Following our review of Not Quite An Ocean, we spoke to Elizabeth M. Castillo about writing, water… and whether words should be left to do their own thing.

Daniel: In one of the opening poems, we read, ‘To write, dear lady, is to dig’. For how long were you digging Not Quite An Ocean… and what did you find?

Elizabeth: In all honesty I actually wasn’t digging at all! The opportunity arose to have a manuscript published with the wonderful Nines Pens Press, so I sort of gathered the few sundry poems I had out in the wilderness and tried to coax them into some sort of shape… to no avail!

Then I reached a point, probably a year ago, where I found myself feeling very exhausted from channelling so much of my energy into finding work opportunities and promoting my writing, without actually doing much actual creating. I was burnt out and craving renewal, and so I decided to take time off the aspects of indie publishing that were draining me, and focus on doing more writing.

D: I think this is something all writers feel at times!

E: I went through my notes, and found a good number of poem stubs… fragments, lines, images, I had jotted down to be made into something later. I set out determined to craft them into something, and was pleasantly surprised at how much material just seemed to flow out of me! ‘Love Song’, ‘In Summer I Am Beautiful’, ‘In Which Bertha Mason Cannot Sleep’, ‘Body, i love you’ and a few other poems were all conceived this way.

It was such a satisfying process… writing with the only constraint being that a complete poem needed to exist in the world once I was finished. I didn’t worry about form, or whether something like it already existed, or whether it was literary enough. I just wrote. And I ended up being very happy with the result.

D: That sounds like a liberating process! Your answer goes straight to the heart of the pros and cons of the publishing world: the chance to get your work read balanced against the pressures and time-drain of constantly seeking opportunities and submissions calls. Overall, how important would you say the lit mags that first published your poems are in the task of bringing together a collection like this?

E: Lit mags are so essential to the process! For writers, they are one of the first lines of confirmation that your work will appeal to readers. The way they showcase your work can also be helpful: I never considered my work particularly feminist until it was accepted and published alongside explicitly feminist pieces, for example.

They are also one of the first avenues by which your readers can find and engage with your work. Many places also do such an excellent job championing writers and their projects even outside the lit mag, by promoting their work on social media, or hosting readings, reviews, or interviews like this one. No indie writer has a publicist, an agent, or even a marketing budget, so we need all the help we can get.

Lit mags are so crucial in platforming of diverse voices in publishing. I remember being so discouraged when I first started looking for places to publish my poetry and seeing the same 10-15 names who had all been to the same five schools and been published by the same publishers… mostly white, mostly male, mostly from a social class that usually has the sort of disposable income that makes writing poetry a viable career choice because chances are you’re able to pay your bills from another financial source.

I don’t fit in to those genres in any respect, and am grateful for the lit mags out there that have introduced me to writers and artists like myself, who have stories to tell but very little space in which to tell them! If small presses are the vital organs of the indie publishing world, then lit mags are surely the lifeblood keeping the whole machine working properly.

D: Absolutely! The feminist angle is certainly one of the key themes I took away from Not Quite An Ocean. I was also struck by how the collection asks so many questions: ‘What do we have to do for you to stop killing us?’ and ‘Who will hold the ocean?’ are two that I found especially powerful. Do you think of poetry as a prompt for self-reflection? Can poetry really inspire people to change their behaviour?

E: You know, I’d not noticed that before! I suppose where there is a desperate need for an answer, or even better, a solution, asking a question outright just feels like the most impactful course of action.

But I am very wary of prescribing anything to my readers, be it self-reflection or any other, more concrete action. As an artist, my job is open the way for the reader, by inviting them in to explore whatever realm it is I have pitched my creative tent, so to speak…

It’s not my job to compel my readers to care about the ocean, rather to show them how she suffers at all of our hands. Whether that prompts action, compassion, self-reflection or any other reaction, is outside of and well beyond me.

D: I get what you’re saying about not hammering the point home. Even so, I read the collection as a desperate plea to protect the oceans and all its inhabitants. What impact did you hope to have with Not Quite An Ocean?

I hope people read it, love it and support my work, as well as Nine Pens who are doing such an amazing job. I hope other writers who see how aggressively I have promoted this little book are encouraged to do the same with their wonderful art. I hope women, people who have suffered, mothers and all those who give and give, read it and feel a little less alone.

