Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is a native Philadelphian writer and poet. She is a two-time winner of the National Poetry Slam and was the first poet from a poetry slam background to be awarded the 2013 Amy Clampitt Residency. Her books include Dr. Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine; Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam; and How to Love the Empty Air.
Katlyn Dinh: Who inspired you to write?
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz: My mom was a writer. She went to Drexel for Biology out of practicality instead of accepting a scholarship for English, but she always loved writing. She was editor of her school newspaper and school literary journal, and I have framed pictures of her articles for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She was a great storyteller, and a great reader. I really loved the conversations we could have using books, even when I was a little kid. I would be having conflict at school, and a book would show up that would help me understand the conflict and give me other perspectives. I think writing and using books as a tool definitely came from my mom.
In terms of whether I thought I could be a writer professionally, however, that leap was thanks to a program called the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts, which is sadly now defunct. I applied for it and was one of nine chosen by the state to write for fiction. The idea that I could achieve that was very groundbreaking. It was there that I first met working writers from Pennsylvania and those from working-class backgrounds like me. Jim Daniels was especially transformative. He portrayed his working-class life through poetry in a way that was critical of certain aspects of it, but it was also warm, tender, and had familiar imagery that I remembered from my childhood. Seeing him put all that into a book, I decided I was going to do the same and make it work like he did.
KD: I felt similarly about your poem “Simulacrum”, which is one of my favorites. How do you approach writing poetry and deciding what to capture with it?
COA: I always say to go with your impulse. It may not make sense when you begin it or even be a good poem in the end, but it will always tell you something. With a poem like “Simulacrum,” I was struck by the different roles that people have thrust upon them, choose for themselves, settle for, and strive for. I remember writing that when I was in Philadelphia as a writer-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania, and I wanted to capture the course of my day through that lens. The neighborhood had gotten to know me well enough that the person at the supermarket knew what my order was when I picked up a coffee in the morning. I thought of all of those people who knew me and all of the ways I wanted to be known and lining them next to each other was an interesting experiment.
KD: Could you tell us about your poetry slam experience and how that has influenced your writing?
COA: The way I describe poetry slam to people who aren’t familiar with it is to think of Norman Rockwell’s painting Four Freedoms. The Freedom of Speech is represented by a man in overalls holding his cap to his chest, and he is standing and speaking from his heart in front of this whole community of people.
When I came to my first poetry slam in New York City, it was what I’d always dreamed about in terms of being in a writing community. It was people of different ages, races, sexual orientations, genders, and the entire range of classes all coming in wanting to tell their story—to be heard and seen. Our job was to contribute but also to hear and see. We would say our praises and criticisms alike. People would come back the next week with a new draft, perform it again, and get closer to a truth. A truth they may not have known they were saying when they first began writing that piece. It’s a wonderful community of artists that I’ve been lucky enough to read and hear from, but it also has helped me tremendously as a writer.
As my husband says, this community trains you to understand that your work should be able to be shared in front of whatever audience it’s put into. With poetry slam, you’d have your home venue and a regional or national competition, and successful poets would also be invited as solo performers at different colleges or art centers. You’d be put in front of audiences who are completely unfamiliar to you and may not know the cultural reference points, and you would have to learn how to make those connections that came so easily in other settings. For me, that experience has been invaluable in terms of how I approach writing to the page because so rarely in the experience of a writer do you visually see readers react to your work in real-time. When I write, especially with my nonfiction, I can think of individual people who I know will read it and visualize how they’d react. If I imagine them making a “huh?” kind of face, I have opportunities to figure out what perspectives I didn’t consider, or if I didn’t give enough time to certain points.
KD: What advice do you have for new writers?
COA: A big tip I would give is to get on the organizational section. If you want to be a writer who’s known for the page, then start working for a newspaper or literary journal. If you want to be someone who performs, then start volunteering for your local poetry plam or local poetry reading. So many people have this idea of what it means to be an artist and what they are attracted to in an artist, and they don’t realize how artists need to be personable to sustain their existence. You could be the most fantastic performer, but if you are constantly late and disrespectful of the equipment and audience, then you’re not going to get rebooked. You aren’t going to be a person that gets passed around by word of mouth as someone to book. Don’t think of the artist as this hermetically sealed person who does not engage with the larger reading and performance community. In researching what it takes to be a successful artist, a group of scientists discovered what they termed as horizontal loyalty. Your friends or peers are going through and figuring out the same experiences as you. What you bring to the table can help them, and they can answer your questions back.
A great example of this is my friend, Derrick. I was 19 when I met Derrick, and we were both slam poets at the National Poetry Slam. A year later, I was running a slam that he was featuring in. A few years after that, he went on a national tour and asked if I could open for him. I helped him edit books, and he published my books. The people I met when we were lowly slam poets putting together websites for the first time on AltaVista are now on the New York Times bestseller list and doing TedTalks. We would have never suspected that where we came from, but I can’t imagine that our success would have been possible if we all weren’t helping each other. So, instead of viewing other writers as enemies or competition, you begin aligning yourself with them. You can’t control mentorship and other intangibles, but you can find fellow artists whose work you love, support them, and open yourself to their support.
You can learn more about Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz on her website. You can purchase Dr. Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine here.
Katlyn Dinh is a senior Finance major with a minor in English at Drexel University. She is working towards writing her own story, but in the meantime, she enjoys other people’s art with passion and analytic fervor. Her other hobbies include drawing and casual stargazing.