Andrea Rogers holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from Georgia State University. Her work appears in Odradek, The 11th Hour, and elsewhere. She and her band, Night Driving in Small Towns, have appeared in features by Rolling Stone and NPR.
What is most difficult about writing?
The most difficult part of writing for me is actually sitting down and doing it! I keep multiple lists and documents of ideas, so I always have “seeds” of poems to work with when I finally make myself sit down and write. But life is so busy, and writing poems requires so much emotional energy — to me, it often feels like making an incision and waiting to see what the outcome will be. Will I bleed to death on my Macbook, or will I get a villanelle out of it?
What is your philosophy of failure?
I think failure is the most important part of writing, especially failing to say exactly what you want to the first time. I’ve never, ever sat down and written something that I felt was exactly “it” the first time; and in fact, we shouldn’t really look at our writing processes like that, given what we know about revision and how many revisions a good poem actually requires. What’s more, failing in the moment of trying to get your idea out definitely doesn’t mean that the poem won’t become a success later. Sometimes we need more distance than we give ourselves before we start writing about a particular subject or event, or we need something else to happen in our lives to give us a new or more appropriate lens with which to interpret the subject. So in short, failure is necessary, and really kind of freeing and cool.
What is the biggest mistake you have made as a writer?
The biggest mistake I’ve made as a writer is not sending my work out enough. I get very emotionally attached to my poems, and when I do get ready to send them out, I over-deliberate about whether they are “truly ready” or if the place I am sending them to is the right “home” for the work. I’m trying really hard to get over this, but I think it really stems from having worked on the music side of things for so long. When an album is finished and you put it out, that’s kind of it. With poems, you can continue to change and perfect them even after they’re accepted somewhere, so I’m just trying to get that through my thick, thick skull.
What is the biggest mistake you have made as a person?
How long do you have? Ha! I’m not sure I can answer that with confidence, to be honest. I would like to say that it was giving a large portion of my life to a significant other who didn’t really deserve it, but I don’t believe that’s the right answer here, because I don’t think trying to love another person is ever really a mistake, even if it’s misguided. So maybe the biggest mistake I’ve made as a person is not knowing when to walk away — from a lover, a friendship, a job, you name it. But “I’m getting better!” (said in the voice of the old man from Monty Python and the Holy Grail just before he gets clubbed)
What is your best failure story?
Again, how long do you have? Many of my best failure stories involve alcohol and waking up to find out what I did the night before — like riding through someone’s field on a piece of farm equipment, or kissing a stranger who made eye contact with me at the bar, then walking away without ever speaking to him. Maybe a sweet one would suffice, though. When I was just starting college, a family member found a cat who had been hit by a car and was thus unable to nurse her kittens. The only shelter where I lived was a kill shelter so I took one of the kittens in to bottle feed it until I could find someone to give it to. Fourteen and a half years later, I still have that kitten, who has now become very large and noisy and frankly quite demanding.
