Interview // Megan Peak
by Geramee Hensley
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Megan Peak is a third-year graduate student in The Ohio State University's MFA Program in Poetry. She is originally from Aledo, Texas, where she grew up. She attended Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where received her B.A. in English and her Master of Arts in Teaching. She has taught English and Creative Writing at the high school level. She continues to teach English and Creative Writing as a graduate teaching associate at The Ohio State University while she finishes her manuscript. After she graduates, she plans to move back to Texas to be near to her family. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Four Way Review, Indiana Review, Muzzle, Ninth Letter, North American Review, The Pinch, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Sou’wester, Tupelo Quarterly, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. She serves as Poetry Editor at OSU’s literary magazine, The Journal.
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When did you begin to write?
I wrote often as kid and all throughout high school. I began taking my writing seriously, though, my junior year of college when I took my first poetry class with the poet Jenny Browne.
What did you read while you were growing up?
Just about anything in my dad's library. I remember when I was little he would read me Macbeth every night. I was taken with the witches. I read Lolita too early and Sexton too late. Maybe it sounds cliche for a writer to say that reading was an escape, but I really did find solace in books--the Bronte Sisters, Willa Cather, William Faulkner.
Right on. And when you began to take your writing more seriously did any writers' work in particular serve as an impetus or inspiration for your creativity?
Plath, definitely. I was so interested in her strangeness, in her associative leaps. I go back to her often even now. Lyn Hejinian and C.D. Wright were also two poets I discovered in undergrad who really opened my mind in regards to writing poetry.
I'm a fan of Plath, too. I was just playing Cards Against Humanity last night and one of the cards mentioned Plath. The person choosing the card said, "I don't know who that is." After I explained, my brother remarked sarcastically, "Thank God, you're here."
So why poetry? Why do you turn to it in particular--in writing and reading?
Ha! I'm glad she's still relevant enough to be in included on one of those cards. Why poetry? I get that a lot, actually, from friends and family outside of the writing/academia circles. You know, I think every day is a bit different when I come to the page. Sometimes it really is just for the release--the cathartic nature that comes with letting something out of you and onto the white space of the page. Other times, it's for the sole purpose of playing with language, music, the line. To me it is both head work and creative work; I get to be logical (i.e. how is this image working, what about pace, transitions etc) and playful. In terms of reading, I read poetry to get better at my craft; I read poetry to inspire me; I read poetry to be attentive and for enjoyment.
So I first encountered your work through Muzzle Magazine. Since then, I've googled around to find more. Do you have anything big in the works?
Yes, it was so kind of you to reach out after that publication. Well, I have poems coming out here and there, The Pinch, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review. Mostly, I am trying to finish up my manuscript/thesis in time for graduation from OSU.
I've also been working on my first manuscript for my Honors Capstone at Capital. It was a real struggle for me--working with so many pieces and just trying to be satisfied with the individual strength of every poem. What has your process been like?
Right? The process has been an interesting one. I am a big picture kind of thinker, so I have been very concerned with the various arcs of the manuscript--how the narrative moves from section to section, how repeated images/symbols are working from poem to poem. Ordering has been the toughest part of piecing together the MS. And of course trying to justify which poems belong and which just don't fit in this particular work.
I think there's a lot of pressure to a first work, too. I was joking to one of my poetry instructors that I just wanted to skip ahead to my second manuscript somehow. Just write whatever this manuscript is that I'm working on, call it my second manuscript and just be done with it. For some reason, I find it comforting.
So you're pursuing your MFA at OSU (we actually have a Capital grad at OSU's MFA program for poetry--Chris Morris--maybe you've met him), when did you know you wanted to be a teacher?
I get that. I think there is pressure with any subsequent book as well with wanting it to be just as good or better than the debut collection. Yes, Chris was in a poetry workshop with me this semester! I actually went to undergrad with goals to become a teacher. After I graduated, I actually went and got my Masters in Teaching, which consisted of graduate classes in pedagogy and a year-long placement at a local high school. That experience teaching high school English has really benefited me here at OSU and teaching First Year Writing. I guess you could say I have wanted to be a teacher for quite some time now.
What jobs have you had outside of academia?
Not many! I really have been a non-stop student ever since high school. Also, I have been fortunate to have parents who valued my education and insisted on focusing on that. I have worked at summer writing camps, as a substitute teacher, as an intern for a non-profit writing organization in San Antonio, TX called Gemini Ink.
That's awesome. Do you have any advice for younger writers who are struggling right now to make a breakthrough into po-biz? I know racking up rejection letters can be very discouraging to writers who are just starting out.
