Fragile Threads, from Earth to Sky: A Conversation Between Cindy Rinne and Toti O’Brien

Cindy Rinne creates fiber art and writes in San Bernardino, CA. A Pushcart nominee. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, art exhibits, and dance performances. Author of: The Feather Ladder (Picture Show Press), Words Become Ashes: An Offering (Bamboo Dart Press), Today in the Forest with Toti O’Brien (Moonrise Press), and others. Her poetry appeared in: The Journal of Radical Wonder, Mythos Magazine, Verse-Virtual, and others.

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Toti O’Brien: Cindy, I remember when I first heard you read from The Feather Ladder. You were handling the very first copy! The book had just been released. It must have been the Fall of 2021—of course, we were grappling with the pandemic, trying to keep our creative souls and hope alive. I was sitting on the floor of the gallery where your reading took place in conjunction with an art opening. I recall being literally carried upwards by both your imagery and delivery, lifted in a world magical and mysterious that defied gravity. In a landscape of intermittent lockdowns and endless isolation, your aerial verse invoked the idea of escaping the labyrinth from above.
Can you briefly explain the core idea of this book?
Did you actually conceive it during the pandemic? If not, did the pandemic influence its development or its final shape?
Could you say something about where the original impulse came from?

Cindy Rinne: This novel in verse is a coming-of-age story for The Feather Keeper. He is sought out by a group of birds to help them fulfill their dream. He also discovers his mysterious origins because of this quest. Prophecies weave through the story for The Feather Keeper to be fulfilled as he chooses to take this journey.
Owl responded, Owl magic to protect your skin. It will be a night to your fingers.
The original story, which was longer, was conceived several years before the pandemic. The only effect the pandemic had was that the publisher delayed publication until things opened again.
The original impulse came from an idea about a group of birds speaking with The Feather Keeper about their idea to build a ladder reaching from earth to the sky. Then humans could get off the ground and out of their routines.
I made up this myth based in Neolithic times. In the story several times, their new idea receives opposition because there is fear of change. There is also support. As the journey continues, several characters who are not birds help them and The Feather Keeper. They meet with Sitka Spruce, Thunder Sun, Clear Sky, and Stone Woman.

A year later with various versions of COVID, Pages of a Broken Diary is launched in the same gallery captivating the audience. Your delivery is passionate. Although I know you well, there is much to discover in this book. Can you talk about the form in this book? Do you see it as a memoir in fragments through prose or short stories? Why not poetry?
This book seems to go deeper and is your most vulnerable. “I am an orphan at soul.”  The origins? Why now?

TO: Thank you, Cindy. “There is much to discover,” is probably the best comment a book could wish for! I see Pages of a Broken Diary as a collection juxtaposing different “formats” and “tones” rather than different “genres.” Some “pages” are clear, memoir-like narratives. Other pages are indirect, elusive. Some are very brief and read like prose poems. This contrast of voices and moods is deliberate. For me, it echoes the kaleidoscope of memory—the way life and its complexities speak to our mind/heart when we reflect on our past.
The book “reads as a memoir” because it strongly focuses on childhood and coming-of-age, family and relationships, motherland and displacement. Still, it doesn’t trace a life story, and the margins between fiction and nonfiction are never defined. My intent was to gather into a cohesive whole my reflections in the above-mentioned areas, delving into them with whatever means I could handle—thoughts, feelings, recollections, hypotheses, sheer imagination, irony, paradox, the lyrical, the documentary, you name it—and then offer to the reader not the result of my questioning, but the questioning itself. 
I would think of a memoir as a detailed photograph, with recognizable scenery and portraits—sometimes, as one of those collages juxtaposing many small pictures—sometimes, maybe, as an album one could leaf through. Pages is none of this. Imagine it as a scatter of incomplete, blurred snapshots. Some of them might be distinct, and you seem to recognize this or that—but in the next one the same face is blurred—in the next one, the character or the landscape or the epoch have changed. Think of it as a bunch of puzzle elements sparse on a coffee table. The puzzle must be assembled, and each reader will do it in her unique fashion.

