AUTHOR PROFILE
Over her career, Mimi has been a poet, glass artist, screenwriter and filmmaker with an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from NYU. She has produced or associate produced documentaries aired on PBS, screened at many film festivals, and distributed nationwide. After many years living in New York City and Weehawken, Mimi now shares a 104-year-old home in Cleveland with assorted Airbnb guests as well as her husband, daughter, and cats.
Learn more at mimiplevinfoust.com. |
Mimi's Ghost Kid appeared in Pond 43.
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Why do you write?
I write poems to figure out the messy, lovely wackiness of life and tell individual stories of courage and grace. I’m always looking for ways to combine my writing with my work to reduce gun violence and create a just, kind, sustainable country and world. That effort may take the form of a persona poem telling the story of a woman who survived domestic violence or gun safety tips cards I wrote which have been distributed all over Cleveland and beyond. I love the process of allowing something bigger than myself that I never expected to come through my pen and create a world on the page.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
I’ve love taking pictures with my phone and combining photos and my poetry on large posters which I’ve displayed in several art exhibits (using my own photos or collaborating with a professional photographer). I also enjoy combining my photos and writing on Instagram and, lately, on protest posters. And I’ve enjoyed creating attractive gardens/outdoor spaces around my house that have taken shape over the past decade of living here.
Who is your favorite author and why?
I love to read poets who are both incredibly good yet easy to understand like Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Claudia Rankine, Aliki Barnstone, my poetry teacher Linda Tuthill, and Cleveland poets Damien McClendon and Ray McNiece. One of my favorite books that I’ve read over and over-- ‘Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind’-- is by Carol Hollinger, a diplomat’s wife and teacher whose funny, lovely stories of her life in Thailand in the 1960’s never cease to delight me.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
I almost always start with pen and paper, jotting down ideas and beginnings of poems wherever I happen to be when I get them. I like to fill a notebook that I enjoy writing in and a pen that writes smoothly to fully enjoy getting words on the page. Right now, I have a couple of notebooks that are about 8 inches high by 6 inches wide with wire ring binders so it’s easy to open them completely. They’re easy to slip in my purse and carry around.
Then I need to get on the computer and type things out so I can really see them. I’ll revise a certain amount on the computer but I really like to print things out (both prose and poetry) to edit with a pencil or pen. It gives me a lot of motivation to then enter the revisions on the computer, print out and revise on the page again and again. I’ll clip my different drafts together and save a few versions of each poem and research or notes about it in my files in case I want to refer to any of that in future revisions. I’ve gone back to poems I wrote decades ago and revised them and they’ve gotten a lot better.
I love when something I’m writing requires research and learning something new which makes my writing sharper and better and expands my awareness of the world. Having a writing critique group or workshop to go to is also essential.
Then I need to get on the computer and type things out so I can really see them. I’ll revise a certain amount on the computer but I really like to print things out (both prose and poetry) to edit with a pencil or pen. It gives me a lot of motivation to then enter the revisions on the computer, print out and revise on the page again and again. I’ll clip my different drafts together and save a few versions of each poem and research or notes about it in my files in case I want to refer to any of that in future revisions. I’ve gone back to poems I wrote decades ago and revised them and they’ve gotten a lot better.
I love when something I’m writing requires research and learning something new which makes my writing sharper and better and expands my awareness of the world. Having a writing critique group or workshop to go to is also essential.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
For years, my family owned a property in Chautauqua county, New York with a large pond in the back that my parents had stocked with ornamental coi, Israeli carp and other fish. Many of the fish were picked off by the herons that stood watch over the pond and occasional ospreys.
Every summer, after dinner, we’d walk to the wood deck over the pond with a battered plastic bowl to scatter pellets of fish food. After a few tense moments, the dark water would stir, and we’d see our old friends emerge from under the deck or create rippled V’s of water as they steamed toward us across the pond. Over a foot long, each fish wove around the others to snap up the small pellets with quiet popping sounds as their mouths touched the surface.
Each summer, we’d look for the individual coi we’d come to know over two decades – the bright orange one, the white one, the one with bright orange and black spots, etc., happy to see they were all still alive after the bitterly cold winter. We sold the property two years ago, and one of the hardest things to leave behind was the experience of feeding our fish.
Every summer, after dinner, we’d walk to the wood deck over the pond with a battered plastic bowl to scatter pellets of fish food. After a few tense moments, the dark water would stir, and we’d see our old friends emerge from under the deck or create rippled V’s of water as they steamed toward us across the pond. Over a foot long, each fish wove around the others to snap up the small pellets with quiet popping sounds as their mouths touched the surface.
Each summer, we’d look for the individual coi we’d come to know over two decades – the bright orange one, the white one, the one with bright orange and black spots, etc., happy to see they were all still alive after the bitterly cold winter. We sold the property two years ago, and one of the hardest things to leave behind was the experience of feeding our fish.