Cynthia Blomquist Gustavson Transcript

October 26, 2007

Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors Radio. This is Dr. Kent, and I’ve been speaking to authors from around the country.

My next author guest is Cynthia Blomquist Gustavson, and she’s the author of the “In-versing Your Life” series that’s been out on Blooming Twig Books for almost a year now. It’s done very well across the country. She’s putting together a collection of poetry that will be out in the spring of 2008, and it’s all about “coming home” poems. Cynthia, are you there?

Cynthia Blomquist Gustavson: I am. Hello, Dr. Kent.

Dr. Kent: Can you tell me a little bit about your “In-versing Your Life” series?

Cynthia: Oh, I’d love to. I have two kind of separate lives. One life is as a poet and that’s my first life. It started when I was very, very young. My other life is as a psychotherapist. I have integrated the two of them, and I use poetry in psychotherapy.

Since I do that in my practice and I also do it for myself as a person, I decided to write some workbooks that would teach others how to do the same thing. It’s not only for therapists but for anybody who picks up the book and can do that.

My first poetry therapy workbook, called “In-versing Your Life”, came out in 1995. That was reprinted and came out again last year; five others came out at the same time.

Those other five are more specialized. One is for children. One is for teens. One is especially for eating disorders. One is for chronic pain, and then the last one is called “Con-versing With God”, which is about spiritual direction and pastoral counseling.

Dr. Kent: And all of those books are available anywhere books are sold: any local bookstore, amazon.com, or on Cynthia’s website, www.cynthiagustavson.com. Let’s chat a little bit about your upcoming work. You’re putting together a book of poetry?

Cynthia: Yes, I am. I think most authors have bursts of creativity, and then other times in their life when it quiets down a bit. I had one of those bursts of creativity this last June when I was asked to be the poet-in-residence at a wonderful arts festival in Minnesota called The White Pine Arts Festival in Stillwater, Minnesota.

The thing that was so incredible about it for me was that, that is my hometown, and I was asked to come back and be the poet-in-residence at this wonderful festival in my hometown. As I did that, my mind was open to all these memories–all the five senses: the smells, the sights, the taste, all of those things that surrounded me when I was a child. There I was, back in that setting, the beautiful, beautiful setting of the St. Croix Valley, again.

That creativity started on my drive up there in the car. I hate to admit it, but as I was driving, I was writing a poem on a piece of paper with my other hand. Then, during the festival, I would go home each night, and I would write more. Then, I wrote when I came home and had this burst of creativity. So, these are kind of my “going home” poems.

Dr. Kent: Why don’t you read one for us?

Cynthia: OK. This is a very, very short little poem. It’s called “Wild Berries”. Let me just say a little bit about where this comes from. One of the passions in my life, as everyone who knows me knows, is picking wild berries.

I do not eat them as I pick them. I just pick them. I get such incredible pleasure from first finding them, finding out where they are when nobody else knows where the wild berries are, and then picking them and collecting them and making jam and wonderful treats with them.

I think that happened because when I was a child, again growing up there in Minnesota in the St. Croix Valley, my dad died when I was very young. We were incredibly poor, and to supplement the income that we had, I would pick wild berries, wild asparagus, and anything wild that we could find that was edible. While my brother would go up to the local lake and fish every day, and that was our protein that we ate. So, berries really represent incredible pleasure but also kind of sustenance and survival for me. This poem is called “Wild Berries.”

[Listen to Wild Berries on the podcast]

Dr. Kent: Now, you live and work in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Cynthia: Yes.

Dr. Kent: You have such an incredible sense of place in your poetry, and you’re so clearly a northerner. How did you end up in Tulsa?

Cynthia: [laughs] Well, it’s interesting because in my adult life I have moved back and forth to Minnesota, because I love Minnesota culture. But there’s one thing that I really hate about Minnesota, and that is the weather. [laughs] In my childhood–that was before such a thing as polypropylene. It was before such a thing, at least for us, of insulated anything, and so I was always, always cold. We had to buy the, I think it’s called, Number Two Oil instead of the Number One Oil. When it got very, very cold it became viscous and didn’t work, and our furnace would go out on the very coldest of days.

So I was always, always cold. Every time I would move back to Minnesota, thinking, “Oh, we’ve got furnaces, insulated clothes and all those kinds of things,” I would end up saying, “No. I still can’t stand the winter–the darkness as well as the cold.” And so, my husband and I and our family would move somewhere else.

We happen to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma right now because my husband is a physician, and he was recruited to the hospital here in town. We love Tulsa because it has, should I say, great weather, but it also has a Midwestern flavor that reminds me a little bit of Minnesota.

Dr. Kent: Let’s hear another “coming home” poem.

Cynthia: OK. The name of the poem is called, “The Secret.” Just to give you a little bit of background, I should say we had a lot of family secrets. As a psychotherapist, I’ve found out that a lot of families do, but my family was extremely terrible about this. We had a lot of secrets, and as I get older and older, I keep uncovering more secrets.

This poem is called, “The Secret,” and I never tell you what that particular secret is. But it is that moment when–there is this relationship between the mother and the daughter, and they both know that one more secret has been unearthed. It’s called, “The Secret.”

[Listen to The Secret on the podcast]

Dr. Kent: They’re such emotional poems. Have you always written this way?

Cynthia: Well, I don’t think that I have. I’ve always tried to get my emotions out into poetry, but I don’t think it really translated into emotional poems until I was in my thirties and actually met Robert Bly, the incredible, incredible poet. When my first poetry book came out in 1987, I sent him the manuscript. He sent the manuscript back to me and said, “Where’s the feeling?” [laughs] “Where’s the feeling?”

I did a lot of good description but there wasn’t a lot of feeling, so that’s when I had to start to kind of dig a little deeper and see if I could get that feeling translated into my words–not just the description of what was going on but also the feeling.

Dr. Kent: Let’s hear one more from you.

Cynthia: This one’s called “Corn silk.” By the way, that’s the name of my memoir that I’ve been working on. It’s almost finished and hopefully that’s going to come out soon and that is the name of the memoir. This is the poem that I’m putting at the very front of that book that really is a metaphor for my life. “Corn silk”.

[Listen to Corn Silk on the podcast]

Dr. Kent: My guest has been Cynthia Blomquist Gustavson. Her books, the “In-Versing Your Life” series are available all across the country and her new book of poetry is coming out in the spring. Stay tuned for the next guest, Gabe Shuford.

Cynthia, thank you so much for being on the show.

Cynthia: Thank you so much, Dr. Kent.

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