This interview is available to listen at https://soundcloud.com/palyradio/behind-the-quill-episode-1-alice-sheffer.
[Ink Magazine]
Hi Vikings! Welcome back to Behind the Quill, a special podcast collaboration between KPLY Radio and Ink, Paly’s literary arts magazine. We interview Paly student writers about their writing, and find out what’s going on as they get their words from the quill to the page.
Today, we’re interviewing Alice Sheffer, a sophomore whose poem “Essie Nail Lacquer Willow in the Wind 705” will be published in the upcoming issue of Ink. Welcome, Alice!
[Alice Sheffer]
Hi, thanks for having me!
[Ink]
So, Alice, can you give us a short summary of what your poem is about?
[AS]
Yeah, so, I wrote it in a poetry class, and the assignment was to write a poem about something that you didn’t need to bring to sleepaway camp but you brought. It’s one of my favorite nail polish colors, so I brought it. The whole poem is pretty much a metaphor for me wanting to retain my childhood memories, and no matter what happens, I want to remember what happened to me when I was younger.
[Ink]
How do you decide what you’re going to write your poems about? Do you just get prompts, or do you come up with those ideas originally as well?
[AS]
Normally, what I do is, I’ll be going about my day and I’ll think about… it’ll come into my head, a specific line or two, and then I’ll write them down. Then later, when I go home, I’ll have the lines out, and I’ll type them up on a piece of paper, and I’ll just start going from there. I don’t have any specific ideas of what the poems are going to be about — they just kind of happen, I guess.
[Ink]
So once you have those lines, and you’re looking at them, do you have a process to get those words out on the paper, or do you just look at it and let your brain work?
[AS]
Mostly, I just look at it, but when I’m stuck on a certain part, I’ll go back and I’ll edit what I have so far so that it’s good. Then I’ll read over it a couple times, and usually I’ll have an idea for the next part. When I don’t have an idea for the next part, I know that the poem’s done.
[Ink]
So, do you have any tips for writing when you’ve got writer’s block?
[AS]
For writer’s block, what I recommend is just consuming as much, like, anything as you can. I know a lot of people say to consume what you want to write — like, if you want to write short stories, then read a bunch of short stories — but I find that it doesn’t really matter. You just need to give your mind a break, because a lot of the time when you have writer’s block, it’s just your brain telling you that you’ve been doing too much, and you need to take a little break to rest and recuperate before continuing on in your creative journey.
[Ink]
So kind of in a similar vein, how do you find inspiration for your poetry? For more of the style, and the precise words that you use — kind of the minute-by-minute.
[AS]
Yeah, a lot of the time it’s silly things that my friends say, or some things I’ll see somewhere. I remember I once wrote a poem about when I was driving in Indiana. There was a sticker on the toll booth that said “you are beautiful,” and I included that as a line in one of my poems and kind of went from there. It’s a lot of things that my friends say, or I’ll be scrolling on Instagram and I’ll see something cool, and I’ll be like, “I want to do something like that.”
[Ink]
Alright, thank you! So, last question: what’s your favorite part of this poem – a favorite line, or a favorite phrase?
[AS]
I think my favorite part of my poem is kind of towards the middle, when I’m listing things that I “am.” It’s a little silly, but it’s just a line that really resonated with me — all of those lines saying things that I am, like “I’m aurora borealis”, “guacamole on a hot summer day”, “limeade”. I think that those — not to sound narcissistic, or whatever, but when I was writing those, I was like, “yeah, these hit.”
[Ink]
Alright! Well, thank you for coming on the show and talking with us about your poem!
[AS]
It was really fun, thanks for having me!
[Ink]
That’s it for Behind the Quill, a podcast collaboration between KPLY and Ink magazine where we interview Paly student writers. Be sure to check out Alice’s work in the fall 2023 issue of Ink, or on inkliterarymag.org! Music provided by Megatrax.