Gina Ferrera

Oyster River Pages: What role does the artist/writer play in society?

Gina Ferrera: Anyone who has ever seen Van Gogh's painting of sunflowers will probably never view sunflowers the same. It's the way that he positioned the flowers, put them in varying stages of their life cycle, and how he used different shades of yellow. There's something real about those flowers but also other worldly. It was a simple subject matter yet filled with complexity and possibility. I think it's incumbent for writers and artists to make a connection that not only informs people but makes them see possibilities by often using what's ordinary and making it achieve a kind of superlative status. Great art does this.

ORP: How has your writing changed over time?

GF: Over time, I would say that my work has become more observational, maybe more controlled and less of a knee jerk response to something. Also, I seem to be moving away from the entirely situational to poems that are quite often project based.

ORP: How does writing or making art change you?

GF: It's cliche to say this, but I do feel better when I am writing poetry because I like feeling productive. If I am not writing, it feels purgatorial and in some way like I'm compromised. When I am working on a poem or any kind of writing, I try to stay devoted and sharply focused to give the piece the time that it needs, but if it is taking too much time, then it's probably not working and I either revisit it or move on completely.

ORP: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

GF: A long time ago, I was working for an agency that gave out funding. The work that agency was doing was very important, but I was not happy there. A good friend told me that I should be the one applying for the grants rather than giving them out.

ORP: Name three artists or writers you'd like to be compared to. Why these?

GF: I am not sure about being compared to any other artists or poets, but I will share information about who I admire and why. About ten years ago, I became completely obsessed with the paintings of Marc Chagall, which ultimately led to a collection of mine being published where all of the poems were inspired by Chagall's paintings. What I have always loved about Chagall is his fabulous use of color, his unexpected images, and how he includes aspects of his identity in his work. His paintings are dreamy, imagistic narratives that can't be bothered with the conformity of chronological order; somehow, though, the paintings are often comprehensive representations of the artist's life . A writer who I admire deeply is Gabriel Garcia Marquez...so many South American writers but particularly Marquez and his use of magical realism. Again, it's that aspect of the unexpected happening where a character like Remedios the Beauty is so remarkably beautiful she floats up to heaven one day in front of her family. I love the image of this and the impossibility of it, yet within the context of the story and the strange world that Marquez creates, an act like this is entirely plausible. So with Chagall and Marquez, it's their ability to create a universe within their work where events happen in their own way and time. Finally, there is Sylvia Plath. She caught my attention when I was very young and she still keeps my attention. I love the language she uses, her word choice, what she chooses to examine, and the fresh images she uses to do it. In her poem Fever, 103 Degrees, she writes: "All by myself I am a huge camellia/glowing and coming and going flush on flush" and earlier in the poem she mentions "Isadora's scarves" and "acetylene" all in ways that the reader never really knows what is coming next. She has incredible pacing in her work and her poems always lunge forward, and if they don't lunge, they sprint. There is nothing meek or timid about them.

ORP: Do you approach writing time as work or play?

GF: The idea for a poem definitely can be equated with play, but it becomes work as the poem moves toward completion.

Gina Ferrara lives in New Orleans. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including The Briar Cliff Review, The Poetry Ireland Review, and Callaloo. She has three full length collections, Ethereal Avalanche (Trembling Pillow Press), Amber Porch Light (CW Books) and Fitting the Sixth Finger Aldrich Press). Find her poetry here.