Melodi Eloise
"I really love Love"
Melodi Eloise is a poet who is currently in a league and space of her own. She travels from city to city with her typewriter in tow; able to take a word, a thought, a feeling, a tear, and even a laugh, and turn it into a poem instantaneously. If you didn't know, on typewriters, you're not allowed to make mistakes, or erase. Whatever poem she produces, is the final product-- and those thoughts turned final products are impeccable showings of art, love, passion, and the makings of real poetry.
"I've been writing from an early age, but writing a little more seriously within the last decade. I write because sometimes it feels like the only thing I can do. Giving my thoughts and emotion place, and I'm inspired by life and love (however frightening and unpredictable, although I'm ready for beauty-- more beauty) which I find to be one in the same; life and love.
I'm a romantic who loves to woo with words. Have always been a poet at heart, and I've had changes of heart over the years. Coming through all the pain, soft and tender again. I understand now what my great grandmother said when she'd say, "keep on livin' ," as if to say "you'll see." This living been hard, but I don't want to go around with a hard calloused heart. How are we supposed to love one another that way? We can't. So the prayer is for as much love to touch as many hearts as possible and make soft so that we really know what it is to love and care for each other. Breaking down our pride if we have to. Soft words turn away wrath, I heard and know. I wish that crossed all our minds more."
q+a with melodi eloise
we asked this week's poet of the week some personal questions about themselves and their art so learn more about them and how poetry fits in their lives.
Q: How long have you been writing?
A: I loved to be told stories growing up, even in song, and I believe I feel in love at a young age with the art of telling tales. I don't mean in that trouble-maker way of making up fibs as a kid, but just always thinking of make believe for the fun of it. I began writing at the age of 10 or so, and it's always been a bit of poetry alongside shortstories. Staring at lines I've written and somehow feeling a melody for those winding words. Something to carry the soul of them further.
Q: How do you write with intention?
A: The older I get, the more I realize that everything we do has an intention. There's always something that we're meaning to do in our actions, and it's not always clear until actions are taken-- or looking at the aftermath-- what it all means. Writing with intention is to follow the urge to put something down on the page. An idea or memory or image that is strong and wants to be outside of your mind and made physical to the touch, and to be shared. There is no control over it unless we refuse its life or miss the opportunity. Who knows what space I may be in on any given day, as far as creativity, but when a thought comes across my mind to follow or give power to-- I gotta write it down!
Q: What are your inspirations in writing?
A: Life is often my inspiration in writing, or a good portrayal of what life often yields. Coming across what really speaks to those truths that we know or hold fast too, whether it be from the lives of others or my own. When I was younger I was happy to sit around elders and hear about their lives, and that inspired me to pick up a pen then. Made me wonder, "who is writing down their stories?," and I had it in my mind for a while, even listening to my mother's life stories and my grandmother and great grandmother and so on-- the women of my family. I felt it was my responsibility to let their stories be heard and to bare witness, but now I realize that I'm not only here for that. There are deeper connects to be made, still. I'm here to tell stories in many different forms. What I realize, too, is that they all can be our tales. No tale exactly alike, but there is humanity in being able to see our similarities. Thinking about some of the greatest writers I've read-- Zora Neal Hurston, Charles Johnson, Rudolfo Anaya, etc. -- who I believe are writers fascinated with myths and also what is real and somehow seems hard to believe, or not really so, but often is far beyond the natural eye. I think of my poetry and most of my writing like skillful sewing. Something built up over time, and it just takes doing. I don't even know what will become of all the pieces, but I have to put them together. It has been truth telling in delicate and harsh ways, and most times a look into what may come. What can be seen in the spirit through the veil. I'm writing in between being awake and within lucid dreams-- a little bit of real, a little bit of hope, and what is beyond us. Even what makes us afraid.
Q: What inspired you to begin writing with your typewriter and taking it from from city to city?
A: Maybe it began with my love for gadgets and mechanisms of the old world: pencil sharpeners, ice cream makers, hand-crank snowballs machines, etc. Among the things are typewriters. We owe some credit to old world technology that was at one point new world. I grew up in the computer age of the mid- 90s and marveled at at typewriters in classic movies, but never owned one until my husband gifted me a Remington Letter-Riter years ago (I take it out on the street still sometimes, but it's a heavy baby from the 50s). I began to write my short stories and poems by typewriter then. I wouldn't consider what he told me about the throws of typewriter poetry until much later. What keeps me going is my desire to share my thoughts and my way with words with passersby. I have friends who are also typists who travel, and I think it's the wonder of travel and unexpected connection that pushes us on. A sort of caravan life, to me, is the dream. Why not do it if I can?
poems from the typewriter of melody eloise
