Appalachian poetry in motion
By Lindsay Simmons
Sun contributor
Mary Ann Samyn is a poet. “Poetry is how I make sense of the world,” she says. Soon, Samyn will be drawing inspiration from Leelanau County while she spends the beginning of August as one of the Glen Arbor Art Association’s artists in residence.
As other artists in residence, Samyn was chosen by the Art Association to retreat from daily responsibilities and to work in the studio, or surrounding area, at Thoreson Farm in Port Oneida.
“One of the things I’m most looking forward to during my residency is exploring Leelanau,” Samyn says. “I know the major towns — Glen Arbor, Suttons Bay, Northport, Leland — but I’m looking to make other discoveries.” Samyn explains that exploration and experiences that are “unplanned, just sort of wandering about,” fuel her writing.
Samyn grew up in Royal Oak, near Detroit, and often vacationed up north as a girl. She met her husband, Gerry, at Higgins Lake, and one of their first dates was when he picked her up from The Homestead resort where she was staying with family.
“Though I don’t live in Michigan now, I wish I did,” Samyn says. “I like to know where I am in relation to water, and thus I feel very located when I’m in Michigan.”
She currently lives in West Virginia where she teaches at West Virginia University, and Samyn says those closest to her know her love for Michigan. “My favorite place in Michigan is probably Hartwick Pines,” she says. “I’ve written an essay about it and many of my poems reference it.”
Samyn uses poetry to “handle all the big questions of life, death, love, longing — all the things that throw us off-kilter.” She doesn’t “want to need a particular place, time, space or method for writing,” and she doesn’t believe in writer’s block. “That’s not to say that I’m writing poems all the time,” she says. “Having long stretches of not writing is part of being a writer, but I try to pay attention regardless.”
“As a writer, my material–language isn’t as tangible as I would sometimes like,” Samyn says. Once in awhile she uses visual art to “jumpstart” her writing. “Actually gathering found items and arranging them helps make the process of writing more tactile, which I like,” she says.
While at West Virginia University, Samyn teaches undergraduate and graduate poetry writing, with the occasional literature class. “I like teaching because it’s very in-the-moment,” she says. “Successful teaching is about responding to what’s going on in the room, among the students, on the path of a student’s poem,” she says. Samyn especially appreciates the improvisation of teaching creative writing, and the ability to reinvent classes as she collects feedback from her students.
“Writing poems is not an idea; it’s work,” Samyn says. She encourages her students to pay attention in a way that helps them “discover the things that only they can write about.”
Samyn has published three books and two chapbooks of poetry, and she has a forthcoming collection, Beauty Breaks In (New Issues Press), due this year.