By Annie Newcomer:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café features the work of poets from around the globe. It is an honor to share their work and learn more about their lives, influences, and love of poetry.
This week, we feature the work of Natalie Wolf!
Natalie Wolf is a writer from the Kansas City area and currently pursuing an MFA in fiction writing at the University of Kansas. She is an editor for Ambidextrous Bloodhound Press and a former co-editor and co-founder of Spark to Flame Journal. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in Popshot Quarterly, The Hooghly Review, I-70 Review, JAKE, and more. To find out more about Natalie Wolf, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.
We reached out to Natalie to talk about her poetry, influences, and inspirations.
Please meet Natalie Wolf!
Annie Newcomer: Welcome to our poetry café, Natalie. Usually I try not to repeat questions when I fashion interviews, but lately I am fixed on one question that I love asking all our poets that generally leads to interesting responses. So here goes: "Natalie, what is your literary superpower?"
Natalie Wolf: That’s a fun question; I can see why you repeat it! I’m not sure if this counts as a superpower, but I feel like I can weave humor into my writing in ways that make me happy. This may pop up more in my fiction writing, but I do also write some humorous poetry.
AN: You are currently in an MFA Program for Fiction at the University of Kansas, and yet you and I met through poetry. Are all students in collegiate creative writing programs required to take poetry? How is poetry natural for a fiction writer, and how is it difficult? Is it like switching between two different languages? Do these two forms—fiction and poetry— compliment each other?
NW: So, I got my BA in Creative Writing at Kansas State University. And at K-State, undergraduate creative writing majors are required to take writing classes in two genres (fiction, poetry, or nonfiction). I was originally enrolled to take nonfiction writing, having told myself it was more practical than poetry. However, I had been interested in poetry writing for a long time and ended up switching to a poetry class right before the semester started.
For me, writing fiction and poetry isn’t so much like switching between languages but more like switching between dialects.
They certainly are very different processes. For myself, fiction writing usually involves a lot more plotting, a lot more planning things out. And as someone accustomed to writing in a longer form, the more limited word count in poetry can still feel constraining at times. Then again, I know that it’s good practice for me to write more concisely! All that said, there’s certainly still overlap between the two genres, at least for myself. Many of my poems are rather narrative, and I find poetic language seeping into my fiction writing.
AN: Recently, my daughter showed me an app for my phone that measures my steps. Now I am walking around the block, going extra distances, asking the dog if he wants to join me, and setting goals. What drives you to set new goals with your poetry writing other than being in grad school?
NW: Ooh, fun! I love step-counting apps. And there are a few different things that drive me to set new goals in poetry writing. I want to write poems that I’m proud of, and to try new and interesting forms and techniques. When I read poetry, I’m often awed by the beauty and craft of others’ work, and I want to work to write poetry that reaches for that level. I also want to write poems that have an impact on people, like how the poems that I read have impacted me.
I would love to write poems that make people pause, and lose their breath for a second, and come to some new realization, see something common in a new way.
Poems that slap you in the face (in a good way) and pull you in with their imagery. I have no idea if I’ll ever get there (it feels a little stuck-up to even consider it), but I’d love to try. Finally, I enjoy submitting poems to journals, and if I don’t keep writing new work, I won’t have anything to submit!
AN: You describe yourself as a poet of everyday magic. How do you personally describe "magic"? There is a quote by William Blake that I love, "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." What tools do you most rely on in your writing to help the reader see the tree "poetically"?
NW: I would personally describe magic as something that breaks the rules of everyday life, that does what we know to be technically impossible. I do associate it with traditional ideas and concepts from fantasy stories (spells, fairies, etc.). When I think about magic in my writing, I’m often thinking of a joyful magic, although there is, of course, nefarious magic as well. I also think of it as seeing the beauty and fun and wonder in the everyday, looking at the world through a magical lens. In that sense, I feel like there is, or can be, magic around us all the time. In terms of tools, I enjoy using vocabulary with magical and whimsical connotations to bring out the magical in the ordinary. Thesaurus.com is one of my best friends. I also think that it can be fun to bring actual elements of fantasy into poems that would otherwise be more realistic. Can my grandmother be a mermaid? Absolutely. Can the squirrels down the street be capable of human conversation? Why the heck not?
AN: You mentioned that one of the poems that you will share with our readers, "Childhood Flight," was one of the first that you ever wrote in a class, and you mentioned that originally it was several pages. Can you share a little about your editing process and why editing is so important to a writer and critical to shaping the piece? And, in your world, what happens to the pages you cut?
NW: Yes, the first two poems that I wrote for that class were SO long. Brevity was not my strong suit! And it depends on the piece, but often I’ll just have some ideas and write them all down on a page. Then I’ll go back later (often a while later, months or even years), read back through what I’ve written, cut out things that I’m not happy with, add in new material, and rearrange pieces. This is often a process that I will go through multiple times with the same poem over a process of, again, months or years. I’ll often end up with a poem that’s mostly finished, but I don’t know how to end it. And then I’ll have to think and come back to it later, when I have figured out the ending. Sometimes I do write out a poem in one sitting and only make minimal edits later on, but I’d say that’s less common.
