Finding Grace and Humor in Womanhood: A Conversation with Ann Weil about Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman
Ann Weil glances out the window of her Key West home. “There’s a person who wears a full-on Spiderman outfit and rides a skateboard on their way to and from wherever Spider-people go, and then the next minute, there will be chickens in my yard and the love is in the air—it’s just a crazy place,” she says. Ann is explaining the reasons why she and her husband decided to spend their winters in Key West and “having a poem walk by [her] window every day” is at the top of her list: “I saw a guy yesterday in a full-on pirate outfit walking down the street probably going to work and that is the norm and that’s where I fit in.” Ann adds that as a poet, Key West is an ideal place to draw inspiration because of its strong literary history. Elizabeth Bishop, Ernest Hemingway, and Shel Silverstein all lived and wrote there, and currently, “Judy Blume owns the bookstore, and I get to see her when I shop there.”
Ann was fueled by the Key West literary community of past and present while working on Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman, the newest Yellow Arrow Publishing chapbook, set to release next month. In her upcoming collection, Ann explores the oscillation of emotions that accompany aging as a woman in our society. “I think all women have a part of their lives where they feel at their most beautiful . . . and a sense of power that comes along with . . . that external beauty. Then, you get older, and it fades and . . . its deflating.” She continues, “Sometimes, I look in a mirror and I don’t recognize the person. And the thing is, I don’t feel as old as I look, I still feel like I’m 27, but I’m almost 62 so it’s a really interesting journey.” This balance between coming to terms with internal and external perceptions of oneself is at the heart of Ann’s chapbook. In each of Ann’s poems, she boldly embraces the messiness and heaviness that life brings while also weaving in humor. The vulnerability that she brings to her writing as she explores relationships with lovers, friends, and her body allows us all to remember that to be human is to make mistakes, learn from them, and still move forward with our heads held high.
Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman is now available for PRESALE (click here for wholesale prices) and will be released April 2023. Follow Yellow Arrow @yellowarrowpublishing on Facebook and Instagram for more information. Recently, Yellow Arrow Vignette Manager, Siobhan McKenna took some time to speak with Ann about her inspiration behind Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman. Ann was published in Yellow Arrow Vignette AWAKEN in 2022, so it seemed like a great opportunity for Siobhan to reconnect.
Understanding that
this body will carry me to the next, each radiant rendition
fading, falling away until the only beauty left is bone.
“Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman”
What does your writing process look like?
In terms of the actual writing process, I try to raise my awareness of everything. My environmental surroundings, the people. I keep notes on my phone, notes in a journal of things that strike me as interesting images or characters or lines. I eavesdrop in the drugstore. I just am constantly trying to be a pack rat. Then, [the words] sit and percolate in my mind and then something speaks to me.
I’ve also always felt like I am what you call “a one-night-stand poet.” When I’m in the moment, whether I’m writing about yesterday or 10 years ago, I write, and I’m in that zone. I have the flow thing going on and I am so in love with what I’m writing. And I think—this is it. This is the poem that is going to be great. And I love it, love it, love it. And then usually the next day—I’ll look at that poem and I hate it. OMG. I can’t believe it. I say, “This is terrible, and it makes no sense, and I don’t have time for it anymore.” But then, as part of the revision process (if I let it sit long enough), I can go back to those poems and say to myself, “this is pretty good actually.” I don’t know what that is—that one-night-stand thing—that search for something perfect. But then, if you just let it all settle . . . either I can recognize it is a good poem or there are elements of the poem that are good, and I’ll pluck those out and put them in [a poem] going forward.
Where do you find your inspiration for your work?
