Tyler Mills on Constructing a Creative Tool for Poets: “Poetry Studio: Prompts for Poets” [INTERVIEW]

Tyler: “When I’m writing, I love to read poems and get other writers’ voices in my ear because I don’t like feeling like I’m writing in a vacuum. I like to feel like I’m writing in a community, and so I thought it would be really lovely if I could offer poems for writers to read and be inspired by while they’re working through the prompts. I was really excited that Akron was open to that process, and I’m so grateful for all the poets and presses that assisted with the book.

“It reminded me of my MFA program, where I used to love going to a café. I went to the University of Maryland, and there was this old run-down café on Route 1, just outside College Park, where my friends and I would meet. We would grab books off the shelves, bring poems we were reading, and share books with each other. Then we would sit down to write.

“Sometimes, in that moment, we would give each other rudimentary prompts, like, ‘Okay, you know, write a poem with the word popsicle in it,’ or ‘Write a poem with the color blue.’ This book really grew from that loving, generative, creative space, and I wanted to create something that I could carry with me into my life and that others could carry with them into theirs too.”

James: Typically prompts are very short, and generic. In your case the prompts are short essays or reflections, “Mood Shift” is a good example. What role did the students you teach play in learning how to write effective prompts (I noted your acknowledgement of students at the end of the book)?

Tyler: “Yes, they played a huge role. I think the origin of this book really started when I first began teaching, particularly when I was teaching composition. I found myself guiding my students through multi-step meditations to arrive at topics for their essays because, once everyone was in the classroom, I noticed that writers sometimes had a hard time accessing the creative part of their brain that was hungry to come out. Even then, I realized that offering a multi-step reflective process was useful.

“As I continued my journey as a writer and teacher, teaching college classes and working with programs like the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence, I found that a similar process was valuable for both students and myself. I don’t mean to criticize other prompts, but sometimes when I read a prompt like, ‘Write about a tree,’ or ‘Write about the color red,’ it’s not enough to open up a contemplative space in my life. 

“My goal with this book was to invite people into a meditative process so that, even if they’re in their car waiting to pick up their kids from soccer practice, on the bus, or have just 10 minutes between meetings at work, they could open up this book and be guided into a space where their inner voice is welcomed to arrive at the page. That’s why some of the prompts might seem more essayistic or involve multiple steps—it’s sort of a pathway into the interior self, if that makes sense.”

James: What I found interesting while reading this book is how the collection of poems broken up by each prompt helped me read each poem more deeply. The context switching between prose – the prompts – and the poems helped the reading experience. What different formats this this book go through during the editing and revision process? 

Tyler: “The book sort of came into being based on prompts I’d written for my classes, as I mentioned to you, and also prompts I’d written for my Substack. I started a Poetry 15 Substack during the pandemic because some of my students were really hungry for my prompts between classes. So, the initial phase of this book involved gathering a whole bunch of poems and prompts from those places.

“But once the book took shape as a draft, I felt I wanted a much more multi-layered approach to the poems in the book. I went through and reconfigured, rethought the companion poems, and swapped things out. That’s not to say that some of the original poems weren’t treasures when I was initially teaching and using some of the prompts, but I wanted the book to sing as an energized, contemporary, diverse, multifaceted text. That was a big part of the revision process.

“When I approached Akron with this book, they were very interested. I love the press—Mary Biddinger’s wonderful, as well as Brittany LaPointe and James Miller. I wanted to work with them, so it was a dream when they said yes. The book had to go through board approval, and it did. The board offered a few recommendations—nothing major—I made those changes, brought the book back, and they signed off on it.

“After that, it went through copy-editing and some conversations. I really worked hard to make the prompts as crisp and clear as possible, and I was grateful for the feedback in a few places where the steps could be even clearer.”

James: I suspect the selection process for the poems might be as hard, if not harder, than writing the prompts because there’s such an infinite pool of poems to choose from. What did you learn about compiling a collection of poems? What advice would you give if you were chosen to be the editor of a selected poems anthology in the future?

Tyler: “I think to answer your question, my editorial work when I was Editor-in-Chief and founder of The Account, the online journal I co-founded with the poet Anna Knowlton in 2013, really helped prepare me for curating the poems in this book. We ran that journal together for about eight years, and it taught me a lot about how to showcase voice, texture, and detail. I was always thinking about how a poem could be both topical and universal—those were questions I considered deeply.

“I also worked through the permissions process, which was a huge step in this book’s life. It’s not an easy task; it involves a lot of communication, spreadsheet-making, and follow-ups. That was a significant component of this book because you can’t just find a poem and print it, as I’m sure readers know. There’s a whole series of steps for what kinds of permissions are granted and what rights you’re given. The cost is also a factor. Some poems I wanted to include were too expensive, but some presses were fabulous to work with and offered poems without a fee or for a minimal cost. I’m incredibly grateful to them.

