Terri Niccum
I’ve known Terri Niccum since I was in grade school. She – and her husband, Bob – are friends of my parents. (My folks were in a folk singing music group with them. Actually the band is still together. They’re called The Others and they’re still ‘gigging’!) But as a grade schooler, my folks’ friendship with the Niccum’s just meant my interaction was the polite, “Hi. Yes, school is good. Thank you for the birthday card”, sort of interaction.
But there’s a moment, in all our lives, when we become adults, and the friends of our parents take up a little more space. And then one day, let’s say you write words and send them out into the world on your blog, then in book form; and some of those friend’s of your parents send supportive letters about how good your words are.
And THEN, you find that one of those friends, Terri Niccum, has been a poet all these years.
I reached out to her for an interview (in honor of last month being National Poetry Month) and she happily agreed. Let me tell you, I could have talked about poetry and life and inspiration for a lot longer than we were able to chat.
Terri has been a bright, smiling gentle woman as long as I’ve known her. She’s encouraging, with a kind heart and – I think is fair to say – a bit introverted; though her love of music and being present in life has made her the kind of person who has opened her arms to experiencing all she can in this life. Oh yeah, and she is a phenomenally talented poet.
I was re-reading her books of poetry and watching the available readings online to get ready for the inerview. I smiled, cried, sat back after a particularly well word-smithed line and sighed … realizing that is the point of poetry. It’s meant to open us up, to sooth us. To help us burn and laugh and mourn. To celebrate and declare and revelate.
I’ve always had a strong respect for poets, probably because they can evoke on one single page what sometimes takes me 400 pages to express. (Or at least that’s how I joke about it.)
So let’s get to it. I talked to Terri on the phone and recorded our conversation. This is the transcription.
Terri Niccum is a former journalist and special education teacher. She lives in Southern California where she continues to advocate for children with special needs. Her work has won numerous poetry prizes and been featured in a large number of poetry magazines. And she vows to continue scribbling and squawking well into her dotage.
She has written three chapbooks: Dead Letter Box and Sky Leaning Toward Winter (Moon Tide Press) and Looking Snow in the Eye (Finishing Line Press) and a full-length volume of poetry, The Knife Thrower’s Daughter (Moon Tide Press).
But first, a poem by Terri Niccum
Rev!
It would be easy enough to trade
my AARP card for an aging
Vincent Black Lightning – spoked wheels
and chrome in all the right places,
a gas tank one sleek curve I’d curve into,
handlebars framing what lies ahead,
with gleaming urgency.
an engine teaching my legs
to vibrate hope, oh, antique chic
that moves with a method. With my fingers
gripping the pink slip
for that black purring beauty I could face
down this predilection to melt to still,
could hug the anger that smolders in me
like bike fumes, pull on the books of the vagabond,
and rev, rev with the allure
of an open causeway.
(Nicole) I loved the poem “Rev!” Do you mind if I share it and can you talk about that poem?
(Terri) I’d be delighted if you shared it. You know, the poems in my chapbook Sky Leading Toward Winter are kind of dark, and I wanted to have a little bit of lightness in there too. With that poem, I wanted a lot of sound; and I also wanted to write about aging and not just go down the same path other poems have on that topic. And I talk about a Vincent Black Lightning because one of my favorite singer songwriters, Richard Thompson, has a wonderful song called Vincent Black Lightning. And putting that in the poem gave me an energy. So my hope is that the poem makes the reader laugh and feel revitalized.
Have you always been writing poetry?
When I was a kid, I thought I would write novels. But I would only write the first two or three chapters, and didn’t write any more. In college, I took a poetry writing course. It felt more my speed. I could hang on to a poem. I still don’t write long long poems, but I can still tell stories and use forms and hopefully capture some feelings.
Your poems tend to be a bit darker, but there is still a “light” in them.
I know a lot of my poems are a bit darker, but my editor and publisher says he likes the way I write about death and how I think about death. I think that’s because when I’m writing about it, it has more to do with structuring life, not dwelling on death and trying to capture how people keep going.
Who are some of your favorite poets or is that a big question?
Well, William Stafford, Randall Jarrell, Rilke and Sylvia Plath were my early influences. Stafford particularly because his words were very accessible. Every poem I’ve read of his has moved me in some way. There was seriousness to them but humor too.
