Jerome Gagnon, author of Rumors of Wisdom, winner of the Louis Book Award from Concrete Wolf Press, and Spell of the Ordinary, a chapbook from Finishing Line Press (www.jeromegagnonblog.wordpress.com). His recent success is a culmination of a life-long engagement with poetry and writing, but it is only in the last few years that he has had more extensive time to devote to his own art, having taught and tutored composition with a specific focus on ESL students. He is also a keen gardener and I’m interested in how these various worlds inform his work.

blue plumbago plant

Q. How did you come to poetry? Do you have a memory of the first poem that you read? What drew you to the poetic form?

A. I don’t really remember reading poetry until I discovered Emily Dickinson in high school and that was a revelation. She was serious yet accessible, and her poems seemed to convey a sense of her personality, too. I think it would be accurate to say that her work led me to develop a respect for the contemplative life. Poetry appeals to me because it gets to the heart of things.  It’s cordial to spontaneity and insight. The music is a bonus.

Q. Your recent chapbook and full-length book have enjoyed noted success. How did you find constructing a chapbook different from putting together a full-length book?

A. Well, I did one chapbook in 1978 (Pages from the Blue Sun), and that was relatively easy to put together. Most of the poems were written within a two year period or so and reflected a growing sense of what I’ll call inner experience.   I did continue writing over the years, but the material was so unlike any of the contemporary things I was reading, I didn’t bother to send it out.  It wasn’t until I was in my mid-sixties that I started researching markets and sending a lot of stuff around.  By then, I realized I probably had enough material for another chapbook, Spell of the Ordinary.

As a full-length work, Rumors of Wisdom was much more difficult because I didn’t want it to be repetitious.  I love to write about birds, it seems, and I have to make sure they don’t appear in every other poem.  It took me three years of juggling the material, adding new poems and weeding out those that didn’t work as well.  It’s really a more fully developed version of the chapbook.  I do remember getting to the point that I knew beyond a doubt it was finished and that it was publishable.  When you get to that point, it’s quite a relief, as I’m sure you know.

Q. I find your work thoughtful and, in many ways, I would describe your poems as “quiet,” “introspective.” They invite me to seek within for my own connections to your work. Would you discuss your recurring threads and themes?

A. I think of some of the poems as sanctuaries or abodes, so I’m happy to hear they strike you as quiet. You could say that the prevailing theme is awareness or attentiveness and that covers a lot of territory. Poetry for me is a means to explore and discover. It’s a gauge, in a way, of one’s psychological life — it can remind us where we’ve been and point a way forward.  I think, too, it’s a form of religion.  It has its own rituals and it offers much that religion does — comfort, consolation, a sense of community — only without the dogma.  Robert Duncan said, “Poetry is all the religion I need, and language all the ritual.”  In the context of poetry, you can address a snail, or say a prayer of gratitude, or pause just to look at whatever is in front of you.  These are things we don’t usually give ourselves permission to do on a regular basis.  But without cultivating deeper awareness in some way, the risk in our culture is that we become mere consumers — of information, social media trivia, forgettable entertainment, and objects and symbols of all kinds.

Q. What aspects of your other worlds have most affected your writing? In what way?

A. Losing so many friends during the Aids crisis was overwhelming — for a time I felt as if I was split between the world of the living and the world of the dead. This is the experience of survivors.  I’ve only addressed that issue directly in two poems, I think, but the experience has made me more aware of the transience and sacredness of life, and possibly somewhat more tolerant of uncertainty.  This may be reflected in some of the other poems, too.

The gardening began with a few things I planted in an existing Japanese style garden.  I appreciated the emphasis on form and negative space, but I also love color and flowers, so now they’re everywhere.  Fortunately, it’s a relatively small space.  In addition to the traditional elements like bamboo, camellia, pine, rock, and gravel, there are roses, plumbago, morning glories, lantana, oleander, and quite a bit more.  I try to stick to drought-tolerant varieties.  The one thing I probably shouldn’t have planted was morning glories, but I couldn’t resist — the colors are a real eye-opener. To my surprise, I managed to get a poem out of the tangle they tend to make, and this is forthcoming in the journal Arts: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (https://www.societyarts.org/).

Working with students of English as a second or other language didn’t particularly influence my own writing.  It did sensitize me, though, to the challenges language students face, probably never more acute than today, and I found their commitment and hard work very inspiring.    

Q. Do you have a daily practice in a particular writing space? Has it changed over the years or is it fairly constant?

A. I do have a daily practice, more or less, and am fortunate to have a dedicated space for that. That never used to be the case because I was just writing the occasional poem now and then, and it was often from my kitchen table in one or the other of the small apartments I lived in in San Francisco.  These days I might work on a short piece for the blog, or research a market for a poem, or possibly revise something.  I tend to write when there’s nothing very exciting going on, say between nine and eleven p.m. or later.  Then, too, I’m often up at fiveish, and this can be a productive time. Some days I don’t do much.  I might submit something, or read.  After I finished Rumors and it was out, I worked long hours to put the next book together.  Happily, it’s finished and out there.   

