In this episode, guest host Kari Hanlin talks with Professor Abigail Cloud, editor of the Mid-American Review, and literary and visual artist Paula J. Lambert. They discuss creative processes in the pandemic, writing as an interdisciplinary practice, and the need for greater diversity in publishing practices.
Announcer: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society, this is BG Ideas.Musical Intro:I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment.Kari :You're listening to Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society and The School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University.Kari: I am Kari Hanlin, a PhD student in BGSU's rhetoric and writing program, and a graduate assistant for ICS.Kari :Due to the ongoing pandemic, we are not recording in the studio, but remotely via phone and computer. Our sound quality may differ as a result.Kari: As always, the opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Bowling Green State University campuses are situated in the Great Black Swamp and the lower Great Lakes region. This land is the homeland of the Wyandotte, Kickapoo, Miami, Pottawatomie, Odawa, and multiple other Indigenous tribal nations, present and past, who were forcibly removed to and from the area. We recognize these historical and contemporary ties in our efforts toward de-colonizing history. And we honor the Indigenous individuals and communities who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial.Kari :Today, we are joined by two guests, Professor Abigail Cloud and Paula J. Lambert.Kari :Abby is the editor in chief of the international literary magazine, Mid-American Review, and a teaching professor in the department of English at BGSU. Her poetry has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, the Cincinnati Review, and other literary journals.Kari :Paula J. Lambert is a literary and visual artist who earned her MFA from BGSU. She has authored two full length poetry collections, several chapbooks, and is a recipient of two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence awards. Paula is also a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes collage, assembly, book arts, and more.Kari :So what I'll ask you to do is introduce yourself and any of the key themes of your work to our listeners. And I'll ask Abby to kick us off.Abby:Absolutely.Abby:So I tend to write quite a bit about signs. I'm into this thing right now where I'm investigating our relationship to signs and how we interpret the world around us. So I'm always really interested in the natural world, interested in the woman body and woman's spirit, and also in the body generally in space and how it relates to space time in its own environment.Kari :And then Paula, how would you describe your work?Paula :I think I focus a lot on the juxtaposition of opposites, I guess, looking for the epiphanic moment, trying to understand how things fit together. A lot of my visual artwork is mixed media and collage. So collage is always bringing disparate images together into this new whole. It's something that presents something brand new. And I think I do that a lot in the poetry too. I'm very much interested in bringing poetry and science together. There are so many paired opposites everywhere. The world is full of joy and terror, and there's a constant work, all through my life certainly, all through our lives. That's where my focus is, I guess.Paula :I don't think I summarized as succinctly as Abbey did, but there you go.Kari: I think you both did great. That idea of the juxtaposition between joy and terror, I think is such a fitting way of interacting in the world right now.Kari :And it actually kind of brings me to my next question for you, Paula, because in September of 2020, you published, How to See the World, which is a poetry collection that considers the loneliness of
