1. Where do you get the ideas to write your poetry?

Luci Shaw: Ideas for poetry come from all the colorful details of everyday life — my garden, the weather, the wilderness, my reading, conversations, music — whatever catches my attention in the moment. It may be a phrase in a book, or a line of words that arrives in my mind in the silence of the night, or paddling a canoe. Or a connection between ideas that I haven't noticed before. Or a Sunday sermon. Like bats in twilight, the ideas swoop and flit without warning.

Often an idea is substantial enough to be recorded in my journal, and it grows from there. Other words and images begin to attach themselves, until I feel enthused enough to transfer this embryo of a poem into my computer, where I can play with it, experimenting with line breaks and word changes, shifting and shaping it into a more coherent form. This may happen over weeks and months. It grows organically, often in unexpected directions, until it becomes itself. I am the receptor. My antennae are out, combing the air of the imagination. Then it is my responsibility to craft the image or idea into its most effective form.

2. Poetry is a much misunderstood form of expression. Why is poetry important for you, and perhaps should be for everyone?

Luci Shaw: Poetry is not simply prose typeset in short lines. Nor is it a rhyming sermon, or cliché. Since metaphor is the basic building block of poetry, the metaphor should be allowed to send its creative message without moralizing or explanation. A good poem will surprise, nudging its reader into seeing something unexpected, and bringing fresh insights.

Poetry, almost more than any other form of creative expression, stimulates and enriches the imagination. It encourages original thinking and understanding. A good poem will hint or suggest rather than listing or categorizing. It employs rhythm, music, ideas, and images that bring the reader a fresh awareness of some of life's meanings and paradoxes.

3. You have also written several books of prose, which is quite a bit different from writing poetry. How do you find a balance between writing prose and poetry?

Luci Shaw: Because a poem, by definition, is concise and economical, the poem's very brevity (and the white space that surrounds it on the page), encourages us to value every word and phrase, weighing it and examining it for its worth. A poem is a small slice of experience. It needs to be ingested with care, and with an appreciation of its flavor and color.

By contrast, a prose book extends itself and calls for a much more expansive treatment of a theme or topic. Prose is also more analytical. It provides information and demands greater discipline on the part of the writer to maintain unity and unfold an argument at much greater length and with a greater degree of complexity.

It is hard for me to work on poetry and prose at the same time. To move between the two genres is like switching gears or changing clothes. They may also employ different parts of the brain. Poems come and go like cats, slipping in and out of my consciousness. A prose book is like a large dog, attached to its owner's side, faithful in friendship until its job is done.

4. When and why did you begin writing? When did you first consider yourself a poet?

Luci Shaw: I began writing poetry as far back as I can remember, as soon as I could scribble words on paper. I assumed that everyone wrote poetry, and it was not until I was in high school, and winning poetry prizes, that I realized that this was a special gift. In my senior year in college as an English Literature major, my work began to be published, and my mentor and professor, Clyde Kilby, assured me, ‘You are the real thing — a true poet.’ I got married right out of college and started to produce children, five of them, in quick succession. During those early years, the poems had to fit in the cracks between family activities and tasks and freelance editing work, but the poetry was where I felt my true identity, and continue to do so.

5. What authors do you like to read? What book or books have had a strong influence on you or your writing?

Luci Shaw: I read voraciously the works of other contemporary poets — Mary Oliver, Andrew Hudgins, Jeanne Murray Walker, Seamus Heaney, Galway Kinnell, Mark Jarman, Scott Cairns, Jack Leax, Czeslav Milocz, Robert Hass, Diane Glancey, etc., etc. I read The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Image. I read a lot of fiction, in hopes that a vigorous fiction style will rub off on me and encourage me some day to attempt a novel. Walker Percy's novels have always seemed luminous to me. Also the work of Barbara Kingsolver, Wallace Stegner, Ron Hansen, Andre Dubus II, Annie Dillard, Ivan Doig, John Irving...

6. What are you currently working on?

Luci Shaw: I am just finishing a book (prose essays) on risk-taking — The Crime of Living Cautiously — why Christians should be willing to go out on a limb for God. And I am currently putting together a new poetry manuscript as well as a book of essays on imagination, faith, and art.

7. What advice do you have for would-be poets?

Luci Shaw: Write every day. You are your own best teacher, so learn from your developing sensibility (and your mistakes) over a lifetime. Read, read, read. Read the best writing. Read the literary journals. Don't waste time on pop fiction. Allow the works and words of writers of excellence to seep into your veins and inform your thinking. Don't always be derivative in your writing. At the beginning you can learn by imitating poets that you admire, but be encouraged by the development of your own voice and style.

If you have a genuine gift, get serious about your writing. Join a writers' workshop, or take some courses in creative writing. Find a good poetry mentor to critique your work. Keep an imaginative and reflective journal. Jot down your seed poems before they vanish; even the most potent ideas will evaporate from your memory unless you record them.

When you have written a poem, ask someone to read it back to you, aloud. Where there are pauses or questions in the reading, the poem's flaws will show up to you. Submit your work far and wide, and keep records of submissions and returns. Learn from the feedback you get. Buy a copy of Poet's Market and take advantage of its advice and resources and suggestions as to where to send your poems.