Monthly Archives: January 2016

Inside the Writer’s Head Podcast: Episode 1

Posted on by Posted in Jeffrey Hillard, Podcast, Reading, Writing .

Jeffrey Hillard and Trace Conger talk about the process of writing and Conger’s latest book, Scar Tissue. His award-winning debut novel, The Shadow Broker, published in 2014, introduced the world to “the heavily caffeinated and less-than-ethical Mr. Finn, a disgraced PI who walks the fine line between investigator and criminal.” Learn how Conger approaches the writing process and hear him read an excerpt from his newest book. Share your thoughts about this podcast in the blog comments below. Check back regularly for future “Inside the Writer’s Head” podcasts.

WARNING: Podcast contains some explicit language during book excerpt reading.

Anatomy of a Poem (I)

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What goes into creating a poem?

By their very nature, poems spin such a diverse range of being that it is nearly impossible to pin down an exacting way of creating one.

Poems materialize in such myriad flavors that one writer’s approach to writing poetry usually differs radically from the next writer’s approach.

Still, I think it’s crucial for a writer (in any genre) to learn from other writers. Sharing methodology, styles, and inspiration can steer a writer toward a happy new direction or affirm what he or she is trying to write.

Nothing is improbable if a writer is listening and taking notes.

In this first installment of a new series, “Anatomy of a Poem,” I’m going to briefly break down considerations I gave to writing a new poem, “Sky with an ‘X’ in It.”  It’s a January 2016 poem.  And it has a special place in my recent work. You’ll see why.

I know I’ll intentionally leave some things out, although I hope to cover essentials.  Near the end, you can read the whole poem.

Recently, I experienced the fifth anniversary of my father’s death. Number five. The years since my family sat beside him in an intensive care unit on New Year’s Eve 2010 are starting to blur. New Year’s has never been quite the same. My mother, sister, and I, bouncing between my father’s room and a waiting room, watched the galas on a mounted TV, no hoopla on our end.

My father died January 12, 2011. He was 79-years old and many things: industrial engineer at Procter and Gamble (30 years), former journalist, teacher of hearing impaired (20-plus years), church vocalist (many years), multi-instrument-playing musician (all his life), and political official in the village of Lockland.

My friend, Cincinnati Enquirer reporter and book author, Mark Curnutte, wrote a gorgeous tribute to my father, in which he quoted me: “’He was the most active man I’ve ever known,’ Hillard said. ‘He loved the [retiree-oriented] job of driving [cars]. It kept him on the road and seeing things.’”

“Seeing things” – my father seeing things – struck me when I was just a few lines into my poem. I saw something the day after his funeral. This was the bare-bones impetus for my getting into “Sky with an ‘X’ in It.” My remembering an unexpected and strangely magnificent ‘X’ in the blue cloudless sky helped provide a few initial lines to get the poem going. I wrote hurriedly in my palm-size notebook.

I began it more from the unforgettable image of two criss-crossing contrails in the sky than from the raw notion of my father’s death. The aspect of a strangely appearing “cross” moved me. My imagination let loose. Contrails forming an ‘X’ – right stuff for my poem. My father was very spiritual. I remember how long I stared at those contrails and thought about his absence.

Here are five considerations I embraced and tried to flesh out during my drafts:

  • I wanted to convey a sense of my father’s absence without sentimentalizing that reality. To “speak” for some sense of absence and nostalgia, I put the poem’s speaker in one place on an extremely cold January day, with not one other individual was around. I used the presence of a dog, a long-vacant, huge factory, a lone flag, and the reality of losing my father in a hospital room to conjure some level of loss. The day after the funeral accented absence. Too, there’s an absence relative to the speaker’s emotional isolation. In drafting, I began to see how I could manipulate a theme of absence, among a few other subtle themes.
  • The more lines I wrote, the more I could see a tercet (three-line stanza) structure take shape. I felt my images would be more pronounced in tercets – in short stanzas. Crafting a poem in a particular structure is very subjective. Gradually, I went with my instinct: tercets.
  • By using three-line stanzas, I better managed the poem “down the page,” as the late major poet Stanley Kunitz used to say. How a poem “moves down the page” is important. What matters here is the growing emphasis on openness in the poem: big, vast blue sky, one solitary person in a park and its quietness, except for the echoing highway traffic in the distance, extended vacancy of long-gone factories nearby – a ghostly presence near the lone flag.
  • Creating sound was key. I began to see decent sound emerge with clauses or phrases like, “Bare spots on the dog’s head…” and “ice settles into crevices….” Each tercet carries some kind of sound or slight wordplay.
  • It was important for me to convey how memory molded the speaker’s experience at this time by the flag, as he watched the sky. It is his contemplating the ‘X’ that illuminates other details and how he processes his father’s passing.

