#livesofthe writers

Ashley Capps, a wonderful poet whose slice-of-life story unfolds in the pages of Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields.

By Morgan McKenna

Hailing from Northern Carolina, Capps received her MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has held fellowships from the Iowa Arts Council and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. And in her first book Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields published in 2006, readers are let into her life through an epiphany, symbolisms of animals and the turmoil of interpersonal relationships through the lens of hindsight.

Cover for *Mistaking the Sea for Green Fields*

To start at the beginning is to start with the epiphany of being displaced. Her first poem is the book, “Hymn for Two Choirs,” sets the tone early in the morning where restlessness staves off sleep and a question is asked, “Why did I only live for one thing.” Compared to a huge dog and a neighbor’s t-shirt, she can only sit and ponder as the world passes her by.

In her very next poem of the humble and poisonous name, “God Bless Our Crop-Dusted Wedding Cake,” the turmoil of her family slowly begins to reveal itself. A brief family of a mother drunk, a father reckless, and a sister dead and gone. But this second poem has a point of view through her father’s eyes, it is through his imagined point of view Capps comes to terms with this part of her life. Where despite the turmoil, sentimentality shows through.

Several of these poems in this book are about an ex, the more popular to quote being “Reading an Ex-Lover’s First Novel.” But I’d like to look at the poem, “Gripes the Lover Leveled (Leaving).” Here there is symbolism of a dog on a sweater, a familiar beast out of place when tied to the sweater it is sewn onto. The tone is agitated with Capps pronouncing herself “gaudy and ruthless,” likely through her ex’s words, a relationship to be good and done with but to look back on and not forget why things ended.

In current days, Capps lives in the Blue Ridge mountains in North Carolina. She works with the animal rights non-profit Free from Harm. And she is a writer, editor, and researcher for the food and climate justice non-profit A Well-Fed World. Capps is working on a second collection of poems entitled The FOReSt. Some of her most recent work was published in Indiana University South Bend’s very own annual online literary journal, The Glacier. And she co-edits THE NEW SENT(I)ENCE, with the poet Allison Titus, an animal poetry anthology and manifesto forthcoming from Trinity University Press this year.

Ashley Capps out on a mountainside,
sourced from the about section of her own wordpress site

“I was dazzled by their loveliness.”
― Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
by Jenna Sule

Although Henry James may not be a household name like Mary Shelley or Edgar Allen Poe, James wrote one of the most popular ghost stories, The Turn of the Screw. If that title doesn’t sound familiar, you may also have heard of the many Hollywood adaptions, such as the 1961 film The Innocents or more recently the 2020 film The Turning. Now, The Turning wasn’t a great film, it was a horror movie released in January, but don’t let that deter you away from this book. But I will say, The Innocents? great film adaption.

*“Portrait of Henry James” (1913) by John Singer Sargent*

James was well off in life, he was born into a wealthy family in 1843, New York City. He was born on April 15th which makes him an Aries! Oddly enough this relates back to James because the Britannica describes James a bookish boy who was often seen but not heard compared to his philosopher older brother, William James.

During his attendance at Harvard Law School, he focused less on law and more on books. He began to write anonymously, but it was when he met William Dean Howell, he started to publish his work in The Atlantic Monthly, according to Britannica. This duo is credited with starting the era of American Realism(notable both Mark Twain and Charlotte Perkins Gilman also wrote within this genre). In his 20s, he was declared one of the most skillful writers in the states.

One thing I found most interesting about James was that despite being of age during the Civil War, he was dismissed from duty due to an injury from working as a fireman in Rhode Island. According to BBC, this injury has caused a lot of debate due to it being referred to has “horrid… obscure hurt” in his autobiography. Academics have reason to believe the injury could have been in his back or his groin. It is also claimed that James never married and of course, this being taboo for the time period, brings theories of not only his peculiar injury and sexuality, but how it impacted his writing. It is also interesting to note that his injury did not seem to impact his daily life, he often traveled, and even towards the end of his life he became a British citizen.