Interview with John Sibley Williams, author of 'Disinheritance'
John Sibley Williams is the
editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies and the author of nine collections, including
Controlled Hallucinations (2013) and Disinheritance (2016). A five-time
Pushcart nominee and winner of the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review
Poetry Contest, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry,
John serves as editor of The
Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing
credits include: The Midwest Quarterly,
december, Third Coast, Baltimore
Review, Nimrod International Journal,
Hotel Amerika, Rio Grande Review, Inkwell, Cider Press Review, Bryant Literary Review, RHINO,
and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
For More Information
- Visit John Sibley Williams’ website.
- Connect with John on Facebook.
- Find out more about John at Goodreads.
About the Book:
A lyrical, philosophical, and tender exploration of the
various voices of grief, including those of the broken, the healing, the
son-become-father, and the dead, Disinheritance
acknowledges loss while celebrating the uncertainty of a world in constant
revision. From the concrete consequences of each
For More Information
Q: Welcome to The Writer's
Life! Now that your book has been
published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the
beginning? Where did you come up with
the idea to write your book?
Disinheritance was inspired by a few
pivotal moments that occurred within a few months of each other, namely the
illness and passing of my mother, a terrible miscarriage, and my wife and I’s
struggles to move forward and redefine the landscape of “family”. To explore
grief more fully in this collection, I adopted various unique voices, like
those of our miscarried child, the hypothetical boy he might have grown up to
be, my mother in her last moments, and my wife as she struggled to cope.
So Disinheritance shows a far more
personal side than most of my poetry, though I hope the poems speak to larger,
universal human concerns about how we approach mortality and what roles we play
in each other’s’ lives.
Q: How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have
any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other
writers?
Most of my
work is not overly narrative or overly personal, so it was an exciting
challenge to write from a part of my heart still raw and healing. While writing
these poems, I often struggled with how much real life information I should
include vs. how much I should leave unsaid, how many details vs. how much
ambiguity. As every reader has her own experiences to contend with and
approaches the world from her own unique vantage point, there’s always that
nagging challenge of finding the right balance between being true to my own
experiences and being true to the experiences of total strangers. How can a
poem be both personal and universal? I suppose that is always a significant
(and fun) challenge, though all the more so with this collection.
For other
writers attempting this journey who are faced with this question, I supposed
I’d say two things: 1) trust your gut while writing, and then 2) have a trusted
group of writers review it before sending anything out to a magazine,
publisher, or agent. If a number of readers don’t understand a certain image,
then maybe that image is too personal to you and should be revised to be
clearer. In the end, the balance you strike between personal and universal will
be right as long as you remain true to yourself while also heeding the advice
of readers.
Q: Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did
you self-publish?
Unfortunately, there
are only a handful of big poetry publishers, so mid-size and small presses are
really the best fit for poets who are not seeking self-publishing. My previous
chapbooks and my debut full length collection were all published by small
presses staffed by passionate editors. I feel very lucky to have worked with
them. For this new collection, Disinheritance,
I sought a slightly more prominent press, and I was honored to be accepted by
Apprentice House Press, a great publisher run by Loyola University.
Q: What other books (if any) are you
working on and when will they be published?
I have
just completed a new book, Skin Memory,
which I’m currently pitching to publishers and submitting to book awards. Skin Memory is a collection of free
verse and prose poems that tackle some of the same themes in Disinheritance, including family, grief,
and American culture, while adding a slightly harder edge, risking a bit more
personally and creatively, and exploring in a deeper way those fears and joys
that haunt me.
Q: What’s one fact about your book
that would surprise people?
What an interesting question. I
think what surprises most readers of narrative poetry is that the I is not always the actual poet’s voice.
I cannot tell you how many times a reader or someone at an event has asked me
personal questions or passed on their condolences purely based on a situation
in one of my poems. But the narrator is not always the poet, and in Disinheritance I adopt a number of
unique voices. In some cases, I am writing from my ailing mother’s perspective
or I am trying to place myself in a dead child’s mind. The I voice that echoes across these poems belongs to them. In a way,
they are characters, as in a novel. I’m trying to inhabit their space, to
invent a reality for them, and to give them a voice.
Pablo Picasso has an amazing
quote that I feel beautifully summarizes my rather long-winded explanation: Art
is not the truth; art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Q: Finally, what message (if any)
are you trying to get across with your book?
I wouldn’t say I have a
particular message, but, above all else, I hope readers are moved both
emotionally and perceptually in a way that helps them reexamine their own
mortality, their own relationships, their own fears and joys and wounds. Though
we all have different backgrounds and experiences, still we share the same
basic needs, and we fear many of the same things. My goal was to write a
collection of particularly intimate poems that speaks to these universally
shared emotions. And perhaps these poems will help those readers who are
grieving or who haven’t yet discovered the language of grief. I hope Disinheritance helps them find that
language.
Q: Thank you again for this
interview! Do you have any final words?
I’d hate to waste my
final words talking about myself, so, if I may, I’d like to give a little
advice to new authors.
There’s a reason
“keep writing, keep reading” has become clichéd advice for emerging writers;
it’s absolutely true. You need to study as many books as possible from authors
of various genres and from various countries. Listen to their voices. Watch how
they manipulate and celebrate language. Delve deep into their themes and
characters and take notes on the stylistic, structural, and linguistic tools
they employ. And never, ever stop writing. Write every free moment you have.
Bring a notebook and pen everywhere you go (and I mean everywhere). It’s okay if you’re only taking notes. Notes are
critical. It’s okay if that first book doesn’t find a publisher. There will be
more books to come. And it’s okay if those first poems aren’t all that great.
You have a lifetime to grow as a writer.
Do we write to be
cool, to be popular, to make money? We write because we have to, because we
love crafting stories and poems, because stringing words together into meaning
is one of life’s true joys. So rejections are par for the course. Writing poems
or stories that just aren’t as strong as they could be is par for the course.
But we must all retain that burning passion for language and storytelling. That
flame is what keeps us maturing as writers.
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