Bird on a Wire

Sarah Ens unpacks forced migrations, both personal and ecological, in a new Quatrain Questions interview.

Turnstone published No Escape from Greatness in Fall 2016.

I’m writing this in summer, 2020. Not much has changed in this time period, right?

Only everything.

Stories function as a time capsule for me, a place to preserve emotional truths—the feelings, if not the facts.

 If a writer doesn’t write the stories, they are lost to silence, and that silence is deafening. 

Let me tell you a secret: I believe that poetry saves lives.

Most writers draw on their experiences for whatever they write. I saw this as an exotic trip that would provide all kinds of incidents and details for me to use in my future writing.

The collection’s binding force from the start was The End—and all endings

Whenever I write, I draw upon a memory. Sometimes I do so consciously. More often than not, though, it is without any real awareness. I just know it’s there, like a ghostly spectre looking over my shoulder.

There is evidence-based brain research to suggest that babies arrive biologically wired with the experiences of their ancestors. We add our personal experiences to the mix and then pass everything on to our own children. I find that fascinating. How complex we are before our own stories even begin.