Jerl Surratt
Oyster River Pages: Why do you write and/or create?
Jerl Surratt: In my case, the need to write began in my early teens and hasn't let up. Writing's been a spur to continuing self-education, a source of pleasure (if also frequent disappointment when I can't make a particular poem "work") and, overall, a source of solace. It is much more than an aspect of life; it's one of the primary things I live for.
ORP: What is the most challenging aspect of your artistic process?
JS: To create narratives that make sense, that have a natural-seeming rhythm; that convey emotional states within situations that, ideally, any reader can understand if not necessarily identify with; to avoid being boring; to aim for creating something rather beautiful.
ORP: What do you think is the best way to improve writing and/or artistic skills?
JS: Keep learning by reading—in my case, many other poets, including a fair number from ages long past—and experiment with form, create your own forms, and be open to experimenting with character and scene.
ORP: Who do you consider to be your creative ancestors and contemporaries for your art and/or writing? How does your creative work converse with theirs?
JS: Numerous poets writing centuries ago on up through contemporary ones who employ meter and rhyme, and educate the writer in the reader about how this can serve the message of a poem—and fiction writers who bring disparate characters most vividly to life, in my estimation, because in my work the speaker or speakers are almost always persons I've invented, as are the situations (usually romantic ones) in which they're involved. A poet can learn a great deal about getting at "the truth" from novelists and short story writers who make up so much of what they write.
ORP: Do habits help or hinder creativity? Why or why not?
JS: Work habits definitely do this—to have writing something every day as a goal and to adhere to it as much as possible. Even when holding down a day or night job that may, and usually does, have little or nothing to do with creative writing, to ensure as best one can some hours of the day are devoted to new drafts or to revisions.
