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mary kasimor

I have always wanted to be a writer -- ever since I was a little girl. I grew up in the 50's and 60's, during a time when girls and women were quite limited in what they could do. I was always encouraged to do well in school and to read. Reading is one thing that everyone in my family did, and it was encouraged by both my parents. Going to college was also a no-brainer; although the reasons for college were not so much to learn a profession as to become a well rounded woman. I think that there was a tacit understanding that I would marry and have children, stay home, etc. That was not a direction that I wanted to take. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but marriage and family were not included in my dreams when I was in high school, college, and in my twenties. And I was an angry young woman. Somewhere along the way, I stumbled into writing poetry, and it enchanted me. I graduated with a humble BA in English, knowing that there was very little that I could do with that. I found my hometown (St. Cloud, Minnesota) stifling and badly needed to get away. I took off to the west coast -- specifically Portland, Oregon. I had friends who invited me to come out and stay with them, so I lived in Portland for about three years. I did love Portland -- I loved the rain and the lush vegetation -- and the anonymity. I worked as a waitress, was promiscuous, drank a great deal, and wrote poetry.

There was a great deal of change going on when I was in college. It was during the Vietnam War, the Second Wave of the Feminist Movement, and people who had been discriminated against demanding equality. It was a difficult time to grow up, but it was also very exhilarating. There were very few role models for women, and very few women poets that I knew about. I did not read the academic poets, but became very interested in the confessional poets -- who else but Sylvia Plath and Ann Sexton. Their language was very alive -- filled with images. Although I do not write like them, at the time they were good poets to begin using as models. Now there are so many wonderful women poets, and I don’t think that gender is important if a woman poet wants to get her work published. When I was first trying to get published in the 70s, it was difficult to get published. You had to be either well recognized or the latest poetry sensation. The internet has changed publishing very much. So many good journals are now online.

In my early thirties, I became very bored with the poetry that I was writing, and as a result I quit writing for about ten years. I also had children, divorced my husband, and was too busy raising my children to really care about writing poetry. I read many novels during that time, and I did not read much poetry. Then something happened to me -- or a number of things happened to me that propelled me back into writing. I had a love affair that went bad, and my children were starting to become more self-sufficient. I also realized that I had gotten myself back after so many years -- even the painful relationship seemed to be proof that I had become self-sufficient, so I began writing again. I am self-taught and do not adhere to a "school" of poetry. I have been influenced by Barbara Guest, Frank O'Hara, Gary Snyder, Sylvia Plath (when I was very young and angry), Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, and even the young and wonderful writers like Eleni Sikelianos, Martin Corless-Smith, Rodrigo Toscano, and many more.

I change my style within and between poems because I know that I can get bored and bogged down in formulas -- and that is really quite funny when I realize the complexity of writing about emotions and ideas, and then having to think about language, syntax, rhythm, imagery, etc., also. Every time I write a poem, I feel as though I am writing poetry for the first time -- always searching for something and never quite sure what it is. I realize that I am always listening and thinking about words and word arrangements. I sometimes eavesdrop on people just to hear the peculiarity of their conversations, hoping to incorporate that into my poetry.

A more current mentor, Helene Cixous, a French feminist, also influenced me in the manner in which I write. She connects language and biology. For example, the male orgasm is linear and explosive; whereas, the female orgasm is multi-orgasmic and uncontained. She suggests that women should relearn their gender-based language. I write as a female and I am very aware of my gender. I was very angry when I was in my 20s. There were few women poets that were being published. Poetry seemed to be closed to women. I have always tried to push my limitations. I have to continue trying different things. The poetry that I wrote about 10 years ago was more female or feminist than what I am writing now, but I am still aware of all the issues of being a woman. I think that those ten year-old poems took on the persona of a statue, and as I observed it, I asked myself to imagine what it was and its purpose. Now I try to explore experience through image, language, and the unstable qualities of language, and I rarely write about the pain of being a woman, or being a non-person because I am fine with what I am. It probably has much to do with coming to terms with my life as a woman in my mid-50's. My poetry seems to be more about exploring existence of the secular and the sacred -- this is what the essence of poetry is about, I think

I live about 70 miles north of Minneapolis (in Minnesota). If I lived in Minneapolis, I would have a community of poets. I live in St. Cloud, and that is a small city, with music, theater, and art. Actually, I grew up in St. Cloud. I always felt as though I was living in Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street. I always had a crazy love/hate relationship with this community. I felt very exposed and embarrassed about living here, and as often as I fled from St. Cloud, I always returned. I don’t know if how I felt was unusual, but I do remember beating my fists against an invisible wall. When my children were small and I was raising them on my own, I did not want to leave what I knew was safe and secure for my kids; therefore, I stayed. It feels much better to me now. It is unbelievably more diverse, and it does have several colleges and universities. However, as a small city, it is somewhat limited -- of course, the poetry community is very small and traditional. I call it “grandma’s rhubarb pie” poetry. I am very isolated, and that can be both good and bad. I don't need to write for anyone but myself. I assume that few people are interested in what I am doing, and I don't expect them to be interested. I feel foolish when I show my colleagues or my family what I write. Therefore, I write for myself, and there is no possibility of ever taking poetry for granted here because I have to want to write it to make it happen.

I am also very happy when someone wants to publish my poetry. That is wonderful, although it is not the most important reason why I write.