Where are you from? What kind of art do you create? (and whatever else you’d like to share…)
“Death Before Dishonor” has a narrative feel, with the use dialogue and character descriptions. How does that contribute to the poem’s overall meaning?
The use of dialogue and character descriptions allow the reader to better understand the perspective of the main character. The dialogue also enables readers to engage with the main character, as opposed to hearing about him secondhand.
2 links to contact me:
Interview
with Olivia Vande Woude
L
GS&NS: Hi, Olivia! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Olivia: Hello! Thank you for featuring me in the Anniversary issue; I am so honored. I am from Charlottesville Virginia and I am currently a freshman at the College of William and Mary. As a child I mostly wrote short stories, but in the last few years I have turned my attention to poetry. In addition to writing and publishing my poems, I enjoy working for literary magazines, and with rare books. During high school, I interned and acted as co-Editor of the annual anthology for the Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center. At William and Mary, I serve as the Marketing Chair for The William and Mary Review and also work on staff at The Gallery literary magazine. I have also interned at UVA’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, and recently started digitizing Civil War Manuscripts in William and Mary’s Special Collections.
GS&NS: What inspired your poem, “Death Before Dishonor”? Describe your writing process and intentions for the work.
Olivia: Much of what I write is observation poetry. I keep a running list on my phone of snippets of conversations I overhear, or jot down quick character sketches of strangers I walk past on the street. With these little encounters I construct a story. In the case of “Death Before Dishonor”, the character is loosely based on a mover who helped my family move in to our home a few years ago. After a brief conversation with him, I sat down and started to write about his life, but I also integrated elements from other, similar people I’d encountered.
GS&NS: Share poets/poems that you love. And if it’s not poets or other writers, who or what does inspire you to be a writer?
GirlSense and NonSense