Press Play ▶️ An Interview with Susanna Spearman
"Art and poetry are dangerous. It is in the best interest of people with wealth and power to silence us all. Well, FUCK THAT."
This is a Press Play interview. This series digs deep into the why behind a Long Pause and what our creativity looks like on the other side. The goal is to say the quiet part loud: Pauses happen; you’re not alone. If you know a creative person who has weathered a Long Pause (maybe it’s you!), you can reply to this e-mail to be in touch with me. Subscribe below so you never miss an interview! 👊
Hey pals. Today, I’m delighted to introduce you to Susanna Spearman and her (current!) Long Pause. I resonated so hard with her summation of the way all of this *gestures wildly at active garbage fire in the United States / world* tries to eat us alive, and I hope you are inspired by her fierce perspective on art as resistance (and her knockout poems). Oh, and there’s a Hot Priest cameo ❤️🔥 ~Erinn
Explain yourself. Who are you, how do you identify as an artist / creative?
I was a sensitive kid with powerful emotions who grew into a sensitive adult with powerful emotions. I’m a sponge – for beauty, for pain, and for everything in between. I always say that being a poet is a way of seeing the world before it is a writing practice of any kind. I am a poet because, to me, everything is more than one thing. Oftentimes it feels so overwhelming, but poetry helps me wring myself out.
In terms of a day job, I am a Humanities faculty member at a local community college. I teach ESL and English and absolutely love it!
You’re here because you’ve gone through a long fallow period. How did your Long Pause come about, and how long did it last?
I took three years to complete my MFA (a respectable, if longer than usual period of time). During those years, I was always reading wonderful books and pieces of literature. I was held accountable to regular practice of creating and offering feedback. When I finished my program last summer, several things were going on. My wife had lost her job, I was beginning two different adjunct positions, and finishing an extremely busy summer job. In addition to that, I was receiving the dreaded batch of end-of reading-season rejections of my work. I couldn't take it. Life felt so overwhelming, and I felt like I must be creating shit-ass work (since no one wanted to publish it). I didn’t have time to write or wring myself out. Keeping myself and my family above water was all I could manage.
Another contributing factor is just… the world. Of course, humans have always embodied varying degrees of horribleness, but our bodies are not built to know about all of it at once. The accompanying shame and helplessness I feel as an American who cares about other humans is so heavy. How can I write when writing won’t save anyone, least of all myself? How can I write when it requires me to feel such complicated emotions so present in my body? How can I care enough about the things going on in Gaza and Congo and Sudan and the U.S. and Mexico and … everywhere?
I think the combination of overwhelming grief and feelings of inadequacy have been warring with my need to write and feel. I have started sending submissions out again and doing some revisions, and I feel the poems inside of me preparing (and asking) to be made. I am trying to re-parent the voice inside of me that says creating and feeling aren’t important when the world is burning. That is when they are the most important.
What kinds of media have been inspiring or comforting or interesting to you in your Pause?
I try to keep what I call a “reservoir of feeling.” Pieces of media that help me drop right into my feelings or things that soothe me. Whenever I need to feel deeply, I watch Series 2 of Fleabag. I can’t recommend that show enough. If earnestness and fierce honesty aren’t enough… Hot Priest. That’s all I’m gonna say.
In terms of soothing, I’m gonna be honest and tell you I watch Bluey. I saw a TikTok once that said, “If you watch Bluey as an adult you had a bad childhood.” So, here we are.
Reading and following lovely humans on Substack has been very inspiring. Writing a weekly collection of things bringing me joy or making me feel deeply is the most consistently I’ve written in months!
My favorite and most inspiring internet content lately has been the NATIFS Indigenous Food Lab YouTube channel. It is a MUST-subscribe. Indigenous Food Lab | YouTube
Books that have been inspiring and generally awesome:
“Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers” by Matthew R. Sparks and Olivia Sizemore;
“Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology” edited by Rigoberto Gonzalez;
“Lore Olympus” by Rachel Smythe (yes, the Webtoon-turned-graphic novel series – soo good)*
*Editor’s note: I’m linking the first in the series here, but as of this writing there are NINE volumes, and yes it is awesome, especially for former Classics / Latin nerds *cough* me.
When capitalist themes bleed into creative work, there is a pervasive pressure to be productive all the time, an assumption that this productivity should translate to profit and that because your work is creative (i.e. “fun”) you shouldn’t need to rest. How have these themes impacted your creative work and your Pause?
I think capitalism injures creative work in a variety of ways. One of those ways is the idea that if something can’t make you money it isn’t worthwhile – or is even a waste of time. I used to feel like I wasn’t a “real” poet because I hadn’t been published or paid for my work. But I am a poet because I make poems and because of how I move through the world!
Another way it does harm is that so many of us spend so much of our energy trying to make ends meet and pay bills (and if we are lucky, have fun sometimes). Creative work is most costly, for me at least, from an energy standpoint. If I’m worrying every month whether or not rent is going to be paid, it’s hard to carve out time to ground in my body and create.
The other way is that capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, and patriarchy all protect each other. It can be tempting, sometimes, to not send out “controversial” work. Especially right now, when censorship in the U.S. is becoming more and more common, it can make honesty and fierce opposition to all kinds of oppression feel like risking one’s livelihood.
At the end of the day, art and poetry are dangerous. It is in the best interest of people with wealth and power to silence us all. Well, fuck that! We are here and we intend to stay a problem!
What do you understand about your work, or your creativity now that you didn’t before Pausing?
My wife and I have been together almost two years, and she pointed out to me that I don’t write when I’m hiding from myself. Last night, my best friend casually said, “Of course you haven’t been writing – you have a lot of big, scary things to grieve.” The people who love me most and know me best keep pointing to this part of myself I’ve tucked away. I’ve learned that I tuck it away when I feel afraid of what I need to learn, let go of, or heal from.
Poetry is the tool I use to love and understand myself. When I am feeling undeserving of love or tenderness, I run. I throw myself into projects or work or having adventures with my wife and friends. I know now to treat this pattern as a signal that something inside of me needs attention. It has not been a fun lesson, let me tell you. It has, however, been an important one. I want to be the kind of person who can be as honest with myself as possible. Poetry is a part of that for me. I can’t keep hiding. It’s time to wrestle some demons. Maybe I’ll get some art out of it, maybe I won’t. The important thing is to do the wrestling or excavation in the first place.
Susanna Spearman (they/she) is a queer, Appalachian poet originally from South Carolina. They received their MFA from EKU’s Bluegrass Writers Studio, and live in central Kentucky with their wife, three cats, and senior chihuahua. Susanna has poems in West Trade Review, Still: The Journal, Carolina Muse, Untelling, Meow Meow Pow Pow, and Yearling Journal. They were the 2023 winner of the BGWS Emerging Writer Award for Poetry (selected by Bernard Clay). They are a full-time Humanities Instructor teaching ESL and English at Bluegrass Community and Technical College and the Secretary of Kentucky State Poetry Society.
Instagram: @zuskana
Substack: @zuskana (god's obituary)
Read four of Susanna’s poems in Still: The Journal
Read Susanna’s poem "transubstantiation" in West Trade Review
Hear Susanna read and talk about her poem "transubstantiation"