I tell my students to keep reading. Always read. Poetry, prose, the magazines where you are submitting. Keep coming to the page, even if you think what you are writing is shit. Start small. Try indie publishers and magazines. They treat you well and are really interested in you, as a writer, and your work. Have your work out at multiple places. And try not to take it too personally. As a Poetry Editor for The Journal at OSU, I see some really great poems that I can't always take, maybe because I am outvoted or it isn't the right piece for the issue. Just because you get a rejection doesn't mean your work isn't worthwhile.
I wrote often as kid and all throughout high school. I began taking my writing seriously, though, my junior year of college when I took my first poetry class with the poet Jenny Browne.
What did you read while you were growing up?
Just about anything in my dad's library. I remember when I was little he would read me Macbeth every night. I was taken with the witches. I read Lolita too early and Sexton too late. Maybe it sounds cliche for a writer to say that reading was an escape, but I really did find solace in books--the Bronte Sisters, Willa Cather, William Faulkner.
Right on. And when you began to take your writing more seriously did any writers' work in particular serve as an impetus or inspiration for your creativity?
Plath, definitely. I was so interested in her strangeness, in her associative leaps. I go back to her often even now. Lyn Hejinian and C.D. Wright were also two poets I discovered in undergrad who really opened my mind in regards to writing poetry.
I'm a fan of Plath, too. I was just playing Cards Against Humanity last night and one of the cards mentioned Plath. The person choosing the card said, "I don't know who that is." After I explained, my brother remarked sarcastically, "Thank God, you're here."
So why poetry? Why do you turn to it in particular--in writing and reading?
Ha! I'm glad she's still relevant enough to be in included on one of those cards. Why poetry? I get that a lot, actually, from friends and family outside of the writing/academia circles. You know, I think every day is a bit different when I come to the page. Sometimes it really is just for the release--the cathartic nature that comes with letting something out of you and onto the white space of the page. Other times, it's for the sole purpose of playing with language, music, the line. To me it is both head work and creative work; I get to be logical (i.e. how is this image working, what about pace, transitions etc) and playful. In terms of reading, I read poetry to get better at my craft; I read poetry to inspire me; I read poetry to be attentive and for enjoyment.
So I first encountered your work through Muzzle Magazine. Since then, I've googled around to find more. Do you have anything big in the works?
Yes, it was so kind of you to reach out after that publication. Well, I have poems coming out here and there, The Pinch, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review. Mostly, I am trying to finish up my manuscript/thesis in time for graduation from OSU.
I've also been working on my first manuscript for my Honors Capstone at Capital. It was a real struggle for me--working with so many pieces and just trying to be satisfied with the individual strength of every poem. What has your process been like?
Right? The process has been an interesting one. I am a big picture kind of thinker, so I have been very concerned with the various arcs of the manuscript--how the narrative moves from section to section, how repeated images/symbols are working from poem to poem. Ordering has been the toughest part of piecing together the MS. And of course trying to justify which poems belong and which just don't fit in this particular work.
I think there's a lot of pressure to a first work, too. I was joking to one of my poetry instructors that I just wanted to skip ahead to my second manuscript somehow. Just write whatever this manuscript is that I'm working on, call it my second manuscript and just be done with it. For some reason, I find it comforting.
So you're pursuing your MFA at OSU (we actually have a Capital grad at OSU's MFA program for poetry--Chris Morris--maybe you've met him), when did you know you wanted to be a teacher?
I get that. I think there is pressure with any subsequent book as well with wanting it to be just as good or better than the debut collection. Yes, Chris was in a poetry workshop with me this semester! I actually went to undergrad with goals to become a teacher. After I graduated, I actually went and got my Masters in Teaching, which consisted of graduate classes in pedagogy and a year-long placement at a local high school. That experience teaching high school English has really benefited me here at OSU and teaching First Year Writing. I guess you could say I have wanted to be a teacher for quite some time now.
What jobs have you had outside of academia?
Not many! I really have been a non-stop student ever since high school. Also, I have been fortunate to have parents who valued my education and insisted on focusing on that. I have worked at summer writing camps, as a substitute teacher, as an intern for a non-profit writing organization in San Antonio, TX called Gemini Ink.
That's awesome. Do you have any advice for younger writers who are struggling right now to make a breakthrough into po-biz? I know racking up rejection letters can be very discouraging to writers who are just starting out.
I tell my students to keep reading. Always read. Poetry, prose, the magazines where you are submitting. Keep coming to the page, even if you think what you are writing is shit. Start small. Try indie publishers and magazines. They treat you well and are really interested in you, as a writer, and your work. Have your work out at multiple places. And try not to take it too personally. As a Poetry Editor for The Journal at OSU, I see some really great poems that I can't always take, maybe because I am outvoted or it isn't the right piece for the issue. Just because you get a rejection doesn't mean your work isn't worthwhile.