For myself, I feel like my ideas sometimes need time to sit, so that I can come back to them later with a fresh eye and think about what I really want to do, how the different pieces fit together, what’s working and what’s not, and what else the poem needs. And whenever I start a new edit of a poem, I just do a page break at the top of my Google Doc, copy and paste the poem on the new page, and start editing that version. That is to say, the cut pages live on at the bottom of each document, even if no one ever looks at them again. I’m a bit of a hoarder.
AN: Recently, we saw each other at a reading in Lawrence, Kansas (one of the homes of the celebrated Langston Hughes). Ocean Vuong was the guest poet. He read an inaugural poem to the audience but, specifically, he was in conversation with Chloé Cooper Jones where he shared his concepts on writing poetry. So all eyes were on him. But my question is this: What line of questioning brought you the answers you sought from Ocean Vuong that night?
NW: Hmm, I’m not sure that I came to the event seeking answers to any particular questions. I had heard many positive things about Ocean Vuong and his work, and I had previously enjoyed attending another event with Chloé Cooper Jones at the Kansas Book Festival last year. I more just wanted to hear whatever they would share with us; I knew it would be wonderful. And it was! One comment that stands out to me was when Ocean Vuong said that he hopes readers learn more about themselves when they read his writing. That made me start thinking about ways that I could try to bring that concept to my own writing as well. And it also made me excited to read more of Ocean Vuong’s work!
AN: Through watching his YouTube presentations, I learned that Ocean Vuong advises that a community of writers takes time to know one another before members critique each other. What do you look for in community-type workshops?
NW: I hadn’t heard that; that’s such a nice idea! I imagine that it would help in both that the writers know more about each other’s personalities and writing styles and that you might be more open to someone’s feedback when you’ve built a personal connection with them. I personally appreciate workshop environments where participants offer both positive and constructive feedback, while making sure to keep the writer’s vision in mind. While I respect the utility of workshops that offer purely positive feedback, I find it most helpful for myself to also learn about what may not be working well with a piece or anything that left readers confused. However, I still think that constructive feedback should be presented in a way that is kind and supportive. Workshop participants should leave feeling excited to revise their work, not cut down or dejected due to unnecessary criticism.
AN: I love the quote by Rumi "What you seek is seeking you." Natalie, what are you seeking through your journey in poetry? And tell us a little about how you got started on this path.
NW: That’s a lovely quote! Like I briefly mentioned earlier, I really got into poetry after taking a poetry-writing workshop in college. Up until that point, I had mostly been intimidated by poetry. However, I had had a nagging interest in poetry writing for a long time. I had all these words running around in my head, and I thought that poetry writing might be a creative and productive way for me to get them out and do something with them. I was also interested in poetry in part from having watched spoken-word poetry videos by Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye in high school. Their poem “When Love Arrives” can still make me cry.
Then after I took that first college poetry workshop, I was hooked. My professor, Dr. Traci Brimhall, is without a doubt the world’s raddest poetry coach, and a fantastic poet herself. Her enthusiasm for poetry was infectious and made us, as her students, excited too. She showed us that poetry didn’t have to be scary, and that it could, in fact, be quite fun. Then in my second poetry-writing class, also with Dr. Brimhall, we were required to research literary journals and submit to one. I kept writing poetry and submitting to journals after I graduated, and this helped to keep me connected to a poetic community.
As for what I’m seeking through poetry, I often use poetry writing as a way to process emotions and life events. Sometimes that generates actual poems, and sometimes I just end up with more random poetry tidbits in my Google Drive (maybe I’ll be able to use some of them in poems later, we’ll see). But either way, the process is helpful for me, personally. I would say that I am also seeking beauty, and, if not some sort of truth, new revelations and insights in both reading and writing poems. And also fun! I love reading and writing fun and funny poems. Obviously, not every poem has to or should be fun/funny, but lighthearted and humorous poetry does bring me a great deal of joy.
AN: In our discussions, you brought up the topic of speculative poetry. Please explain to our readers what makes up this genre and why you like it.
NW: Well, as a fiction writer, I write a lot of speculative fiction, which can be defined as fiction that includes elements that don’t occur in real life. It can include fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc. Speculative poetry would be basically the same thing, but in poetic form. For example, I’ve written a good number of poems about the apocalypse. A lot of my poetry is narrative, which can fit well with speculative poetry writing. I’ve always enjoyed reading about fantastical worlds, things that wouldn’t be possible in real life. With all due respect to real life, I live it every day, and I think that it can be fun and freeing to use one’s imagination to contemplate other possibilities and realities. So it’s something that I enjoy bringing to my poetry writing as well.
AN: You are a very young poet. How do you bridge the gap with older poets such as myself?
NW: Honestly, I think that the shared connection of poetry itself can be a great way to bridge generational gaps. Even if another poet and I don’t have much else in common, we can immediately connect over our love of poetry. We can discuss our favorite writers, the types of poems that we enjoy writing and reading, etc. I have learned so much from chatting and connecting with older poets at writing events. I’m just getting started, and there are so many people around me with much more experience in writing and just living. I love having the opportunity to connect with and learn from them.
