Breaking Bread with Poet Elizabeth Winkler

How would you describe your creative process? 

No outlines, lots of revisions, handwritten poem-drafts.

Your poem “I Went To Therapy” speaks of the experience of a person close to someone suffering, rather than the sufferer themselves. What prompted you to make that the subject? 

A lot of my work—across genres—is memoir-based, and “I Went to Therapy” is no exception; this poem is a small slice of my personal experience as someone close to a person suffering. I think that there is, understandably, a strong attention and focus on the narrative of someone with an illness or other struggle, especially in the writing world. I continue to write about my experiences in an attempt to help readers understand that any individual’s suffering not only affects them, but also branches out so that those who care about them cannot remain unscathed.

Could you describe your own bedside table for us? 

Cream-colored with floral embellishments and an oval top, usually overburdened with books, Post-Its, receipts, Forever 21 and thrift store tags, and a cup of bookmarks, not to mention the rectangular wicker basket holding my diary. It is always too crowded and almost identical to the bedside table in my poem of the same title.

Which artists do you gain most inspiration from for your own writing? What about their work most speaks to you?

I look up to many many contemporary poets, especially Fatima Asghar, Olivia Gatwood, Sarah Kay, and Melissa Lozada-Oliva, and less consciously, draw inspiration from every book I read.

What is the first book that made you cry? 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Elizabeth Winkler is a second-year majoring in English.

“The Bedside Table”

holds the most important things, 
the ones she’ll wake up 
reaching for. 

There’s a wicker basket,
linen-lined, 
rustling with post-it scribbles: 
golden vines and dragons, 
sword fights won and mirrors
that seem almost to smile; 
perhaps she’d call these 
childhood 
if her handwriting were legible.  

Her sleep-dulled fingers also touch 
the once-bright plastic cup 
layered with the paint of Berkeley, 
Battery Park, 
and Riverside,  

used for half an hour last Sunday night
to trap three of four grotesque, light-addled flies 
that rubbed their forefeet on her bathroom ceiling. 
The fourth eluded her—if you see it, let me know. 
Or just toss it out the window; 
don’t let the cat out, though.

Find “I went to therapy” and “Bedside Table” in our Spring 2019 issue!