Washington Square On-Air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review, Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing.

Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Luckin. I'm here today with Jon Lawrence, whose poem imagination on 11 in church is in our Summer 25 issue. Hey there, Jon.

Hey, how are you, Melissa?

I'm good. So tell us about your poem. How did you come to write it?

So I kind of did a deep dive back into my, into my Google Drive because this poem is a couple years old now at this point. So I was also wondering kind of where it came from. And so I managed to find the first draft and at the top of the, of the document is two lyrics. I must have been kind of obsessed with this one song called Running by this artist, Billy Strings. And, and I think the, the first two lines go something along the lines of like, run to the ocean, run to the sea, Run from the evil that's calling you and me. And then after reading that first draft, it seems like I'm always kind of an image first type of poet. So I was taken some, some imagistic leaps and risks and it seemed to take four or five renditions from that. And so kind of looking back and reflecting on that, I thought it was interesting that the strongest images that kind of made it out there were these, these images and memories of my experiences growing up in a Catholic church. So I did the whole CCD thing, the altar server type of thing. And at the end of the poem, the thing that most struck me was this idea of praying over and over and washing your hands. And I can remember being young and being a pretty anxious kid, but being really fearful almost of this idea that, you know, God is always watching and so you better watch out what you're doing. And I think when I was younger, I took that to the umpteenth degree and it was almost a very anxiety inducing thing.

Okay.

I was. Yeah. And when I was, during the time when I was writing some of these poems, I was working on a collection that was going through the intersections of, of masculinity and mental health. So I was kind of trying to go back and unpeel the pages of where my diagnosed panic disorder maybe had come from, you know, something like that. And so I think what was funny is that, you know, the speaker within this poem is, is, you know, before I even knew kind of like what a grounding technique was or, or, you know, the amount of cognitive behavioral therapy that, that you know, I myself have gone through in this journey. I was using my imagination to almost escape those. Those bad feelings. And so I think those were kind of the ideas that I was working through there a little bit in the. The fourth or fifth, I guess, draft of what this poem was.

That's interesting, what you said about the church. It sounded like rituals that were meant to give you comfort did the opposite.

Yeah. And I don't necessarily know in terms of the way in which I kind of reacted to those things. I think it was just that fearful thing of being watched or maybe being not good enough or something like that. And so I think part of the idea that that poem brings about is not trying to run away from those things, those harder or potentially terrifying feelings. And I think that's kind, what. When I was writing some of those poems, what I was trying to achieve there a little bit.

Yeah, I want to come back to that. But let's take a little sidestep and talk about Billy Strings. For anyone who's not familiar, how would you describe Billy Strings?

Yeah, so he is a kind of bluegrass flavored psychedelic artist as well too. He's actually a Michigan guy. He was born and raised on the Upper Peninsula. And I didn't really come into bluegrass from an early age. I kind of went through it in a weird direction of really getting into the music and the lyricism of the Grateful Dead, of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. I wrote about their lyricism in my MFA dissertation actually. And then I saw him live at a music festival maybe four or five years ago. And that and his improvisational music and just the fact that him and with, you know, four other people can create such a huge sound just with. Just with strings kind of blew me away. And so, yeah, I've. I've enjoyed his music ever since. Yeah.

And so you used the lyrics as a starting point for the poem, is that correct?

I would say so. And that's a lot of times where I find that I need some sort of a starting point. So that either comes with me in conversation with, with lyrics or, or, or another poem that's kind of, I feel like where I can get my wheels churning the most, you know, when I'm trying to figure out what to write. Yeah.

So as far as the topic of mental health, did that also come from the lyrics or was it a convergence of the lyrics and the topic?

I think so. My one MFA professor, when I was first starting off and this was in, I think 2018 or 2019 now, was like, john, you can't get in the way of the poem. I can tend to overthink sometimes as. As we all do, but I try the best I can within the first draft to just kind of let wherever the language, wherever the images are going, let them go in that way. And then it seemed as I was trying to reorganize some of these things, that the thing that came out the most was this, was this young fear, this young anxiety that. That I had and. And the connection of that in terms of me working through that in my early 20s when it came to my panic disorder. So, yeah, I think it's definitely a culmination of the both because it's.