D: As a writer with many strings to your bow, I wondered how your writing process differs for different genres and styles. Is the way you approach poetry much different to how your write prose?

E: Poetry tends to fall out of me, starting with a line or an image, maybe even a title that sits for a bit until I come back to it and shape it into a whole “thing” in its own right. Very occasionally I’ll birth a poem from start to finish.

My approach to prose is different because I feel less confident writing it. Short form prose is quite intimidating, so I either whack it out in one go or start and then leave it to gather dust for far too long! With my novels, I’ll write the occasional scene as it pops into my head, but mostly I need to sit with my outline in sight and just chip away at it, trusting that the sparkle will come through when it’s time for editing.

Though I must say the more I write, and the more I read, especially the sort of writing that I love, the more I see that the line between poetry and prose is a very blurry one. I have pieces that I’m still not sure about whether they fall into prose, poetry, creative non-fiction, memoir… and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Why constrain art to a specific form? Surely the substance is what truly matters in the end?

D: It’s an interesting question about constraining art or letting it do its own thing. Form is the mode of transport but, as you say, the message is what matters most. I suppose it’s similar with structuring a collection: the decision to classify the poems into four sections partly constrains them but also allows more connections and layers to develop. How did you go about deciding which poems belonged in which ocean?

E: I like to categorise things in my creative life: I have three pen-names for the three genres I write; my first poetry book Cajoncito was divided into three chapters of Love, Loss & Madness, and my other poetry manuscript is also divided into three chapters. Maybe it’s a dyspraxic thing? I don’t know…

For Not Quite An Ocean, I was getting very frustrated with the poems as I couldn’t find a nice, mixed balance I was happy with. I tried ordering them by length, by theme, by overarching metaphor, by tone even, but nothing felt right. Then during a geography lesson with my daughters, whom I homeschool, the idea of the four oceans suddenly came to me.

There’s no deep metaphor in the ascribing of poems to ocean chapter: it was more for my own sense of organisation, as well as which poems were complementary when set side by side. The Indian Ocean is filled with very close, personal poems, as it is my ocean, the one I grew up in and feel most at home in. The Arctic is the coldest and most barren, as are the poems there-within. The Pacific hosts the poems written in any relation to Chile or Latin America and the time I spent there, and the Atlantic to life and lived experience here in Europe.

D: It’s always so insightful hearing a writer talking through their process. You seem to have found a successful balance between planning and organising without over-planning and killing those flashes of inspiration that make art spontaneous and authentic. After Not Quite An Ocean, do you already have your next project all mapped out?

E: ProjectSSSS! I subscribe to Joni Mitchell’s concept of crop rotation… lots of different crops growing at the same time, and I rotate the time and attention I devote to each of them.

I’ve just founded an arts association here in France called La Maisonnette through which I’ll be offering poetry and other creative workshops and retreats, so I’ll be working on that. I’m also chipping away at my novel: a gothic retelling of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South that I will publish under the pen name Elizabeth Hades. And I’ve got a few kids’ picture books I need to polish and submit.

I’ll also be offering more writing and creativity workshops and courses in the near future. I am a teacher at heart, and connecting with other creatives is something I am so very passionate about! I may not have as many formal writing credentials as some other writers, but I believe the best teachers are often self-taught, and I have garnered a wealth of knowledge on networking, promotion and art-life balance that I feel many writers would find useful.

I’m also looking into doing more reading work: I’m currently tweaking my home studio from which I’ll record my children’s poetry podcast, as well as a couple of audiobooks, including one for Not Quite An Ocean and my debut, Cajoncito. And finding a home for my matrescence-themed poetry manuscript, as well as finishing my hybrid memoir/flash/poetry manuscript on growing up in Mauritius.

D: Wow, you are busy… thank you for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully to these questions! Final one: do you have a favourite poem (or stanza or line) in Not Quite An Ocean?

E: I do! Although there are quite a few I’m fond of, I must say ‘The Other Woman’ is my favourite poem I’ve ever written of all time ever and ever to infinity!!! And the last line is an absolute banger:

Your ears twitch and you shudder,
neck craning to see what you and I
must learn the hard way:
the deadliest thing in here is me.

D: Agreed! It was great speaking to you, Elizabeth: thank you again for your insightful answers.

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Read our review of NQAO here: Briefly Reviews – Who will hold the ocean?

Buy the book from Nine Pens here: Not Quite An Ocean by Elizabeth M. Castillo