Q. Who are your mentors and influencers? Who are you reading right now?  What books are on your desk or nightstand?  Why?

A. One of my earliest poetic heroes was Frank O’Hara who seemed to embody the ideal of living for the moment. Although I never met him, his untimely death affected me deeply.  I was also very influenced by Robert Creeley.  He taught at SFSU for a brief time while living in Bolinas.  Kay Boyle was another influence.  Both she and Creeley had warmth and great presence, and Boyle had strong humanitarian and political convictions to go along with that.

All the books that I’m currently engaged in are either stacked on my desk or nearby on the floor. I just never want to put them away because as soon as I do, I’ll have to go find them.  There are zen books: Thomas Kirchner’s Entangling Vines, No-Gate Gateway by David Hinton, and Master Ma’s Ordinary Mind, by Fumio Yamada; over the years I’ve found that it’s best to have these kinds of references around in case I want to check on something, or if I’m feeling particularly receptive to paradox.  There are haiku texts right now: The Art of Haiku, by Stephen Addiss, which has some beautiful reproductions of early Japanese art, and The Haiku Handbook, by William Higginson and Penny Harter, are just two of them.  There are poetry volumes: Nine Horses, and Ballistics by Billy Collins, and Virginia Hamilton Adair’s Ants on the Melon— a wonderful collection from a little known poet.  There’s Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s recent release, In Love With the World: a Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying, an extraordinary book and a good introduction to the Tibetan view of the bardos, the various states we experience in our daily lives, most often unaware.  It’s in the tradition of the mythic spiritual journey or quest, much as Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

When I turn to certain poets, I want to learn about their mind-set — the exuberance of Frank O’ Hara and his life in Manhattan, or the longing of Cavafy for the days of his youth, for instance. Robert Cording has written that “…we come to know the world not by detaching ourselves from our felt experience, but by inhabiting our bodily experience as richly and wakefully as we can.” I think that’s true and, as a reader, I look for that quality in a variety of writers and a variety of forms.  Of the American poets, I try not to miss anything by Jane Hirshfield.  I love the poems of Ross Gay, especially Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude.  If I’m feeling blue, I might turn to Mary Oliver whose love affair with the natural world never fails to inspire me.  I admire Gary Snyder’s work and think of him as a trailblazer, an environmental bodhisattva. I appreciate Richard Wright’s haiku. I also return to the early wisdom poets such as Rumi, Mirabai, Li Po, Hanshan, Chuang Tzu, and others.

Q. Have you considered writing other forms? Short prose?  Flash fiction?  Something longer?  What forms interest you as both a reader and a writer?

A. I’ve thought about memoir. But I’m just concerned that it would be like writing about a corpse.  So that may not happen (but I have a great title if it does).  I’ve written short stories in the past, but not for years.  I do enjoy reading prose poetry, personal essays, and creative non-fiction. 

Q. How do you choose where to submit your writing?

A. Researching markets has become so much easier with search engines like Google. Recently I unearthed a couple of poems I thought were good, but I didn’t know where to send them. One was a brief lyric about hearing a screech owl in the night.  I searched “submit poems about night,” I think it was, and discovered an anthology contest sponsored by the TallGrass Writer’s Guild in the Chicago area.  I submitted, heard that it was accepted, and forgot all about it.  About a month later, I found out I’d won first place in their contest.  Complete surprise!  I didn’t even remember there was a contest.  “Night Song” will appear in October in the anthology, Loon Magic and Other Night Sounds, from Outrider Press. Otherwise, I use sites like Poets & Writers, or Entropy because they’re fairly extensive and well organized.

Q. What’s next with your writing?

A. I’d like to write or edit a book on poetry as a contemplative path. Possibly publish a collection of haiku, or an anthology.  There are a few other possibilities.  We’ll see.  Thanks for your excellent questions! 

 

Aline  Soules’ work has  appeared in such publications as Kenyon Review,  Houston  Literary  Review, Poetry  Midwest, and The Galway Review.  Her books include Meditation on Woman (https://amzn.to/2CHEhst) and Evening Sun: A Widow’s Journey (https://amzn.to/2OTFXVE).  Find her online at http://alinesoules.com, @aline_elisabeth, https://www.facebook/com/alinesoulesauthor, and https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinesoules/

Making a World from Small Details

pencil in handIn an article in The Writer, Todd James Pierce offered eight rules for writing historical short stories.  One of them was that “small details matter more than large ones.” His example was about a story that led him to think he’d “need to know how the mechanics of animation worked in the 1940s and 1950s, the tasks of an inbetweener or an inker.”  While acknowledging that “the information was useful,” he concluded that it wasn’t the “dreamy material” that leads to compelling stories.  He discovered that the small details were more important: “the weight of a pencil in an animator’s hand when held the right way, how images ghost up through a stack of drawings when pegged onto a lightboard, the sound a moviola makes when a reel of new film stutters across its screen.”  He used these “small daily details” to build a “believable historical setting.” 