To me. No, from what I know about Billy Strings, it just seemed like a unique and unlikely pairing for me.

Yeah. And I'm not necessarily sure. I think the idea of running away from something which to me, I think earlier in my life there were these aspects of avoidance, of not necessarily looking at things at all. And I think maybe that idea and that just simply came from the word running is kind of what got the ball rolling there a little bit.

And you said this was a collection of poems, so.

Yes, this is a poem from what is a full length collection that I'm still submitting right now. But it's titled Hammered Bees and Paperweights. That's the. The working title right now. Yeah. That kind of talks about. I spent some time in inpatient and outpatient facilities, so it tracks that, but also goes a little bit deeper back as well too.

Was there anything about writing that collection that surprised you?

I think how vivid some of those memories were, especially when I was highly medicated or coming off of some medication, trying new ones. How those things managed to come up really, really vividly for me. And almost. It was almost cathartic in a sense as well too. And how I just needed maybe a little bit of space in a couple years to. To take a step back. But it has been interesting. The way in which I remember those things, that. That's what surprised me the most. But the way in which I look at it in an almost surreal type of sense, it's almost a dream sequence, were kind of the poems that I was writing there as well too.

How long did you work on the collection? It sounds like an intense experience.

So I started that off. That was my. My MFA thesis, which was just a chapbook that was 35 or 40 pages. So that was 2018 into 2019. And honestly I was working on it up until 2022 or even 2023. I kept looking at it and writing new poems or adding new ones, doing some work, thinking about conceptions of masculinity as well too, which I thought was going to be a second section of the book. And so I' pulled that thing apart and brought it back together in several iterations where I feel like now it's kind of there and I'm ready to kind of continue to sending that out into the world, you know, and just kind of going through the submission process with that.

So, yeah, that's. I think it's notable that you can work on a poetry collection like that over a period of years, you know, and each poem is individual, but they come together and bring each other meaning. That seems fascinating to me. I don't write poetry, so it all seems really fascinating and interesting to me. I've written a few poems, but I'm more of a novelist so I get to appreciate your process from a distance.

Well, I also appreciate your process as novelists from a distance as well too. I've always thought about, oh, can I wrap my head around maybe thinking about writing a novel? And maybe that idea just hasn't come. But to speak to your point, I try to remain open minded in terms of poems in conversation with one another. And so my kind of process is just, well, let's keep writing as, as many poems as possible in this vein. You know, not necessarily like I'm trying to look for that every single time that I'm, that I'm attempting to write a poem. It just seems like those were the things that, that came out within, within what I was writing and what I was reading as well too. And then trying to step back and think about, okay, which ones older, newer, et cetera, that have some sort of cohesion in what they're attempting to say to one another. So that's what I kind of think about it. Like, you know, they're, they're talking to one another and I want the conversation to be as cohesive as possible, I guess. Yeah.

Something that people ask me that I never have an answer for. Like I said, because I'm not a poet, I'm going to ask you. So hopefully I'll have an answer now because you'll tell me. How do you decide what order to put the poems in?

To me, it goes a lot off of feel. So like I said, this first collection was actually split up into two parts and the first part was of 11 days when I was an inpatient. And that's kind of that narrative. But then I kind of break that with different poems that I think are in conversation with that sequence. And then there was. The whole second part was kind of expanding that. That sequence a little bit. And the speaker is almost kind of venturing towards the before but also the after. And I remember sitting there and trying to look through it a couple times. And I. When I'm trying to reorganize a manuscript, I print them all out and I'll put them on the floor of my classroom because that's the biggest room I got, you know, and just trying to see what are some thematic elements, but what are some. What are some ways in which, you know, maybe we can kind of mess up this sequence a little bit, making a little bit more jarring or, you know, I was just thinking about the overall aspect of these panic attacks that I would have with the slew of all the physical stuff, but also this kind of circular motion of my thoughts that were also a little disjointed. So when I went back to reorganize it, I kind of went from the day one to day 11 sequence and put all of the poems then kind of in between one another. And so there is almost this narrative arc, but it's kind of disjointed in. In some different things that are kind of the puzzle pieces of. Of what I've been exploring, you know, and that's kind of my. My first initial thing of the way in which I think about ordering is not necessarily being hard and fast to. This is the way in which I want to order the poems, but maybe I've written some new ones and maybe they're saying alongside the same vein of maybe the first three or four poems in that manuscript. Oh, maybe that one can go in there. Just trying to remain experimental in that way, but true to the thematic elements that maybe I was. I was thinking heavily about during that time.

