Sarah Luczaj ~ Q&A
Ask Sarah Luczaj a question or two about her writing by “leaving a reply” in the box following the questions and answers below. She will respond here by leaving her own “reply.” Thank you in advance for your thoughtful questions.
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Hi there Sarah, the FD team has two questions for you so far.
1. Where do you get your inspiration?
2. What effect does living in another language have on your writing?
Thank you for your response and congrats on the publication of your first chapbook!
Carmen
09 said this on May 14, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Thanks, Carmen, and thanks to all the FD team for such a beautiful place to meet and such a beautiful surface on which to write!
OK, to the questions.
1. Where do I get my inspiration? It used to be movement, travelling, inbetween spaces and moments, bus stations, waiting rooms, walking around aimlessly in places where I didn’t speak the language, and of course, different kinds of passion, death, mourning and loss. Now I am, for a while anyway, rooted, living as part of a family, and a mother, and it is different. I don’t travel alone anymore, and I don’t feel the ‘kick’ of inspiration so often, it is a quieter sensation. Death and loss are still a source of inspiration – when the poems write themselves – and also the experiences of other people, maybe my work as a therapist is now something like that inbetween space, that travelling thing.
That was off the top of my head but that is probably how the answer to an ‘inspiration question’ should be! Question 2 later!
Sarah said this on May 14, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Thanks, Sarah! Looking forward to continuing this conversation ~
Carmen said this on May 14, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Reading my ‘off top of my head” previous answer I see that I said I was “for the while anyway, rooted, living as a part of a family” -!! just want to reassure my family that living with them is not a temporary state :-) I meant that I was travelling alone less, that’s all!!
Question 2 is a great question and even harder to answer.
“living in another language” is an interesting phrase in itself…do I live in one language (Polish) and write in another, (English?)? Do I think in one and dream in another? Am I one in publc and another in private? Or do I exist in one language, while living immersed in another one? Or maybe I am in the intersection between languages, thoughts and dreams, public and private, I *am* and I *live in*?
The question provokes questions, but they seem to be more about me than my writing.
Hmmmm.
I know I haven’t written any poems in Polish, while I have written a couple in French. Maybe writing English becomes more of a private experience? Maybe the poems feel more intimate? Maybe living in and speaking another language every day makes me more sensitive to the forms of language, the grammar, the shapes and possibilities in it – and that can only be a good thing for my writing. Maybe it is a bit tighter and more conscious than it would otherwise be…
Nothing but questions here. If anyone wants to step in and nail me down on anything, please do ;-)
Sarah said this on May 15, 2009 at 2:08 pm
On a long train journey and at every station the loudspeaker invited us to ‘mind the gap’; this phrase has stayed with me to the extent that I am considering how we seem to live not noticing the gap – in time : in speaking : in living :
our natural instinct I feel is to fill the silence – but the treasure is in the gap and we need to learn how to use it in every moment of every day!
Sarah – I look forward to reading An Urgent Request and to seeing you in August! mm in Minehead
margaret morris said this on June 11, 2009 at 8:01 am
Hello Margaret! Those “Mind the gap” announcements on the London underground have always spoken to me too…awareness of the gap is a precious thing, and although it is precisely about the gap between words/worlds it sometimes seems to ask for expression – which is maybe where poetry comes in…
much looking forward to seeing you in August – with an Urgent Request in hand…
Sarah said this on June 11, 2009 at 10:01 am
I would like to get in touch with Sarah. I have read a few poems
traslated by her into English and I am very much interested in her
work. I wonder if she could do some work for me. My name is Ida.
I am leaving my e-mail below.
Carlos Delgado Jimeno said this on January 24, 2010 at 1:48 am