Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with Lorelei Bacht from Issue 8, Cut/Copy/Paste: The Original! Read her poems, “Pond/Reflecting” and “The fancy dress is hung. The wedding ring is lost” in our eighth issue!
Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?
Lorelei: Raw emotion. Something rises that needs to voice itself. I invent a storyline to allow the emotion to shape its own song. Every poem is a carefully crafted music box that houses an indomitable spark of emotion. Even when the stories are made up (they often are), the psychological core of the poem is always absolutely truthful.
Tiny Spoon: Are there any artists/ heroines/ idols/ friends that you look up to?
Lorelei: have not yet recovered from discovering “Ariel” as a young person. By some kind of accident, I bought an old cassette (what even is a cassette?) of Sylvia Plath reading from her work at a garage sale. I can still remember the humming of the tape (I had to buy a cassette player), the click, and then: her voice, throaty, cutting, intelligent, splendid.
Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?
Lorelei: I have always been very interested in animal consciousness. I am constantly reading, observing how animals behave and trying to imagine what it feels like to have, say, the body of a spider. How do you hold on to your web? How does it feel to feed when you do not have teeth and need to liquefy the body of another? It is fascinating to me.
Tiny Spoon: We love insight into the creative process. Could you share what it is like for you,
either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?
Lorelei: I enjoy conducting little experiments, collages, erasures, etc. The “pond / reflecting” series started as a “minimal sonnets” (14 lines of 14 words each). I find tight formal constraints amusing, and welcome the bizarrely beautiful results they yield.
Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you
would like to share?
Lorelei: Several potential collections seem to have appeared organically in my recent work, but I am not in a hurry to formalize them into anything or release them into the world. Each one is a place, a container into which I pour various issues and emotions, and listen to what echoes. I am not done with my visits.
Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?
Lorelei: I am unshakably obsessed with “Carrie & Lowell”, the music album in which Sufjan Stevens relates his mother’s death. The honesty, courage and beauty of it is absolutely stupendous.
Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or
beyond?
Lorelei: I enjoy listening to poetry podcasts. I live in a remote area of Asia where books are hard to find, which has led me to read less and listen more. The podcasts “Poetry Unbound” by Pádraig Ó Tuama and “Lyric Life” by Mark Scarbrough have brought me much joy.
Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or
beyond? Where can people learn more about what you do?
Lorelei: I make infrequent visits to Twitter (@bachtlorelei) and Instagram (@lorelei.bacht.writer).
I also have a side project called “The Cheated Wife” on Instagram: @the.cheated.wife for
sketches, and @the.cheated.wife.writes for poetic bits.
Tiny Spoon: Do you have photographs or images you would like us to share?
Lorelei: Feel free to visit @the.cheated.wife for sketches.
