I read somewhere that you were, “working on a series of poems in the 'voices' of historical Indiana women.” I’m not sure when this comment was written, but I wonder what came of that project. What are you currently working on?

SW: I’m currently working on two different projects. The first is a collaborative project with an artist. We’re putting together a book of his paintings of Indiana landscapes with my poems about sacred places throughout the state (places like Turkey Run State Park, the Levi Coffin House and Angel Mounds). My second project involves writing a group of persona poems in the voices of historical women and men who have a connection to Indiana, people like John Chapman, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Slocum, Alice Gray, etc. I’ve been fortunate to receive fellowships that have helped me in the research and travel necessary for these two projects. A Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis supported part of the first project, while two grants from the Indiana Arts Commission have helped with expenses involving the second.


Briefly share your definition of what poetry is. Also, what do you consider to be the elements of poetry that determine whether it is “good” or not?

SW: Poetry is essentially the language of mythology. It reaches from the conscious into the unconscious to retrieve those symbols that connect our personal experience to the universal. But it does this with its eyes closed reaching intuitively and with trust.

Good poetry has strong wings and soars off the page. It was born from darkness and returns to its nest.


When did you start writing poetry, and when did you realize that you would always to write poetry?

SW: My first poem was an illustrated persona poem that I wrote in second grade. I was a sidewalk and felt sad because people were walking all over me. . . But that poem was written for a school assignment. I really began feeling an authentic urge to write poetry during my eighth grade year in East Africa. The Somali desert was vast and desolate . . . and I felt a great desire to paint its beauty with words.

When I came back to Indiana and still felt the strong need to write poems, that’s when I knew I’d keep writing.


Who are you writing for? What audience is reading your poetry? What audience do you hope to be directing your work toward, or do you think the audience should be considered at all?

SW: My first audience is myself. If I knew no one but me would ever read my poems, I would still write them. I love the process of writing, the excitement of finding the word that has just the right sound and sense. And I appreciate how writing poems helps me to find meaning from experience and to connect my inner life with the exterior world. But I also am aware of writing for a larger audience, too—people who read my poems in a magazine or in a book or who come to hear them at a reading.

When I write I’m aware that I’m writing for an audience, but my allegiance is to the poem. I always feel that the poem already exists, and I just have to “find” it—the way a sculptor believes the statue is in the stone.


This may go along with the previous question. How would you say your time in Africa and other countries, along with Mennonite background, effects your poetry?

SW: I think the Mennonite value of simplicity has influenced my writing style: I work hard at weeding out words that don’t pull their weight, and I tend to favor archetypal words over fancy words that “show off.” My Mennonite background, with its value on community, has probably also influenced the outward search of my poems, how I always seem to be looking for connections between individuals or between the past and the present, humans and the natural world, or even the dead and the living.

I’ve been extremely blessed to have spent time in several third world countries (Somalia, Kenya, Honduras and Haiti), as well as several years in a Choctaw community in Louisiana. Not only has this time caused me to see America culture from other perspectives, but it has influenced my beliefs on a deep level. I connect with many of the values of “tribal societies”—the sacredness of the earth, the connection between the dead and the living, the wisdom of dreams, to just name a few.


Over the years that you have written, how has your poetry changed? Have you seen your poetry go through different stages?

SWi: My favorite subject matter hasn’t really changed over the course of time. As a young poet, I liked writing about nature and I also enjoyed using personas. My current projects reflect both of these interests. But I am a much more prolific writer now and my attitude toward finding subject matter has certainly changed. I used to wait until a poem knocked at my door, begging to come in— now I go out and invite it home with me.

Another change is that my chief focus when I began writing poetry was with imagery, but now I am just as concerned about the sound and rhythm of words and how the music of the poem reinforces its meaning.