Origins, you say. I love how you simply speak the word, how you just pose it there. Are you asking me why I look back? What I am seeking? Let me ask you first, then… Why did you made up a myth based in Neolithic times?

CR: I decided to push the story back in time when community just began to be a concept and tribes with a chief were starting to form. The Neolithic culture includes farming and the use of metal tools. This was a time when the earth, goddesses, and the stars were honored. We need to bring this back. They wore animal skins. Cave paintings show hunting. I could include hyena and lynx.
The Feather Keeper talks with animals instead of hunting or farming. He’s still a nomad. This character didn’t begin as a Two-Spirit who embodies both the masculine and feminine. I discovered this term at an art exhibit of photographs after the myth had been written. It felt right. He probably would have been accepted back then, but LGBTQ Americans and beyond remain vulnerable to violence and hate. I write ancient / present and brought issues of today into the story.
The book is about social justice, courage, and magic. Myths last because of truths contained. I am a storyteller. Most of my poems contain a story. Sometimes I tell the story over several poems like this novel in verse does.

The style in Pages of a Broken Diary is conversational. Unpolished. Raw in places and lyrical in others. I feel I am with you in the push / pull of uncertainty, a timid present. How spontaneous is your writing? Do you think this allows the reader to bring their story easily? Is this important to you?

TO: As you say, the style in Pages is sometimes conversational, sometimes lyrical. I would not say unpolished because, as an ESL writer, polishing for me is a must—it needs to be agonizing, relentless. But, yes, my first drafts are spontaneous, unplanned, uncontrolled. To me, that is the only way to let “row” and “vulnerable” freely emerge. When they do (boldly show themselves in the nude) they speak to the reader in a different way. Closeness to the reader is important to me. I seek for a dialogue to be established, as authentic as possible, even if mediated through the written page. When I write in a conversational mode I am truly speaking with you, whoever you are. When I withdraw into the lyrical, elusive, non-linear, I am inviting you to behold a monologue happening in a “public sphere of privacy.” I am alone, but the spotlight is on, and you are welcome to witness the “push / pull of uncertainty.”
I firmly believe that the most vulnerable, the most open is the writing, the most it allows readers’ feelings and stories to resonate and emerge in response. And that is the whole point, is it?

You have mentioned “fear of change” as one of the motifs in your book. It is what creates obstacles that need to be overcome in order to build the ladder. But your novel is also permeated by the opposite force, a desire for change, which finally prevails. I wonder if “a desire for change” in the present is what prompts you/us to look back, as if wondering, “how did we get here?” As if, gazing at the past with clear eyes, we could see what we wish to keep and what we don’t want to repeat. Is there something in particular that your book sets to change, might be able to change?

CR: Opposition comes from those who say, Humans were not meant to fly. This can include the idea of are dreams possible? When my first book was published, I realized I was an author. A dream to have a book barely seemed possible. This dream included community from critique sessions to poetry readings. There are many allies in this story.
The ego rises up and says, You are not a good enough writer. Do people care about myth? On the other hand, others can be jealous or try to sabotage. The ladder builders face destruction but learn determination. For me it means a lot when a story or poem touches one person. You and I have discussed the power story holds.
It takes courage to follow your dream and to navigate the unknown. Pushing through the fear is a test for the birds and The Feather Keeper. He says, I will climb when no one else is willing. Recently, I decided to do performance poetry. I love making the writing real in a different way using props, costumes I make, and the movement of my body. In The Feather Ladder, he takes a stand. Opposition comes in the form of power struggles. The Feather Keeper acts in the balance of knowing when to negotiate, be humble, and when to be bold. He keeps the focus of the bird’s dream. In the process, he discovers what is important.
The story looks at gay rights, women and those identifying as women having a voice. Although the story is set in the distant past, the issues are current. I look at the situations of climate, ecological, political, and cultural chaos today. Even think about how this could be a banned book like the feather ladder falls apart. Then I wonder if I/we can find a gift to share with others like The Feather Keeper did? Can we work together to bring change and follow our dreams?

