“Here” displays the evolution of the speaker searching for more before becoming content with the present. How did you decide what images would portray that development? 

I work first from image, so there was no conscious deciding on which image(s) would portray the development of the idea. Rather, the  understanding of  the idea comes from being present with the images.

Your bio mentions how you write pieces between poetry and prose. Can you elaborate on your writing process and how you decide the format of a piece?

I think the piece decides its format and then it’s up top me to shape it. I’ve begun playing more with mixing what would traditionally be considered prose and poetry. The traditional Haibun form has inspired me to play more with that. Also, my  prose tends to use a lot of metaphor and image. I think my first language is poetry - I think of it as a dive, an immersion, into image, place, emotion. In longer prose it is more like distance swimming, you have to find a pace that can sustain a story and that means using lanuage differently, extending instead of condensing.

The last stanza introduces the speaker using the first-person point of view. What led to the decision to incorporate that perspective at the end of the poem?   

I think you give me a lot more credit for thinking things through than actually occurs. The turning toward first person felt like a  natural evolution for the poem. In the first few drafts of a poem I am not so much making deliberate decisions, as listening. It’s in the revision process that I respond to the poem and am consciously shaping it, as I understand what the poem wants to say, or what I am trying to tell myself,  and then I look for the best way to open a window, or a gate, for readers to share in that, although their interpretation may well be different.

It has been noticed that your writing leans towards images of nature and seasons. What about the natural world inspires you to include it in your poetry and prose?

Indeed, I have a friend who jokes that there’s hardly a poem of mine without a stone or a branch. I live in the country and am surrounded with trees and sky, a small pond that invites wildlife. The sounds I hear daily are those of the natural world. I have lived in large cities (I’m from NY and lived for a time Madrid and in San Francisco) and still enjoy visiting, but I am most attuned to the rhythms of the natural world. It is the setting I live in, it is home.

According to your website, you published a book titled In the Time of Leaving. How has writing that book influenced your writing?

Writing a long piece of prose, specifically historical fiction,  was a new discipline for me. I had to approach it in a different way. I wrote various drafts from different points of view - completely finishing one before going back to revise. Interestingly, the novel grew out of a poem. I carried pieces of the story around with me for years until I had the time and space to let the story really consume my time and energy. It is a very heavily researched book and it reinforced how much I delight in research, curiosity and learning. I have a chapbook of poetry, The Stairs of Separation,  from about ten years ago that I also researched heavily, based on my mother’s experience as an immigrant.

I think curiosity, being present with the words and really listening come though in whatever form I’m writing in, and the themes of longing, resilience and home seem to echo in whatever I write.

Do you have a favorite time of day to write? If so, when?

It changes actually - when I was younger and had children and a very full time job I wrote most in the mornings or late evenings. Now that I have my days to my own counting my mornings are slowed-  I meditate, do yoga, walk my dog, write morning pages (in various orders and forms). My more creative time tends to be mid day - afternoon.

Read Shana’s poem, “Here” in dulcet Literary magazine, vol. One, Issue No. 2, coming this february.