A Conversation with Ona Gritz

Ona Gritz: I’m so happy to get to talk to you, Mark. I want to start by mentioning that, just this morning, I was chatting with Donna Hilbert, a poet I wouldn’t know, and whose work I wouldn’t know, if it wasn’t for ONE ART. We were agreeing that what you created isn’t just a wonderful poetry journal—as though that wouldn’t be enough!—but a community. So, thank you for that and for being the amazing friend and literary citizen that you are.

Mark Danowsky: This is so sweet. I never expect to hear that I actually come up in conversation. Maybe everyone thinks this way? Donna is wonderful! She has been amazingly enthusiastic about ONE ART since the early days and I'm delighted that she's able to consistently create such high-quality work to be a regular contributor. 

Your poetic eye, the associations you draw from and draw together, your poems truly do "make it new" and provide such powerful takeaways for readers. Your poetry is a gentle force. 

Can you tell me what has been on your mind lately? What projects are you working on and how do they fit into the narrative of what we're going through as a society (including global concerns)?

OG: Thank you, Mark! I love that you see my poems as a gentle force. That idea, that seeming contradiction, fits with my thoughts about how my work connects with what we're going through at this time in our history. I think what we've lost in recent years, or maybe more accurately, what we've been shown to have been missing, is an awareness of each other's humanity. The divisive figures, orange and otherwise, who've managed to come into power feed on our fears about people who we perceive as somehow other. But poetry--along with art in all its forms--gently, forcefully keeps reminding us that otherness is an illusion. My own writing, regardless of genre, generally grows out of my daily experiences. That's the only way I know to write and I can sometimes question whether something so personal will be of any value to others. But what I always come back to is William Carlos Williams' idea that "The local is the only universal." If we're willing, in our work, to show ourselves--our messy, vulnerable, deeply flawed human selves, readers will see something of themselves there and the distance that the dividers are counting will melt away. I see reading as a deeply intimate act. You're literally quieting your own mind's voice to make a space for the thoughts of another. What an honor it is then to be the writer being read. And what great responsibility. I'm not a scholar, so I can't necessarily offer brilliant insights on the page. But I can offer honesty. I can show you my soft underbelly in the hope that you, or someone, will see it and feel seen. 

As for my current projects, I have a lot out on submission right now--a memoir and two young adult projects, one that is written and one that I'll get to write if the proposal is accepted. I also have a novel for children coming out in February [August of Forever], so part of my work right now is ushering that book into the world and into the hands of kids it will speak to. I also have the great honor of curating a book honoring my beloved poetry mentor, Sharon Olds. I studied with Sharon many years ago at NYU and now am gathering essays, and a few poems, by the many of us who have learned and been changed by her presence and her poems. One of the lovely side effects of immersing myself in Sharon's work and that of the contributors is that I find myself writing more poems.

MD: I love that WCW quote. I’m a bit shocked and embarrassed to admit I do not recall previously coming across it. The concept is well-known to me and I’ve written about it elsewhere. It’s surprising how making a poem more particular actually, in turn, makes it more universal; that is, talking specifics about your life and experiences makes a reader more able to connect with what you’re communicating than if you talk in vague abstractions or platitudes.

You do offer openness and receptivity in your writing. I’m noting the words you use: intimate, responsibility, honesty, flawed, vulnerable, hope, and the concept of being seen. A friend of mine recently mentioned Brené Brown and so just last night I watched her TedTalk on The Power of Vulnerability. I’m not sure I buy into all of what Brown discusses; however, I will say that I agree about the importance of moving through the world open and vulnerable. I think this is almost a requirement for poets. Poets need to have a bit of Peter Pan Syndrome. It’s so important to remain curious and receptive and allow for the flow of a wide range of associative material to flood in and out of your mind.

Can you discuss how you developed an interest in writing for younger audiences?

Wow, that is an honor to write about your mentor. Can you talk about what it was like to study with Sharon Olds? I’m curious about the little things. What was it like in workshop? Little pet peeves, ways of engaging with students—what sticks out in memory years later?