While I fully support his premise that the small details matter, I am convinced that his understanding of the larger world of the mechanics of animation in the 1940s and 1950s also informed his work, that knowing which small details to use may have been helped by knowing the broader subject matter thoroughly.  

This brings me back to the issue of research, which I seem unable to leave (see previous couple of blog posts).  How much is enough?  How much is too much? (One comment on my last blog post suggested that while conducting research, it’s important to remember actually to write–a valid point.)  I have found, however, that the small details that stand out in my own research and which I wish to use in my story only stand out because I know their importance from the larger context.  I don’t disagree with Pierce, but I wonder how much his broader research into the period helped those small details jump off the research page as “musts” to include in his story. For his full article, see https://www.writermag.com/improve-your-writing/fiction/historical-short-stories/ It’s well worth a read.

How Much is Enough? Research and Your Novel

 

scales to indicate too much or too littleOn two recent occasions, I heard different authors talk about the amount of research needed for a novel.  Both of them argued in favor of doing enough research to ensure that what they wrote would be possible, but no more.  Their perspective was that they were writing fiction, not history.

Other authors believe that you must “know”  your background material so thoroughly that what you write is fully founded.  This requires extensive reading, both general and specific, and absorbing as much as you can, whether or not you include all the information in your novel.  This gives authenticity to your work.

As I write my historical novel, I have come to the latter belief.  For my current novel, I began by reading extensively about the areas where my novel is set. Since then, I have discovered the need to read extensively in areas I could never have imagined, from mores to explosives.  

As I think back on novels I’ve read over the years, particularly historical novels, the examples that stand out in my mind are the ones where I know the author is fully conversant with his/her/eir subject matter, and those examples come from all types of genres.

Consider The Spanish Bride by Georgette Heyer, a romance novel based on the true story of Harry Smith and Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon Smith.  Heyer knew the period and the story completely.  Or the bestseller, The Ugly American, by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer, which sent the main character, Homer Atkins, to Southeast Asia to advise the fictional country of Sarkhan. Atkins challenges what he finds and exposes U. S. foreign policy as dangerous, on the wrong track, and losing. 

In a recent issue of The New Yorker (May 27, 2019), Mark Singer profiled the television writer, David Milch. While the article’s purpose is to address Milch’s dementia and Milch’s thoughts about his dementia, the article naturally discusses his writings, one of which was Deadwood, considered one of Milch’s best works. To quote Singer: “He [Milch] began writing the pilot episode only after having spent two years digesting biographies and historical accounts of mining, the Indian wars, territorial politics, whorehouse and gambling protocols, rudimentary systems of justice, and criminality mundane and monstrous.”  Milch is clearly not a proponent of “just enough.” Authenticity is part of the show’s success.

Consequently, I respectfully disagree with the concept of “just enough,” even if it has worked for some authors.  Thorough research and the success of the well-researched and well-understood works I’ve specifically mentioned come from the in-depth, no-short-cut approach of the authors. No matter how time-consuming, the investment is worth the effort.  The author can be confident in the details of his/her/eir work and allow the “fiction” to shine through.

World Building: Finding Freedom through Structure

When I was a young teacher, I was surprised to learn the importance of structure, not for its own sake, but for its ability to give students freedom. If I asked students to write a poem, I got back flowery, adjective-riddled work, as students struggled to write. If I gave them a form–the more complex the better–everything changed. The form was the world out of which they imagined the most amazing work. My most successful lesson centered on the cinquain.

In writing any type of work–essay, fiction, memoir–long, medium, or short, I’ve found the same to be true. Once I have structure, once I’ve built a world, I have a framework within which to work, and when I run into problems (surprise–it’s not problem-free), I find the problems easier to solve. On occasion, I’ll find a flaw in the world rules I’ve set, but I can tweak that world, as long as I go through what I’ve already written to make the rest of the piece meet the world rules I’ve built.

This means building my world and the rules of that world early. While world building is most often associated with fantasy and science fiction, I’ve found it equally applicable to other genres. As a historical fiction writer, for example, I have two worlds to consider. One is the historical period where I’ve set my novel, and those rules are pre-set. My job is to research that world to choose what I will use in my fictional world. I then focus on the “fiction” and my characters. Once I’ve built my fictional world, I weave the two for the world of my novel.

This sounds a lot like “pantser” vs. “plotter,” but I find it effective to work in both. I need my fictional world in place–at least, roughly–first (the plotter). Then I write. As I make “discoveries” along the way (the pantser), I adjust. Sometimes, I adjust the world I’ve built (the framework), making sure to go through what I’ve already written to adjust for the change. Sometimes, my characters give me a discovery, in which case my built world and its rules are my support for integrating the discovery and making it organic to the work. I move back and forth, using my built world as the spine of my novel.

While my world must include all the elements of the novel–plot, character, setting, etc.–the spine of that world and my freedom to imagine within that world rely on the rules and the spine I establish in the beginning.