Living Poetry with Poet and Teacher, Allie Rigby

In this episode of The Heart Path Podcast, we expand our minds, hearts, and rekindle creative spark with Poet and Author of Moonscape for a Child, Allie Rigby.  

Allie Rigby is a poet with roots in the chaparral of Southern California. Moonscape for a Child is her debut poetry collection (Bored Wolves, 2024). Writing honors include a Fulbright Fellowship, a William Dickey Fellowship, and contribution to the annual Bread Loaf Writing Conference. Her poems and essays appear on Living on Earth Radio, WFIU’s The Poet’s Weave, Equatorial Literary Magazine, Parentheses Journal, and more. She has a master’s degree in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She has taught at Ovidius University, Loft Literary Center, Point Reyes National Seashore Association, and for events with the US-Romanian Embassy. She is an editor for The SEEfest Review and the curator behind Living Poetry. You can find more of her work at www.allierigby.com. She's on IG @allie.j.rigby.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, Allie. Thank you so much for joining me on the Heartpath podcast. It's wonderful to have you here today. Can we talk about living poetry and what that means to you and where that started? Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Thank you so much for having me. I started living poetry in 2024. And my hope was to engage with folks who were excited or open to talking about the questions that I'm a little obsessed with. I'm really curious about how poetry and creative writing influences how people live. I really love stories where we go beyond the page of how did that book or that poem change how you think about something and that changed your relationship to someone or a place. There's part of me always pushing that line between wanting to appreciate a poem exactly for what it is and how it makes you feel. And then there's a little bit of data-driven side of me that wants to know the impact. For me, I'm more curious in the everyday nature of poetry, how it's showing up for people from all walks of life. And part of this story essentially, I think, is a response to graduate school. I had a great experience at San Francisco State. I did a master's in English creative writing. And I think part of it was the timing there. It was COVID. A lot of our classes were virtual. I had the most incredible professors and a really surprising community given that we were virtual for the first year and a half of our program. And all that said, I think there's still pressure in it for me where I started feeling like there's one way to write a poem and there's a certain type of poem that I should be writing. And I just started losing track of my voice. And to be honest, I still feel like I'm trying to find it. Sometimes I feel like I knew it most when I was really young. That was the first time I discovered a magic spell as a kid. I just thought it was so fun that you could play with words and create these images. And it didn't hurt that I was validated for that at a pretty young age. I won a poetry contest in third grade. Oh yeah. But you know, those experiences can be really formative. And as an educator later in my life, I'm constantly thinking, well, if that's true, we need to be validating all these students, right? Because they're all budding poets.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yes, please. And what I was thinking about when you were talking was the magic spell. How did you find that magic spell as a kid?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

You know, I feel like kids are so smart. I don't mean it to wax nostalgia on childhood. It's complicated to be a kid too. In my teaching years, when I was teaching six to seven-year-olds, I was like, holy smokes, they're going through so many things. Was it like that for me too? It's easy to forget some of the hard parts of growing up. All that said, I was the kind of kid who had a bunch of rocks in my pockets that were my magical companions. I was bringing ladybugs into the classroom in my pencil box. It just there was magic everywhere. And I remember literally just getting that tingly feeling the first time I wrote pen on paper. I'm really lucky that my parents are very supportive of the arts. My mom gave me a journal in first grade, and you know, it was this tiny thing with blank pages, and I had an ink pen, which is a very bad idea for a six-year-old. I can barely read what I wrote back then. But just the idea that you could write about your day and it mattered. And I think the magic was in the writing itself. And perhaps that was the first time I was tapping into flow, but I could just lose track of time. And throughout all of elementary school, I was really excited to like go home and open up my journal and write about school, even if it was just the drama of crushes on the playground and the ladybug debacle. But it just felt like the act was really special and something that I was drawn to the rest of my life, really.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

That's so cool. I love that. Oh, the ladybug debacle. Was there one? Did you get in trouble for bringing the ladybug in? You know, we were asked to not do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Okay, okay, I guess it became a distraction. But then if it wasn't ladybugs, it's really pulleys. Because it's like they didn't say anything about really pulleys, so I just love that name too, Roly Pulley.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

I loved Roly Pulleys when I was a kid and snails, baby snails. That was all about them.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

I think it's so special that that stops so many kids in their tracks. And I really love and respect when it stops adults in their tracks. And I'm trying to get back to that place of just observation and wonder because I think it is a practice and it is a muscle you can work on. And as adults, it's so easy and understandable to get swept up in the day-to-day and work. And sometimes I forget to walk around the block, you know, and let alone spot a snail on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