Only in my attention to taking a good deal of time writing the poem did these things come into play. The more I wrote, the more I saw. A poem doesn’t happen quickly for me. I ponder possibilities and come up with incremental distinctions.

Here’s the poem in its entirety:

Sky with an ‘X’ in It

Cold January easing into an even colder grip,
   it releases me for a moment under
the town’s American flag. Half-mast, bruised stars

flapping in honor of your community service, I see
   where dirt from highway traffic has encrusted
the stripes. The whole of it, so alone in winter

in this little corner park. The day after your funeral
   ice settles into crevices. Every footprint
plants its own name on icy grass. A wandering

dog coming toward me licks gutter water.
   Bare spot on the dog’s head, an absence
of fur. Closer, I pet it, and I think how

your absence from me now, the gone-ness of your
   breathing even into a ventilator, is your
flesh more like a large brittle plate

I fumbled, watched it fall and break. I can only
   recall shards of you, your whole gone-ness
taken by ground, stolen by sky. This cross, hanging.

I can’t reconcile the clatter of billiard balls
   in the pool hall where you hid from church, at fifteen,
until your mother appeared and tugged you by the ear

down the sidewalk. I can reconcile the clatter
   of grandma’s black, old lady’s shoes as she
walked to me, held me, elbows pressed into my cheeks.

Why do I even stare at the sky and look foolish,
   If not to wait for two contrails in a perfect ‘X’
to break apart like two nails soldered and framed?

The bridge to you is like this flagpole
   that abruptly ends thirty feet off the ground.
As if I’m lucky to see loose threads in the already

slightly faded flag. Hiss of cars on the highway
   below the overpass. Sky takes in the ‘X’
and it lingers, not ever hiding, though fragile.

And soon the white cross: It scatters.
   I follow. Twisting clouds drift beyond
the vacant factory, so many bricks and broken windows.

I think of you as expansive as any new
   blue appearing: unending lake of blue
holding you now, and me lost, staring at sky.

There should be another name for glory.
   But one far less bright.

Calling Mr. Finn: An Interview with Mystery Novelist, Trace Conger

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Cover of Scar Tissue

Scar Tissue by Trace Conger

Jeffrey Hillard’s Note: The following is an interview with local award-winning novelist, Trace Conger, whose “A Mr. Finn Novel” series of crime fiction deliver a whopping combination of local settings and hard-boiled, noir-oriented action. Conger’s blend of the tragi-comic is exceedingly shrewd and totally memorable, leaving readers with that earnest desire to follow Finn Harding through future novels. Conger’s first novel, The Shadow Broker, published in 2014, received the Shamus Award for Best Independent P.I. Novel at Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention . His second Mr. Finn novel, Scar Tissue, has just been released. The interviewer, Anna Drees, is currently a student at Mount St. Joseph University.

Anna Drees: Your first novel, The Shadow Broker, is full of irony. The protagonist, Mr. Finn Harding, might be confronted curiously with the option or impetus to harm a man either in light of the dangerous and frequently-subversive work he’s in or in self-defense, and then when he gets a call from the elementary school that is daughter is sick, Finn rushes to get her and takes her home and tends and takes care of her. A major character, Little Freddie, tortures people, yet he is a man of faith and wants to support youths by purchasing a bag from the school. How do they reconcile or separate out these two seemingly contradictory parts of their personality? Do they have some certain of “code” that they live by?

