INTERVIEW WITH...DAVID STEECE

Dearest CW Members ~

Every month, we celebrate on the 23rd, in recognition of our March launch date, by posting an interview with a published writer.

In April, we featured Norah Pritchard, author of her cookbook, Dinnertime, as well as three books in a Romance series, several short stories and also owner of her own publishing company.

In May, Phyllis Kasdin was our esteemed author for her coffee table book, The Future Begins with the Past. In addition, Phyllis is also a playwright of tens of dozens of shows that have performed at various venues throughout the country.

This month’s author is DAVID STEECE, whose memoir, Twenty to Life, is available on Amazon.

Hi, David! A million thank-you’s for having agreed to being our Guest Author this month on CollectivelyWrite.com You have written an incredible memoir about your metamorphosis, while incarcerated for “twenty-to-life,” from skinhead gang leader to no-longer-gang-affiliated writer, poet and mentor to your fellow inmates. Your transformation began when a different book was delivered to your cell than the one you had originally ordered. Please tell our members about that life-changing “mistake.”

So, the "mistake" was me unintentionally ordering a textbook from the list of library books that were delivered to my cell. It was an old Biology textbook donated to the prison by some high school. There was a chapter on evolution that spoke about a species of frog that lived in the prairie. When the rains would come, big puddles would form, and the frogs would have to migrate from puddle to puddle and mate. If there was an isolated puddle, the frogs would not have enough diversity to survive. When I read that, all I could think about was the lifetime of racial propaganda telling me that diversity would weaken my race. I had spent my life blindly following a false ideology, and reading that caused me to question everything I had built my life around.

This sentence from your book lingered in my mind for days and days: I was discovering poetry, and with it came the discovery of emotions that I had spent a lifetime avoiding. It was my first experience with poetry, and I was hooked. I was feeling things for the first time in my life. I was learning who I was and how I felt about the world. I was discovering there were more emotions than anger.

I would love to learn more about the teacher who worked in the school and helped you get your poem published.

What people who read the book have no way to know is that Mr. Manley passed away from cancer shortly after I got out of prison. This was such a difficult time for me. This man was a mentor and a father figure. I had never had a positive role model in my life. He was kind and gentle. He supported and encouraged me in a way that I had never experienced before. When he was dying from cancer, it felt as if the universe was speaking to me. I felt as if I was doomed to experience the pain of every person I had ever victimized. I had lost my son the year earlier, and I was in a dark place. This man was a brilliant poet and gentle soul, perfectly suited to guide me both in life and in my writing.

David, as an Educator myself, I can tell you that we gravitate to students we know want to blossom and do everything we possibly can to nurture them. It's obvious that Mr. Manley saw this in you, and he was so spot-on, wasn't he? What you did with your writing, how you transformed your life and ended up helping so many others is the best way there could ever have been to honor him. There's no way you weren't the gift of his lifetime.

In your “lobster” chapter, you talk about the soft parts of you and say you are trying to grow them. I think the only way a memoir can be good is by being very vulnerable and offering up those “soft,” vulnerable parts to your readers. What was your hardest chapter to write? And were there any, in the first draft, that were just too painful to write at all or got edited out before publication?

When I was first approached by a publisher, I had only two stipulations: that all profits go toward victims of violent crime and that no part of my story is left out or watered down. I decided that if I was going to do this, it would be open, raw and genuine. As far as editing goes, writing this book was agonizing and difficult. I was not prepared for editing to call for rewrites after rewrite! I would go back and forth with the editor, and with each rewrite, I would dredge through the emotions that drove the story. It took a full year from manuscript to publication.

There's not a writer on here - published or not - who doesn't recognize this pain of rewriting!! But, you persevered and triumphed, David! Go you! We are all applauding the achievement, grueling as we recognize it was.

In your chapter called “Untitled,” this passage stopped me in my tracks: There is a downside, though [to volunteering in the prison library and having access to so many books]. I’m discovering that not all knowledge is sweet; there are some things that, once learned, a man could spend a lifetime wishing it could be unlearned.

I say “stopped me in my tracks” because I’ve discovered that to be true of Real Life occasions and situational learning but never book-learned truths. That’s why I was so excited that you agreed to this interview, because I wanted you to expound on it.

