A Conversation with Lucinda Roy - Re-Markings Vol. 17 No.1 March 2018.

'Learning to Accommodate Spaces':  

A Conversation with Lucinda Roy 

Nibir K. Ghosh

Lucinda Roy, Alumni Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing, teaches in the MFA program at Virginia Tech in the U.S. Her books include the poetry collections Fabric and The Humming Birds, the novels Lady Moses and The Hotel Alleluia, and the memoir-critique No Right to Remain Silent: What We’ve Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech. Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, Callaloo, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, River Styx, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times, the Guardian and USA Today. She has appeared on many TV and radio programs. Among her awards are the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Award, the Virginia Press Women’s Association’s Newsmaker of the Year Award, and the Baxter Hathaway Poetry Prize for her long slave-narrative poem “Needlework.” She is working on a novel about slavery, and a series of oil paintings depicting the Middle Passage.

In this exchange Lucinda Roy sheds insightful light on issues and concerns related not only to her abundant creativity but also on her role as a citizen of the world’s most powerful democracy.

Ghosh: It is a pleasure to greet you on behalf of Re-Markings. Equally delighted to have your poems in the Re-Markings’ Special Number titled A World Assembly of Poets. How does it feel to be a part of an international community of poets brought together by the collaborative initiative of a journal from India?

Lucinda Roy: I think it is very important to hear voices from around the world. One of the many strengths of this special global issue is that it provides readers with work by a wide range of writers. These diverse voices shed light on exciting developments in the genre of poetry. They help us understand how much we all share with each other.

Ghosh: How do you feel writing in multiple genres: poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir?

Lucinda Roy: I love writing in multiple genres, though I have to say it can be extremely challenging. The demands of one genre are very different from the demands of another, and a writer who leaps between and among genres has to learn a whole new set of techniques and approaches. But I believe that writing fiction can help you understand the potential of narrative to recreate and capture experience, and that writing poetry can enable you to see the power of language, word choice, and conciseness. Writing nonfiction forces you to tackle what is meant by “the truth,” and examine how that is linked to your own aesthetic.

Ghosh: What initiated you into creative writing? At what age did you write your first poem? Do you recall its title and the content?

Lucinda Roy: I began writing as a child in London, where I grew up. My mother, a former repertory actor, loved poetry and would recite Keats as she washed the dishes. My father wrote two novels before he died at a young age. Writing has always been a part of my life. I believe one of my first poems was titled “The Giant.” It was written in fourteeners (lines of 14 syllables each—a form I hadn’t consciously adopted), and it was about a man who was considered to be a monster and an outcast by everyone and everything, except the natural world. He tended the forest and sang to the trees of his loneliness. I may revive the poem as I’m thinking about writing a collection of poems for children. An even earlier poem than that was one I wrote about a stray dog. I must have been about 9 or 10 when I wrote it. My teacher entered it into a competition run by the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and it won first place. The prize was a book about animals. I was thrilled, even though I wasn’t particularly fond of animals at that time. I grew up poor, so the prize mattered to me a great deal. I thought to myself, I can make money from this poetry business! Little did I know how untrue that was! But I learned that poetry was one of the purest forms. I learned to write for the sheer joy of it, and because it allowed me to say things I couldn’t say in any other genre.

Ghosh: You are an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas. In what way did the course contribute in shaping your career as a writer? Can creative writing really be taught?

Lucinda Roy: I don’t think talent can be taught, but I do think that the craft of writing can be. There are tips I give my students who are writing novels, for example, that I wish someone had given me when I began writing my first novel. MFA programs, like the one at Arkansas and the one here at Virginia Tech, also allow students to work with a supportive community of writers who are as passionate about language as they are. MFAs aren’t for everyone, of course. But for those who are inspired by the voices and opinions of others, and those who are open to trying out new approaches, MFA programs can be very helpful.

Ghosh: Who would you consider your literary mentor?

Lucinda Roy: If I’m honest, I would have to say that my literary mentors were the British writers I read in school and in university (Shakespeare, Dickens, Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Doris Lessing, and hundreds of others), the writers I taught as a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) teacher in West Africa (Achebe, Soyinka), and the writers I now read and whose work I teach to my undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S. People like Rita Dove (I was delighted to see her work in A World Assembly of Poets, by the way), Mary Oliver, James Wright, and Elizabeth Bishop.

Ghosh: What inspiration in creative writing came from your parents?

Lucinda Roy: My parents, however, were the ones who instilled in me a love of language. I think it unlikely I would have become a writer had it not been for them. They prized the word, saw glory in it, and conveyed that wondrousness to me. So, although my father died when I was only five, and although we grew up poor, I felt wealthy because of all the dog-eared books and marvelous original works of art in our house. I felt we had a secret. And though other children may call us names because there were so few biracial families in those days, I could step inside our house and get confirmation that Black wasn’t simply beautiful, it had a glory all its own.

Ghosh: Your poem “Carousel” is a warm tribute to your father, Namba Roy. In the poem you write,

I have the ivory statues and the pictures

telling stories of African ancestors,

a birth, flights into Egypt. In your work

I find the stillness of your eyes and mouth

the stillness that is always at the center

of the spinning ball we hurl high and long.¹

Could you please elaborate?