OG: My interest in writing for young audiences grew, in part, from the place books had in my life as a child and teenager. From the time I was about ten years old, I read as a way to understand myself as much as to understand others. I wasn't one to travel great distances in my reading or to other worlds. What I loved was the inner lives of characters on the page, the incredible intimacy of witnessing the workings of another person's mind and heart. I was lucky to have really nice friends growing up, but books offered a different kind of friendship. They helped me find words for what otherwise felt unsayable inside me, which I found deeply assuring. I remember having the thought, when I was twelve or thirteen, that what I most wanted to do with my life was write books for kids like me. I returned to this idea, interestingly, soon after completing my MFA in poetry. I'd made my first friend who had a disability similar to mine and I found myself imagining what it would have been like if we'd met back in middle school. It struck me as a promising premise for a children's novel, so I wrote a draft. That book didn't come to fruition, but in the process of teaching myself to write it, I started reading children's literature and fell in love with it as a genre. The books I was most drawn to had a lot in common with poetry. They were spare, lyrical, and wise. I also fell back in love with YA books for their voice, their verve, and how compelling the stories could be. When Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust came out--a novel for teens written in poems!--I was thrilled, and also a bit mad at myself for not thinking of it first. Add to all this that children and teenagers are among my favorite people. Until recently I worked in public libraries as a youth librarian. What a joy to read to kids or put the right book in the hands of a teenager who needed it.

Now, back to grad school and Sharon. My first experience with her was through a program she led, bringing students into a chronic care hospital to assist patients who were taking her poetry workshop there. This was my first year at NYU when studying with Sharon wasn't an option--her workshop and Galway Kinnell's were reserved for second year students--and the truth is, I initially signed on to work at Goldwater Hospital as a way to be around her. The program turned out to be life altering to me--as a poet, a teacher, a person with a disability--and part of that was Sharon. She's so porous and honest and reflective, not to mention compassionate. It affected how I took in the experience. I think that's what our most important teachers do for us. They model a way of being. And while I was working with her--getting to see her teach, witnessing the care and utter respect she showed the Goldwater writers--many of whom couldn't speak or move, many of whom were there due to violence or self-harm--I was reading her remarkable poems. The Dead and the Living had recently come out and I never knew poetry could be so accessible, intimate, original, and addicting. I couldn't put the book down. I'd read it to the end and just start all over from the beginning. There was nothing she wouldn't write about. Nothing was too private or too mundane. And it was all about seeing. Looking and looking, peeling away at layers, refusing to look away. "Write about what scares you." That was a prompt I remember her giving at Goldwater. She was this sweet, gentle person and she was also fearless. It was thrilling to be around. When my second year came, I was disappointed to discover that you could either take Sharon's workshop or Galway's, not both. He'd come to read at my college and was the reason I applied to NYU, so it was a hard choice to make. What I decided to do was to ask Sharon to be my thesis advisor and take Galway's workshop as a way to have both. So my time with Sharon was all one-on-one. She'd read my poems and let me know what she thought I got right. Any suggestions for changes were with a light hand. She'd point out an unnecessary word or offer an idea on how to tighten a line. I studied with Ruth Stone while I was there too and they had that in common. They'd nurture the poems out of their students. Make us feel like we already knew what we were doing, which gave us something to reach toward and live up to. It was an incredible gift.

MD: It seems notable that you mentioned getting your MFA in poetry and, almost in the same breath, returning to a childhood desire to write books for kids like you. There is often talk about how the MFA leads poets to write “McPoems” (Donald Hall) or, in other ways, fall in line with becoming, for the most part, an effective member of the literary elite who are able to navigate the requirements of what it takes to remain in academia. A few questions embedded in here are the value of your MFA, keeping yourself on track and not “losing yourself” to the anxiety of influence (in a Harold Bloom sense) while studying with MFA mentors, as well as remaining on a trajectory aligned with what feels truly meaningful (writing books for kids like you). Hoping you are open to elaborating.

