Writing towards wisdom
An interview with January Gill O’Neil
To read January Gill O’Neil’s poetry is to move through centuries and immediate sensations in one breath. Of her writing process, she describes the balance she finds between diligent research and intuition: “Poetry allows me to cross the border between emotion and fact, the personal and the historical.” Likewise, her advice for poets is both practical and inspiring. “I am not afraid to fail in a poem,” O’Neil writes.
When I first met you, you spoke about your time teaching in Oxford, Mississippi—a place whose soil and climate seep through the poems in your newest collection, Glitter Road. How have you seen a location’s impact on your writing, in both its practice and themes?
Oxford, MS had a profound influence on my writing. The landscape, the people, the mighty rivers—it's all infused into my poetry. I am so thankful for the Grisham Fellowship at the University of Mississippi (2019-2020) for giving me the time and head space to explore my writing so fully and completely. Having the ability to explore another part of the country made me keenly aware of the beauty and pain that still permeates the South—and I’m from Virginia. While I understand Southern Culture, the fellowship gave me time for deep reflection, and the historical weight of the place brought a gravity to my work that I hadn't experienced before. The environment enters into my practice no matter where I am—Massachusetts or Mississippi—dictating rhythm and tone, while listening to the stories that the land holds. Every poem is a piece of that soil, a breath of that humid air.
In Glitter Road, you move seamlessly between interpersonal relationships and some of the most pressing questions in our country. What is your process for forming a narrative from seemingly prismatic ideas?
Each poem is like a photo—a snapshot of a moment in time. So I start with the moment, but I don't write in the moment. I didn’t start writing the Mississippi poems until the end of our time there, around the beginning of the pandemic lockdown. In general, I usually have notes or an idea floating around, but I try to let the poem lead me. And I am not afraid to fail in a poem. I have way too many drafts that will never see the light of day. Revision is a necessary evil, but that’s where I make the connections after I get that first draft down. I try to incorporate as many senses as possible, which helps to frame the narrative.
“When I’m not writing, I’m living.”
As Glitter Road is your fourth book of poetry, what advice would you share about creating a collection?
Glitter Road wasn’t easy. It was tough making the Emmett Till poems, love poems, and Massachusetts poems work cohesively without something getting lost in the overall narrative. My longtime editor, Baron Wormser at CavanKerry Press, and I created mini sections to help guide the reader through the collection. The order was not something I could see my way through, so I am thankful for a good editor and press.
That being said, don’t rush the book to get it to publication. A published poem does not mean it belongs in the collection or that it can't be edited. Publish a collection that will stand the test of time. Include your A-level poems, maybe a few B poems that bridge the gap between ideas and concepts. Start and end strong. Think about the pacing. Be sure to look at the collection as a whole as well as how the individual poems fit together. How do they “speak” to one another—how does one poem lead into the next? Also, don't be afraid to be vulnerable and honest. The best poetry often comes from places of deep truth and personal risk.
Among many others in Glitter Road, your poem “At the Rededication of the Emmett Till Memorial” weaves fact with your own feelings around a tragedy. How do you approach incorporating history and its aftermath into your work?
I try to stay open about the subjects and topics that enter my writing. When I moved to Mississippi, I was drawn to Emmett Till’s story. I visited the memorials and went to the rededication ceremony for Emmett Till’s memorial marker, at the place where his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River. I did the research. I spoke to sources. The ideas sat until I had something to say. Poetry allows me to cross the border between emotion and fact, the personal and the historical. My hope is to invite readers into history and to create a connection that resonates on a deeper level.
What projects and themes are you hoping to explore next?
Right now, I'm trying to create a summer routine after a grueling spring of teaching, book tour, and volunteer service. I’m just enjoying writing poetry without a theme or a project in mind. There’s value in not writing as well, so I don’t stress when the poems don’t come. When I’m not writing, I’m living.
January Gill O’Neil
January Gill O'Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (February 2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Her poems and articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Sierra magazine, among others. Her poem, “At the Rededication of the Emmett Till Memorial,” was a co-winner of the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Poetry award from the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cave Canem, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O'Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She currently serves as the 2022-2024 board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).
O'Neil earned her BA from Old Dominion University and her MFA from New York University. She lives in Beverly, MA.