Author Interview
Catching up with Diana Whitney
We’re thrilled to be publishing Diana Whitney’s second poetry collection, Dark Beds—aptly described by reviewers as lush, earthy, sensual, and luminous.
Here, she reflects on the influences and personal experiences that shaped the book and talks a bit about its trajectory and the ways she hopes it connects with readers.
What inspired or motivated you to write some of these poems? How do you think this book might reach or resonate with people?
Dark Beds was forged in the crucible of midlife, out of a longing for youth and passion, out of grief at losing my mother slowly to Alzheimer’s. The earliest poems were written as I emerged from the Baby Cave and stepped into the light of my own creative power, intoxicated by an emotional affair that nearly ended my marriage. I hope those poems will resonate with readers, especially women, who have struggled for self-expression within a long partnership and felt trapped by the cultural imperatives of motherhood and domesticity.
The later poems were written in hindsight and gratitude that my marriage had survived, after I’d woken from the trance of euphoria and reckoned with infidelity. I finished the book as my children reached adolescence and my mother descended into the final silence of her disease. The groundbreaking work of Esther Perel, especially Mating in Captivity and The State of Affairs, helped guide me as I wrote Dark Beds. “How can you want what you already have?” asks Perel. These poems show me working out the answer to her question. I see the book as both timely in its experience of 21st-century motherhood and marriage and timeless in its themes of desire and mortality, love and loss.
How do the themes you explore in the book relate to your personal identity, history, passions, or experience? What has drawn you to some of these ideas? Do you think poetry engages with them in unique ways—ways that another medium maybe can’t?
The themes of desire and longing infuse nearly everything I write. Just look at the titles of my books: my first collection was Wanting It, this book is Dark Beds, and almost three decades ago, my college poetry thesis was The Half-Life of Desire. Looking back, I think the experience of longing has been central to my identity—the longing to create, to be seen, to be heard, to connect with a beloved, to escape the mundane and encounter wildness. While I write across genres, poetry is my first true love and the most potent way I know to channel the yearning I feel as a human living in a body, on the earth.
Audre Lorde describes poetry as “the revelation and distillation of experience” and “a vital necessity of our existence,” and this has been true for me since I was 13 years old. It is a space of intimacy, a means of bringing forth the deep truths within us, our dreams and visions.
What was going on in your life while you were writing this book? What was the process like for you of writing and, eventually, collecting, editing, and publishing this collection?
Dark Beds took a long time to come into the world—the poems were written over six or seven years and then slowly edited into a collection that I submitted for nearly three years before finding a wonderful home at June Road Press. I like to say I’m an aficionado of “slow writing,” like the Slow Food movement, but during that time I was focused on writing an 85,000-word memoir about motherhood, sexuality, and breaking generational patterns of female silence. (That memoir landed me a literary agent but ended up not selling; it is now collecting dust in a folder, waiting for the right time to be revived and re-visioned.)
I also live with a chronic pain condition that I have to manage (see the poem “Medicine”). Dealing with debilitating pain flare-ups and clinical depression means I have to prioritize my health and cannot push myself in the same way that many writers (and 21st-century humans) do. I’ve come to accept this slower pace as part of my karma in this lifetime, and I’ve come to see the illness as a teacher, a vehicle for self-love, compassion, and potential connection with others.
Can you describe the way you write an individual poem, or does that vary a lot? Are there particular rituals, objects, settings, or sources of inspiration that really help you write?
I love to run or ski in the woods and fields around my home in southern Vermont and, in the summer, to swim and paddleboard on the rivers and lakes. Many of my poems are born from this time in nature, across the four seasons, in all kinds of weather. When I’m out in the woods, I write in my head, jotting lines down in a notebook after I return to civilization. I’m also lucky to be part of a wonderful, supportive group of writers that meets on Tuesday evenings to write in community. I generate many first drafts in the safe space of our writing salon, then bring them back to my desk for revision and editing.
Do you have any wisdom to share with writers who are demoralized or intimidated by the long journey of getting published?
Take heart. You are not alone. Try to cultivate a relationship with your writing that is separate from any external affirmation or publishing accolades. Find a community of writers who will support and inspire you, especially when you’re struggling. These people will sustain your writing life! And don’t believe the gatekeepers—they are human and subjective, often with their own agendas. Keep writing and keep reading! Your work will take the time it needs to come into the world. With hindsight, I see that Dark Beds came into being at the perfect time, and it feels serendipitous to share it with readers now.
Read more about Diana’s book, listen to audio clips, check out the accompanying playlist, and find out where to purchase a copy.