Therése Halscheid Q & A with Eastern Iowa Review
Chila: You travel quite a bit. Tell us about a most memorable spot on the globe for you. What made/makes it special?
Therése: It’s very hard to reflect on all the unique places I’ve lived and explored, and select one that is most memorable. Each setting has its own magic, to sense and be with and write of. Maybe I can name two that resonate with me. One is the place where I am currently house-sitting – the sanctuary that I have written of in “An Hour of Present Tense.” I am thankful to return to Old Mill once more, and care for this little-known cottage in the woods. It is a modest dwelling, with an old stone fireplace. I like to make fires and write here in winter. I love to rise early, and stand outside to watch the moon’s light spill over the meadow. I enjoy the early morning mists that capture the mystical elements of such a place. Our Native Americans and early settlers once lived here. Beyond the brief meadow, the Wickecheoke Creek flows along. It is a sanctuary where I feel at home, and close to earth.
And there is a place outside America, which has greatly moved me. In the Ural Mountains of Russia, I lived with a teacher and taught in a Pedagogical Institute, in a town called Nizhni-Tagil. This town was the place of the gulag during Stalin’s reign. It had been a closed city since the 1940s, and was opened to allow 25 American teachers in. Experiences there worked like a floodgate for poetry. The journey moved me on many levels. It was a step back in time. I witnessed peasants foraging for mushrooms in the birch forests, and saw how villagers lived in the log homes of Galianka, and the Russian ovens they slept upon in winter. It was the autumn of 1991. Communism collapsed shortly after I left in December. It was transformational to have such direct experiences with the fall of Communism and the mounting energy for change. The Russians were beginning to share their feelings and their suppressed beliefs.
Chila: Do you find travel assists your ability to write, or is Place merely an extension of anywhere we are, not necessarily the multitude of places we visit?
Therése: This is an interesting question. Travel has always helped me write, because it brings me into new settings. And the newness is invigorating. I think when we step out of our daily routine – our senses come alive. I have been writing on the road as a house-sitter for two decades now, and understand how our senses can be heightened by different environments. I like to cull images from the land, especially in the country where the natural world so freely shares itself. But I’ve also been moved by city-sits. Any place can bring one to writing. So, in this sense, journeying definitely ignites my muse. But I also like the perspective that “Place” is an extension of anywhere we are. I came to understand this concept after titling one of my books: Without Home. As I read from the book, I started to recognize that even though I had no physical home of my home, I was not homeless. The word home expanded to mean wherever I was on earth. Home was Earth. Wherever we stand, we can be home. So to answer your question, it is both. We can be inspired to write of places we enter, while also understanding every place combines to enlarge our writing-self.
Chila: I too write a lot about Place. You have visited Alaska, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. If you can, describe what you felt when you were there re: Place, other than, say, “It was very cold.”
Therése: Visually, it was stunning. I was actually in Alaska twice. The first time I taught in Homer, a frontier town, with views of overlapping mountains, glaciers and volcanoes. I should probably add that when I enter a new place, my tendency is to observe. I ask myself: what has the potential to become an essay or poem? In Homer I was drawn to landscapes but also the people. I had the chance to see the cobbles wash up from the Kachemak Bay. To the Eskimo, they were oracles from the sea. That became a poem. And Thomas, the bushman, who had roamed the wilderness for twenty years, inspired me. He spoke at length of his time with a Yupik tribe on Saint Lawrence Island – and detailed how he went whaling with them. That became a poem. The second year I lived with and taught an Inupiaq tribe in the arctic north of Alaska. They were hunters and gatherers. They lived on a mountain surrounded by a vast tundra. Their stories were fascinating and I spent many mornings listening to two elders, who were sisters. I met with them before school started and was interested in the original ways of our Native Alaskans. I am grateful for their sharing.
Chila: Where have you not been that you want to go?
Therése: I have never been to the Grand Canyon and would very much like to travel west, to experience the beauty I have so often heard of. I am fascinated with exotic cultures, and would like to experience parts of Asia too.
Chila: What are your current writing projects? Do you have a book of Place-based essays on the horizon?
Therése: I am working on a few projects simultaneously. One is a collection of lyric essays about my deceased father who had catastrophic brain damage. My mother and I cared for him thirty years. I also work on journey pieces, especially if I am writing in a unique setting.
Chila: How did you hear about the Eastern Iowa Review?
Therése: Either through CWROPPS or New Pages. Thanks to both, writers are informed about journals and their call for submissions.
Chila: You travel quite a bit. Tell us about a most memorable spot on the globe for you. What made/makes it special?
Therése: It’s very hard to reflect on all the unique places I’ve lived and explored, and select one that is most memorable. Each setting has its own magic, to sense and be with and write of. Maybe I can name two that resonate with me. One is the place where I am currently house-sitting – the sanctuary that I have written of in “An Hour of Present Tense.” I am thankful to return to Old Mill once more, and care for this little-known cottage in the woods. It is a modest dwelling, with an old stone fireplace. I like to make fires and write here in winter. I love to rise early, and stand outside to watch the moon’s light spill over the meadow. I enjoy the early morning mists that capture the mystical elements of such a place. Our Native Americans and early settlers once lived here. Beyond the brief meadow, the Wickecheoke Creek flows along. It is a sanctuary where I feel at home, and close to earth.
