University Times

It is a strange phenomenon, one that has puzzled Joyce Carol Oates for years. She thinks it might have something to do with her essay "On Boxing" or maybe photographs of her that have appeared on the dust jackets of her books. For whatever reason, though, among the diminutive author's most fanatical fans are men in maximum security prisons — especially those in Florida and the Midwest.

To her office at Princeton University, convicts have sent letters smeared with their own blood or written to say they have two heroes, Joyce Carol Oates and Charles Manson.

There have been times when Oates considered answering such letters, but a friend who is a public defender has recommended against such action. Instead, Oates wrote the poem "Like Walking to the Drugstore When I Die," a dual-voice work using material from the letters and her own response.

Such is the life of one of America's most prolific writers, a National Book Award winner and two-time nominee for the Nobel Prize for Literature, as revealed during "An Evening With Joyce Carol Oates" this month at Pitt's Greensburg campus. While the story of the convicts sent a round of murmurs through the audience, most of what Oates had to say was on the lighter side, revealing a down-to-earth person willing to make fun of herself and share insights into her craft.

On her famed output as an author, Oates said: "People always ask me how I am so prolific and I actually don't know." Although it may seem as if Oates has a new book coming out every other month, writing for her can be difficult and frustrating. After she finishes a book, she said there is inevitably a period of let-down in which she suffers a "profound sense of melancholy and loss." To combat those feelings, she turns to poets she loves such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whit-man and Robert Frost. Then, after a period of time that can stretch on for weeks, she starts writing poems, short sketches and essays. She starts small because novels are so difficult.

"Poets have better lives than novelists," she said. "There is something sane about poetry and being able to write a poem and re-write it. I think poetry is refreshing and altogether wonderful." Oates shared several poems with her audience, starting with what she called her "Donald Trump Poem," a work that deals with the "mirage of money," followed by "Old Crayola," a poem dedicated to John Updike. Oates described Updike as "the best kind of friend. We never see each other, so our friendship is never put to any kind of test." "Old Crayola" is dedicated to Updike because he once told Oates that his creative career began with comic strips he drew as a child using crayons. She also used the poem to pay homage to the spontaneous creativity of children that is brought out by crayons. "I can still remember the great big boxes of Crayola crayons," she said. "They had the most wonderful colors and smelled so great and they tasted good, too. I am talking a long time ago," she added as the audience laughed.

Noting the way children will pick up crayons and instinctively begin to draw, Oates said the "urge to create predates all subject matter" and the ego it takes to become a writer. Children are "pure creativity," she said, adding, "To be an amateur in our work is the best place to stay in as long as possible." Her own name recognition deprives her of such freedom, Oates said.

Another poem, "Tenderness," grew out of her belief "that life is fairly unbearable," but can be made bearable by small acts of individual kindness. The poem is about a middle-aged man, probably divorced, maybe a teacher who has partial custody of his kids on weekends, wandering lost in a supermarket with a broken-wheeled shopping cart.

While Oates makes those observations about the man, complaining to herself that he is clogging the aisles and slowing her down, she comes to a counter where the tissues are out of reach. Efforts to reach them anger and frustrate her, until suddenly from behind her comes a hand that grabs a box of tissues and quietly passes them to her. The arm belongs to the man whom she had been complaining about to herself. Suddenly, she sees him in an entirely different light and is embarrassed by some of her thoughts.

Oates used her poem "Autistic Child, No Longer a Child," to illustrate her point that writing does not always come easy to her. The poem actually had started out as an essay. Oates has a younger sister who is autistic. They were born on the same date 18 years apart and so closely resemble each other they could be mistaken for twins, she said.

In an ironic twist of fate, one of the world's most prolific authors has a sister who has never uttered a word because of "a biochemical shake of the dice." The essay Oates was asked to write was a memoir about dealing with an autistic family member. Try as she might, she was never able to write the essay, so finally wrote a poem to convene some of the things she feels about autism and her sister.

Turning to her new novel, "Man Crazy," Oates joked that "some people have not liked it and other people have hated it." She called it one of her more controversial novels because it deals with the subject of masochism. She was quick to point out that it is not autobiographical. "I am no more masochistic than the average writer," she said.

Her advice to young poets and writers was to "read everything, travel, meet people, talk to everybody." She said they should make a special point of reading new books. At Princeton, she assigns her writing students new books along with the classics.

"If you're a poet, you must read new poets, poets who are writing right now," she said. "If you are a fiction writer, read magazines, new books. If you read only classics, you'll be intimidated."

–Mike Sajna