AN: Thank you so much for stopping by the Flapper Press Poetry Café. We so look forward to introducing your poems to our readers.
NW: Thank YOU, Annie! I’m so honored to be interviewed.
Parents v. Internet
I feel like the internet
is making parents somewhat obsolete.
At least once their children reach a certain age.
Because eventually, most of their duties consist
of passing on generational knowledge –
how to change a tire,
how to file your taxes,
how to transplant flowers,
how to scrub out a stain,
how to write a resume,
how to make strudel –
and I can Google that.
But when I picture my grandmother’s hands
pulling dough into a window on the table,
slicing the tart apples ever so thin and
painting the crust with butter,
sprinkling the fruit with sugar and cinnamon
and twisting it all to warm and crinkle fresh in the oven,
I can’t help but feel that something is lost.
About the poem:
When I wrote this, I had either recently graduated from college or was about to graduate. I was thinking about how a lot of the life questions that I could ask my parents could also just be answered by a quick Google search. However, I was also contemplating the value of intergenerational knowledge and how Google can't necessarily summarize lived experience and interpersonal connection. And to be clear, I still do call my parents sometimes when I could just Google (it's nice to say hello).
Childhood Flight
I grew up on a highway, my backyard
a forest, not the middle of nowhere, past
the edges of the city, never so free
as a ten-year-old running, flying, ever
faster, always downhill, through
a million daisies and ruckus stones, sliding
through the mud slick between fruit trees,
planned and planted only to fall
to disarray, splashing in water rainbowed
with the thin oil of poison ivy, hiding toys
as secret bits of humanity in furrows
of dirt and mud, ice and water and sleet, sledding
narrowly between house and playground, the road
rushing to meet us and ready to bail
at a moment’s call, collecting hedge apples
and a deer’s lone antler, bright red berries with
cracked orange shells, hanging wedding bells
on the thickets of thorns carpeting hardy
trees, wandering through a winter wonderland
with inches of snow glittering
in every thought, running from dogs baying
in the forest, the one shot dead on the ground,
and thinking of how I’d one day
write of this moment, climbing the long snake
of logs piled ready to burn in the winter,
stretching onwards towards infinity – this
is the childhood I want to picture as
rough around the edges, tougher than
the city-dwellers, their suburban castles, she
is the girl I summon from within
to distinguish myself from those
who have never known true freedom,
and somewhere I am still running,
through the grasses and forest,
the mud and berries growing
wild on the slope, flying faster,
ever downhill, always
gaining speed.
About the poem:
This poem came from one of the first poems that I ever wrote in a poetry class, about playing in the woods as a kid. That poem was several pages long (brevity wasn't my strong suit), but I eventually edited it down to this.
Pleiades
They were sisters, all of them, little girls
dancing through the heavens like doves,
holding hands and laughing as they skipped
between asteroids. They’re part of Taurus,
and it’s no surprise that seven girls
would make up something so stubborn.
I’ve thought it could be fun
to have a sister, a ready-made best friend,
if I’m to believe the platitudes on mugs
and t-shirts. But I’m not sure if we’d be
skipping through the skies or bickering
at summer camp, and I picture her
soaking up all the attention and Barbies, being
a better version of myself, and I may not want
to watch the alternate endings.
My aunts congregate like constellations, sharing
wine at drag bars and throwing birthday bashes,
offering each other shelter when there’s nowhere
else to turn. They’ve scattered across the country,
but they still orbit around each other, skipping
through space with flights and phone calls.
The Pleiades are middle-aged now and deep blue,
the wrinkles in their skin glittering with neutrinos
and compiled wisdom. They never sleep, and
they spend the days powdering their faces
with moondust and gossiping about Orion
(the belt hasn’t fit him in ages). Electra
has been contemplating cosmic ray treatment
and Maia still tells that one story
about Mary Poppins over and over again.
As for me, I’ve assembled my own sisterhood,
weaving together friends I’ve encountered along
life’s path. We gossip about celebrities and our own
cats, fail to finish scrapbooks, gather together for tea
and pastries and talk about our futures, what we’ll do
when we’re old. I’m sure we’ve told the same stories
over and over again. Last year some of us went hiking
up ancient mountains adrift in legend and one day,
if we climb high enough, we just might reach the stars.
About the poem:
I don't have any sisters (although I have one lovely brother), and I've always wondered what sisterhood would be like. I have lots of aunts who often hang out and have fun together, so that was what I'd always pictured. I first read about the Pleiades constellation in a Mary Poppins book as a kid, and at some point these ideas all merged together in my head. This poem previously appeared in Popshot Quarterly.
Annie Klier Newcomer founded a not-for-profit, Kansas City Spirit, that served children in metropolitan Kansas for a decade. Annie volunteers in chess and poetry after-school programs in Kansas City, Missouri. She and her husband, David, and the staff of the Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens are working to develop The Emily Dickinson Garden in hopes of bringing art and poetry educational programs to their community. Annie helms the Flapper Press Poetry Café—dedicated to celebrating poets from around the world and to encouraging everyone to both read and write poetry!
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