What, Why, How: Kathleen McGookey

What: 

I’m a writer, and I write poems.  I have always written, ever since I was a little girl and filled notebooks with possible titles for stories that I never wrote.  I have written newspaper articles, essays and short stories, but now I only write poems.

Why:

 I am always inspired by whatever I’m reading, whether it’s poetry, fiction, memoir, magazines, or the newspaper.  I feel like all of literature is one long conversation, and I am happy I can add my voice. Even if the only person who hears that voice is me.  I am inspired by looking at art. I am inspired by the quiet inside my head when I sit at my desk and look out at the field outside my window. I am inspired by the ordinary, mundane details of my life with my family.

With writing, I have always loved the idea that a stranger–somewhere far away in space and time– might be moved by one of my poems.  I’ll never know if this happens, yet I am enchanted by this possibility for connection. 

How:

I don’t wait for inspiration or motivation.  I have certain times each week when I write. This may make me sound really structured, but I am not.  I am not a person who writes every day. But I make sure I write every week. Though in summer, I don’t get much done and by mid-August I start feeling a little desperate because I think I may never write again.  This has happened enough times (and I always do write something again), that I am used to that cycle of despair and relief. I am motivated because I would like my words to reach someone, eventually. A friend once said she thought my poems were like postcards from Grief Island.  I like that. Reading also helps me stay motivated. Right now I am listening to Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and her thoughts on inspiration and creativity are enormously inspiring and motivating.   

Bio

Kathleen McGookey has published three books of poems, most recently Heart in a Jar (White Pine Press), and two chapbooks.  Another book is forthcoming from Press 53 in 2019.  Her work has appeared in journals including Agni, The Antioch Review, Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Field, Great River Review, Hunger Mountain, Indiana Review, KYSO Flash, The Laurel Review, Ploughshares, The Prose Poem:  An International Journal, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Seneca Review, Upstreet, West Branch, and Willow Springs.  Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize twice, featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, and included in eighteen anthologies–most recently New Micro:  Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton) and Elemental:  A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction (Wayne State).  She is also the translator of We’ll See, prose poems by French writer Georges Godeau.  She has received grants from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, the Arts Fund of Kalamazoo County, and the Sustainable Arts Foundation.  After earning her MFA and PhD from Western Michigan University, she taught creative writing at Hope College, Interlochen Arts Academy, and Western Michigan University, as well as in private workshops.  She lives in Middleville, Michigan, with her family.

Links:

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Books:

Whatever Shines
We’ll See: Poems by George Godeau: Translated by Kathleen McGookey
Mended
Stay
Heart in a Jar (review of Heart in a Jar on the Collagist)

Kathleen’s books on Amazon

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of the award-winning novel In the Context of Love, a story about one woman’s need to tell her truth without shame.

2017 New Apple Book Awards Official Selection
2016 Sarton Women’s Fiction Finalist
2016 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist
2016 Readers’ Favorite Finalist
2016 USA Book News Best Book Finalist

“…at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey.” ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed Once Upon a River,and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters