A Conversation with Cressida Roe '21

     

Photo of Cressida Roe

Interviewed by Cassie Follman ‘20

What inspired you to start writing…Why did you start writing?

I was a kind of lonely, only-child–I know it sounds cliché, but my best friends were books. I started reading when I was really young, and I just always loved stories. My favorite book was Little Women. I was so inspired by Jo March–I was like, when I go grow up, I am going to be Jo March. That was my goal when I was very young.

This finished piece is a compilation of several different poems that I’ve written since coming to Smith. It is definitely inspired by coming here and coming into this new world and society.

Sorry to interrupt, but where are you from originally?

Arizona. I come from a very far distance. And just the mindset had had before is very different from here. There is a very different mindset in the West and the East Coast. I have some family in New Jersey, in Princeton. So, I’ve kind of experienced the college town vibe before.

This poem kind of has some elements of fantasy and magical realism…Are you interested in writing about this genre?

Yes, definitely. Fantasy is definitely my game, especially in fiction. My poetry always speaks mostly from where I am at the time that I write it. I find it a lot harder to edit poetry than to edit prose because I find that I need to keep it in the state that it was that I wrote it; however, with this poem I did do a bit of moving around and cutting and pasting to give it more of an idea of a story of moving out of this quiet, dark creative space into a more social world.

What was your thought process with the structure of the poem? Specifically, the structure of the separated stanzas and how each stanza gets longer?

The structure for the first stanza I kept it as minimalist as possible because it was supposed to exemplify the raw state that I was in. This dark and crystalline and metaphysical world I was in. The second stanza shows a sort of metamorphosis. The transformation–the kind of like abyss I had to cross from the raw, old age. The third stanza was inspired by a thought of waking-up in a sort of cold place. The imagery sort of, in my mind, worked as a sort of circle because it feels a little like I’m waking up from this dream. At the same time, entering a new world, which is also a bit of a dream. In an earlier draft, I made references to the entering of another reality. Like moving into a new, even dangerous world.

Moving into your more general process, is there any kind of other art or music that you’re inspired by?

Classical music inspires me definitely. I could go on forever about writers that have inspired me. The poet that inspires me the most is T.S. Elliot because he has the surreal imagery that bleeds into the real world quite a lot. His poem Four Quartet specifically is a huge inspiration. I find his motifs and imagery cropping up in everything I write, like the idea of beginnings and ends that run into each other. That sort of magical symbolism. Fiction wise, I still love Little Women. I think the most inspirational books that I have read as a writer is the Emily Trilogy by L.M. Montgomery. I read those books when I was twelve and…If Jo March started it, then Emily Starr finished it. I think I was also very inspired because I knew it was autobiographical.

Would you say that your work is autobiographical?

My poetry is extremely autobiographical. Sometimes I feel like I need to pull back because otherwise people are going to know what I’m talking about, and specifically, who I am talking about. For the pieces that I know no one will ever read, I kind of just let myself go.

What do you want to do in the future? Do you want to make a career out of writing or just keep it for yourself?

I probably do want to make a career out of it, writing fiction more specifically, rather than poetry. Of course, poetry will still be a part of it. I know that it’s not going to be easy, and that to think that I can make a career out of it is foolhardy because it doesn’t pay very well. But I am going to try and make it work. I definitely wanna go back to home to Arizona, go back to the desert and write novels and have cats.

AMELE

i.
dancing on the horizon
of all that was and
all that will ever be
a point frozen in spacetime
life as a star unfathomed
into any constellation
and the darkness
in its ultraviolet line
holds all light captive

ii.
dissolved absolved unresolved
the sound of the grass—different
where you are from where I am—
waves across a windless abyss,
smelling of all the prior ages before
mankind invented furrows. Now,
the fear holds it too tight to tremble,
and parched whispers sneak into your
sleep, so I cannot keep them hidden.

iii.
The ground injures me, these naked roots;
crushed matter creeping forth to claim
the alien. Will this fell world accept us?
The Muse is a cruel goddess, a white dancer
on the white line, and starlight a sudden
gleam in the infinite. Hold me as we enter,
and I’ll never let you go, though our faces
reflected in the enchanted glass are already
unrecognizable, strangers to those left behind.