Ask the Author: Felicia Mitchell
Answered Questions (7)
Felicia Mitchell
It would not be a mystery if I answered the question here!
Felicia Mitchell
I don't really get blocked, but I can get lazy or hypercritical. If I need to find focus, I sometimes go musing in the woods or in an art museum.
Felicia Mitchell
This is a complicated question with many answers. I might say that it is helpful as I age to have so much written down, from the first poem I ever wrote at the age of six to a journal entry I wrote last night. It helps to give me perspective and to make sense of things. Writing for me is a documentary act so much of the time, even in lyric poems that document an emotion embodied in some real moment. I am a reclusive and shy person at times and hope that people who read my writing get past my shell (and soft, sweet voice) into a deeper, more complicated psyche residing in a simple human being. The exchange between reader and writer is a mode of communication.
Felicia Mitchell
Read a lot, write a lot, life your life. Learn to take criticism from people you trust. Believe in yourself, best you can.
Felicia Mitchell
I am working on a new collection of poems based on a common thread through my life story, sort of. (That sounds conceited, but I do hope it is more interesting than that.) I was inspired just be being born. Then a few years ago, to pay homage to my ancestors, I wrote "Happy Birthday" to myself in every contemporary language associated with all the people over generations (and centuries) residing on multiple continents whose lives conspired to put me in southwest Virginia at this point in time. I am in debt to these diverse people and try to make sense of why I, too, am on earth. I am also intrigued by stories that we know about our cultural and mythic past, stories that we can know, and stories that we cannot know but are influenced by nonetheless.
Felicia Mitchell
I live my life, open to what is in front of my and what I ponder about what is in the past. If I am blocked, I get out in the woods or into a museum.
Felicia Mitchell
Waltzing with Horses is a compilation of many poems about family, the natural world, and musings on life and death. I wrote it while helping my mother in the last years of her life and discovering the wonders of the natural world, especially hiking, as a way to balance the demands of caregiving. There are also poems, of course, about other relationships, especially my son, a constant through all challenges.
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