An Interview with Vivian Faith Prescott

How is your writing informed by place and the natural environment? 

My well-being and survival is dependent upon the shape of our island, weather and ocean patterns, our nearby river—the Stikine—and the forest and ocean. So it’s natural the places I depend upon would interest me. I want to know the whole story of things: science, traditional ecological knowledge, oral traditions, etc. There is a Sami proverb: “Here I am. See me. Hear me. I am knowledge. Take care of me!” So with the responsibility of learning about my place arises the duty of being a caretaker and teaching the younger generation all the knowledge I’ve gleaned during my lifetime. 

How does The Last Glacier at the End of the World connect to your personal experiences and/or identity?

As a climate witness, I deliberately looked at how climate change affected our island through the lens of my Indigenous Sámi values. At the same time I honor Sámi storytelling techniques like layering and digression. You’ll find those ways of knowing in the poems. And of course, I live in in proximity to two glaciers and being a family who depends on a subsistence way of life, there is definitely a personal connection to the poems, even if the poem is centered farther north in Alaska where I have family and friends living. 

When did you begin writing the poems for The Last Glacier at the End of the World? And, what was the biggest surprise as you were writing and gathering poems for the chapbook? 

I started writing these poems about 7 years ago from a sense of loss. I’d lost time living on the island (Wrangell) because I’d recently moved back from living elsewhere in Alaska. I began to collect and learn about traditional knowledge from my elder father, but there was a sense of urgency because of his age, health, and how climate change was affecting every aspect of our lives in Alaska. There’s a specific poem in the book “Vulnerability Assessment” that describes what this feels like. 

My biggest surprise was that some of the poems had ironic or humorous voices, which I didn’t intend at first. And also intimacy. For example, I didn’t intend a poem about changes in bat physiology caused by climate change to be a poem about sex and intimacy, but it is. Sometimes I begin writing by standing outside of a poem but then enter it and become the character or the setting. My poems are often transformational for the characters and myself as a writer. 

What is the most difficult part about putting a chapbook collection together (or the most challenging aspect at any stage in creating a collection, making it whole, and seeing it through to publication)? 

Choosing which poems to include in a chapbook is always the hardest part. And also rearranging the poems so they tell a story or theme. I’m a storyteller so it’s important the chapbook format tells a story. I love chapbooks. It helps to work with a good editor like Crystal Gibbins at Split Rock Press, because the book I envisioned was reshaped a bit and you have to trust the editor if you agree to that. For me it was about the details and beauty. I wanted the book cover to evoke a tourist/visitor feel like a travel brochure or a slick travel magazine because many of the poems deal with the cultural aspect of visiting (or witnessing) Alaska now and in the future. There is an art to putting together a book so there’s a trust relationship that happens between the publisher and author. Of course, then there’s copy editing, an area where I always appreciate help.  

As your poetry chapbook goes out into the world, into the hands of readers, what do you aspire for this book? What do you hope readers will take away from it? 

I hope this little book encourages people to find their own ways to express their climate grief, and to consider their role in the larger conversation of climate change, and importantly to think about how to get involved at the community level. Alaska has a citizen scientist program that partners between the public and professional scientists. In our community you can actually check out an ultrasonic bat detector, mount it on the roof of your car, and drive out our old logging roads in the middle of the night to record bat sounds for the Forest Service. Our high schoolers participate every year in the Shakes Glacier Survey Team, collecting data at the Shakes Glacier located a short distance up the Stikine River. 

Who or what are your literary influences? What poets do you continually go back to? And, why? 

Many of my literary influences are oral traditions, but I always return to reading and re-reading Joy Harjo. Plus, my early influences are Mary TallMountain, N. Scott Momaday, Sister Goodwin, Paula Gunn Allen. There are so many great up-and-coming Indigenous poets and writers. I’m currently reading more Sámi poets and writers like Inger-Mari Aikio if I can find their translations in English. I deliberately reject the western literary cannon and what is expected for every “educated poet” to read. I want to decolonize whenever possible. 

How has your writing changed overtime? And/or, how has the COVID-19 pandemic changed or affected your relationship to writing, either in the creation of it or the consumption of it?

My early poems were more narrative. Now, they’re leaning toward experimental. I like to explore a variety of forms and read a variety of indigenous poets from around the world. 

I used to say I could write under any circumstances, but it turns out that’s not true. Writing has been difficult since my family started sheltering-in-place. I am grieving because I didn’t get to harvest berries and spruce tips with my daughters and grandchildren. I am grieving because we didn’t get to go halibut fishing with family this year. Being in the wilderness with family is a huge part of my identity and I’m grieving that loss.  

Lately, I can do more, though. Getting out into the wilderness helps. Actually, I live in the wilderness, so just being present with the ocean and the forest is what’s getting me through. Reading also helps. I’m rereading all the poetry books on my shelf. And I’ve been learning more about my Sámi culture so there’s a new sense of excitement. Also, I started up my writers group again, the Blue Canoe Writers. We meet once a week on Zoom. I’m connected to something again and that’s really helped my spirit.

For months, since the pandemic began, each day was measured by the one small thing I could manage to do like write a bio, or edit a poem. (I still have those days, occasionally.) Playing dice and card games with my elder father helps and going on our wilderness harvesting adventures keeps us sane. Also, I’ve had two books published during this time of Covid-19, a full-length collection in March, Silty Water People, and my chapbook The Last Glacier at the End of the World in October. These books remind me there is still life out there and in me and that there is hope.  

 What is the best piece of writerly advice that you’ve been given?

Learn to recognize a poem or story. Most people don’t recognize that wading out into the ocean in Southeast Alaska in November is a poem. But as I stood in the ocean tossing sticks for my dogs, enfolded in a warm breeze, I felt strange. I couldn’t yet articulate that sense and what it meant in the larger scheme of things, but I knew I should write down. I didn’t know what the poem would be about, but I knew the moment or the image I was present in was a line or a poem. Young or beginning writers need to fine tune this recognition skill: be able to recognize what it is about their daily lives or in the world that makes a poem. I don’t know how I learned this or who taught this to me but I try to gift this advice to others. 

What’s next for you? What are you working on now, and what can we anticipate in the future?  

Now that I’ve been able to focus for more than an hour a day, I’m working on my nonfiction manuscript My Father’s Smokehouse about living and harvesting from the land and sea at Mickey’s Fishcamp in Wrangell. I’m also editing and putting together my full-length manuscript about salmon and climate change, while trying to find a publisher for a poetry collection about Sámi diaspora, Old Woman with Berries in Her Lap. My sense of urgency to get work done is likely related to the feeling I could die, or my loved ones could die from Covid-19. 

If you were venturing into the wilderness (alone) for a month, what three books would you pack and take with you?

I’d want a blank notebook, a mystery novel, and a nonfiction book. Usually, I indulge in mysteries and crime dramas every night to give my creative mind a rest. Also, I’ve rekindled my love for creative non-fiction and I started reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book on mosses: Gathering Moss, a Natural And Cultural History of Mosses. I absolutely love our Southeast Alaskan muskegs so the moss book would be fun to have with me. Basically, if I was out in the wilderness, I’d want adventure for my mind too. The blank notebook would be for writing in and I’d like to take a mystery novel with me by an author I’ve yet to explore. I didn’t mention bringing poetry books because I normally read a lot of poetry. But I might break the three-book-rule and bring Norton’s new anthology of Native nations poetry, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through.