Liam H. Flake
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?
Liam H. Flake: In high school I took a strong liking in my English classes to the English Romantics. I think I was drawn to the mysticism of it, and the pursuit of something bigger than the self--a feeling or experience bigger than the bounds of day-to-day life, bigger than reason. A lot of my work since engages with classics, artwork, and mythology, but I think this draw still is the aim of what I hope to distill and adapt from some of these works.
ORP: Does writing or creating energize or exhaust you? What aspects of your artistic process would you consider the most challenging or rewarding?
LHF: A teacher once quoted to me that "they didn't like writing; they liked having written." I remember this sometimes and laugh when I'm working on a long or arduous project. Yes, writing can be wonderfully fulfilling, a passionate burning, when inspiration strikes and I feel I have something to say. That feeling doesn't always transfer when I have to write towards deadlines and requirements, especially with longer pieces that simply require a lot of time. However, these also tend to be the projects I am proudest of (and feel most relieved to finish). Writing towards something you're accountable to can be taxing but the results and sense of accomplishment are absolutely worth it.
ORP: What would you say is your most interesting writing and/or artistic quirk? Do you have any habits that you believe help or hinder your creativity?
LHF: I draft most of my poems in jumbled fragments in a notebook I keep in my pocket. I find that inspiration strikes me in the most unexpected of places, and I've found a lot of success in enabling myself to record that wherever I am. Conversely, however, I tend to find it incredibly difficult sometimes to sit down sometimes and force myself to write something, especially when deadlines are looming.
ORP: What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing or creating? What advice would you give to another writer or artist?
LHF: I once had the opportunity to see Naomi Shihab Nye speak at my university, and during the Q&A I asked what advice she had on writing authentically. She replied that the key was to write within your sphere of cares. This is the frame that has guided my writing in the last year or so: pursuing writing that addresses all that within one's sphere of cares, and sometimes having to determine what that sphere is and encompasses in the first place.
