Lola Haskins teaches computer programming and Web design at the University of Florida. She has also published several volumes of poetry and is a regular contributor to numerous other publications. She visited Muncie on Thursday and gave a poetry reading while she was here. She also had time to sit down for this Face to Face.
Q: Where are you from, originally?
A: I was born in New York City and we moved to California when I was five. I grew up there.
Q: There's an interesting contrast between what you teach at the University of Florida (computer programming) and writing poetry. How did those two sides develop?
A: I get asked that question a lot. There's this poem concept in my new book that says how you reconcile computer science with being a poet, and it says, "Either way my hands move across the keys, even in the dark / Either way my fingers are not themselves tapping those little drums / It is easy to love words the way zeroes love ones." And it goes on. But I wrote that because I'm always asked that. They're not as different as you might think, although if I gave one up there'd be no question about it.
Q: Do you have any other noteworthy hobbies?
A: I run a lot. We built the house we live in with our hands, and so we're always doing some kind of carpentry. I plan to have lots more hobbies when I finally retire. And I'm writing a book right now which is not poetry. It's personal essays that begin in Florida state parks. They're personal essays. It's not a guide to the park system. So I go hiking and I tell stories. That's a hobby in a way, although I hope it ends up as a book. I love to hike. Actually, my husband and I hiked 200 miles across England a couple of years ago. There's a person who loves to walk named Wainwright, he's a famous rambler (they call them ramblers) and he linked the ordinate survey maps across the country so that you buy a strip map which goes from the Irish Sea to the North Sea in the far northern part of England. And it's all over high ground. It took us two weeks to do the 200 miles. But if you're walking, it's over absolutely flat terrain, and there's a hill, you go up and over. Because if there was anything to climb, you climbed it. It was really great. I adore hiking.
Q: You've recently written a book on how to write poetry. With that in mind, what advice would you give budding poets here at Ball State?
A: Everybody would say the same thing. They'd say read. Because your teachers aren't the people who are in the classroom. They're the people who have gone before you and said things that cause you to look at the world differently forever. So that's one piece of advice.
Actually, I wrote the book,because I'd never studied English myself. I went to Stanford. I took honors English when I was a freshman and never took another English class because I was stubborn. I didn't want anybody to tell me how to do this. So it's not what I studied. And I taught myself to write. I never went to college to learn creative writing. I have a masters in Anthropology.
Q: Have you ever had any other experiences in Muncie?
A: This is my absolute first time. And I have to say that you don't have any street signs. I can't find anything! I think Muncie seems like a very nice place, but I will say the lack of street signs is a little disconcerting when you get in at 11 at night and you can't find the street because there aren't any signs. People are very nice here, I noticed that. I like the Midwest. People are wonderful in the Midwest.
Q: Do you have a favorite author?
A: It's more like, "Do you have a favorite poem?" Because I think that favorite author is such a deceptive thing. If I told you I liked a particular poet and you went to see that poets writing, you might find that it means nothing to you. So I'd have to tell you the poem. Favorite poems, I have lots of them. But one of them that is pretty central is "Those Winter Sundays" (by Robert Hayden), which people study in school. Have you ever read it? It goes, "Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, / then with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. / I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. / When the rooms were warm, he'd call, / and slowly I would rise and dress, / fearing the chronic angers of that house, / speaking indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well. / What did I know, what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices?"
But I like many poems, to be complicated. Because I like things that are not like that at all.
Q: There's a fire in your house and you have five minutes to get out. What do you save?
A: It happened to my parents, and they saved nothing. My husband would save the pictures of our children. I have the children, and the pictures aren't the children to me. So I wouldn't save the pictures of the children. I would save the paintings. And of course, if I had any manuscripts in the house, they would be the first to get out. I'd have to say that, selfishly, I would take my writing out of there before I took anything else. And then I would take the paintings, which I didn't do, but I do care for.
Q: What is the most expensive thing in your wardrobe?
A: I have to preface this by telling you that I buy almost all my clothes at Salvation Army. I kept being asked to go north to do poetry readings, and I didn't own a coat. I had various coats that didn't fit me that I'd gotten at Salvation Army, and I finally got tired of that. And I went and bought myself a real coat and it cost $100. That's not very much money, but I'm not a shopper.
Q: What are you usually doing on a typical Tuesday at 9 p.m.?
A: About 9 p.m.? Reading. On a typical any night, I'm reading. Or playing the piano, that's the other possibility.
Q: Do you have any heroes?
A: That's such a good question, and most people will come up with 10 people, but I can't. There are people I admire a lot. For example (and I don't know what that's going to be like around here), I admire Bill Clinton's mind. He has a fine mind. If you say that by itself, it's deceptive, because that's not enough. So I don't have a good answer for you.
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