Mind Over Matter
Shira Erlichman
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Dear Shira, First, congratulations on your new book “Odes to Lithium.” Could you tell us something more about it? “Odes to Lithium” is a book of unconventional love poems to my medication for Bipolar Disorder. It was an experiment in how many different ways I can approach this highly personal and stigmatized object, a pill for my mental illness. In expanding my capacity to move from shame to love, my hope was to bring the pill from static object to something alive: a lover, a friend, & a teacher. Have you planned any readings or “meet and greet” to promote your new book? |
photo credit: Hieu Minh Nguyen |
Definitely!
You can check out my tour schedule here.
What type of impact do you want to have through your writing?
This is a beautiful question. With all of my writing, my hope is to invite my reader deeper into the mystery & joy, as well as the complexity & ache, of being alive.
With Odes to Lithium specifically, my hope is to make a loving object that can accompany the mentally ill, like a friend, throughout their journey. The book also includes my own drawings, in the spirit of levity & joy. For hands to carry a brightness, even as it names the heaviness.
You are a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. What does that mean to your writing schedule and involvement?
It means I’m grateful my work has been nominated by folks who found it worthy. But in the end, as poet Airea D. Mathews once said, no one remembers what awards James Baldwin won. You remember the work.
We have an ongoing campaign titled #ForTheLoveOfPoetry and we’d love it if you can contribute a poem for it. Can you share with us how did your love of poetry begin? Maybe it is connected to your name Shira that we know means song & poem in Hebrew?
(smile) I immigrated to the US from Israel when I was six years old. Suddenly there was snow, a new home, a new school; everything was new, including language. I saw that words served both beauty & utility. When I learned how to ask “where’s the bathroom?” I had access. No word could be taken for granted. I graduated ESL. I learned the rules. But in third grade, when we had a brief poetry unit, I saw that there were rules, but within a poem, you could break them. Magenta could become magenting, if I wanted it to. Nouns could be verbed, why not? Language was flexible & fun, a pancake to flip. I delighted in language like a skater testing every piece of pavement before her. I wanted to fly.
You can check out my tour schedule here.
What type of impact do you want to have through your writing?
This is a beautiful question. With all of my writing, my hope is to invite my reader deeper into the mystery & joy, as well as the complexity & ache, of being alive.
With Odes to Lithium specifically, my hope is to make a loving object that can accompany the mentally ill, like a friend, throughout their journey. The book also includes my own drawings, in the spirit of levity & joy. For hands to carry a brightness, even as it names the heaviness.
You are a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. What does that mean to your writing schedule and involvement?
It means I’m grateful my work has been nominated by folks who found it worthy. But in the end, as poet Airea D. Mathews once said, no one remembers what awards James Baldwin won. You remember the work.
We have an ongoing campaign titled #ForTheLoveOfPoetry and we’d love it if you can contribute a poem for it. Can you share with us how did your love of poetry begin? Maybe it is connected to your name Shira that we know means song & poem in Hebrew?
(smile) I immigrated to the US from Israel when I was six years old. Suddenly there was snow, a new home, a new school; everything was new, including language. I saw that words served both beauty & utility. When I learned how to ask “where’s the bathroom?” I had access. No word could be taken for granted. I graduated ESL. I learned the rules. But in third grade, when we had a brief poetry unit, I saw that there were rules, but within a poem, you could break them. Magenta could become magenting, if I wanted it to. Nouns could be verbed, why not? Language was flexible & fun, a pancake to flip. I delighted in language like a skater testing every piece of pavement before her. I wanted to fly.
Ode to Lithium #63: Lightweight
(Source: NAILED, April 2016)
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at the party I’m called a lightweight
while you shovel salt through my blood like a dedicated father clearing the driveway except the driveway is the whole world you make wine take off its clothes faster glaze my eyes with gentle & I deserve a life– time supply of this ease so when they tease “just one drink & you’re good” they don’t know ………it’s not the wine somebody cares for me |
After reading more about you, we learned that your journey has not always been easy and you’ve had difficult days. What is your way to #BeatTheBlues?
I’ve always found that the simplest gesture goes a long way. Whether that’s deciding to shower, instead of staying in bed all day. Recently I saw a man on the subway, dozing, drop his newspaper & a woman a whole ten seats away get up & gently place it back next to him. He will never know. He woke up, grabbed his paper, got off.