We weave worlds magical and mysterious and defy clear formats.  Even in what appears to be very different books, there’s links. Discuss.

TO: Yes, there are definitely links between these two books! Otherwise, we probably would not be having this conversation. I can think of two main connections, right away. One is almost obvious. As per our visual art, we both build books out of fragments, juxtaposing bits and pieces instead of embracing a unified, fluent narrative. As per our visual art, we both use shards that are asymmetrical, different in texture and size. I have discussed my frequent and deliberate changes of tone, POV, format. The building blocks of your book are all poems, but they vary as well. The story is told by a polyphony of voices, the POV constantly shifts, even the font/format does. It seems that we both like sharp angles, such as the zigzag point you frequently use in your textiles, or my ripped shreds of papers.
Another, very strong similarity pertains to contents. Both of ours are coming-of-age story, though “age” is not insisted upon—a detail that rather likens them to tales of initiation, testimonials to a process of inner growth. Mine is not a story of flight, but it’s a story of long distance, of the courage it takes to part from one’s roots while still remaining, somehow, connected—as it happens to the unnamed character of “Her Kind,” which dreams to be attached to a pole and runs until sheer momentum lifts her from the ground. Though she’d like to be a bird, she knows she’s not one. Still, she stubbornly enjoys her parcel of levitation.
After all, my book ends on something aerial as well: the airmail letters, light as feathers, going back and forth across the Atlantic, “fragile threads creating the legend, stretched over oblivion.”

Checklist, Recipe, Yellow Brick Road: A Review of Pamela Wax's WALKING THE LABYRINTH

Pamela Wax is a poet-rabbi and while she produces first-rate art, bibliotherapy also appears to be a priority.  Walking the Labyrinth is an apt metaphor for this odyssey. While this book purports to be a series of elegies, it is also a deft memoir that avoids the heavy-hand of an incessant first person. Its emphasis is less memoir than spiritual autobiography, but the occasional first person explorations subtly hold a place for both her own idiosyncrasies and struggles as well as her readers: she creates space for your I and for my I.

The persona “pretends to be who she is, tries to be normal, spills words all over herself and loses her names”—an excerpt from “The Woman Who: A Found Poem,” says it all and says it best. We are offered frequent glimpses into the panoplies of pain associated with this quest for virtue—often in tandem with the duties of family and tribe. The grief and consequent suffering accompanying this attainment of virtue is resolutely probed.

Her elegies for her brother Howard and many others act as both catalyst and muse. Her awareness may invite us all to stop working so hard at virtue, but also reveal Wax’s prime compulsion—a longing for a guaranteed “checklist, a recipe, some yellow brick road,” a map or atlas revealing the important “to do’s,” all of which reflect her need for a world in which she can attain righteousness—where she can be safe and in control—a world in which she locates the proper path to attaining goodness. This is often followed by worry—the need not to get it wrong. It being life, with all its attendant uncertainties: all the self-blame, remorse & grief, especially the guilt inherited by those who sacrifice themselves for so-called higher or holy quests: our spiritual leaders. Our gurus, priests and rabbis.

In a moment of insight Wax describes a cartoon caterpillar on a couch being advised by her butterfly therapist: “the thing is, you really have to want to change.” This comical image and dialogue triggers a listing of internal guilt-trips. She goes on to detail minor masochistic behaviors she indulges in, in order to undermine any sense of entitlement or right to claim grace. In this psychic no-win situation her sense of humor & attempts to reach for optimism are laudable, yet the pathos remains notable.

Wax defines herself through her tribe, yet avoids religious zealotry; however, details about Judaic traditions might distance some readers who are not familiar with a diction that includes words like kvelling, shomer, hora, and kaddish.

A poem that helps clarify cultural differences is “I Am Not Descended from Stoics Like Jackie O.” as she explores the reality of being “descended from Eastern European Jews who turn their prayers towards a Wailing Wall because the danger & despair are everywhere and eternal and what else did they know to do?” Is this book Wax’s personal wailing wall? Possibly.