Trace Conger: This reconciliation is a big theme throughout the novel. What will we compromise ourselves for? Both men feel as though anyone who comes in contact with them (i.e. Banks in the underground room) is because of their own actions, so neither feels too guilty about it. Little Freddie mentions in the book that “these people get what’s coming to them.” Neither could really reconcile hurting innocent people, but in their minds, the people they are sent to kill aren’t innocent. They are waist-deep in the criminal world, so they see it as just “thinning out the herd.”  I wouldn’t say they have a “code” they live by (such as Dexter would), but they (especially Freddie) don’t really see themselves as bad people, because they feel justified in what they’re doing. Little Freddie is already in this world and Finn is slowly being brought into it. That’s why he struggles with it at first, but is able to compartmentalize it throughout the novel.

Trace Conger

Trace Conger reading from his work during a discussion with Mount St. Joseph University students

Anna Drees:  I felt like the book hinted that Mr. Finn’s father, Albert, has some sort of skill set that might be associated with the mob – or mob tactics. For example, he knew that someone was tailing him and drove around down town to lose him and Albert had $20,000 hidden under his cabin in Maine.  Did Albert ever play a part in the mob?
Trace Conger: Great catch on Albert. He is one of my favorite characters to write. Yes, I intentionally left his past ambiguous, but wanted readers to know there was more to him than meets the eye. Even Finn isn’t aware of the extent of his past. Albert plays a big part in the second novel, Scar Tissue. We learn where he got that cash under his boathouse, why he has it, why he was living in a nursing home, and why Albert is a bit more “experienced” than he lets on.

Anna Drees:  Mr. Finn is incredibly good at finding people who do not want to be found. This is basically the foundation for the whole series, you’ve said. Little Freddie tells Mr. Finn how his wife and daughter were raped and killed and the people that did it still send him postcards about how his wife and daughter screamed. I was curious as to why Little Freddie didn’t hire Mr. Finn to find the people involved in his wife and daughters murder.

Trace Conger:  After Little Freddie kills Bishop in The Shadow Broker, he up and disappears. What is not evident in this first book (intentionally) is that Little Freddie has gone out west himself to find the people responsible for the death of his family. As to the reason why he didn’t hire Finn, I think it’s because he takes things very personally and this is something he wants to handle himself (it won’t turn out well for those involved). I’m working on the third book in the series now, and plan to write a novella (a shorter book) that follows Little Freddie out west to find those responsible for his family’s death.

Anna Drees:  Most people have a moral compass that would not have them do the stuff that Mr. Finn does. Even though on the surface it is the money that motivates him, what is it internally that drives him to involve himself in these situations?

Trace Conger:  Finn Harding is a very flawed character. He’s struggling to make ends meet and he desperately wants to be with his family. The revocation of his PI license and his split with his ex-wife Brooke have made this impossible. Finn does have a moral compass in the book, but it’s tested because of these circumstances. His moral compass plays a big part in the third book, The Prison Guard’s Son, in which he’s hired to find and dispatch someone in the witness protection program.

Anna Drees:  The Shadow Broker repeatedly alludes to the fact that Mr. Finn possesses a skill to do what no one else can. Mr. Finn even says that he is like “deaths GPS.” I know he is a former private investigator, but how did he develop and recognize this ability? What pushed him in this vain?

Trace Conger:  Finn developed this skill set through his former life as a PI. Most of what PIs do depends on their problem solving skills. He has to think of ways to locate people who are trying to cover their tracks, so it’s really just his experience with prior cases. I always try to figure out real ways to do this. I hate when writers use some device, say, like a hacker finding all the info out of thin air. Finn has to really work for it. He has to really work at finding information.

Anna Drees:  In reading a novel, when we start with the age of a character as an adult, so much of what happened to that character in his or her childhood affects who he or she will become. Was there something in Finn Harding’s childhood or past that impacted him in such a strong way to compel him to work in these dangerous situations and associate with people that have the potential to turn on him and kill him? What makes him such a risk taker? It has to be more than the money.