So the way I interpret that is that you have the broad structure, right, which might be the, you know, thematic narrative, overall structure, but then looking at the smaller pieces to see how the individual poems talk to each other within that, like, sequence, the way that one particular poem following a different particular poem will impact the way that they talk to each other. Like the way the poems can have a conversation with each other. Yeah, all right.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, no, absolutely.

Okay, now next.

I know I can be maybe a little long winded.

Well, at least now I have some kind of answer. When people ask me, I, you know, I can give them that little mini answer and then I'll send them the link for our podcast and then they could listen to the actual answer.

That may not be the answer that I want, but I guess right now that's the answer I have.

Oh, it sounds good to me. Yeah, it's definitely something that as a, like I said, as a novelist, I don't have to deal with it. I just look at the page numbers and page five, you know, comes after page four and then that's it. That's good. You mentioned having a classroom. Talk a little bit about that.

So this is now my 11th year of teaching. I've been a high school English teacher. I graduated from Earth Science College, which is a small liberal arts school kind of near Philadelphia. And, and I grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour north of, of Philly. And I went from there to just being kind of standard day sub. I moved down to the eastern shore of Virginia, kind of above Virginia beach for about half a year. I ended up quitting that high school job and moving back up home and teaching middle school to finish out the year. And then I started off at this small public charter schools and IB school. And that's kind of where I got my roots down and I think got my teaching chops when I was, you know, moving back. I had to deal with some, some other things in my early 20s. And now I, I teach at this high school called Liberty High School, which is where I graduated from in, in 2010. So I've been that there now for eight years and didn't necessarily plan on, on coming back, but I love it and I guess I'm, I'm here to stay. I always ask myself, you know, am I good for another year? You know, once, once the school year ends and, and I think it's great. You know, I teach primarily 10th grade, a little bit of 12th grade, but I also teach the creative writing program there. So I think that's also kind of a, that's obviously a thing that, that keeps me there as well to be able to share my art, but also help cultivate young artists and young writers as well too.

Okay, well, I have to ask, since you said that you're teaching at the same school where you graduated from, have you seen anything kind of behind the scenes that gave you a new insight into your high school experience?

You know, it's, it's so fun and I don't want to, I don't want to air anybody's dirty laundry grievances, but I have a lot of teachers that were my teachers. So that was the very weird thing walking in. I think I was 25, 26 when. When I started at. At Liberty. And so just kind of reorienting the, the student teacher relationship to the teacher teacher relationship definitely took me about a year or so. But then you hear all of these stories, you know, you pinpoint the days where, you know, I was in band, so I'd like play. Play the football games and, you know, you have some of these memories of like, seeing your old English teacher in the stands for that particular game and then he goes and tells you, oh, yeah, you know, we were at, we were at like teacher happy hour or something like that, you know, and, and so the, the humanizing quality of that. But also I think it's been really awesome to get to. You know, my junior year English teacher was one of the fundamental teachers that I've had in my life, and now I get to. To teach with him and I've taught some same courses alongside him. And so, yes, you know, you see that. You see that other side of things and you, you know, the, I think the personal human side as well, too, especially when you're a teenager that, you know, that only envisions, you know, as a kid, envisions them as the teacher, the authoritarian here, you know.

So did you have an adjustment period switching to calling people by their first name?

I did. I did. I. I did a little bit. Yeah. And it was, it's funny, that same junior English teacher, I kept calling him by his last name and he was like, just need to call. Like, you need to call me. Yeah, just stop. Just. Just stop doing that. Stop being so polite.

You needed to go to teacher happy hour.