Occasionally Wax slips into manifesto, but still manages to hold fast to her suffering: “when my guilt takes a form other than flesh. I mix it with naked rage because never again is pitched capriciously in the ominous night tent of the world—feeling all this almost guiltlessly on sunny days.”

Her obsession with virtue is portrayed in her gently self-mocking poem “I Keep Getting Books About Character.” As she reads and rereads many translations of Paths of the Just & Duties of the Heart, we are treated to a light-hearted bit of satire, best illustrated by a sign in her office that reads:

I want to be a better person but then what?  one queries. A much better person?  

She romps often with sound and enjoys occasional rhyme in her pithy description of her readings of “Medieval tomes in pious tones.” Her zig zags between despair and humor keep her afloat and help the reader process this confessional.

The format varies occasionally as in her odd first poem “Howard” which she divides into two sections: part one is titled “I. How” and part II. is “Ward.” This playful character sketch introduces us to the book’s central elegy for her brother Howard, a suicide. She returns to this formatting later in the book.

Walking the Labyrinth is the mother of all elegies—it holds too many to remember or list. It presents us somehow with a life lived primarily through a lens of loss but without the anticipated and attendant nihilism. It is not an easy read but well worth the effort, even if your life is not steeped in family ritual or religious legacy. Dive in. See if you can swim. It may be best to prepare for reading a book of elegies by not being prepared—if preparation is even possible. Let its stream of consciousness flow. Drop control needs. Practice what the poet finds so difficult. Relinquish her needs for “checklist, recipe and Yellow Brick Road.” Step into her journey. I feel fortunate to have met and eventually to have groked my first rabbi, Pamela Wax. Join her, as she invites, us, much “like Rumpelstiltskin,” to “weave seaweed into song.”

Open Secrets: A Writer’s Field Guide for the Digital Age

When I stepped into Denver’s literary community about ten years ago, I was entering a big world doe-eyed and ill-prepared as I could be. I didn’t have a college degree, I knew nothing about how to get published, and I’d never hosted a literary event in my life. For what it’s worth, I did find my way. I started attending open mics and listening to what the poets were saying, how they promoted their works, and I watched what they were doing on social media. When I decided I wanted to publish books, Google was a good friend. Over the course of that ten years, I went from a scrub to running a well-known local press having published eight titles and hosting hundreds of events both locally and across the United States. What I wish I’d had from day one is a guidebook like Tupelo Press’ new release Open Secrets: The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Your Book.

Tupelo is the perfect press to release a book like this. Founded in 2001, their twenty years of knowledge shines through, as does a pragmatism that I’m afraid could be lost if one of the big five publishers attempted to publisher a similar book. It’s apparent that Tupelo has a history of what they refer to on their website’s call for submissions as “energetic publicity and promotion.” That energy is contained in the dense sixty-some pages of Open Secrets.

Open Secrets acknowledges the necessity in our times for an author to also be an avid marketer, extra timely in its considerations of publishing in the age of COVID-19. They approach their strategy of marketing in the three sections of the book: image, industry, and the publisher’s role. The book emphasizes how an effective marketing strategy should begin long before your book is in the world, and in swift segments breaks down the blueprint for making this happen. The guide looks at so many questions I myself had as a young person entering the literary world, such as how do I diversify my efforts? How do I find my people? Does word-of-mouth really work? It also answers some common curiosities, such as how long before a release does a press promote a book?

The book functions not only as a go-to for best marketing practices, but also as a road map to other valuable resources. Open Secrets is the kind of book I’ll keep beside me at my desk, ready to reference a plethora of websites and other resources for further expansion on things such as pre-launch strategy, online and in-person communities to engage with, and a full-on “Review, Interview and Submission Directory.” In the later chapters of the book, Tupelo even expands to draw on the resources and wisdom of some great Tupelo authors’, sharing quotes and successful manners of approaching the often-intimidating world of publishing and the marketing that inherently comes along with it.

As I look to my next ten years in the literary world and onward, I find myself grateful that Tupelo’s best kept secrets have been released out into the open, accessible to those who need them the most. Open Secrets serves as an excellent companion to any author, publisher, or book marketer looking to be in conversation with a press of proven merit.