Levi Cain and Laura Kolbe brought a plethora of creative insights to Drew students at the second Writers at Drew event of the semester. Hosted in Mead Hall on Nov. 13, the writers read from both published and unpublished works, followed by a Q&A.
Sara Martin, a creative writing professor, arranged the event. “Writers at Drew is important because it creates an intersection between writers finding their voices on the page and established writers navigating the publishing world,” said Martin. “These events always highlight the fact that even professional authors struggle with the same issues as students: time management, writers’ block, inspiration, knowing when something is finished, and demonstrate that writing is a lifelong practice”
Laura Kolbe, a writer, physician and medical ethicist, first read from the unpublished manuscript she is currently working on, in which she explores her experience with pregnancy. She shared the poem “Writing and Nursing,” comparing the act of writing to breastfeeding, and “Still,” which detailed the moment before the anonymity of her pregnancy was lost.
Kolbe went on to read two poems, “Little Pharma Research” and “The Countable” from her book “Little Pharma,” which won the 2021 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Kolbe uses a persona to write about her experiences of medical training. “I found it difficult to write about it directly,” said Kolbe, and using a persona “allowed [her] to be more vulnerable.”
Levi Cain is a queer New England writer who first read “The Body Becomes a Pool to Drink From,” a poem from their chapbook, “DOGTEETH,” which explores intimacy and love in queer relationships. According to their website, https://levicain.wordpress.com/, “DOGTEETH is a meditative awakening from the deeply integrated maxims of Catholic upbringing into a radical corpus of queerness, race, and gender identity.”
Cain then read from a hybrid manuscript about connectivity and love that they are currently working on. Their poem “Sweet Potatoes At the End of The World” explores deepening connections during the pandemic. Cain then read “Limerence” and “The Homie Does The Robot to Fiona Apple’s ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters.’”
Following these readings, students were provided the opportunity to ask questions, and the authors answered with insights on writing, publishing and being creative.
When asked about creating a piece that is ready for publication, Kolbe noted that “there’s a lot of indirection,” and she is “continually writing new work, folding it into the manuscript, throwing out what no longer worked.” She compared her manuscript to the Ship of Theseus, and explained, “The boat needed to be rebuilt before it could become its thing.”
Cain added that for them, “It took a lot of patience. I thought the book was ready long before it was.” Cain goes on to describe experiencing many rejections. They found “not internalizing it” helpful. “Of course you have something to say; you need patience and hard work.”
The writers also provided insight into keeping things for themselves as well as sharing things that some will disagree with.
Cain commented, “There can be an urge as a poet to give as much as you can to your audience to be memorable,” remarking that this is especially true when poets are starting out.
“I’m the poet, I own the poem, I own the story,” said Cain, though they admitted that it took them “a while to get there.”
“None of it needs to be published, you just have to get it down,” said Kolbe. “I give myself permission to write all the stuff…later I come back and see what’s important enough to stay.”
Kolbe also urged writers to write poems about their experiences. “The way poems convince us are different than the way essays convince us,” said Kolbe, explaining that “I can love a poem even if the ideology and context are foreign to me.”
The event concluded with a final question, requiring the writers to choose one word to describe their work. “Pulpy,” said Cain. “Torrential,” said Kolbe.
You can find Cain’s work at https://levicain.wordpress.com/poetry/, and Kolbe’s work at https://www.laura-kolbe.com/.
Katie Carmichael is a junior majoring in English with an emphasis in creative writing and minoring in teaching.