Yeah, no, and. And I would say I'm, you know, I try to remain as, as respectful as possible, but I'm relatively personable. But that was just a really shy moment in my life, a really anxious moment as well, too. So I was dealing with like some sort of disassociation that was. With the anxiety as well, too. So I was just like reverting back to for sure, shy Jon student mode, you know. But I'm. I'm out of my shell now, as you can, as you can probably tell.

Okay. Yeah. I wondered also if there were any closets or rooms that you weren't allowed to go into as a student that you were now able to access, like the teacher's lounge.

Yeah. I have been able to explore every, every nook and cranny, but I also, also let my. One of, one of the, the activities I have with my creative writing class when we start our poetry unit, which is my favorite obviously is we go on a sense walk. And so we leave their phones and everything in there, and it's just their. I. I give them all writing journals because we free ride every day. And so then I take them through, like, some of my favorite back hallways that I enjoyed as. As a kid just because they were like, dark and dingy. And it's an older school and. And we. We have over 3,000 kids at. times, so it's. It's a big high school.

Yeah.

So. So I try to as well. Like, we actually go into the. The teacher break room then, and a couple of teachers look up and I'm just like, hey, were on a sense walk. These are. My kids were good. I'm here. So I let them see under the curtain as well too, if you will.

That's pretty great. Kind of on the same note, I'm thinking that since you were a student at the school and obviously lived there, you probably have a little bit more of an inside view of culturally what students are dealing with. It just seems like every town, every city has, you know, a certain type of struggles that students have some kind. It just depends on where they are. So it seems like you might have an inside scoop that you could use, having lived it yourself, you know, to help other teachers kind of see stuff maybe that they wouldn't see or that they might overlook or think doesn't matter.

Yeah. And it's also really interesting, too. I don't know what it is about Liberty, but you know that my junior English teacher that I was talking about, he is also a graduate from Liberty.

Oh.

You know, I have three other teachers that graduated within two or three years. I don't know what it is, but it definitely is. Is a place. Bethlehem as a city is, you know, really diverse in, you know, in not only, you know, ethnicity and race, but also socioeconomically. We're like almost title one, but we're like on the verge of that. So it's just such a. There's so many different perspectives I think going in and after leaving that, you know, going to college, I did really feel like I had more of a. An understanding and a view of how to. Of what it meant to be from many different. Many different walks of life. So. And I think that maybe is a thing that. That drives people to come back here as well as well too. I mean, it's a beautiful part in Pennsylvania to live, but there's this camaraderie, I think, that you get here when you. When you really understand what many of these kids are going through. In many different iterations. And that leads a lot of people back, which.

Yeah, that's really great. When you think about the kinds of assignments that are your favorite that you really like to teach, tell us about what stands out for you in creative writing or in your regular 10th grade class.

One of the things that I make my kids do in my creative writing class, first off, is I make them do something called the Writer's Profile. And it's such a mixed bag. It's an elective. You can take it more than one year, which is awesome because I've had a couple kids that have taken it all four years and have really gotten into it, you know, and have considered themselves young writers. But I also get a hypothetical student over here that may not think of themselves as a writer. And they just got placed there because that was, you know, number four on there.

Yeah.

So what I really try within the first week of school is just to remind them that this may be something that you don't necessarily do, but just take a chance in terms of creating something. So I'm going to call you a writer. I'm going to. I'm going to assume that you are a writer as well, because that's what you are and that's what we're here for. So I make them do something called the Writer's Profile, which they can. They can really do it however they want. And I have some guiding questions to make them think about. If they were to envision themselves as a writer, what does that look like? Or as a creator, as an artist in general. And so I have them do a little bit of writing. And some kids have created narratives about. About their life, you know, but have kind of inserted a character. Some of them are incredible illustrators and have done graphic novels for me and gone way above and beyond, you know, anything. But I try not to be prescriptive as possible, especially in creative writing. And I. And I try as well, too, in my just standard academic subjects is to try to get those. The ways for them to do creative expression as well, too. We've moved into a more structured curriculum, so I don't really get to choose the text that I teach anymore. I have a little bit of leeway. It's just kind of one of the pendulums of education that's going on right now in our school district. But I try to fit where I can. So we just finish. Finished up Fahrenheit 451. And I gave them some. Some different choices. So I gave them. If you can make a Spotify playlist for Montag or for Beatty or for kids go way above and beyond and do like a 40 song track list for all of the, the 200 pages. Or I had, you know, just some, some incredible young artists do different renditions of Montag and, and, and Beedi and Mildred. So. And that's really what I try to do as a teacher is just get them to, to respond in a positive way to reading and writing. You know, get them excited about, about those things. You know, that's because that's what I did. That's. I mean, that's what I enjoy as well too. So I try to share that with them through some of those favorite assignments.