But I it's so easy to get wrapped up in whatever's happening and busy, busy, busy, busy computer, everything else, phone. But it's important for us to take the time to give to ourselves, especially in a nurturing way.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

It's so worth it and to notice those experiences because I feel like they might be happening more than we think. And I'm trying to befriend so many ravens these days. I know they take time to recognize faces, but I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, that's awesome. As writers and artists, it's so important for us to be inspired by what's around us and to find that inspiration.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I mean, it can be this kind of shape-shifting thing, I feel like inspiration, but I totally agree with you on that. And whether that takes the form of wonder or curiosity or gratitude, whatever, it's so so important. I feel like that's where the real meat on the bones is of at least where I draw meaning in this life.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

And yeah, definitely. So I would like to know what happened in grad school with your voice and how you've been working on that since.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

I'm still trying to figure it out because, like I say, I had the best professors, I had the nicest cohort. I love my professors. I'm still in touch with a handful of them, and same with folks in my cohort. So, you know what happened is I think I I got in my own way and I got in my own head, but bigger than that, the world was a very shaky place. You know, it was the pandemic, we were in lockdown. And I think while some people writing felt more important than ever during that time, which I really love, and I kind of wish that had been my mental experience. I kind of think went the other way of does any of this matter? It's really hard to want to improve your craft and to have that opportunity, but in a way that doesn't crush the spark. And I think this combination of burnout from other places in my life that coincided with a pandemic that was, you know, a global atrocity on top of the racial violence, reckoning with the history of the US and being an educator and working through that with my students who are also feeling the weight of the pandemic. I think I was stretched really, really thin. And then at the graduate school level, I was afraid to write poems because I just felt like they would all be bad. And that's where I feel like I got in my own way rather than being like, okay, I'll write a bad poem. That's not gonna hurt anybody. It's okay to experiment. I honestly hopped gears entirely. I took novel courses. I really loved one of my professors. I just try to take any course with her, Professor Sarita Cannon. She was so amazing, and we were reading American novels from this angle that I hadn't had the opportunity to dive into before. Everything that we were reading, even from the 19th century and 20th century, felt hyper relevant to where we were today. And I kind of feel like I ran away from poetry, essentially. It's like, I'm just gonna study the novel now from a more academic sociological lens. I don't know if I'm gonna write poetry again, but it just it felt even now that I've talked through it with you, it actually felt like maybe poetry felt too high stakes. Like I didn't want to get it wrong, and I felt like I didn't know how to do it anymore. And like I say, a lot of this was coinciding with everything else in life. On top of the pressure of it's grad school, I still needed to produce a body of work to graduate with, and pushing through that, I think, was tapping into the larger burnout I was experiencing in these other pockets of life.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

I totally get it. And I'm wondering if maybe the poetry was losing its spark because of feedback or because of what you were learning? Was it feedback or expectations of others of your work?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Well, you know, I was getting really supportive feedback from like cohort, although I have to be transparent that with my running away, I ran away from the very flexible program that San Francisco state. So I didn't actually need with my major to be in workshop classes.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

And that's on me for running away from that. But my one-on-one feedback was all very nurturing, very supportive. I'm wondering if part of it was not being in person. I didn't feel like I was in a place where I could give or receive feedback that well. That could have been it. I have actually talked with my professors about this. I think the perfectionism was becoming my own block and probably just distraction trying to be a teacher during that time.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

