Prize-Winning Poet Maggie Ray Shares Her Writing Journey

A poem by English teacher Maggie Ray won the 2020 Third Coast poetry contest – and she had three others published in december magazine and The Adroit Journal. Ray spoke recently about how her work and her passion for poetry influences her teaching. 

Who are some of your favorite poets? Do you teach those authors to your students?

There's a real poetry explosion of the best kind going on in the US right now; there are TONS of brilliant living, working poets.  I especially admire Diane Seuss, Ada Limón, Natalie Shapero, Ross Gay, Kaveh Akbar, Jennifer Chang, Paige Lewis, Heather Christle, Solmaz Sharif, Vivee Francis, Monica Youn… I definitely bring poems from these writers into my classes, especially juniors and my creative writing class in the spring.

Is there a poem that is especially meaningful to you?

Always; I have a kind of rotation of favorites, and new ones all the time.  Right now, I'm thinking a lot about "Social Skills Training" by Solmaz Sharif, "To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall" by Kim Addonizio, "Somewhere Real" by Shira Erlichman, and "Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude" by Ross Gay.  And a poem that's perpetually stuck in my head (in a good way) is "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Can you talk about the inspiration(s) for your most recently published works?

Lots of poems come from sorting through old memories and mashing them up together, turning them over and over again, and these are like that.  You're thinking about something a lot and kind half making it up and then one day you realize it's a poem.

Do you have a favorite place to write?

I do most of my revising at my desk, but my favorite places to write are almost anywhere else.  Coffee shops and parks in cities where I don't live, especially.

Do you find time to write, make time to write, or both?

Both.  During the school year I have to make time and guard it carefully, or it doesn't happen. 

How does your writing influence your classroom approach or lessons?

I think one of the biggest lessons writing can teach you is patience - the thinking, revising, writing, revising, thinking again - that process is SLOW and is going to take however long it takes.  So I'm always trying to help my students work and think in ways that have patience built in; by returning to questions and ideas over and over, digging at them.  That's like writing.  And when I'm teaching poetry & creative writing explicitly, it helps that I feel very much in it with them. 

Do you ever share your work – either finished or in process - with your students?

I have not.  They can certainly google if they want, but I stick to sharing work by writers I love or admire. 

Would you share your best advice for aspiring writers?

Your writing is going to be built out of the cadence, languages, tones, ideas, sounds, etc. from all the things you've ever read or heard in your entire life.  A lot of this we can't control (our culture, the languages we grew up hearing, the YouTube video your roomate is listening to in the background).  Some of it we can control.  For the part you CAN control: seek out media, music, literature, & art you LOVE, be ravenous, and read/watch/listen to as much of it as you possibly can get your hands on.  Fill your brain with the ingredients of what you love, and then it will be easier to write/make things you like. And then, be awake to the possibility of an idea at any time, and be ready to write it down. 

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