Interviews    

The Flashlight Reader

Bookingly Yours

 

The Flashlight Reader  - April 26, 2011

Alanna Shaw interviews Sara Lauritzen

In celebration of National Poetry Month, I think it is only fitting to have an interview with a poet! Sara Lauritzen is the author of Iconic Poetry, a collection of poems about some of our society's most famous icons.


Note: Anything in blue from this point forward is the interviewer's personal commentary.


Random Stuff:


1. If you could invite anyone from history (living or dead) to dinner at your house, who would you invite? Why?


I would invite Susan B. Anthony and show her our world today and the efforts that have been made since her day. I like her character and courage, she was a true leader.


Fantastic choice! I would have FDR at my dinner table. Wouldn't the two of them make for a night of enlightening conversation?

2. In the introduction of your book you mentioned that you lived in Dubai. I'm curious about what led you to such an interesting and unusual place. What did you enjoy most about living in another country?


My husband was asked to set up an office in Dubai, so naturally we jumped at the chance to experience life in this part of the world. I particularly enjoyed the level of creativity. It was like being in a real life game of "Sim City", the city-building simulation game. It seemed there were no limits to the fascinating designs buildings were shaped into - even the highway overpasses were decorative and interesting to look at.

3. If you were to write an "iconic" poem about a celebrity, who would you choose? Could you share a stanza or two of your poem?

All wispy at the ends, hair brown, neat and shinny

Your eyes are shaped and lashed like a Deer

A smile full of caring, you're gentle and dreamy

This is only the start of your career

 

Your voice, smooth and lulling can be heard all over

The world, you're a star in every way

Thousands of fans follow you

Watch, learn and are hopeful of meeting

The Bieber, one day!

Oh my teenage students will love this! They are obsessed with Justin Bieber.


Technical Stuff:

1. I loved that your poetry collection had poems about Starbucks and iPods. If you were to write another edition of Iconic Poetry, what "icons" would you write about this time?

You Tube, Blogging, and the Statue of Liberty for starters.

Oh, I love the idea of adding a poem about Lady Liberty. It will be fun to pair that with the classic "The New Colossus." I can only imagine what will come in a poem about YouTube. If it's anything like the Ebay poem, it will be humorous and true to life.


2. What advice would you give young writers?

Write from the part of yourself that is truly you and do not judge your work by comparing it to what others have done. A friend once said to me "we think we should be more of what everyone else has done out there when instead we should be more of what we are."


Wow. Your friend really nails it. In an age of copycats, being original does mean something.


3. What did you find to be the hardest part of the writing process?


It took time to get the rhyming part of the poetry to stay true to each icon. It was important to me, not to use any fluffy fillers. If I couldn't find a rhyming word that matched the authenticity of the icon, I changed the poem altogether.


I wondered how the rhyming worked for you. When I was teaching poetry to my students they had a really hard time with the rhymes. It was easy to rhyme a few lines, but they found that multiple stanzas are an entirely different animal!


A special thank you to Sara Lauritzen for participating in this interview. If you would like to learn more about her (she's very interesting) or her poetry book Iconic Poetry, check out her website here.

 

Bookingly Yours

Guest Author: Sara Lauritzen

May 7th, 2011

 

Hi, I'm Sara Lauritzen, Author of "Iconic Poetry - Poems on Life's Favorite Icons".

Have you ever enjoyed a really cool "icon" moment and been thankful for the experience? Grabbing that Starbucks, posting that remark on Facebook, energetically tweeting, outbidding the highest bidder on eBay, enjoying those snug UGGS? Enough to write a poem about it?

Iconic Poetry is a collection of poetic praise for some of life's favorite icons, brands and trends. It all started way back in 2007. I was living in Dubai at the time and I let out a shriek one sunny Sunday morning when I realized we'd run out of coffee. Completely!  Over a coffee-less breakfast the words of "Mamma Latte" flowed through my head so strongly, I had to write them down.  The poem starts "A shriek filled the air, with notes of despair/ We're all out of coffee, dare we declare?.  In those moments, I longed for the drive-thru Starbucks I used to frequent not far from where I lived back in Virginia.

That one single poem grew to be five and got saved in a folder on my laptop, to collect dust until Christmas 2010. I came across "Mamma Latte" and suddenly out of nowhere I had an idea. I would write more. A whole collection and keeping with the theme, they would all be about icons and favorite things, things we love to love. Things I love.

So it was with passion, I penned poems on Facebook, Twitter, Football, Bling, Mac & Cheese and Louis Vuitton to name a few. I thoroughly enjoyed penning the words that flowed, at times they were cheeky, definitely all fun, an ironic moment here and there, a reflection of myself or someone I know and an experience I have had. It felt good to capture the feelings these brands and icons give us, in rhyming stanzas. Penning rhyming poetry is not unlike doing a crossword puzzle. You want to make everything fit and everything count. I was determined to make the rhyming endings stay true to the icons. You will not be surprised to hear that I loved Dr. Seuss books growing up and loved reading them to my kids even more.

I'm going to leave you with an excerpt from the poem "Face on the Wall". Please visit my website for more excerpts at http://www.hippoetry.com/ or say hi on Facebook here  

Thank you, Bookingly Yours for this opportunity. Have a great day, everyone!
Sara Lauritzen

Copyright 2011 Sara Lauritzen

All rights reserved