“For instance, Norton offered their poems for free—although now I feel like I should knock on wood, as I’m a bit superstitious about that. They were really lovely to work with. I think people understood that the spirit of this project was about sharing, giving, and creation. I’m not trying to make a million dollars off this book or off other people’s poems. That’s not my purpose, and it’s not the press’s purpose either. Akron is a small press and doesn’t have a big budget for permissions, so that was all part of it.

“In a way, it became like a mathematical puzzle—figuring out how to meet the goal with the resources I had. I had to make peace with letting some things go. For example, in the epigraph, there was a quote by Mary Oliver I really wanted to use, but her estate wouldn’t budge. It would have been exorbitant even to include four lines of a poem. I tried to negotiate, saying that if I used three lines, it would fall under a certain percentage, but they wouldn’t budge. So, I decided not to ruffle any feathers and ended up landing on this wonderful quote from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now that it’s the epigraph, I think it suits the book so much better. No offense to Mary Oliver, who I love, but I think it really fits.”

James: I assumed there was some complex logistical element to pulling a collection of poetry together, on top of the intellectual challenge of finding the perfect poems. I’m sure there were poems you really wanted to include but couldn’t due to logistical reasons.

Tyler: “I couldn’t, I really couldn’t. At first, that felt like a stumbling block, but in my life, I try to reframe challenges. I let myself grieve what I had hoped for, but as I’ve gotten older, I strive to find the positive in outcomes I didn’t initially desire. Once I shifted my thinking, I got really excited because it opened up so many other possibilities for me.

“It also invited me to look at and rethink the fantastic poets that the University of Akron Press publishes. There’s a poem by Aimee Seu, Philip Metres, and so many other wonderful poets. I’m really grateful, and I’m so much more thrilled with the book now. I can’t imagine what it would have been, but I’m in love with how it is now.”

James: Yes, constraints can be useful tools. I noticed that the prompts, as poetry should be, are open-ended. They’re not so deterministic that they limit creativity. The selections of poems were interesting because the connections between the poetry and the prompts weren’t blatant or obvious—they were tied to an element of the prompt, but they weren’t just mirror images of each other.

Tyler: “Thank you so much for saying that. That was a huge goal of mine because, as I mentioned in the introduction to this book, these prompts are not meant to be ‘after poems.’ I’m not asking people to write a poem after Diane Seuss—that’s not it at all. This is more about being part of a creative community, just like an artist might go to an art gallery and be inspired to create their own work—not to copy what they see, but to become part of a living community of makers. That’s really what I wanted the feel of this book to be.”

James: I used several of the prompts while reading the book either to ideate on a poem I was working on or to create something new. I found the Revision Prompts particularly helpful for getting a poem in progress unstuck. How do you suggest poets, or students of poetry, approach using these prompts?

Tyler: “I think, really, any or all of the above could work. First of all, if you’re encountering the book and haven’t been writing for a while, I encourage you to carry the book around with you. Flip through it, read the poems, read the prompts, and just think about them. That alone might spark some ideas.

“If you’re a teacher of creative writing, you could go through the book and think about different themes and strategies. For example, there are a few prompts that invite students and writers to write prose poems—you could assign one of those. There are prompts that investigate myths and legends, and others that engage with nature, second person, and first person plural. If you’re teaching creative writing, you can absolutely use this book in your classroom. I’ve used it and assigned it to students, and they’ve written wildly different poems—you would never know they were using the same prompts. I’ve also tied this book in with full-length texts that students were reading to broaden the conversation, even while students were looking at specific poems. It works really well there.

“If you’re sitting down to write, you don’t have to go through the book from start to finish. You could flip through and see what strikes you by looking at the different categories. That might jumpstart your thinking. For instance, there are some prompts in the ‘Into the World’ category, focusing on story, myth, and creativity. You could also look at your manuscript and think about what kinds of poems you’d like to see in it, then try out some prompts that might open up something that’s been stuck for you there, too.”

James: Writers block or simply writing fatigue can be frustrating for any writer. The feeling or fear that you’ve exhausted your creative well. How should readers use your book to get unblocked?

Tyler: “I first try to forgive myself for being stuck because I think sometimes, when I’m in the process of feeling like I can’t write, negative self-talk starts to appear. Along with that comes the fear that I will never write again, that I was never really a writer, that I’m an imposter—it sort of snowballs. So, I have to tell myself, ‘Look, it’s okay. You’re taking a pause, you’re taking in information, everything is fine.’ I try to have a script set up that way.

