Interview of Annette Billings by Xánath Caraza

Interview of Annette Billings by Xánath Caraza

 

Who is Annette Billings?

I would describe myself as a woman of immense warmth with deep compassion for people. I would add to those qualities creativity, tenacity and a generous dollop of humor. My greatest joys spring from interacting with people through physical presence and through sharing art. I consider myself a survivor. I’ve been able to answer trauma with grace and a determination to help others. I believe art saves humanity from itself.  I'm a gentle jokester who relishes laughter and loves to have others join me in it. I enjoy happy surprises and things that make me giggle (which feels distinctly different than laughter to me).

The diversity of nature intrigues me—animals and plants. I’m moved by food and eat with my eyes first! Social justice is important to me-- that all people are valued and heard. I see art as a mechanism to recognize everyone and poetry is the art my heart holds closest. I love children, everyone's children.

 As a child, who guided you through your first readings?

My beloved mother was the person who guided me through my first readings. One of my clearest, earliest memories is of her reciting Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” to me and my siblings. She introduced us to the power and beauty of written and spoken words early on. She spoke eloquently in everyday life and hope I’ve inherited her voice. She grew up in rural Kentucky and was the only one of her 12 siblings to complete high school. But to hear her read, a person would think she was doctorate educated. She was well read and did not allow poverty, or being widowed with four children, stop her from making libraries a place she often took us.  She showed me the entire world could be accessed through reading. Her love of reading inspired mine.

How did you first become a poet?

I believe poetry resides on an allele of my DNA! I don’t recall ever not being a poet even when I didn’t know what it meant to be one. Words written, words spoken have always fascinated me. I believe they are to me what color and light are to a painter or photographer – what clay is to a sculptor. I see poetry as something as any other of my parts. My earliest poems were grade school attempts to make things rhyme. It seems to me I’ve always looked at life poetically—an eagerness to find words to described what I'm thinking/feeling in the moment. I think the content of my poetry has grown through the same stages as I have grown through from adolescent to current older adult.

What else would you like to share with our readers?

I believe art is vital. I believe art can save us (humankind) and it’s as powerful as war.

Annette, gracias for sharing some of your poems with us.

APPLES, PEACHES, PEARS ABD POEMS

The is an orchard in my soul

where poems fall from me like fruit,

self-contained testimonials to every season I have lived.

Some fall hard and green blown too soon from me by an ill wind.

Others fall lush and sweet, just right ripe for a mouth to recite.

Part lay rotten on the ground, worm-ridden

Awaiting validation from a harvester who never comes.

The rest hang embryonic, a little more than a blossom’s promise.

 

“I'll take these,” you say as you

bruise my best and discard my worst.

But I am absorbed in gathering them all,

too absorbed in fact to acknowledge you,

fool that you are who thinks I grow them solely for your consumption.

BRAVA

When they called, “Places!”

She refused to debut as victim

She made them hold Act One while she adjusted her stance

She called for a Bedazzler to decorate her scars

made them reprint the playbill and rename her character Survivor

By the time they called “ Curtain!” roses carpeted her stage

She bowed before a rapt audience

who exchanged their pity

for applause.