And yeah, I I get it completely. And I've seen it with several writers where they wrote and poured their heart on the page for years before their MFA programs, and then once they started learning craft, yeah, they lost their voice in the craft, including myself. Oh, yeah, it happened to me too. I've seen it, it happens, and I I don't know if it's because of the expectations of uh writing craft or where that stems from, but I have seen people's writing change based on others' opinions, and there's this armor that happens when people receive a comment that says you need more meaning, when really what we should be doing is just creating no matter what, without someone's voice in our head saying it needs to be this way, this way, this way, this way. That's so true. When I graduated from my nature writing program and went into poetry, I told everyone, don't lose your voice, because that's your most important part of your writing is your voice and who you are and what you have to say in this world. Because it's true. No one has your voice, Ali. No one on earth has your voice or your point of view or your story, and it matters. Thank you for living poetry on your Substack and continuing your poetry journey no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Oh, thanks for fleshing it out. And I am getting back into joining workshops. I do really love feedback and craft. But to your point, I think there's a time and place, and I think we have times of expansion where we can take it all in. And I think we have times of contraction where we just can't. And if we're pushing it in these other areas of our life, maybe creatively we're contracting and talking through it with you. I'm like, yeah, I think that's essentially what was happening those years. It was kind of a contraction, and now I feel lucky to be in an expansion, and that's maybe the ebb and flow of life creatively, but also just in every other thing we're doing. I'm feeling the expansion. I'm on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada range in a small desert town. I go on runs where I'm surrounded by the scrub that where I'm from in Southern California, the scrub would be chaparral and maybe some sprinkles of oak woodlands, and that's like my heart place. And here I'm surrounded by plants that are scrubbed, and I have no idea what they are. I'm still learning. I know that's been so fun. And just the views, I feel ridiculously lucky that the spine of one of the most fantastic mountain ranges, obviously I'm biased, but it's right there on my way to work. You cannot miss it. And the eastern Sierra side is so different, right? Because as you may know, on this side we don't get as much rain. There's a giant rain shadow. And this area I just learned, the average rainfall is four to five inches a year. So yeah, everything is adapted to that in some pretty remarkable ways. So I love it. I feel so happy to have those expansive scrubby lands where I'm lucky if maybe I can spot some mule deer and just have that breathing room again. I was in the forests of southern Indiana for the last couple years. So I've been really wanting to get back to my home state, even if it's a totally new town that I'm still getting to know.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Wonderful. So you have an event coming up on April 4th. Can you tell us about this event and how people can join?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yes, thank you. So the event is our second year celebrating the anniversary of Living Poetry, and that's that Substack. That's where these conversations live of thinking about how poems influence our lives. So April 4th, which is a Friday, this is our annual event. Everyone is welcome to join. So I'll have a featured speaker. Last year we had Chris Latre, and that was really special. His memoir, Becoming Little Shell, had just come out. And for folks who don't know, he's a Metis storyteller and poet, and he's released a memoir and just a really warm human. I was so grateful he said yes to my ask to be our featured guest speaker. When you have folks of all these different backgrounds or mediums, I feel like it's a great way to spark magic. You know, I think of my friends who are storytellers, and all I want to do is sit around a campfire and have the gift of hearing one of their stories or several. And musicians, I feel the same way. I myself do not play, but I love hearing my friends and folks who do. I think once you share a poem with an audience, there's a lot at stake because I do believe words are really powerful and they can build worlds and they can also cause harm. I think once you're sharing with any audience, including workshops or publishing or an open mic, you know, whatever it is, I think it's really important to be considerate of what you're sharing while still honoring the creative process. In any case, if anyone's struggling just to get something on the page, maybe just lower the bar a little bit. You know, you don't need to be spitting poetry all day. Maybe you just drop down a couple sentences of something you noticed and it's a poem, it's not a poem, it needs editing, it doesn't need editing. But I think that's really important because we don't want to stop before we even get started, especially if it's a process we tend to enjoy, you know. Why deprive ourselves of that joy if we don't have to?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yes, yes, yes, please. And yeah, that's what I love about it is the generation that can happen. There's a place we can go with it, other than how we're going to perfect it. And I think the first step is just getting it on the page and then going back and having that editor come in and the craft come in and all the goodies come in. As long as we allow ourselves to get on the page, we can then go back and continue to move forward with that process. And I just think it's so healthy to do that. I've been working with these women in this workshop in the last few weeks. And the whole point of this workshop is for us to come together and support each other as community. It's not to do anything but that.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah, it sounds generative and nourishing.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I want for them. And so I want them to feel safe sharing and safe writing whatever their heart desires or whatever comes to them in that moment. And it's funny because I was just at get the let out with Pam Houston. Oh, wow. Yeah. And the writers in there are completely different caliber than me, where they were just coming up with full-on polished, novel-worthy words within a small amount of time. And I was like, wow, that is really something. What a gift to be able to just create perfection on the page right away. But I ended up just listing. And it's great because I was still generating, but I wasn't trying to make something polished or perfect. I was just trying to allow myself to write.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, totally. For all we know, folks were chewing on those concepts for a long time. And then there was that perfect spark in the workshop. But I know what you mean in that comparison mind. It's easy to go there and it's hard to walk away from. But I'm sure you're navigating that.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Thank you. Yeah, just write anyway. Let's go. Let's write. Well, I really appreciate our conversation today and your book, Moonscape for a Child. Thank you so much, Ali, for joining me today on the Heartpath Podcast. It's great to hear your story about poetry and how you're living poetry now.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Thank you so much, Ivon. Thank you for having me. Great conversation.