And there is a place outside America, which has greatly moved me. In the Ural Mountains of Russia, I lived with a teacher and taught in a Pedagogical Institute, in a town called Nizhni-Tagil. This town was the place of the gulag during Stalin’s reign. It had been a closed city since the 1940s, and was opened to allow 25 American teachers in. Experiences there worked like a floodgate for poetry. The journey moved me on many levels. It was a step back in time. I witnessed peasants foraging for mushrooms in the birch forests, and saw how villagers lived in the log homes of Galianka, and the Russian ovens they slept upon in winter. It was the autumn of 1991. Communism collapsed shortly after I left in December. It was transformational to have such direct experiences with the fall of Communism and the mounting energy for change. The Russians were beginning to share their feelings and their suppressed beliefs.
Chila: Do you find travel assists your ability to write, or is Place merely an extension of anywhere we are, not necessarily the multitude of places we visit?
Therése: This is an interesting question. Travel has always helped me write, because it brings me into new settings. And the newness is invigorating. I think when we step out of our daily routine – our senses come alive. I have been writing on the road as a house-sitter for two decades now, and understand how our senses can be heightened by different environments. I like to cull images from the land, especially in the country where the natural world so freely shares itself. But I’ve also been moved by city-sits. Any place can bring one to writing. So, in this sense, journeying definitely ignites my muse. But I also like the perspective that “Place” is an extension of anywhere we are. I came to understand this concept after titling one of my books: Without Home. As I read from the book, I started to recognize that even though I had no physical home of my home, I was not homeless. The word home expanded to mean wherever I was on earth. Home was Earth. Wherever we stand, we can be home. So to answer your question, it is both. We can be inspired to write of places we enter, while also understanding every place combines to enlarge our writing-self.
Chila: I too write a lot about Place. You have visited Alaska, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. If you can, describe what you felt when you were there re: Place, other than, say, “It was very cold.”
Therése: Visually, it was stunning. I was actually in Alaska twice. The first time I taught in Homer, a frontier town, with views of overlapping mountains, glaciers and volcanoes. I should probably add that when I enter a new place, my tendency is to observe. I ask myself: what has the potential to become an essay or poem? In Homer I was drawn to landscapes but also the people. I had the chance to see the cobbles wash up from the Kachemak Bay. To the Eskimo, they were oracles from the sea. That became a poem. And Thomas, the bushman, who had roamed the wilderness for twenty years, inspired me. He spoke at length of his time with a Yupik tribe on Saint Lawrence Island – and detailed how he went whaling with them. That became a poem. The second year I lived with and taught an Inupiaq tribe in the arctic north of Alaska. They were hunters and gatherers. They lived on a mountain surrounded by a vast tundra. Their stories were fascinating and I spent many mornings listening to two elders, who were sisters. I met with them before school started and was interested in the original ways of our Native Alaskans. I am grateful for their sharing.
Chila: Where have you not been that you want to go?
Therése: I have never been to the Grand Canyon and would very much like to travel west, to experience the beauty I have so often heard of. I am fascinated with exotic cultures, and would like to experience parts of Asia too.
Chila: What are your current writing projects? Do you have a book of Place-based essays on the horizon?
Therése: I am working on a few projects simultaneously. One is a collection of lyric essays about my deceased father who had catastrophic brain damage. My mother and I cared for him thirty years. I also work on journey pieces, especially if I am writing in a unique setting.
Chila: How did you hear about the Eastern Iowa Review?
Therése: Either through CWROPPS or New Pages. Thanks to both, writers are informed about journals and their call for submissions.
Many thanks to Therése for addressing these questions, and best wishes (along with a little envy on this end) in her continued travels, writing, & life. - Chila
_______
Therése Halscheid’s latest poetry collection Frozen Latitudes, received the Eric Hoffer Award, Honorable Mention for Poetry. Essays and poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Tampa Review, Sou’wester, South Loop among many others. She has been an itinerant writer for more than two decades, living simply on the road as a house-sitter. A nomadic lifestyle has allowed her to connect with the earth and understand more deeply the interconnectedness between nature and human nature. Her photography chronicles her journey, and has appeared in juried shows. She enjoys teaching in varied settings, both in USA and abroad. To learn more, contact: ThereseHalscheid.com
_______
Therése Halscheid’s latest poetry collection Frozen Latitudes, received the Eric Hoffer Award, Honorable Mention for Poetry. Essays and poems have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Tampa Review, Sou’wester, South Loop among many others. She has been an itinerant writer for more than two decades, living simply on the road as a house-sitter. A nomadic lifestyle has allowed her to connect with the earth and understand more deeply the interconnectedness between nature and human nature. Her photography chronicles her journey, and has appeared in juried shows. She enjoys teaching in varied settings, both in USA and abroad. To learn more, contact: ThereseHalscheid.com
