Ask the Author: Lisa Stice
Answered Questions (6)
Lisa Stice
Throughout the month of January, I’ll be contributing to Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project. That means I and a small group of other poets will each be writing a poem a day for thirty days. These poems will be posted daily (I’ll share a link for that later). This project promotes poetry, discipline, and readership while serving as a fundraiser to make sure Tupelo Press can continue to publish books of poetry and other genres. You can help out by donating to the cause:
https://tupelopress.networkforgood.co...
https://tupelopress.networkforgood.co...
Lisa Stice
I'm excited for Fred Marchant's new poetry collection, Said Not Said. My big goal for this summer, though, is to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's In the First Circle; it's a long one, so it'll take a while.
Lisa Stice
I'm largely inspired by my daughter, dog, and husband and our military life. For Uniform, I also pulled inspiration from my own self-doubts and fears as a military spouse, from the long history of women left behind by war, and from Marine Corps laws, speeches, and congressional acts. About six months ago, I completed my second manuscript, which is largely inspired by my daughter, classic children's books, and Sun Tsu's The Art of War. For this third manuscript currently under progress, I continue to pull inspiration from my family and military life, but also gain inspiration from poets who wrote/write in times of military conflict.
Lisa Stice
I'm working on a new poetry collection inspired by our most recent PCS(permanent change of station - the orders military receive when assigned to a new duty station) and the effects of that cross-country move on my toddler daughter and on my dog. Childhood has so many natural changes as it is, and it becomes more complicated with the unexpected and imposed changes military life often carries. The poems deal with the meeting/clashing/commingling of childhood and military life. Many of the poems are dually inspired by children's books I read to my daughter (familiar classics I also heard as a child) and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Even those poems that don't incorporate children's stories and The Art of War are rooted in conflict. Some of those poems are currently submitted to journals, so you might see some in the near future.
Lisa Stice
For years, I completely avoided writing about my life as a military spouse. Mostly I was afraid: afraid my husband would be upset or give him extra things to worry about, afraid I would look like I didn't support my husband or the Marine Corps, afraid people would think I just wasn't strong enough to handle this sort of life. Uniform was mostly written during and shortly after my husband was on deployment. He left when our daughter was 6 months old and returned when she was a year old. Prior to the deployment, he was also gone a lot for trainings (one of them being 2 weeks after our daughter's birth). There were multiple events that happened during those trainings and that deployment that were especially difficult, one of them being the unexpected death of one of the wives. It could have been any of us. It was that event that gave me the strength to finally write what I had been holding inside. The poems just came gushing out. They needed to be written because I am not alone in these sorts of experiences. There are hundreds of thousands of military spouses, and there are millions of people who have spouses with jobs that take them away and with jobs that put their loved ones in harm's way. It's natural to worry, feel frustrated, have difficult times relating or transitioning. I know it's helped me open up and communicate more with my husband (and vice versa) because a lot of those fears of what he might think were just in my head.
Lisa Stice
Writer's block happens to everyone, and sometimes it's just a sign to take a little break and come back to writing later. When I do want to break that block, I'll turn to a prompt. Prompts are a great way to get the creativity flowing again and to get back into a poetic mindset. Even if I end up trashing a poem that comes about from a prompt, it can be that push into the poems that have been waiting for the page.
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