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NF: Tell me about your personal writing journey. What drew you into writing?

BM: I began writing when I was about 10 years old. I was inspired by a 1987 film I saw called 84 Charing Cross Road. It is based on the book of the same name by writer Helene Hanff. Hanff wrote “84 Charing Cross Road” as an epistolary memoir about her life as a writer. I loved the film and the idea of being a writer. I remember thinking, that is what I want to do, that is what I want to be. I think this film must also be why I love the epistolary form and the UK. I wrote a lot growing up and all the way through college but got away from it after that as I pursued a career in law and started raising a family. I only got back into writing about three years ago during the COVID pandemic lockdown when I found myself with more time to read. It was then that I remembered how much I loved writing and decided to dive headfirst into it again. It has enriched my life and brought me a lot of joy.

NF: You write both prose and poetry. When does poetry work better than prose, and vice versa?

BM: Prose works better when I am trying to tell a story, explain something, or make a point clearly. I think that poetry works better, at least for me, when I am trying to convey a sense of something, capture a feeling, work through or make sense of something.

NF: How do you approach writing? Do you write every day or as the ideas strike?

BM: I write mostly as ideas strike. My days are mostly filled with demands on my time and energy unrelated to writing. I have a full-time job I love as a lawyer for a company that makes technology for people without natural speech. I am also raising two teenagers with my husband. I write when I can and when I am in a good mental space for it. A good mental space is when I can give it all my attention. I can write anywhere – in the car, in any room of the house, but only if I can focus on it. I am often struck with ideas throughout the day when I don’t have time to sit and work on them, so I do a lot of jotting down ideas that come to me and tuck them away to create with later. My phone notes are full of ideas or phrases that come to me, as are many notebooks that I keep everywhere. I love taking writing workshops, especially generative ones, and find that I do some of my best work in response to prompts.  I try to take as many writing workshops as I can because it is a great way to devote time to writing, get inspired and improve.

NF: Now I’d like to talk about your book, “Firmer Ground.” In general, how has your life experience informed the poems in this book?

BM: I do get inspiration from my life and my relationships for a lot of my writing. I think most writers have themes and topics to wrestle with and return to repeatedly in their writing, and that these often stem from our life experiences. I use writing to try to figure out and sometimes explain things I am grappling with that arise from reflections on my past, observations throughout my day, research into my family ancestry, my relationships with others, and my experiences as a parent.

NF: How did you choose the poems in this book?

BM: I worked with a publishing consultant, Meghan McVicker. Meghan is the facilitator/teacher of a writing class I take through a local art center called The Wayne Center for the Arts. We meet on Zoom to talk about writing and workshop pieces. It is open to all writers, with all levels of experience, who live anywhere, since it is all done online. It is an extremely supportive and constructive group that I have loved being part of for the past year and a half. Meghan also has a business that helps writers put their books together for publication, and she helped me put “Firmer Ground” together. She helped me identify the main themes from many of my poems that I had in mind that I wanted to use, and added to and built around that. What I wanted to convey overall to the reader is a journey through the idea that, even though things get shaky in life, there is a path to Firmer Ground. So ultimately, the pieces I chose for the book were to support that theme.

NF: “I Have Something to Say about Potatoes,” “The Shawl,” and “Inhale/Exhale” explore your heritage and family ties. How did writing these pieces deepen your connection to where you came from?

BM: The Potatoes poem was me trying to make sense of all the research I was doing about the lives of my Irish ancestors during the Irish Potato Starvation of the 1840s. That was the world my great-great-grandmother was born into, and it was such a complicated and tragic story for Ireland and for the individuals who experienced it. It was a lot to try to make sense of, but synthesizing it in this way deepened my connection with my heritage. In all these pieces you mention, I am trying to deepen my understanding of my connection to the women I come from.

NF: Some of your poems examine pain and even embarrassment from the past, such as “Looking Back,” and “Friendly Fire,” “Meeting of the Board of Directors of Your Life,” and “Help Text.” How do you see them as a source of healing?

