{"id":486,"date":"2015-03-18T16:37:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T20:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=486"},"modified":"2015-03-18T16:37:39","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T20:37:39","slug":"mar-asks-rachel-morgan-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/mar-asks-rachel-morgan-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"MAR Asks, Rachel Morgan Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rachel<\/a>
Rachel Morgan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’re afraid of outer space, then today’s contributor interview with Rachel Morgan is for you.<\/p>\n

Rachel Morgan lives, teaches, and writes in Iowa. She is co-editor of Fire Under the Moon: An Anthology of Contemporary Slovene Poetry<\/em> (Black Dirt Press). Her work recently appears or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse<\/em>, Fence<\/em>, Denver Quarterly<\/em>, Bellevue Literary Review<\/em>, DIAGRAM<\/em>, Barrow Street<\/em>, and Poet Lore<\/em>. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop. Currently she teaches at the University of Northern Iowa and is the Poetry Editor for the North American Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rachel\u2019s poem, \u201cFever of Unknown Origin,\u201d appears in MAR <\/em>35.1. She joins us on the blog today to discuss making family members cry, listening to Sigur R\u00f3s on repeat, the terrors of outer space, and, of course, poetry.<\/p>\n

Quick! Summarize your poem in 10 words or fewer. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Childhood, motherhood, widowhood, but not in that order.<\/p>\n

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This poem emerged from a writing exercise I often use in creative writing classes. The exercise asks students to consider an artifact they encountered as a child that they later come to understand. In parts of Appalachia, a tight nest of feathers recovered from the feather pillows of the deceased is knows as a \u201cdeath crown\u201d or \u201cangel crown.\u201d A death crown is considered a good omen\u2014a sign the deceased is in heaven. When I was a young girl, my grandmother showed me two death crowns recovered from her seven year old brother\u2019s pillow. The initial poem emerged quickly, but I tinkered with it for about a year and a half before submitting it.<\/p>\n

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFever of Unknown Origin\u201d is part of my manuscript Coal<\/em>, which includes found text narratives against the landscape of the southeastern Appalachian mountains, and I was visiting family at Grandfather Mountain when I read the kind acceptance email. MAR<\/em> is a journal I\u2019ve long admired, so I was happy.<\/p>\n

What was the worst\/best feedback you received on this piece?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A family member (besides my mother) said, \u201cWhy does what you write always make me cry?\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It sounds saccharine, but honestly each time I write a poem feels like success. I think writing a poem is like spell-making, and I love the brief moment of being enchanted by the process of linking word to word.<\/p>\n

Your biggest writing-related regret?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For a few years after getting my MFA I become unmoored from the writing practice. With the expectation to produce work for workshop and the critiques from my peers gone, my concerns turned toward earning a living and writing when I could. I wrote very little and sent out even less, and then I let the inevitable rejections take care of my remaining motivation. I wish I\u2019d taken time to think of myself as a poet and writer in these years.<\/p>\n

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve<\/strong> writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m terrified of outer space.<\/p>\n

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does <\/em>involve writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I listen to songs on repeat when I write. Right now I\u2019m listening to a lot of Sigur R\u00f3s.<\/p>\n

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I enjoyed Ryan Teitman\u2019s piece from the Special Section, \u201cOne Hundred Names for the Moon\u201d for the way it plays with what cannot be translated across language and age. I read Teitman\u2019s book Litany for the City <\/em>three years ago, and it took my breath away with its still moments in strange cities. Reading this collection as I moved from Los Angeles to the Midwest was both a type of litany and elegy.<\/p>\n

Thanks for the interview, Rachel!<\/strong>
\nLaura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re afraid of outer space, then today’s contributor interview with Rachel Morgan is for you. Rachel Morgan lives, teaches,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contributor-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}