Trace Conger:  There isn’t a specific experience that has led Finn down this path; it’s more him biting off more than he can chew with the Bishop case. He never intended to kill anyone, but after being drawn into the case, he rationalizes the actions as appropriate. Most of that is being driven by his desire for money, but more so what money represents, which is the opportunity to get back his family. He rationalizes that if he can just make a few dollars more (by taking these cases) he’ll have the means to get “back on track” and support this family in a legitimate way. What some readers might not pick up is that by the end of the book Finn has made $0. He has to pay Dunbar off at the end of the book and what he’s left with is a tarnished soul and absolutely nothing to show for it. This is intentional, and what I tried to do was show that after risking his life, and his family’s life, he has gained nothing.

Anna Drees:  Crime/suspense novels are my favorite type of books. What led or inspired you to write such a dark yet funny and family-oriented book?

Trace Conger:  I love dark fiction, crime, suspense and horror all included. That’s what I read as a kid (nothing too dark, but age appropriate fiction) and have always loved it. I’m thrilled that my daughter reads the Goosebumps books for the same reason. As for the humor, I think there is humor in everything, even death. Not slapstick, but it’s how we deal with things. That’s why you’ll see people laughing at a funeral. There is humor in most of my work, some more subtle than others. As for the family aspect, that’s where I am in life at the moment. I’m married and have a four and a seven year old. When I think of what scares me, it’s something happening to any of them. That’s why that theme is such a big part of the novel. Harm coming to his family scares the heck out of Finn and motivates him to do what he does.

Anna Drees:  Francis Ford Coppola said in an interview that when he fleshed out Vito Corleone for the screenplay of “Godfather I,” he studied several famous mobsters. He then said that Vito was an amalgam of several, drawing out specific traits to form who Vito would become. Who was your inspiration for the protagonist, Mr. Finn and what was your process?

Trace Conger:  Finn is based loosely on a real person. Years ago I met a retired Private Investigator who, at a point when he was down on his luck financially, accepted an illegal job for the money. He never told me what the job was (but I know it wasn’t too bad), but he said he felt horrible for doing it, and after getting paid a good sum for the case he went back to legitimate work and never looked back. He knew that if he got caught, he’d lose his license. Luckily for him, he didn’t get caught. But I always wondered, what if he did get caught? And that’s where Finn came from.

New Year Beginnings: New Reading Series at the Pendleton Arts Center

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Susan F. Glassmeyer

Susan F. Glassmeyer reading at The Pendleton Arts Center

In early December 2015, two local poets, Susan F. Glassmeyer and Bucky Ignatius, inaugurated a new poetry reading series in Cincinnati at the Pendleton Arts Center, in the Pendleton district of Over-the-Rhine, three or four blocks from the vivacious Horseshoe Casino.

Given the fact that there’s a passionate poetry scene in Cincinnati, and one that involves an array of eclectic voices, we as writers – and certainly us poets – should never feel as if reading venues for creative writers will dry up anytime soon. I don’t think this has ever been a reality. As long as I’ve been reading my own work out loud the past three decades, I’ve always encountered opportunities for writers to work out their writing in some public mode.

So, in 2016, let the written and spoken words be elevated even more. Let 2016 be the year that brings writers not only more success and an abundance of quality drafts, but let it inspire writers to take advantage of reading opportunities – and in this case, poets, especially.

Built in 1909, the Pendleton Arts Center is a vastly roomy eight-floor building whose historical relevance is striking. In those first few decades of the 1900s, the building was used by the Krohn-Fecheimer Shoe Company and later morphed into the main warehouse for Shillito’s department store. The building at 1310 Pendleton Street was bought by The Verdin Company in 1991 and transformed into studio and exhibit space for regional artists of all disciplines.

The unfolding of this new poetry series is yet another innovative component to illuminate the artistic activity at the PAC. The facility already showcases the enormously popular Final Friday series for visual artists.

Bucky Ignatius

Bucky Ignatius reading at the Pendleton Arts Center

It’s a perfect place for poetry readings. It’s a perfect place for poets to do part of the work a writer who cares about his or her craft should want to do. Read aloud in public, as challenging as that may seem.