Lucinda Roy: I try not to comment too much on particular lines of poetry because I like them to stand on their own. In addition, that particular poem appears on some international exams, and I therefore get notes from students in Japan, the U.K., and elsewhere, asking me to explicate the entire poem for them! But suffice it to say, in these lines I was referring to my father’s art work. He was one of the earliest artists to portray Jesus as Black. He got a lot of pushback when he did so. My father, Namba Roy, wasn’t fond of orthodox religion, but he loved the power of myth. He therefore took as his inspiration Jamaican myths, Biblical narratives, and anything else that stimulated his imagination. In “Carousel,” the whole poem is about circles, which both trap us and liberate us in some unexpected ways.

Ghosh: How does it feel to be black and female in the most powerful democracy in the world?

Lucinda Roy: I feel I have a lot to do and much I need to speak up about.

Ghosh: At the beginning of the 21^st century, how significant are terms like “the color line” and “double consciousness” from the American perspective?

Lucinda Roy: Terms like these are still significant, though racism is often subtler than it used to be, and all of us have learned that identity as a construct is fraught with paradox and irony. As a biracial woman, I have always understood that my story is unlikely to be the “official,” societal narrative. Everything is a process of negotiation. The trick is not to lose oneself during that negotiation process.

Ghosh: How did the multicultural impact on your life and personality help shape your vision as a writer and poet?

Lucinda Roy: I wouldn’t be who I am, of course, had my father not been Jamaican and my mother English. I had to learn early to celebrate my own difference. I think it’s a lesson I have carried with me.

Ghosh: Is there a progression of thought from your first poetry collection, Fabric and your later poetry volume, The Humming Birds?

Lucinda Roy: There is always a development from one collection to the other. Fabric is my most recent collection, published last year. In it, I returned to some of the subjects I explored in my first two collections, Wailing the Dead to Sleep, and The Humming Birds. The impact of slavery is a subject to which I return often. I am finishing up a novel about that now. My art work also reflects my interest in the Middle Passage. I think I’m always asking the question, “How did people manage to survive in the face of such enormous brutality and suffering?” The fact that they did so is remarkable. The fact that so many are still suffering around the world is something I try never to forget.

Ghosh: Who are your favorite African American writers?

Lucinda Roy: It would be hard to say who my favorites are because there are so many I love, but I find work by writers like Toni Morrison, Ethelbert Miller (another writer in the Re-Markings anthology), James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, and Rita Dove to be inspiring.

Ghosh: What inspired you to create the character of Jacinta Louise in your debut novel, Lady Moses?

Lucinda Roy: The main character, Jacinta Louise Buttercup Moses, refused to be quiet. She haunted me for years and kept insisting I tell her story. I woke up with her and went to bed with her, whether I wanted to or not. I had to throw out the first 1,000 pages I wrote because the story wouldn’t come together. I hadn’t written a novel before and had barely written any fiction. I learned by doing. I think that, in some ways, it’s the best way to learn.

Ghosh: How would you react to the comment on Lady Moses: “Roy handles her complex plot with impressive authority as she tackles themes of racial identity, mental illness and female self-reliance”²?

Lucinda Roy: I would react with gratitude.

Ghosh: How were you impacted by the Virginia Tech shooting spree that saw Seung-Hui Cho kill 32 students in your institution? Can you recount the concerns that you have expressed so graphically on violence in American institutions in No Right to Remain Silent?

Lucinda Roy: As I wrote in my memoir about the mass shooting tragedy we experienced here at Virginia Tech, all of us who lived through it were greatly impacted by the violence that occurred on April 16^th, 2007. I am still concerned that people are resistant to considering how dangerous it is to have so many weapons in a country. (In the U.S., there are almost as many guns as there are people.) I think my main concern about the prevalence of violence in the U.S. is that the refusal to address it leads to a vicious cycle of repetition. I have spent much of the past ten years speaking at colleges and universities about the challenges posed by troubled students who can obtain weapons more easily than they can obtain cigarettes. Until the U.S. faces this issue, the violence will continue and more people will die—women, racial minorities, and young people, in particular. But people should not be fooled into thinking that America and gun culture are one and the same. The diversity in this country is remarkable, and Americans are some of the friendliest people I have ever known. It is within our power to move away from violence. It is a terrible shame that politics, profit, and prejudice often get in the way.

Ghosh: How did it feel to be in the glare of the international media subsequent to the gruesome episode?

Lucinda Roy: I am glad that kind of media attention has subsided, though it always returns whenever there is another mass shooting at a school or university. It is painful to speak about that time, but I am inspired by others around the world who have dealt with worse and emerged hopeful and energized. Words still give me hope—as does a dialogue, such as this one, that acknowledges and celebrates difference.

Ghosh: It was lovely talking to you. Thank you.

*Published in Re-Markings Vol. 17 No.1 March 2018.

Copyright Nibir K. Ghosh

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