{"id":37715,"date":"2023-01-13T10:46:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=37715"},"modified":"2025-02-21T11:56:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T19:56:31","slug":"issue-91-adam-scheffler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/issue-91-adam-scheffler\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 91: Adam Scheffler"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Adam<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About Adam Scheffler<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Adam Scheffler grew up in California, received his MFA from the Iowa Writers\u2019 Workshop and his Ph.D. in English from Harvard. His first book of poems \u2013\u00a0A Dog\u2019s Life<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 won the 2016 Jacar Press book contest. His second book of poems \u2013\u00a0Heartworm<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 won the 2021 Moon City Press Prize and just came out this winter. His poems have appeared in\u00a0The Yale Review<\/em>,\u00a0The American Poetry Review<\/em>,\u00a0Narrative<\/em>,\u00a0Verse Daily<\/em>, and many other venues. He teaches writing and about hell and the underworld in the Harvard College Writing Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can buy his new book Heartworm<\/em> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His website is adamscheffler.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find more poems by him here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, or here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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A Profile of the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Notes on “If You Only Knew”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, I\u2019d just reread Amy Gerstler\u2019s fantastic poem, \u201cAdvice from a Caterpillar\u201d and I loved the conceit of presenting a bunch of super specific things caterpillars do as advice (\u201cSpin many nests,\u201d \u201cAlternate crumpling and climbing\u201d). I liked how sometimes these pieces of advice from the caterpillar sound like aphorisms (\u201cDon\u2019t get sentimental\/about your discarded skins\u201d), but often don\u2019t, and how overall this strategy allows for a kind of playfulness and weirdness that’s also very matter-of-fact. So I thought I\u2019d try that out as a writing prompt with my poodle-mix Bee Gee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started making a list of dog-specific \u201cadvice,\u201d but then got slightly derailed or sent off on a (hopefully fruitful) tangent when I got to the moment about giving Bee Gee heartworm pills.\u00a0Dog owners have to give their pets regular medicine so they don\u2019t develop parasitic worms in their hearts, yet we also often seek \u201ctreatment\u201d of a sort from our pets for our sadness and anxiety. It seemed to me that \u201cheartworm\u201d might also provide an apt image or metaphor for the poison and bitterness that can build up in the human heart over time, and for which I at least often turn to animals and the natural world (not just to dogs) for relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In doing some research, it also turns out that the technical name for the number of worms in an animal\u2019s heart is \u201cthe worm burden\u201d \u2013 which seemed like a fantastic phrase to me, since it speaks to what we all carry with us as mortal beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

You know how goats eat almost anything? Well, I tend to like almost all music no matter how \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d it is. I have a true ignoramus\u2019s bliss when it comes to music in that I don\u2019t know anything about how it works, and am constantly being delighted by it. For instance, I finally & belatedly discovered Leonard Cohen and have been devouring his music, but I\u2019m also very fond of Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen. I used to be embarrassed about my lack of discrimination, but now luckily I\u2019ve read Susan Sontag\u2019s essay on camp and Frank O\u2019Hara’s line about wanting to be \u201cat least as alive as the vulgar,\u201d so I have a fancy sounding defense of what I would like to be doing anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also recently read Rax King\u2019s book Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer<\/em> which opens with an un-ironic defense of Creed<\/em>. I\u2019m not quite brave enough to defend Creed myself, but I\u2019m happy to have Rax in the vanguard protecting us more vulnerable philistines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would add that I really love it when \u2018serious\u2019 musicians do covers of pop songs as in the band Postmodern Jukebox which does jazz age covers of \u201cAll About That Bass\u201d and Selena Gomez. I also heartily recommend the whole Folksy Covers section on Spotify, particularly the Carolina Chocolate Drops\u2019 cover of \u201cHit \u2018Em Up Style.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I can\u2019t stop singing the praises of Amanda Palmer\u2019s \u201cUkulele Anthem\u201d which quite seriously suggests that silly joyous creativity might not only be a survival technique, but also prevent people from becoming murderers.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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

“Advice from a Dog” by Adam Scheffler<\/a><\/h2>\n\n

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