My late friend, mentor, collaborator for 22 years, and former professor, Dallas Wiebe, always reiterated to me: “The true test of your [creative writing] is if it can hold up in public – in your reading the work aloud. Test it out.” Dallas should have known: an American original as a fiction writer, he read locally and around the country for over 50 years. Dallas was responsible for advancing the public reading venues in this city for nearly forty years, starting in Mt. Adams, in the mid-1960s. As a young writer, I’d taken my queue from him and realized the advantage of sharing my work aloud in public.

Other writer-friends of mine have also shared in this creed and have done so liberally, with real expectation to either facilitate readings or expose their writing to an audience. This city bustles with literary activity and always has. The PAC is such a refreshing venue because it opens a door for poets to read in that eastern part of Over-the-Rhine, minutes north of the Cincinnati’s central business district and just south of Mount Auburn.

It’s with this rush of excitement that I see the PAC Poetry Reading Series as another potentially vital venue for poetry in our region. The locale is dynamic. The hub of art emanating from the PAC itself is impressive, and the old, fabulously remodeled building, on this occasion of the first reading in December, complemented the creative spirit spilling from Bucky’s and Susan’s poems. Their reading arrangements, clever and lively, supplied the beautiful energy that made the launch-night a success.

The local presence of these two poets has been a mainstay for many years. Both are vital core and constant contributors to the poetry scene and especially to The Greater Cincinnati Writers League, a splendid writers’ group dedicated to the craft of poetry. The GCWL co-sponsors the Pendleton Arts Center readings, as well as our library’s Poetry in the Garden Series each April. The GCWL, which meets monthly, has empowered many poets, allowing them to improve their craft especially upon receiving critiques and feedback from a revolving door of monthly poet-critics who are well-published poets and teachers. Once a month, a different critic provides input into each member’s submitted poem.

Susan Glassmeyer, in her two chapbooks, Body Matters (Pudding House Chapbook Series) and Cook’s Luck (Finishing Line Press), displays an exquisite sense of wonderment. It is often so easy to say that a poet has great range, because, as Pablo Neruda so adamantly preached, every last thing one confronts is a potential poem in the making. This is radical but true. Or it should be. The subject matter in both Glassmeyer’s and Ignatius’ poems is far-ranging, yet such an orientation in these poets’ hands shows the patience with which they’ve cultivated their poems, the disciplined way they’ve honed their craft. No matter that there are three small yet powerful books between them.

I’ve always been so fond of the fluctuating tone and form in Glassmeyer’s poems. Take the satire in “Caution, Submerged Pilings I,” one of the 23 short prose poems in Cook’s Luck. The poem is a whimsical look at two married characters, Jolene and Ronnie. After an outdoor-work experience, there’s this: “…He [Ronnie] stops at the lighthouse end of the beach parking lot to reattach the unhinged roof of the dog-poop-bag dispenser which looks somewhat like a scout-made birdhouse.” Glassmeyer is very keen on juxtapositions, as in the more contemplative poem, “The Mountain”: “…Now, a poster of it [photograph] hangs above your couch captivating the baby lying beneath it. In a surprise milky stupor he gazes unblinking into its face as if hypnotized by the eye of a giant….”

And Glassmeyer has a sense of apt timing for creating metaphor. Her short-lined gripping poem “I Tell You,” in Body Matters, is rich with fresh metaphors, such as: “…How two geese would spin out/of the opal sun opening my spine,/curling my head up to the sky/in an arc I took for granted.”

In Bucky Ignatius’ superb new chapbook, 50 Under 50 (Finishing Line Press), short poems surge forth to capture slice-of-life moments that reflect his ever-sharp poetic eye. In a four, five, or eight-line poem, Ignatius is exceptional in the way his lyricism casts a glow on the smallest details. Unexpectedly small yet human details like laundry, a hammock, a garden, a feather – summoning life into each of these meditations and giving us the chance to see how priceless often-fleeting things are.

On December 8, 2015, I was thrilled to listen to Susan Glassmeyer and Bucky Ignatius read. It was the appropriate way to wind up a vigorous writing year. Sure, the PAC ended the old year this way, but better yet, the reading signaled the launch of new poems to come in this facility in New Year 2016.