Libraries are wonderful spaces. Although, as an outsider who knows my fair share of librarians, I know a few of the dirty details. I know it’s not just a peaceful, serene space for the best of us to lose ourselves in worlds of language. What were a few more of your favorite parts of being a librarian?

What you said about selecting Sharon as your thesis advisor to provide you with the opportunity to study with Galway seems smart and a good lesson for MFA students. What other advice would you give MFA students?

I attended a virtual event, in 2020, hosted by Copper Canyon, honoring June Jordan and Ruth Stone that was powerful. That was my first experience with her work. Additionally, I was impressed to see how much work had gone into preserving her work, life, and ambitions.

OG: I'm happy to talk some more about my experience as an MFA student. I think I was very lucky in that I never felt like my mentors at NYU were attempting to teach us to write the way they wrote, which is how I'm interpreting Donald Hall's phrase "McPoems." I had that experience earlier, at Naropa in Colorado,  where I studied with some of the beat poets over a couple of summers as an undergrad. There I definitely felt like the poet teachers believed there was one style that was worthwhile in contemporary poetry and we should all emulate it. But at NYU I felt the teachers were reading each of our poems carefully and offering advice toward making those poems their best selves. There was a push toward candor, toward emotional bravery, but that resonated with what I wanted to do in my work and with what I loved about theirs. Maybe it's more that I'd found my aesthetic and just the right teachers to nurture it. Another way I was lucky was that I didn't think much about academia. I hadn't ruled out going on to teach. In fact, I stayed on for a couple of years as an adjunct, but I didn't like all the homework involved in teaching, the grading and prep. Even though I only taught a few hours a week, I felt like there was never not something I should be doing for work. That's what eventually led me to libraries. As a librarian, I got to be creative on the job, and when the day was over, it was over. As for Bloom's anxiety of influence, I've never worried about that. Reading is such an important aspect of a writing life. Whether or not I get to meet you in the classroom, I like to think we are all in conversation with each other.

There is a lot to love about being a librarian. I love that public libraries, which is where I always worked, are equalizers--that the richest person in town and someone who can't afford a home at the moment are entitled to the exact same services. I love momentary encounters with strangers that are informed by books. An example--once, when I was still new to the job, a woman came in who had just had a baby. This was her first outing without him and as she told me this, she mentioned that she could smell him on herself. She was looking for a quote to include in the birth announcement, but not from a book of quotes like Bartlett's, something more personal. I remember showing her poems by Galway Kinnell about the birth of his son and they turned out to be just the right thing. They made us both tear up. Mostly though, I loved youth services. Showing a high school class around the library, giving brief talks to them about particular books, telling them just enough to get them hooked, like in a trailer to a film. Having teenagers come every year during poetry month to read their favorite poems. Reading and singing to the little ones. 

As for advice I'd offer to MFA students, if you find yourself feeling like you're in a competition then you're either in the wrong program, or you've gotten caught up in comparison thinking. It's such a gift to be in community with other writers. To have writing so high on your to-do list. It's brief. Two years, two and a half. Savor it.

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Ona Gritz is an award-winning poet, essayist, and children’s author. Her books include Geode, a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award, On the Whole: a Story of Mothering and Disability, Present Imperfect: Essays, and, August or Forever, a middle grade novel, just released by Fitzroy Books. A long-time columnist for Literary Mama, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Utne Reader, Ploughshares, The Bellevue Literary Review, Brevity, One Art, River Teeth, and has been widely anthologized. Ona’s picture book, Tangerines and Tea, My Grandparents and Me, was named Best Alphabet Book of 2005 by Nick Jr. Family Magazine, and a Best Book of the Year by Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine. Among her recent honors are two Notable mentions in The Best American Essays, a Best Life Story in Salon, and a winning entry in The Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020 Project. Ona lives with her family in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. She teaches creative writing to teenagers with disabilities through the Numberless Dreams Project sponsored by Syracuse University and the Downtown Writers' Center.

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Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry.

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