Interview with Meg Hartmann, Pomegranate Words editor, www.pomegranatewords.com

 

SB: Who are you?
Meg: I'm young, I live in New Jersey right now...I try to find ways to bring information to others, to make it more accessible and available. That's something that seems to tie together a lot of what I do. I have Pomegranate Words, which is about teaching, and then I also work in publishing.

SB: Whoa, a lot of stuff. How would you describe yourself in five words?
Meg: Patient, optimistic, creative, playful, and persistent,

SB: How about your writing?
Meg: Hmm...playful definitely, I went through a period where I really emulated Frank O'Hara, so I like his tongue-in-cheek style.

SB: In fact, why did you decide to write, instead of becoming a supermodel or Ninja Turtle?
Meg: When I was 8, I decided I wanted to write a book...I think I just thought it would be a neat thing to try to do. In high school I discovered how writing can help you emotionally, how it gives you a way to articulate your feelings. Then I fell for the joy of crafting something, as I wrote more and more I began to think about form and language and how they can be used and played with. That's probably what's kept me writing, even when part of me says: "haven't we done enough of this, isn't it time to try something else." I'm too short to be a supermodel anyway, and not photogenic at all. I liked the Ninja Turtles when I was a kid, but I never considered it as a career/life path. I'm not very aggressive.

SB: What accomplishment in writing are you most proud of?
Meg: My long poem, Unfolding, would probably be it. It took about a year of work and is the longest thing I've ever written, so it was a challenge to work on such a large scale, which is something at which I haven't always been successful.

SB: What's Unfolding about?
Meg: It's a sort of retelling of the Arachne myth, the one about the weaver who turns into a spider. Except my story takes place in this strange setting that seems to have some elements of modern society and some elements of a more medieval time.

SB: How far are you? What do you plan to do with it all once you're done?
Meg: ...I couldn't decide what time period I wanted it to be in, so I thought, why not keep both. It also has some prose sections interspersed throughout, about two lovers. It's actually finished, at least for the time being. I'm looking for places to submit it, but it's an awkward length. It's 45 pages, and competitions for chapbooks want you to have no more than 30, while those for books of poetry want you to have at least 50. So I'll probably need to do some tinkering.

SB: Do you think you'll shorten it or lengthen it?
Meg: Lengthening it would probably be easier...it's all set up so carefully that it's hard to think of doing anything at all, though.

SB: It seems you've put in a lot of energy into Unfolded. What other projects are you working on?
Meg: I'm currently working on a piece that may be another long poem. I think of it as "red vs. blue," which is hard to explain to people (one friend asked me: "Oh, is it patriotic?"). It seems to mean "longing vs. outrageousness." It's different fragments of several story lines mixed together...there's a boy traveling around the world, a woman who wants something she can't have, a business man visiting a natural history museum. What I'm trying to do in this one, which I wanted to do in Unfolding but wasn't successful at, is make the language do more work. I'm experimenting with playing around with syntax--mixing sentences around in interesting ways.

SB: You deal more with the sounds and the shapes and texture of words when you write. Is that a reason why you write? Because it's something no one has done before? What kind of reaction do you want from a reader?
Meg: Yes, absolutely. For me, poetry is about how you say something, not so much what you say. Although I would argue it's not something entirely new--poetry has always been that way, to some extent, though the rules for form were more set. I think there was the same awareness, but it manifested itself in different ways. And when you look at what people have done with poetry in the last 50, 100 years--it seems as if every crazy thing you could think of has been tried. My ideal reaction would be to make a reader catch his or her breath. Making someone laugh out loud would be nice too--I greatly admire poets who are able to make me do that.

SB: Do you rather call yourself a poet or a creative writer?
Meg: A poet...or maybe more of a teacher at this point--poet is something it's hard to be comfortable calling yourself.

SB: Why's that?
Meg: It feels a little pretentious...there's actually a quote "a poet is what other people call you, not what you call yourself." And my credits are very limited.

 

SB: What is Pomegranate Words? Why did you create it?
Meg: The goal of Pomegranate Words is to bring creative writing resources to kids who may not have those resources available to them in their schools. At my own high school, there were no creative writing classes. We would mainly read novels, but only for theme. Looking back on what we read, I think they were mainly just trying to instill certain values in us. We'd spend maybe a week on poetry a year, a couple creative writing assignments. I was lucky enough to get involved with the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins, and took correspondence courses in expository and creative writing though them. So Pomegranate Words sprang from a desire to do something like that, to offer that to more people.

SB: Why do you think writing is important for teenagers to learn?
Meg: Expressing yourself is obviously important, even if it's just in a purely practical capacity, like to instruct others or to market something. But I think the imaginative side of it is important too. You have thinking skills such as logic, and being able to dissect things rationally, but imagination is just as important for solving problems. You need to be able to see all your options, to "think outside the box" to find the best solution to a problem. You even use imagination in math--sometimes to get the solution you need to think about things differently. I think creative writing is one way people can learn to do that, to train that side of the brain.

SB: What plans do you have in the future for Pomegranate Words?
Meg: I'd like to eventually be able to offer all the classes for free...I'm looking into incorporating as a nonprofit, so that the site would be eligible for grants, although it has a long way to go before it gets to that point. Right now it's just a one-woman show, and I'd need to find a board of directors and probably go through this whole legal rigamorole. I'd like to bring on more teachers so I could offer a wide variety of classes. My experience in fiction is limited, so having a fiction writer to work with is on my wish list--but it's hard right now because the site runs at a loss, so whoever came in would have to put in a lot of effort for little compensation.

SB: How busy is the site now?
Meg: It seems that there's a small but steady stream of regular visitors--about 40-60 page hits a day. Right after I put up the winners to the monthly contest, it will shoot up to 120. I get about ten or so new entries a month right now [for the monthly contest]. It's growing, but very slowly.

SB: Where do you see the site in a year?
Meg: I hope to have brought some more people on-board by then--I'm trying to get out and meet other writers. I'd like to add more prizes to the contest--offer online bookstore gift certificates as well as the classes and critiques, maybe. I'd like to expand the book recommendation section.

SB: What do you love most about your site? What keeps you going?
Meg: It's fun to come up with a writing prompt each day, and I like having a little something new for people every time they visit. I've also been lucky enough to have some really good students so far for the classes, sometimes the quality of work will amaze me, or people will ask good questions that make me think, or look at things in a way I didn't expect. That's very rewarding, to get something back when you didn't necessarily expect to.

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