Poetry@Work: Francesca Abbate Interview
On Thursday March 23, Viterbo University will host a Minds@Work event at Brophy Center, room 122. The upcoming program will highlight poet, author and Beloit University professor of English Francesca Abbate. Abbate will be discussing, during her lecture and through various classroom workshops, her writing process as well as her new book, Troy, Unincorporated.
The book consists of monologues in lyrical tones mirroring the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer's famed tragedy Troilus and Cryseyde. As the tale has been told and reframed by numerous voices, Abbate lends her own perspective to modernize the work. The protagonists and their endeavors, formerly familiar to Middle Age contextual narrative, are retold and reimagined in the rustic south-central Wisconsin town of Troy.
With ties to the present-day setting, the archaic characters and the timeless themes, Abbate previews the discussion in the following interview:
Q: What brought you to poetry writing/writing? Is there a significant first memory that led to where you are now?
A: I think many writers grow up feeling like outsiders. I was a geeky kid who loved to read and who got "teased," as we called it then, for wearing glasses and being overweight. Writing was a way for me to connect with people--nobody teased me when I made them laugh or got them invested in a story I was writing. Poetry came later, in college—probably, when I realized that I was less interested in plot than words.
Q: How do you balance being an English professor as well as an author, among other things? How are these roles intertwined?
A: I don't. I'm terrible at finding time during the academic year to write. I wish that weren't the case, but when I'm teaching, advising and trying to be a decent citizen of the college where I work, that [being a professor] has to come first. Maybe someday I will find a better balance, but for now I'm pretty okay with doing my writing in the summer. That said, one practice that I do try to follow is to write when my students are writing in class. Those little bursts of writing will sometimes find their way into a poem later. I do believe that professors should practice what they teach. We want to be good role models. How could we talk about things like turning inspiration into art if we weren't actively trying to do the same?
Q: How does the landscape and personality of Wisconsin/the Midwest serve as inspiration, or even a character, in your compositions?
A: I do think of the Midwest--and particularly of the corner of Wisconsin I inhabit--the south-central and south-east regions--as being a character in Troy, Unincorporated. Although I grew up in Illinois, I spent many summers in Burlington, Wis. and went to college at Beloit (where I now teach!). I love the landscape here, the prairies and farms and oak trees and even the strange (to me) subdivisions in the middle of "nowhere" and the strip malls off the highways. The book was named for a small town near where I live, and I thought it fit the notion of recasting Chaucer's
epic poem, which he denounced on his death bed as being "too worldly." I was so surprised to learn that. How could he turn his back on these wonderful characters? It seems as if he had let them go, and when I saw the town's name (Troy, Wisconsin) on a drive with my husband, I had him pull over, so I could take a picture of the sign.
Q: How does using Chaucer as inspiration and a baseline, provide other dimensions to the plot and the familiar setting? What of Chaucer do you see in yourself/others? Do you have other literary idols that impact the way you write?
A: When I was in graduate school, I took a course called "Chaucer for Writers." One assignment was to rewrite a portion of one of Chaucer's works in modern English, and I chose Troilus and Criseyde. I don't have a copy of what I wrote back then, but the poem haunted me. I felt Criseyde had been treated unfairly, I think, not so much by Chaucer but through her ensuing reputation. Years later, her voice came back to me, and I started writing poems from her perspective.
I probably have too many literary idols to name.
Q: What do you hope to cultivate in your readers, the classrooms you workshop in, the schools you tour, and Viterbo specifically?
A: The short answer here is a love for literature--for reading it as well as writing it.
Q: What advice or insight do you have for college students who have inclination towards creative writing but don't necessarily know what to do with their talent/ for college students who have never written for themselves before but would like to?
A: This question I'll leave for the classroom!