Chatting with Stephen Wing

Stephen Wing lives in Atlanta, where he serves on the boards of the Lake Claire Community Land Trust and Nuclear Watch South. He is the author of five books of poems, including Wild Atlanta, inspired by his quarterly “Earth Poetry” workshops exploring the city’s many urban greenspaces, and his latest, Washed in the Hurricane, focusing on climate change. Visit him at StephenWing.com.

Stephen is the author of “Hindsight” from Radon Issue 7.

Q: “Hindsight” is a poem that warns against environmental exploitation and explores a more Earth-honoring way to live. Was it inspired by a particular setting or event?

I wrote this poem many years ago and I don’t think it had a specific impetus. Most of my poems arrive in bits and pieces which I fit together in a form, a shape and a direction that leads me somewhere. The genesis occurs somewhere deep down while I’m thinking about something else.

But obviously my concern for nature is working below the surface around the clock to fit each random poetic impulse into a larger form, shape, and direction that has become the major theme of my work—not just as a poet but in essays and fiction as well. I believe we are in big trouble if concern for nature doesn’t become a major theme in everyone’s work, and I mean not just writers but everyone.

Q: Like many of your poems, “Hindsight” features solid, simple nouns such as “place” and “stone.” (We felt truly grounded reading it!) What is the philosophy behind your style, and what effect do you aim to have on readers?

In my youth I experimented with abstraction, surrealism, and obfuscation for the hell of it, as young people must. But a serious message requires a sincere attempt to communicate. The present world situation does not allow a mature writer the luxury of word games or self-indulgent solipsism.

The challenge is keeping it entertaining, which I believe is a poet’s obligation to the community of readers, finding new angles of perception to keep the message fresh, and avoiding polemics and dogma, which are always boring. Too many people have abandoned reading poetry because too many poets always seem to be trying to impress someone (mainly other poets) instead of striving to reach another mind and heart with words that mean something real.

Q: How do you approach sitting down to write a poem? Do you try to be in a particular headspace or location?

I collect scraps of observation and inspiration on scraps of paper. Be it a few lines, a phrase, or even just a word, and then type them into a document I call “scraps.” When I get into a certain mood, I scroll through it looking for something that catches my eye and my mood. More rarely, a scrap of something will begin to expand as I type it out, and a poem will emerge in one piece. Using a keyboard has made my handwriting less and less legible, so this process works best at my desk. But the scraps can descend on me anywhere, so I’m careful to always carry a pen and folded-up paper in my wallet. Most of them are completely useless, but occasionally I find a little miracle hidden in one.

Q: “Hindsight” begins with a hard-hitting first line: “The ones who / dig up the ground to make power, / they forget / whose power it is.” How would you define the entity or force to whom power and resources do belong?

To me, it’s perfectly obvious that the Earth is a living being, though a single human perspective is so limited that it takes many years of gazing around in amazement to get a sense of the whole. The other half of that is that we are part of that whole, not separate in the least. We belong to the community of life that the Earth has given birth to over eons, and the whole thing is such a miracle that looking out from our self-important littleness—especially those raised in our egocentric, materialistic culture - too often we fail to see it.

Q: You’re an outspoken advocate about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Would you recommend any literature or media that deal with the subject?

Joanna Macy has spent her life developing a set of experiential practices she calls The Work That Reconnects. She began in the 1980s addressing the numbing effect of living under the constant threat of nuclear holocaust, but has expanded her focus as mortal threats to the miracle of life have multiplied.  Her books Active Hope and Coming Back to Life are very practical manuals for awakening to the common source of so much guilt, grief, outrage, depression, addiction, violence, etc.—our inherent love for our home planet and the community of life. Our culture does not permit us to acknowledge that we belong here, biologically and spiritually, so this realization liberates people to stand up in its defense. 

Nuclear proliferation itself is a very dry topic, which requires a very technical language, which very effectively masks the absolute and literal insanity of a “race” to develop more and more devastating methods of killing everyone we love. Macy’s work is a place to begin to heal the numbing that masks that insanity, which we all participate in.

Q: Your website mentions that you were a rock n’ roll roadie. What kinds of music do you listen to, and how does rock n’ roll inspire you?

I listen to almost every kind of music, jazz, blues, R&B, country, folk, reggae, African, and Latin. But rock-n-roll is my home in the world of music. Music has no conscious effect on my writing, but poetry is itself an unrecognized musical genre and prose too must have its own music to reach the full spectrum of a human mind and heart. At least to reach mine.

Q: We’re struck by your background and how you grew up in the 70s traveling through nature. In contrast, many of our younger readers (and writers) have grown up in largely digital and sedentary childhoods. What advice would you have for reconnecting with nature?

When people get out into a natural setting, they usually go together. Go by yourself some time and after hiking in a ways, sit down and look around and listen. When we’re not constantly listening to each other, other voices will emerge. Much of my poetry about wild nature is transcribed and translated directly from those voices. I have a theory that what we call imagination is a shriveled vestige of the ancient human ability to hear the nature spirits guiding us through life. So trust your imagination! Your thoughts and feelings are part of a much larger intelligence, a very quiet conversation that’s always going on around you.

Q: How can people take action for positive change in the world?

The opportunities are boundless. Whatever issue you’re drawn to, someone else is already addressing it. Don’t try to tackle it on your own, join them and contribute your creativity to something larger than yourself. If interpersonal dynamics get in the way, examine them to learn more about yourself. Community is a great teacher. It is also programmed into our DNA from a million years of genetic evolution. Our culture cripples us by training us to think and act as individuals, so the greatest obstacle to positive change is our lack of practice in working together. Although if you look, you’ll find many folks plugged into communities large and small, making a positive difference, pooling their creativity and imagination to build something larger than its parts. These groups don’t get noticed by the media, but they’re everywhere, and they are the hope of the planet.

Q: After writing five wonderful books of poetry, do you have a sixth one planned?

I’m working on a collection of the “political poetry” I’ve written over the past four decades. The challenge is to keep it from tipping toward the negative, so I’ve had to scroll through my file of “scraps” and write some new poems to help balance it out. I close the book with an essay refuting the idea that poetry and social issues don’t mix.

In my view, one reason the world is such a mess is that too many poets have recoiled from dirtying their hands in the topical realm. In the course of that I compile quite a list of exceptions, who are my mentors as a poet venturing into the political minefield. The book doesn’t have a title yet, but it will be out in the spring and will be available at my website StephenWing.com.