When I first got sick in 2006, a faraway friend mailed me a scarf that she knit in every shade of blue you could imagine; “for all your blues,” she wrote. To accept the manied blues, this is a way to beat the blues.
What inspires you and what keeps you motivated despite different boundaries along the way?
I’m in awe at the pure creativity inherent in everyone. Everyone possesses creativity: children, trees, sleepy cats, swimmers, gardeners, mothers, masters, novices, the ocean, the sky. I love the feeling of a wide-open mind, & with that, a wide-open world. Feeling into all that I can’t possibly know makes me feel awe, & there’s a strange, almost contradictory groundedness inside that awe that helps me create. I’m motivated by contradiction, tension, nuance, kinship, possibility, & the strangeness of being here at all.
You are always active by participating in many events that you find interesting and beneficial. What are some of the most memorable moments from these engagements?
One of the most incredible things I’ve been lucky to do is go on tour with my partner of 8 ½ years, Angel Nafis. Odes For You was on the road for two months, right after The Orange One got elected & everything felt like a sharp living nightmare. To be with audiences during that time & laugh, cry, rage, spill, & contain, was so important. In those weeks, our togetherness softened the air between us. Reading poems, singing songs together, it was a privilege & a salve.
What do you think about collaborations with other artists? How do you deal with challenges that arise from this line of work?
I’ve always collaborated with other artists. It’s the most natural thing in the world. I grew up surrounded by musicians, artists, photographers, creators who saw that Thoreau had it right: “to affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” Everything felt like an adventure when collaborating. It was as if it didn’t even really matter what you specialized in individually; when you came together, the potential was infinite. Would we design a t-shirt, collage a private journal that belonged to the two of us, or just have an artful conversation? Collaboration is like a game of ping-pong, synchronized swimming, & baking all at once! So much connectivity, so much arising & percolating. The challenges are similar to when one is creating alone: get out of the way, let ego fall back in service of curiosity, & be willing to shapeshift the plan as you go.
You’re a writer, visual artist and musician. When do you decide what talent to utilize in order to complete a project you’ve thought of completing? Where do you find satisfaction easily: is it in music, literature or visual work?
This 'decision' has a particular flavor of pleasure & challenge. They all engage different senses: the bite of guitar strings under pushing fingers, the way a voice unfurls from the throat heavier or lighter than imagined, a story-poem bursting from seemingly nowhere all pulse & push, a word like tangerine or incorrigible or split capturing the mind for an hour, an accumulation of paint-strokes suddenly unfolding a face, a stray defiant charcoal mark on one’s work-pants as delightful as the finished drawing. Each mode, & its tools, invites opportunity for new voicings of the self. Music, visual art, poems –– each is a boat and paddles to move me through the wild, wild ocean of feeling, of self.
#WhatMatters to you the most at this point in time?
Living a full life, constantly realigning with my intention, remaining open to possibilities even in the midst of feeling hangry or shut-down, investigating the capital U Universe and my lowercase L life, sharing myself wholeheartedly, not having to know or achieve certainty, enjoying turquoise in both word & color, being of use to strangers & beloveds & dogs & my eyes & language.
Your favorite quote is… “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein
A good day is… noticing that I’m a breathing creature moving through a mysterious universe, having arrived for no explicable reason, with possibilities unfolding every second. Preferably I’m near a jellyfish tank or holy shit stars or my partner or all three. Any kind of noticing will do, especially if its among kin & art & nature. I love people, so a good day is touching their shoulders, sharing, laughing, being seen & felt. Gardens, aquariums, learning, learning. I like to walk, & eat, and be with.
Thank you! Kudos to you for all the interesting work you put out!
Shira Erlichman is a poet, musician, and visual artist. She was born in Israel and immigrated to the US when she was six. Her poems explore recovery –– of language, of home, of mind –– and value the "scattered wholeness" of healing. She earned her BA at Hampshire College and has been awarded the James Merrill Fellowship by the Vermont Studio Center, the Visions of Wellbeing Focus Fellowship at AIR Serenbe, as well as a residency by the Millay Colony. Her debut poetry book, Odes to Lithium, came out in September 2019. She is also the author and illustrator of the children's book Be/Hold. When not on tour, she lives in Brooklyn where she teaches writing and creates.