“Then, I schedule 15 to 20 minutes of time for myself when I can be completely alone—wherever that is, even if it’s in a café or in a room in my apartment while my family is in another room—where I can sit with a blank page. Something about the 15 to 20-minute increment is really freeing for me because it’s a chunk of time I can realistically grab for myself, even during an extremely busy moment in my life. If I can just dedicate that time to writing or reading a little bit, it can unlock a poem for me. Afterward, I can start thinking about it, and my mind can chew on it throughout the week. I might find myself writing notes on my phone or coming back to my notebook and adding a line or two, feeling like I’m able to engage that way.

“For most people, we don’t have access to large swaths of uninterrupted time. I certainly don’t—my life is highly scheduled, reactive, and noisy, and I think that’s how it is for most people. I’ve been working hard to make this a big part of my teaching, where I tell students, ‘You can create something even in short bursts of time.’ Little chunks you can grab throughout the week can yield huge results. I think that can be a big part of unsticking the brain if you feel like you haven’t been able to write.”

James: So many things you said resonate with me, and it reminds me of something Tina Cane, Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, mentioned when I interviewed her. When she had young children she learned how to write in fractured time—while cooking or doing chores for the kids, she would write in little bursts, whether on her phone or on a piece of paper. She adapted to writing in fractured time because dedicated time was incredibly challenging to schedule. I can relate to that. I can also relate to the imposter syndrome. If I’ve really wrestled through a poem and the outcome is something I’m proud of, I start thinking, ‘Maybe that was the best thing I’ve ever written, and everything I write from here on won’t be as good, and I’ve peaked.’ Of course, it’s silly. I don’t think you can ever peak as a writer because you keep building up more experiences to draw from, but it’s true that your own worst enemy is often the stuff swirling in your brain.

Tyler: “Yes, I’ve been there too. I understand that feeling when you write something that really works well, and then you think, ‘Oh, that’s the only good thing I could have ever written—what now?’ I try to ask myself, ‘Why am I thinking this? Have I been feeling like I haven’t been able to nourish myself?’ And if that’s the case, it’s okay. We do so much in our lives that feeds into our art, and even if we’re not actively writing, we’re living. Being a person in the world is what makes our poems rich and resonant.”

James: That’s why I don’t really worry about AI writing great poetry. AI is sort of a smush of world experiences, but it’s not that one specific lifetime thread that is such a rich vein to draw from. So, yeah, I don’t worry about that. I think for that reason, every day that you live, you acquire more raw material for a future poem.*

Tyler: “Yes, I think so too. I think memory is magical—the way there are splits, gaps, and unexpected surprises, and the way our sensory encounters with the world can jostle memory. It’s so profoundly unique to human experience. The smell of basil might evoke something completely surprising for you.”

James: How do you recommend educators incorporate this book into their classrooms and what have you learned from other teachers that helped shape this book? 

Tyler: “Incorporating it into your classroom can be done in a few ways. If you’re asking students to write free verse poems, you could assign specific prompts from the book, picking a few from various sections. For instance, if you want students to engage with prior story or myth, you can choose a prompt from that section. If you’d like students to have encounters with the world, you can pick prompts from that section or from the ‘Mind and Heart’ section, which is more about the interior journey. You can pair those prompts with the individual poems in the book and perhaps even with outside texts, like contemporary books of poems that you want the students to read. That approach can be quite lovely.

“I’ve taught this book in an advanced graduate writing workshop, and it worked really well. I tailored the prompts to the students’ interests and life experiences, which can be really effective. If you’re teaching an MFA workshop, you could also assign the book and invite students to choose their own prompts, allowing them to pick what they’d like to work with. That can be a great and successful way to use the book in a college classroom.

“And you asked about what teachers had taught me about writing, particularly prompts…”

James: Yes, about whether you intersected with any teachers in the creation of this book or received feedback during the process.

Tyler: “Well, I was really thinking a lot about Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop when I was writing this book. Her work focuses on making writing workshops less hierarchical and more welcoming spaces. My book is in conversation with her work, even though I’ve never had the opportunity to meet her. I admire her thinking quite a bit.

“I’ve also spoken with other teachers of creative writing who enjoy pursuing other forms of art as well. They often reflect on how taking a drawing class or a pottery class, even if they’re not artists or potters, influences their approach to teaching. Conversations with writers who are interested in cross-disciplinary practices, even at an amateur level—amateur in the sense of the word’s root, meaning ‘love’—have been helpful in the making of this book.

“There’s a wonderful handbook I first encountered as a graduate student by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, which includes some prompts. When I was first exploring prompts, that was a text I loved. The book features prompts from various writers who were popular in the late 80s and early to mid-90s. I think that book sparked my interest in this area because it left me hungry for more prompts. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, ‘How can I add to the conversation and the texts already out there?’“That book is called The Practice of Poetry, and readers might know it—it’s really great. So, when you’re seeking out prompts, I’d love it if readers were interested in my book, but also in exploring other books too. It’s important to think about what works best for you and how you can be part of a larger conversation when thinking about the practice of poetry and pedagogical approaches.”

Listen to the full interview on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast.