JW: What brings you to the U.S. this spring of 2001?
JL: This is a combination of promotional tour and a celebration
of two new collections: Nadya Aisenberg’s final, and wonderful, poetry
collection Measures and a third poetry collection from one of Ireland’s
most exciting contemporary poets, Mary Dorcey Like Joy in Season, Like
Sorrow. I have a deep, deep regret that we weren’t able to publish
Measures
before Nadya’s untimely death in 1999. I’ve known her work for many years,
and had much exciting correspondence with her, but never met her. She was
a tireless and amazingly versatile writer and social philosopher. Her work
will be alive for many, many more years to come. To celebrate
Measures
at MIT, I’ll be giving a lecture on Salmon and on Nadya’s poetry, followed
by readings from her book by her daughter and friends. This is to be a
very special event.
The evening at MIT is but one
stop on my U.S. tour. I’ll make three stops in Arkansas, including my home
town of Blytheville, before heading to Cambridge on the 18th. Then, I’ll
be joined by Mary Dorcey on April 23rd at the University of Missouri, St.
Louis, after which we go to the University of Southern Illinois, Carbondale,
for the 25th and on to Chicago for a reading at Du Paul University, and
various other venues, then to Minneapolis for a reading at The Loft, with
Sarah Fox, Ethna McKiernan, Jude Nutter, and Pat Monaghan! Lots of traveling
in between (I’ll be going to Vancouver, as well). Details of venues, dates
and times will be on the Salmon Poetry
Web site. I haven’t done such a big U.S. trip in a while; usually I go
to Alaska—we’ve published a few Alaskan poets—and
back to Ireland.
JW: Born in Arkansas, how did you come to live in Ireland? 
JL: Okay. Rather a long story, since I left Arkansas as a child.
I lived in Arkansas until the age of ten. I’ll never understand why my
parents decided to move to Southern California, but they did and we did.
An incredible culture shock for me. I hated it—missed
the landscape of Arkansas terribly. MUCH of my writing centers on the role
of landscape in shaping consciousness. In fact, I’m working on a memoir
of my early years in Arkansas and its crucial formative part of my love
of poetry, and my motivations as a poetry publisher. I left California
at the age of seventeen and wandered a bit. I wanted to leave the country
(signs of the times!), so New York was an obvious place to go first (in
all senses of this meaning). I spent four years in New York then took off
for London with three hundred dollars and a two-year-old son. We got settled
somehow, and I went to University, Kings College London, and did an Honours
Philosophy degree. I worked for a while at the Poetry Society in London,
then did some teaching. In 1979 I met the man I married (now my ex) who
was also a writer (I’d published a bit by that time) and we decided that
Ireland was the place we’d be most happy as writers. That’s proven to be
completely true! Even though my ex-husband is now involved in politics
and no longer writing, we started The Salmon International Literary
Journal together in 1982, and went on to book publishing in 1985.
JW: How did Salmon Publishing get its start?
JL: Oh, another long(ish) story. Michael, my ex-husband, and
I joined a writing workshop shortly after settling in Galway in 1981. This
workshop had just started and was loosely associated with University College,
Galway. We met on the college campus once a week and the atmosphere was
very lively. At that time most graduates were leaving Ireland for better
opportunities, but because Michael and I had chosen to be here we had a
very different perspective which gave us the energy to nurture and broaden
the workshop pamphlet which we (the workshop) began producing in 1981.
By summer of the following year, we’d changed the format, named it The
Salmon (a suggestion from an Irish language scholar) and invited submissions
from all over the country and abroad. The “mission” was to provide a forum
for voices which were not being represented by the dominant literary outlets
in Dublin. It didn’t take long before we realized that this also applied
to poetry collection publishing, and we were presented with a wonderful
collection by Eva Bourke (who has now published three collections)—so
we took the step. Michael and I spit up in 1987 and I was on my own with
Salmon Publishing. At that time there were six books out and I had to decide
whether I could carry on with little funding. Salmon had become widely
known. The Salmon journal was doing well and our books received great reviews.
We’d given a start to a fabulous, quirky, insightful poet called Rita Ann
Higgins, who had come to the workshop in search of a creative outlet. It
was obvious to us that she had tremendous talent. Also obvious that she
would never look to the established press in Dublin for publication—she
was a working class, west-of-Ireland woman who’d left school early—NOT
the profile recognized in Irish literary circles at that time. In fact,
Rita Ann took Ireland by storm in the late 1980s/early 1990s with her accessible,
sharp, witty poems. Her social import is without measure. She’s now a senior
Irish poet whose work is widely praised here and abroad. I realized that
I couldn’t just give Salmon up, so I looked for more money, more practical
help, and kept going.
I’ve had various helpers over
the years, but Siobhan Hutson, who began working with me in 1990, has proven
to be a most valuable asset! She taught herself computer skills and has
typeset around 100 books; she now does cover design as well. She set up,
and maintains, our beautiful award-winning Web site.
JW: Producing over 150 volumes, how do you maintain diversity
in Salmon’s poetry list? How do you balance publishing new and established
poets?
JL: Oh, diversity is easy! It’s the way I think. In fact, we’ve
been criticized by more hidebound types for being too diverse and therefore
not easily categorized. Who would want to be easily categorized?!? Because
we began to encourage women poets (very underrepresented in Irish literature)
in the 1980s, and now have the most representative list, Salmon has been
know as a “women's press”! In fact, our list is always balanced between
men and women. My interest has always been in new poets, original voices.
I think we have a good balance between new and established poets. Our main
grant funding comes from the Irish Arts Council, and since such bodies
are by their nature conservative, we have to balance new with established.
Initially the vast majority of books we published were first collections;
now
with an explosion of publishing in Ireland, we’ve been directed to cut
back. Difficult. We’ve just published a book by a young County Clare poet,
Mary O’Donoghue. She won our 2000 competition for a first collection by
an Irish poet. Fabulous writer! Later this year we’ll publish the fifth
poetry collection of science fiction/fantasy writer Ray Bradbury, and next
year the poems of Caitlin Mcnamara Thomas—do
I have to add “the wife of Dylan”?—never before
published. A very exciting prospect!
JW: Salmon Publishing is based in County Clare, Ireland, half
a mile north of the world-famous Cliffs of Moher. It takes its name from
the Salmon of Knowledge in Celtic mythology. Can you tell me more about
the myth of the salmon and the significance of this name?
JL: When our friend, an Irish language scholar, suggested “salmon”
as the name for our ambitious and idealistic new press, a buzz went round
the room—it was just perfect! I guess it’s
a testimony to how much we believed that we were on a mission. The salmon
is said to have eaten the acorns which fell, in ancient times, into the
River Boyne—these acorns contained all wisdom
and knowledge. Therefore the salmon is the wisest of fish. There’s much
more to this, it’s woven into the legends of Fionn MacCumhail, but that’s
another story!
JW: Salmon is a journal, a press, a place for writers, a workshop,
a book store. All of this energy devoted to poets! Where is it going?
JL: Actually, The Salmon journal ceased publication in 1991.
I simply didn’t have the funds to keep it going, and there were other little
magazines coming along so the necessity wasn’t as great. However it was
great for ten years and many people tell me I should revive it. We have
thought of doing so as an on-line journal. A lot of work, though, and I
haven’t decided whether I have the time. As for the whole Salmon enterprise—we
have great future plans. We’ll do fewer books each year (various reasons
for this), and focus strongly on sales—particularly
from our Web site.
JW: A strong element in Salmon’s ethos has been to broaden the
parameters of Irish literature by opening up to other cultures. How would
you describe the future of Salmon Publishing?
JL: Salmon’s future has a definite international direction.
As I’ve mentioned, we have been told to cut back our list because there’s
too much poetry being published in Ireland. This is too complicated an
issue to go into in detail here, but it’s to do with the perception of
what constitutes an “Irish poem” and what actually represents the Irish
literary canon. The Irish literary establishment has a vested interest
in its heritage, and there is a worry that by going too much outside the
accepted norm Irish literature will be degraded. Obviously I don’t see
this—to me poetry is about revolution, change,
growth, development. These things are crucial. SO, we’re moving more and
more into an international arena for the Irish poets we publish, as well
as taking on more non-Irish poets.
JW: Your prose poem “Daughter” was published in book form in1988.
How do you combine publishing and your own writing?
JL: It has been very difficult. One of the reasons that I think
it may be a good idea to do fewer books each year is because I really must
concentrate on my own writing. My own book Daughter was published
in 1988, sold out on a tour of the States, and was not reprinted. I chose
to spend the money we had on other poets’ collections. Now that we are
more flexible with our printing costs, we decided to reissue Daughter
with some of my other poems on the theme of loss and exile. I’ll have the
book with me on this trip. I’m also working on a Salmon memoir, which is
based on the influence of landscape on poetic consciousness.
JW: You are currently working on a book which examines the past
fifty years of poetry publishing in Ireland. Can you tell us about this
project?
JL: This book has become a bit side-lined because of the amount
of Salmon work the last couple of years. The memoir I’m actively working
on now will include aspects of this project, but it will not be a straight
“academic” work. In 1999 we published a terrific anthology, the only one
of its kind, entitled The White Page/An Bhileog Bhan: 20th Century Irish
Women Poets, edited by Joan McBreen. This is a fascinating work and
shows clearly that the publishing of women poets is a crucial part of any
publishing history in Ireland. It made me realize that I really must carry
on with my research on poetry publishing in Ireland—this
is a social history as well as an aesthetic one.
JW: You are the facilitator of regular weekend Creative Writing
Workshops which are held at the Salmon premises. And you have conducted
workshops all over Ireland and the United States, for many years. As teacher
of poetry, how would you assess the quality of writing today? Do you have
any advice for those struggling poets who are trying to publish?
JL: I am very, very keen to impart information to people about
publishing. I have a “Publishers’ Diary” on the Web site, and also an “Advice
for Writers” page. I've also written “The Salmon Guide to Poetry Publishing
in Ireland” and “The Salmon Guide to Creative Writing in Ireland”—these
focus on advice and outlets. Unfortunately I can’t comment on all the poems
I receive because it would be too time-consuming, and, most important,
I prefer to deal with the poet face to face. I would like to add a page
which lists the type of queries I receive (without using names, of course)
and put people in touch with sources for information. It’s sad to me that
new writers often make obvious mistakes in approaching publishers and cause
themselves a lot of distress, when a bit of research would put them on
the right track. I could go on about this at length, it’s rather a campaign
of mine. I’ll end for now with by saying that the Internet provides the
perfect way to be thoroughly informed, and the more that writers learn
how to use this tool, the more effective their work will be in the world.
JW: From here, are you off to Alaska? When will you be back again?
JL: Actually, I’ll be in Alaska in September, then Australia
(for the first time) in October. I have a deep connection with Alaska.
We’ve published four wonderful Alaska poets in the last couple of years:
Joe Enzweiler, Tom Sexton, Linda McCarriston, and Jerah Chadwick. And,
in fact, someone has donated land and a cabin on Spruce Island, off Kodiak,
to Salmon and I’m hoping to set up a wild writers’ retreat! We have Canadian
poets on our list too, John Unrau and John Pass.
JW: Is there anything else you would like to add?
JL: Whew! Can’t think of a thing now!
Copyright © 2001 by Joyce Wilson and Jessie Lendennie for the Poetry
Porch. Photographs courtesy of Jessie Lendennie.
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