But I taught high school before I came and taught here at lcc and when I would talk to parents and you know, not necessarily, not the parents of the kids in class, but just like the parents just generally out in the world. And it seems to me that too often they underestimate what high school kids are capable of. And I think that I really love what you were saying about like, basically you give them the space and they, they will take an opportunity and go with it as long as you just give them the space to do it.

I find that a majority will. There are some where I give them that space. Yeah. And they're like, Lawrence, what the hell do I do, man?

Right. Tell me exactly what you want.

It's okay. Let's take a step back here.

Right. Well, there's a trust element involved where they have to get to trust you that they can be creative.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's just been funny. I'm just thinking of a student who I don't think has really ever flexed those creative muscles. And he wrote a villanelle, which, which I was, I mean, I was super proud of him when, you know, this is, this is not a kid that I think has ever to write a poem. And he went and tackled that, you know, that, that tough poetic form. And I was like, this is what it's all about, man. You know what I mean? This is, you know, this is some really freeing stuff. And hopefully this has opened up a different side of yourself. Or maybe you've learned something about yourself as well. Yeah.

Do you talk to them about your experience as a writer, submitting poems and getting published and that kind of thing?

Oh, yeah, I do a little mini lesson and I show them my submittable and I show them the amount of rejections and. And they're like, oh my God.

It's like, do you need some cookies or do you need a hug or.

Yeah. And I'm like, but hey, everyone, this is part of the process, you know, this is part of what it means to be for, be persistent. But that's not. Sure, it's great to get poems published, right, and see your books on the shelves. We all. We all love that. But there's persistence in coming down to the page every single day and writing parts of yourself on that and. And I. And keep that in mind. And if. And you have to be persistent in this. In this world as. As well, too. And just as a creator as well, too. And I think that to me, that has built resilience as well and. And strength not only in my work, but also, you know, thinking about why I write poems, you know, why. Why I'm doing what I'm doing as. As well, too. But, yeah, the slog of, you know, rejections, acceptances, you know, the whole game, as, you know, that comes with the publishing world.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, I think that the idea of resilience is really important. And like you said, it's what gets you to your chair at your desk, you know, each day, and that the place where you're writing is the place where you have the control. You don't have much control over who reads your submission, when they read it, you know, what kind of day they're having, or maybe they love it, you know, all you have control over is what you write.

I know, and I've. I've thought about that too, after I've. I mean, I'm reading right now for this. This literary journal called Frontier Poetry. And so I think about that a lot as well, now that I am given, you know, 30 to 50 poems every week to go through and do my due diligence that I'm, you know, I'm treating those poems in the right way, if that. If that makes sense.

It absolutely makes sense. And, you know, passing on a particular piece doesn't mean that it's not good. It just means that it's not right for that journal at that time. And that's just, you know, I think everybody needs to, you know, kind of keep that in mind when it comes to the rejections, you know?

Yeah. And I still even see it too, as regardless of if someone has said yes or no to a poem of mine or if I've said yes or no, I still have a chance to convince verse with. With that. You know, to me, that gives me a chance to get to know and understand another human being, which I guess is the standard reason why we're why we sit down on the chair every day. Right. Is to craft those connections. So I try to, I try to remind myself that as well too, you know, if I'm, I'm feeling low about my, my writing ability or a poem that I just wrote or something like that.

Yeah. So if people want to stay in touch with you online, where's a good place for them to find you?

They can find me on Instagram. That's mostly where I do most of my writing. Ish posting. Okay.

That sounds awesome. Thanks a lot for joining us today.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for stopping by the audio town square of the Washington Square Review. Until next time, this has been the Washington Square On-Air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc.edu/wsl. Writing is messy, but do it anyway.