I read a ton of poetry. I just wrote a poem, and I pulled the epigraph from one of Mary Oliver’s. . . . The line was: “how the little stones even if you can’t hear them are singing.” Then I went from [that quote] and did a persona poem as the stone. So that was my inspiration. I do a lot of “after” poems. Sayeed Jones has this amazing poem called “The Blue Dress,” and it’s a marvelous play in metaphor—rolling metaphors just one after the other to explore the dress. And it made me think, “I gotta write a dress poem,” because for years I had a size eight rainbow-colored dress in my closet . . . so I wrote a poem called “Sequin Dress Size Eight Never Worn.” I also get a lot of inspiration from fellow poets, and I take a lot of classes. I’ve done all of Ellen Bass’s craft talk series, and I’ve taken a class with Kim Addonizio and Rick Barot I’m a serious lifelong learner—that’s how I feel most alive.
You mentioned Mary Oliver, what other poets or writers have inspired you?
So many! Mary Oliver totally saved my life at different times with lines from her poetry. Also: Ellen Bass, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ruth Stone, Ada Limon, Ocean Vuong. It’s amazing that someone’s words can have such a profound effect on another human being that they don’t know.
To open your chapbook you use the poem, “What were you thinking, Pandora?” about how you have opened doors in your life without thinking about all the consequences that could follow. I’m wondering if you think most humans are intrinsically like Pandora and yourself. Are we all inclined “to peek” with a “boxcutter in hand”?
Oh yeah—I worry about people who aren’t. I know that there are more people who are more self-controlled than I am and get into fewer messes in life—and more power to them. But I’m just open. I want to be out there and experience everything I can in the short time that I have on this planet. So, you gotta open the boxes. Sometimes, it’s a mistake to open the boxes, but it definitely leads to living a fuller life—I’ll tell you that.
Clearly a lesson here, but . . .
temptation rings the doorbell
and there I am, boxcutter in hand.
Yes, I peek. Often.
“What Were You Thinking, Pandora?”
In “She Takes a Second Mistress,” you choose the word “mistress” to talk about your love of painting. When I think of the word, I conjure the words “immoral” or “forbidden.” Why did use the word mistress when it comes to your writing and painting?
Obsession. Obsession. Theoretically, when you have a mistress or lover, initially you’re obsessed. For a while, I dabbled in painting, so it was a second mistress, but my first mistress is writing. I’m obsessed with writing. It’s my favorite thing to do and I’m thinking about it all the time. It was easy to write about [painting] when you think about all the rich language painting evokes. It was an obsession and also wanting to be good at something—a new relationship, in this case, painting.
Wow. I love that. I thought you were going to go a different route with your answer because when I read the poem, I thought about the devaluing of art in our society, and seeing painting as a “mistress” would imply it’s an illegitimate hobby or career in some way.
Yeah, that’s interesting. That never entered my mind. If you just look at [an affair] from the view of the lover, it’s a really good and exciting and wonderful thing because somehow you have a hole in you that needs to be filled . . . [and] there’s a euphoria of being loved and wanted and desired. And I had that for a little while with painting—not that it loved me, but I loved it so much. And I am still head over heels with writing and I can’t see that will ever stop. So, I guess I never want to be married to my writing—I just want to have an affair with it *laughs*—this interview is going off the rails!
she thinks about the places that hurt, and knows
the truth—if you leave first you can’t be left.
“In the Pastel Hour”
Many of your poems reflect on difficult relationships: lovers, fathers, the one with yourself. Do you find writing as a way to process these experiences in the moment or is it only after you’ve processed, and time has passed, that you can write about them?
I’m totally doing both. I’m processing everything in my life right now. Whether it happened five minutes ago or 40 years ago. As a teacher, one of the most valuable lessons I learned in college [when I was] preparing to teach was [how to be] a reflective teacher. As a teacher, after every lesson, I was taught that you should think about: what do you need to change, keep, toss? [I’ve carried this practice] with me through my whole life. I am still trying to put tools in my toolbox to grow my skillset [in order] to handle whatever life throws at me. You can’t do that without reflection. So, yes, [I continue to reflect] whether it’s an interaction I had five minutes ago with somebody or a long, long time ago. And sometimes you have to leave things in the past in order to deal with them at a later date and there can still be value [on reflecting] at a later point.