BM: I like the idea of using poetry, writing, and art in general, to work through and heal from difficult things that we go through. I also like the idea of making art I can be proud of, out of a difficult experience. If we are going to have to go through something hard, we may as well get something good out of it! For me, once I write about a difficult thing in a way that satisfactorily conveys it how I want, I am in an emotionally different place about it – a better place – where it doesn’t haunt me anymore. It’s like it goes from inside me to outside and I can leave it there on the page – done and dusted and move on to something else. I find it very satisfying and healing. 

NF: “Queen Anne’s Lace” is a beautiful tribute to your grandmother. Can you talk about how grief continues to resurface long after the one you love is gone, and how you can move through it?

BM: Thank you! My mother’s mother was very special to me. I write a lot about her and her life. Her story is a huge part of my longer ancestry memoir that I am working on. “Queen Anne’s Lace” is a poem I wrote about bringing her back to life through all the research I was doing about her life. It is about all the thinking about her, looking at her photographs, and trying to piece all her stories together. It is both wonderful to get to spend time with her in this way, and difficult too, because it makes me miss her even more when I do. I can recognize when it is getting too much for me emotionally and I take breaks from it. I put the photos and the mementos away for a bit and come back to it another day.

NF: Poems such as “Heart Flame” and “General Sherman’s Baggage” describe the vulnerabilities and roots of love. How did writing these poems change you?

BM: I think that writing these poems made me feel stronger in the way that acknowledging our own vulnerability is really a sign of strength. This idea that it is ok to not be ok, that we don’t have to be strong and tough all the time, that it is ok to recognize that we need each other and we need to be loved, and how rejection feels terrible. I think that putting that idea out there and owning our own weaknesses turns them into strengths.  

NF: In poems such as “Squinting for Magic” and “Combat Boots II,” you describe your helplessness over things you can’t fix. Things maybe nobody can fix. How do these types of poems bring more clarity, perhaps even a call to action?

BM: I think that writing about anything can help bring more clarity to it but with the sentiment of helplessness, it just makes it fully realized, not resolved. In other words, I didn’t feel any less helpless about the topics with which I wrestle after writing those poems, but I did feel good about being able to honestly express it. I would love it if “Combat Boots II” could serve as a call to action to do more to keep our children safe in schools and curb the gun violence that we live with in America. I would love it if people would read it and recognize how terrifying and tragic it is and how helpless we feel to be able to do anything to stop it.

NF: If you showed “Left Unsaid” to your daughter, what was her response?

BM: I did show it to my daughter, and she told me that it was nice, and she liked it. She also drew a picture of a flower to go with it and ended up supplying most of the art for “Firmer Ground.” My daughter did most of the drawings and my son did one. I am so happy that I have artistic children and that we are so supportive of each other’s creativity.

NF: What are you writing now?

BM: I am working on a longer book that is a memoir about my ancestry. It includes the stories of my ancestors, the stories of my uncovering those stories, and an examination of why my ancestry research matters so much to me. I am really excited about it. I am working with a wonderful developmental editor/mentor on it, Dr. Tawnya Selene-Renelle. Her business is called Beyond Form Creative Writing and offers many wonderful workshops by a team of teachers in addition to mentoring services. https://www.beyondformcreativewriting.com/

NF: Do you have any new projects in mind, and if so, what are they?

BM: I am really pleased with how this chapbook turned out. Working with Cody Sexton from Anxiety Press on “Firmer Ground” was such a great experience and I love having a book out there! I do have plans for another chapbook and another one after that. My plan for my next one is themed around a trip to Scotland that I took last summer to my maternal ancestral home. It was a deeply moving experience for me to go there and connect with all the family that still lives there. I absolutely loved it and have a lot of writing around anticipating the journey, being there, and processing it all.

Beth Mulcahy is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in various journals. She writes to bridge the gaps between history and the self, between hurt and healing. Beth lives in Ohio with her husband and two children. She works for a company that provides technology to people without natural speech. Beth’s debut chapbook with Anxiety Press, “Firmer Ground”, is now available. Learn more about “Firmer Ground” and check out her latest publications on her website:

https://www.bethmulcahywriter.com

To purchase “Firmer Ground:”

http://www.athinsliceofanxiety.com/2023/04/new-from-anxiety-press-firmer-ground.html