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Q&A with poet Elizabeth S. Gunn

This week our poetry team is featuring two poems from American poet Elizabeth S. Gunn, titled 'Treatise on the Salivagant' and 'Histology'. The poems are part of our growing poetry offerings, which you can read here in full.


Elizabeth S. Gunn serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson, Nevada, where she and her wife live with their three rescue pups in the endless Mojave Desert. Her website is http://www.elizabethsgunn.com/ and she's on X at @_DeanGunn.


Recently Claire Beaver - one of our poetry editors - asked Elizabeth a few questions about her work, her start in poetry, and her inspirations. This Q&A is part of our wider contributor conversation series - all of which you can read here.


Claire Beaver: How did you get started as a poet? When did you start to call yourself a poet?


Elizabeth S. Gunn: When I was eight or nine years old, I wrote a book of poems and titled it The Complete Works. Nevertheless, I kept on writing, and about 30 years later I completed an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore. My hope is that things have somewhat improved with time.


Claire Beaver: What inspires your writing? Do you often find yourself returning to topics?


Elizabeth S. Gunn: Stillness and longing are recurrent themes in my poetry. I find that most experiences intersect with one or both of these states of being. I also rely on the second person point of view. There's a "you" out there listening, and I often think of stillness and longing at the "you" through which images and experience find words to cohere with meaning. Sometimes the "You" is capitalized because the poem is searching for the divine, whatever or whoever that might be. In other words, when I write poetry in dialogue with a "you" or with a Creative Intelligence, it seems to render more sincere.


Claire Beaver: What is your process like? Are you hit with ideas or are you a sit down and write type of worker? 


Elizabeth S. Gunn: I take a lot of mental notes (like the way the sun lands on a balcony or the way a friend's voice breaks over a specific word) and literal notes in an electronic journal application on my phone. I organize the journal entries by month and year. I also read a lot. I try to read something literary every day to keep my connection to the Source. I search for others' interpretations of what it means to experience and perceive life as a finite human being. And sometimes writing is simply an urgency and a necessity, and this leads to lost sleep. It's worth it.


Claire Beaver: A favorite question for poets, are you a big editor?


Elizabeth S. Gunn: Yes. I keep track of each version of a poem, and I watch them ripen if there's honesty there, or they'll sour if not, and I'll move on to the next opportunity.


Claire Beaver: Who are some of your inspirations? Favorite poems?


Elizabeth S. Gunn: Long before Leonard Cohen's music was fashioned into pop culture in the United States, I listened to his songs and read his books. Beautiful Losers is a masterpiece. My favorite poem is more of a song by Cohen and based on Quebec folk music. It's called "The Faith." Pema Chodron's writings are also an inspiration. Other favorites include Elizabeth Bishop, Gabriela Mistral, and Audre Lorde.



 

Poet Elizabeth S. Gunn
Elizabeth S. Gunn

Elizabeth S. Gunn serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson, Nevada, where she and her wife live with their three rescue pups in the endless Mojave Desert. Her website is http://www.elizabethsgunn.com/ and she's on X at @_DeanGunn.



Claire Beaver

Claire Beaver is a multidisciplinary writer living and working in New York. Her work has been featured in Last Leaves Magazine, Outspoken, Victory Lapped, and more. Her first chapbook, bones, ashes, fire, was recently released from Bottlecap Press. She is passionate about the power of art and how we interact with it in our daily lives, whether that be conscious or not. She has an M. Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin.


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