Five Fishes Journal

Five Fishes got a hold of Nin Andrews, author of several books of poetry including Southern Comfort, for an interview. Andrews’ poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Paris Review, and Best American Poetry. Be sure to check out her book published by Cavan Kerry Press, Southern Comfort.

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Five Fishes: The Grandmother mentioned throughout your book of poetry, Southern Comfort, seems very real. Is her character influenced by your own grandmother?

Nin Andrews: Yes and no.  The grandmother is a combination of two women who were like grandmothers to me.   One of these women died when I was seven, and she sang all the time.  When she passed away, I felt as if all the music was vacuumed out of my life.  Even the hours became hollow and clear, sort of like blown glass with no light passing through them.     My parents didn’t tell me she had died until long after the fact, but I knew she was gone.    The other woman died when I was older, but she had a stroke and lingered for a while. She was a great storyteller, and when she told a tale, I believed every word she said.

F.F.: What about the father?

N.A.: The father is my father in most of the poems.  Again, there are poems in the book where I tell of my friend’s father or my uncle as if they were my father.  But my own father was a wonderful storyteller.  He rarely told the same story the same way twice.  He was a southern man to the core.  I still love the smell (not the taste) of whiskey.  It reminds me of him.

F.F.: How did your life in the south influence your writing and your writing style?

N.A.: I think the southern accent and style of telling stories was an influence on this book. I can still hear certain southern voices from my past in my head when I sit down to write. I feel a kind of twang and sadness in my memories now, a little like comfort food but with too much salt and ache.

F.F.: Some of your poems resemble short stories in terms of both shape and style. What inspired you to write that way?

N.A.: I just write the way I hear things or experience them.

I guess I would like to imagine that the subject matter demands its own form or lack thereof.  If I am trying to transcribe a Zen moment when I suddenly feel present, alive, inspired, I don’t want a lot of text.  But when I hear a poem talking in my head, sometimes in the voice of myself as a child, sometimes in the voice of a grandmother or father or mother, I let it make demands.  Maybe it wants a certain rhythm, to pause here, break there. Maybe it wants the entire page, no line breaks, no pauses, no air, no second thoughts.

F.F: How do you decide whether to write that way or to incorporate shaping line breaks?

N.A.: I write what I write, guided by intuition.  Sometimes I want to emphasize the story in the poem, and other times, vice versa.  Sometimes I want to speed up the reader, and other times, slow her down.   Sometimes I want to control the reader.  But other times, I want the story to be the poem.

F.F: Many of your poems have a small town, southern voice and style about them. Do you think your writing career would have had the same success had you been raised in a big city?

N.A.: I don’t know if a small town childhood helped to make me successful. But I think the location of my childhood was an influence, yes.  I think the biggest influence was the boredom I experienced. I grew up on a farm, and we didn’t own a TV. I was allowed to have friends over twice a month.  Often I had nothing to do. I could read, write, dream, muck stalls, lead-train my calves, feed the chickens.  If anyone was talking, I would listen.  I became good at listening. Good at making up stories or retelling others’ stories.  Good at surviving the blank pages of my life.

F.F.: Did/does anyone else in your family write?

N.A.: No, no one else writes in my family.  Some of my sisters are very talented artists and one writes very well, but no one else actually tries to publish their writing.

F.F.: Here’s a curve ball. If you could sit down and have some iced tea with three American writers (living or dead), who would they be? And, almost as important, what flavor tea?

N.A.: Oh, I’d want to meet William Faulkner.  My folks knew him, and my sister took riding lessons at his daughter’s farm.  I know he was a terrible alcoholic and not very sociable, but I’d love to listen to him talk, read his work.  Then I wouldn’t mind meeting Eudora Welty. I saw her read once, and she read like Eudora on steroids.  She just whipped right through her stories.   I’d like to have tea with her, though I think she preferred a stiff drink.  And I’d like to meet Langston Hughes. Listen to him read some jazz poetry and some blues.

And the tea would have to be mint tea.  A nice orange pekoe tea with a sprig of fresh mint.

F.F.: Lastly, what are you working on at the moment and what’s on your agenda as a writer?

N.A.: I’m working on a few different projects.  I am working on a longer collection of poems called Dear Professor, which will expand on my chapbook of physics poems.  I am working on a collection of short-short stories about the farm I grew up on, poems which focus more on my mother.  And I am working on a collection of poems called The Accidental Seduction

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I want to personally thank Nin Andrews for taking the time to do this interview with me, and I want to stress how much I enjoyed reading her work.

- C.J.