Elizabeth Bolton

Oyster River Pages: We often think of ourselves as writing or making art, but the process often changes or makes us as well. How do you feel like your writing or art makes you?

Elizabeth Bolton: I feel that writing is essential as a completion of my inner thought process. I usually don't know how I truly feel about anything, in particular, my own memories, until I've written and reflected on them, either as poems or short stories. There are things about myself I discover at the tip of the pen that I never would have discovered, had I not written them out, had I not dignified them by way of poetic expansion. As a result, I think writing is really what makes me wholly integrated, what makes me know myself honestly. It keeps me sane. Often, I think of it as a duty to my family. They deserve a mother who knows and approves of herself.

ORP: How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your relationship to art and writing, either in the creation of it or the consumption of it?

EB: I think the COVID-19 pandemic, in spite of how scary and strange it is, has resulted in overall a softening of attitudes towards artists, and amongst artists, towards each other. People seem more willing to share art and poetry with the world these days. People seem more willing to reveal intimate thoughts. I also get the sense that a lot of people who don't yet write or make art could easily take up the practice, and would benefit from it in a weird time like this. The COVID-19 pandemic has not really affected my output as a writer, I still write as much as ever, but it has made me want to teach others, and to connect with other poets as people. I find I am more curious about the human behind the writing these days. I want to know who else is at home, working from their bedroom or tiny studio apartment or kitchen or wherever, trying to draft poems with a 2-year-old playing at their feet. I just feel I want to know poets' lives more than I ever did before, and to help others where I can. I guess this makes me willing to share more of my own work, too. Social media actually seems like a friendlier place for sharing now.

ORP: Do you believe that hope is a luxury, a responsibility, a danger, or something else? Why?

EB: Hope is a duty, I think to oneself and to the people around us. Energies are so contagious. I find I am so easily affected by the attitudes of people around me. We can't always be hopeful, but when we aren't, it helps so much to have the people around us be hopeful. On those rare days when I feel powerfully optimistic enough to raise up the others around me, I exercise that power, since I would hope they would do the same for me. I guess saying hope is a duty in no way implies that it's possible to be hopeful every day or every minute of our lives. That's actually really hard. Maybe striving towards an attitude of hopefulness is the real duty, or at the very least, allowing yourself to entertain it, even (especially) in dark times. Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" poem comes to mind; she really nails the idea of Hope as a humble, kind, living thing that is always there, waiting for us to remember it, even though we forget about it so often.

ORP: If you could choose one writer or artist, living or dead, as a best friend or mentor, who would it be? Why?

EB: Vincent Van Gogh. Being a writer has always made me want to befriend painters. I'm obsessed with this idea that, as writers/poets, we "see" poetic images in our mind's eye before we write them, and we "see" poetic imagery arise mystically in our minds when we read other writers' pieces, too. I don't paint, myself, but always thought visual artists were capable of this really pure form of expressing that poetic image. The images Van Gogh saw in his mind, and then painted, are spectacular. Even a cypress tree, even a sky, when he paints it, takes on a human sort of life and personality. Also, I like anyone who is not afraid to discuss mental health, its role in fueling art and what it can teach us. Van Gogh did this so humbly and honestly in the letters he wrote to his brother. I'd love to have him as a pen pal.

ORP: What do you think is the most essential advice that most writers and artists ignore?

EB: Prioritize process over product. Get to the point where the writing itself, the feel of the creation process itself, gives all the reward you need to keep going. Then, you've set yourself up to always feel like you're "winning" as an artist, to always feel like your work has value, even if you're not getting publication acceptances or if you're unfortunately being invalidated by other people. Publications are so hard to get. No matter how many you get, you get so many rejections in the process. If you can come from a place where you truly don't care whether you're published or not, and how many times, it can give you a sense of legitimacy that really feels like self-approval, which is so important. I know some great writers who started out writing/submitting to magazines at the same time as me who gave up writing after seeing their first (inevitable) string of rejections. I always wanted to tell them to just forget the whole publication business and get back to the feel of the writing itself: feel what good it does for you, both mentally and physically, and value it for that reason, not because someone on an editorial board said it was worth something. Value process over product and stay at that humble point where you love creating so much, you don't care who likes the stuff you put out or not, just as long as you yourself are happy with it.

Elizabeth is a writer of poetry, short stories and essays. Some of her work can be found in Existere Journal, EVENT Magazine and Open Minds Quarterly, among others. She is also a doctoral student at the University of Toronto where she studies creative writing and education. She can be found on Instagram @elizabethboltonwriting. Listen to Elizabeth read her poem, “Seed,” here.