Tiny Talks is an interview series with Tiny Spoon’s talented contributors. This week we spoke with David Martin, the Founding Editor of Middle Creek Publishing & Audio from our ninth issue, Cut/Copy/Paste: The Remix!
Tiny Spoon: What was your process for engaging with the Cut/Copy/Paste Remix? How did you choose what to keep or what to omit?
David: Noting a few poems with lines that resonated with me and seeing within the collection of lines another alternate narrative. I tried to mostly cut up the entire original poem by lines and use them all, trying not to omit anything, but at times clipping words or fragments and moving them around in the space of the poem.
Tiny Spoon: What kindles your creativity?
David: Observation and being open to seeing variation. Transformation and experimentation.
Tiny Spoon: Are there any natural entities that move your work?
David: The flora and fauna of the wild in my region often inspire me to consider processes and experience differently than I might without encountering and observing them. Observing them reveals aspects of their nature or behavior that I often find is mirrored in the behaviors or processes or transformative aspects of myself.
Tiny Spoon: We’d love insight into your creative process. Could you share what it is like for you, either with your work that appears in Tiny Spoon or in general?
David: Often I write out lines as they come to me observed in the world or heard in my mind, at times I repeat phrases and play with word substitution to find attractive alliteration or rhythms that feel right syllabically or in the efficient flowing of the movement of tongue and breath, I can feel a good poem with my mouth, hear a good poem in my mind.
Tiny Spoon: Do you have any current or future projects that you are working on that you would like to share?
David: As the Founding Editor of Middle Creek Publishing, I am swamped with work on other people’s manuscripts, but I do write my own poetry daily and have a few manuscripts for poetic collections in the process as well as a couple of novels that are taking their ever-so-sweet time in their final stages of refinement.
Tiny Spoon: What book, artwork, music, etc., would you recommend to others?
David: I would be remiss to not recommend a few choice books that Middle Creek Publishing has put out, namely, Hush by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, In Beauty We Are Made Visible by Christine Morro, Hawk Land by Sandra Noel, Our Mother, The Mountain by Alexander Shalom Joseph, Exhalations by Aaron M. Moe and a couple soon to be released: the highly anticipated Breath on a Coal by Anne Haven McDonnell and Seeking the Button Rock Hermit by Tony Burfield.
All of these works are a blend of eco-poetry and heart-based, inspirational, almost devotional works. I also enjoy poets being published by Longbarrow Press, Corbel Stone Press, and most things from Copper Canyon (as usual).
Tiny Spoon: Is there anything else you would like others to know about you, your creations, or beyond?
David: I have been a lifelong outdoorsman who has coupled a meditative, mindfulness and observational investigative approach to my relationship with myself and the natural world I inhabit. This pairing has led me to deepen the map of my journey in a most personally satisfying way. It is in my interaction with nature and the other-than-human beings I encounter that have enriched both my life, my cognitive map, my philosophy, my sense of meaning of life and work and action in the world, as well as my writing and poetic practice.
Tiny Spoon: Where can people learn more about what you do? (Website, social media, etc., if you wish to share it)
David: My work with and aside from Middle Creek Publishing can be found on Facebook, Instagram and with some of the aspects of the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center where I am a caretaker and environmental educator.