Why do you feel it’s important to release these poems into the world—with whom would you like them to resonate?
First and foremost: other women. . . . Other women have become so important to me as I’ve evolved. Their friendship, their openness and willingness to exchange and explore things that are really hard. Falling apart bodies, falling apart relationships. I’m getting to that stage in life when bad shit is happening. I’ve always loved men—obviously. But other women are just the heart and soul of everything. And the women in my mainstay writer’s group are so interesting, we got together at the beginning of the pandemic and they’re now my closest friends. My closest friends are in a box in a computer screen!
[My] poetry is all about my feelings and connecting with other people’s feelings and trying to [write] something that is true to myself and universal. And even if you’re a truck driver from New Jersey you might be able to read my poem and feel something. I really try to be accessible in my writing and that is one of my struggles: I’m probably too accessible for today’s modern poetry world. But it’s important to me . . . to connect with the wider community.
What do you think that others can take away from your writing?
Life is amazing and wonderful, but life is really, really hard. Both sides of that coin deserve attention and reflection when you get toward the end (although . . . there’s this lady who just died at 120 . . . maybe I’m only halfway through, but I really don’t want to live that long). . . . I’ve had a lot of tragedy and hard times in my life. I’ve had three marriages—third time lucky. I’ve had death—my children’s father died in a car crash. So, there’s a lot of tough stuff that’s all there.
And one of my all-time favorite words is grace. [I hope others read my chapbook and take away] grace—to give yourself grace and others grace. And to not hold onto failures and grudges and the bad stuff. But not being afraid either to take it out and explore it when you need to. And to keep looking forward: with three husbands—don’t write marriage off your list because I feel so lucky that I kept trying to find my partner and it’s not that I didn’t love the other two men that I was married to. I loved them deeply, but they weren’t the right person for me for the long haul. And humor. When in doubt, throw some humor in.
How long must I wait for this difficult truth
To roost in my addled birdbrain?
That it’s not my job to paint the sky
a painless shade of blue
“At the Al-Anon Tables I Learn to Shut My Beak”
I love that for Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman’s cover art, your daughter, a photographer, visited you in Key West and photographed you in a pool. What was your inspiration behind the cover art?
I wanted it to reflect the content of the book, which is definitely about womanhood, about beauty, about life, loss, love. But I also [wanted the cover to] be very indicative of the style of poetry that I tend to gravitate towards which is quirky. I like to have fun—I don’t like to take life too seriously.
[For the front cover], I got in my mother’s pool wearing pink high heels and the shot is of just my legs floating in the beautiful blue waters and then, on the back cover we have this shot where I’m trying to do a handstand in the water so my legs with the pink, high-heeled shoes are just splayed all over the place.
With the covers, I’m trying to [convey] to people that yes, this is about womanhood and beauty, but it’s also fun which sums up who I strive to be. [I’m] someone who can look at the serious parts of life and lives the serious parts of life, but damn, if I’m not gonna have some fun along the way.
Final question, how did you learn about Yellow Arrow and why did you decide to publish with us?
I learned about [Yellow Arrow] through Duotrope. . . . I pay attention to their weekly calls for submission and heard about [Yellow Arrow] there. I always go to the publisher’s site to see if my work might be a good fit. [After I went to Yellow Arrow’s site], I thought these folks are doing what I’m doing: writing about womanhood, exploring it, and celebrating it. I felt a strong affinity with your website and reading the work of other women. After that, deciding to publish was easy.
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Thank you, Ann and Siobhan, for sharing your conversation. Preorder your copy of Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman today. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. Yellow Arrow Publishing is a nonprofit supporting women writers through publication and access to the literary arts. You can support us as we SPARK and sparkle this year: purchase one of our publications from the Yellow Arrow bookstore, join our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Donations are appreciated via PayPal (staff@yellowarrowpublishing.com), Venmo (@yellowarrowpublishing), or US mail (PO Box 65185, Baltimore, Maryland 21209). More than anything, messages of support through any one of our channels are greatly appreciated.