It was very difficult for me to learn about the why's in life. We tend to believe that we "are who we are" or "That's just who I am." As I dug deeper, I realized that nothing happens in a vacuum. I realized that we are built by our experiences, that we are formed and shaped into who we are. With that comes the guilt of realizing that you've played a role in shaping others, as well.

I remember spiraling in guilt as I came to terms with the knowledge that much of life is generational, and I have cast ripples far into the future. I would spend my days searching for comfort in an endless supply of knowledge but find very little.

Ah. Now I understand. Thank you for explaining that so well.

Another transformational moment for you came with discovering the term “Transgenerational Trauma.” Afterward, you shared the poem “To Prisoners” by Gwendolyn Brooks as your favorite because it felt as if she were talking right to you, one on one. Have any other poems had that effect on you?

Many, many poems have affected me deeply. I love chewing on lines like I'm trying to extract every drop and swallow it into my soul. I have lines and images that I carry with me in life. I see rain, and I think about red wheelbarrows. I see a whale on TV, and I think about its eyes being like inquisitive dinner plates. I think about William Carlo Williams begging his wife to forgive him for eating the plums: "But they were cold and delicious." I devoured poetry borne in the trenches in WWI, speaking about beautiful, horrible things. I come to realize it's okay to feel things.

Yes, I remember that being an epiphany for you.

Do you prefer a particular genre of poetry – free verse, sonnets, haiku, limericks – or are you drawn more to the words and message than the style?

I prefer modern, free-verse poetry. I struggle with rules and restrictions. I feel like a lot of poetry gets lost in its attempt to conform. I do love slam poetry even though it's boxed in by rhyme and meter. It's raw and unforgiving. I'm definitely drawn to emotions and feelings of poetry more than anything.

You talk about wishing you could have taken the prison “youngsters” aside to help them through what they were about to endure. Would you include reading and writing, or is that something few would embrace as you did? Do you think there is a “sleeping” poetry-lover in everyone?

I always encouraged them to explore writing and poetry. Of course, not everyone was accepting. But I believe there is something deeply therapeutic in writing.

Oh, you are preaching to the choir now, Baby!! Everyone on this site is shaking their head in agreement with that statement!!

Getting back to your own poetry, I have to admit that it's difficult to “like” the one you entitled “I Met My Soul.” It’s too painful and raw to ‘like,’ in the same way as - if it’s done correctly - a listener cannot ‘like’ Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. It’s SUPPOSED to leave him or her disturbed and unsettled. Still, your poem is a meritorious and mesmerizing piece. These final stanzas were especially memorable:

But as they [your children] grew larger and my world grew smaller

Withered away by addiction

And made cold by silent suffering until I could no longer feed both my secrets and my soul

So I sacrificed one for the sake of the other

By wrapping my soul in the filthy rags of desperation

And leaving it abandoned at the feet of hope.

How did it feel when that made its way to the written word, David?

Working your way through a poem like that is difficult, as it should be. Any writing loses its way when it becomes about the listener.

Yep. Absolutely.

Any thoughts you’d like to leave us with today?

If I had any final thoughts about writing, it's that writing is a form of self-expression - a discovery of self and exploration of emotions. When I write, it's usually through tears. I block it out, then trim it down before I focus in, peeling away at it until it's raw and real. It's very painful and difficult for me to read my finished work, and I think it should be. I don't even own a copy of my book. I'm still trying to heal from writing it. I spent my first year out of prison touring the state and speaking, reading chapters from my book. I had to stop doing that.

Good luck, my fellow writers. Don't be afraid to peel away at and dig deep.

David, thank you again for taking the time for this interview with me. I was moved and fascinated by your book and very much appreciate your being willing to answer any questions our members have in the week that follows.

*******************************************************************************

OKAY, CW MEMBERS!! HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR DAVID? JUST PM THEM TO ME, AND I WILL FORWARD THEM ON TO HIM. HE WILL SEND PERSONAL RESPONSES TO YOUR PM.

Again, HAPPY THREE MONTHS!!!

xoxoxo

Rachelle