{"id":2985,"date":"2017-01-04T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T04:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=2985"},"modified":"2025-02-21T12:44:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T20:44:51","slug":"issue-79-elizabeth-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/issue-79-elizabeth-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 79: Elizabeth Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"LIZZY-500x500\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About Elizabeth Gold<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I was born in New York City and after spending a few years in Montana I came back to New York, where I taught ESL and freshman English in different branches of City University. I also worked as a poet in the schools and had a brief, disastrous (but very fruitful) stint teaching high school. These days, I work as a freelance editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write both poetry and prose.  My poems and essays have been published in Field, The Gettysburg Review, Meridian, Guernica, <\/em>and other journals, as well as on Poetry Daily. <\/em> I’m also the author of  Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity <\/em>(Tarcher\/Penguin), a book inspired by that high school teaching job. It’s definitely not a heroic-teacher-walks-into-the-classroom-and-turns-those-troubled-kids around kind of book (I loathe those kinds of books), but a black comedy about human failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband is English. How we met is a long and romantic story. But how we ended up in the UK is a short one. He asked me if I wanted to live here for a while, and I thought, What the hell. I’ve never lived in the U.K. before. <\/em>Never counted on Brexit though. Never counted on Trump either\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for my internet presence, you can find a few poems of mine online:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Child’s Guide to the Icebergs<\/a>, Absinthe<\/a>, Cat Posing for a Portrait of a Dog, Hollywood, California<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m also involved in putting together an online magazine of arts and commentary called Dark Wood. <\/em>I’m very excited about it. The first issue isn’t out yet-it will come out in the summer-but if you link to the website<\/a>, about dark wood,<\/em> you can get an idea of what it’s like,  submit something and\/ or sign up for our email list. You can also follow us on twitter<\/a> or Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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\n\t\tA Profile of the Author\n\t<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Notes on “Manatees”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I usually start a poem with a line: something I’ve heard, something I’ve read, or something that pops into my head unbidden. It doesn’t have to be “poetic;” in fact, I often prefer if it’s a little goofy. It’s more freeing that way. Then I follow that line wherever it needs to go. Often it goes nowhere. My notebooks are stuffed with stillborn poems. But every once in a while, the line pulls me forward, to a place I had no idea I was heading; a place that surprises me and feels, when I get to it, absolutely right. This was the case with “Manatees.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve been obsessed with manatees ever since I saw twelve in a row, swimming down a canal in Florida. They were exactly as I described them: ugly-cute, and so, so vulnerable, endangered not only by changes in the environment but by the propellers of speeding motorboats. And while I didn’t set out to write a vulnerable poem, that’s exactly what happened. I started thinking about how crazy it was that anyone could think of a manatee as good girlfriend material, and that led me to the loneliness and longing of those men who could think a thing like that, and that led me-well, to myself. I don’t think of myself as a particularly confessional poet-I actually am kind of shy-but there it was. There I <\/em>was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And why this poem took me there,  I don’t know, and I don’t really want to find out. Just glad that sometimes I arrive someplace. And that I experience some thrills along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Listening: <\/strong>The best thing I’ve listened to recently is not a piece of music but a podcast: S-Town. <\/em>If you’ve listened to it, you know why. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? Among other things, it is a radical act of empathy and a genuine work of art. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I don’t want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eating:<\/strong> I’ve been living in the UK for ten years, first in Edinburgh, now in Bristol. (Nothing I planned-which is the way I seem to do things). Bristol’s a good place for a greedy person like me. You can get an ace cup of coffee at the Small Street Cafe and a superior loaf of sourdough at Hart’s Bakery. Plus, it has Chinese, Indian, Afro-Carribbean, Middle Eastern, and Polish groceries where I shop for spices and fruits and vegetables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are some foods I miss, and every year, when I go back to New York, I stuff my face with them. Like real <\/em>Jewish sour pickles. And a tart Winesap apple, bought at a farmer’s market. Its perfume. And a BLT on rye toast made with crispy <\/em>bacon. And a slice of pizza bought at a pizzeria for a couple of bucks. Sit down at the formica table, soak up the extra oil with a paper napkin, sprinkle on some hot pepper\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know you can buy pizza in Britain, but honestly? It’s not the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purring: <\/strong>I used to have a cat named Frank, named after Frank Sinatra because he was slinky and sophisticated looking and liked to croon. When I moved from New York, I brought him with me, which was insanely expensive but the only thing to do. He died a few years ago, aged eighteen, and we brought his ashes back and buried them in a friend’s backyard in Brooklyn. I don’t have any pets now, but I do like animals. Looking at them. Thinking about them. Knowing they will never express an infuriating political opinion\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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\"Issue<\/figure>\n\n\n

\u201cManatees\u201d by Elizabeth Gold<\/a><\/h2>\n\n

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