Actually, one of the people who blurbed my last book, Mariano Zaro wrote Decoding Sparrows. It’s just wonderful, with beautifully apt language
What poets are soothing your soul a little bit these days?
Marsha de la O has a book called Creature and the language really stirs me, that book really resonates with me.
Do you write every day?
I try to read every day; I read a lot of poetry. I try to jot thoughts down as they come up, but I’m probably doing pretty good if I write a poem a week. But if I take a workshop, the juices get going and it’s like putting myself in the right place at the right time to catch up on what I really want to write. But I consider myself a lazy poet. I have friends who write every day and work on three or four different projects at a time. But I just like to be very present in my life. I also want to make time to make music. And I don’t feel like those two things compete with each other, I feel like they bolster each other.
What are you doing to keep yourself creative and unblocked in the world we find ourselves living?
I’m in two different writing groups with friends who I’ve now been writing with for years. We can stimulate each other to keep writing but also it’s nice to have someone to talk to about how things are so we’re not bottling it up. But it also helps to have people close at hand being creative. It’s very stimulating and inspiring. Sure, we have ogres running large parts of the world right now, but there is still tons of beauty and still amazing creativity and amazing imagination.
You know, I have a meadow in my front yard, we don’t have grass but a lot of indigenous plants, but every year these volunteer Mexican Primroses come up for about three weeks and it has been grounding me. Nature still has a life cycle that keeps going and it’s going to be there next year too. It’s very grounding.
One of the people in my writing groups had to put away the book he was working on, because he was writing … well … not political poems, but more of a lament for what he sees happening in our country. But it’s interesting, because the theme is about feeling guilty for still being able to find joy. But that’s what we need. To keep in touch and to help other people. It certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t work or that we don’t see all the awful things that are happening. And we need to do whatever we can to stop it, but the point is that we can’t let it rob us of the little gifts of joy that are out there.
I watched the video of you reading your poem “Some Days I Believe” and I just started bawling. It was so beautiful. How did that poem come about?
I got the line in a dream. I was thinking about my mom and dad and brother, all deceased now, and I had this dream that I could bring them back to me and the line came to me: “Some days I believe I will dream them all back.” That was the power I wanted to latch on to, in my dreams I could bring everybody back. If I could have a superpower, that’s what it would be.
I would argue that your superpower is your words and how you use them so well.
Oh, thank you! When I’m writing, and I get that rush, that the words are kind of coming the way I want them to and there is emotional payoff for me, I just hope I can communicate that to people. I’m always delighted to hear that my words touched someone.
What I really want is to make mind links. To put something down on paper and someone I may never meet, can read it and get something from it, something that matters to them.
Where does your inspiration come from?
I’m a lazy writer. Though I do participate in a lot of workshops, which I actually take with my editor/publisher. He just gives such darn good prompts. But I’ll kind of let my brain percolate on the prompt, but for me, I need to get a first line. I need that first line to set the tone for the poem and then it’s like I can jump on that and see where that will take me. And it might not necessarily end up being the first line of the poem, but often it does.
I think poets get to be a little bit more … stingy (I don’t mean that in a negative way) but stingy and creative with the words you use.
I think that’s true, because when you find a few lines that resonate with you, you build around them. I’m not like a lot of my poet friends who write to themes. I tend to just write when I get a line that moves me. Often, I’ll hear a phrase or read a poem that talks to me and use it as a starting point. And even if the poem I’m writing is rather serious, there is still something tantalizing and fun with the arrangement of the words, even during revising, there is something tantalizing that keeps propelling me.
I tend to want my poetry to be more accessible to everyone. I didn’t want to just write for poets. But now that I’ve been doing it for many years, I find I want to do both, write a poem that is pleasing to someone who really understands craft but could also talk to someone who claims they don’t know much about poetry.
I think we need accessible poetry, I think it’s important.
I think so. It would be nice if poetry could turn some hearts and minds around. During hard times poetry has to be accessible, because who knows if someone could read a poem that might make them think twice about their actions and help them change.
Thank you so much Terri, for all your words and inspiration and support!
Find Terri Here:
I highly suggest you take a moment and
listen to her read her poems here:
