BookView Review

Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we talked to Jenny Bienemann about her writing and recently released book, Sundays with Jenny Bienemann, a profound, reflective, and timeless collection of haiku that captures the essence of life’s quiet moments. (read the review here).

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What inspired you to start taking a photo and writing haiku?

The first choice is start

the second is continue

there are no others

As long as I can remember, if there was any amount of beverage left in my glass, I would go outside, throw the liquid up into the sky, and watch it fall. I loved doing that: watching with the light shine through water, hearing the rushing water fall, seeing the beautiful designs the water makes on the ground.

I had this romantic notion that I would take a photo of water flung in the air, and allow my immediate response to the photo to create a haiku. In as close to the moment of creation as possible, I would invite everyone I knew to experience that thrilling moment with me.

On September 10, 2017, I had been enjoying the idea that I would do that, someday, for a long time.

And it hit me: I needed to do the idea, or I would lose it. It would be over. The way a crush ends. The way a bubble bursts. I couldn’t have that.

Looked at my phone, it was at 20% charge. I took my water bottle into the alley, threw it up against the sky like I always do, and took photos. The results were…spectacularly unspectacular.

So I ran in the house, got a glass of water. This time, it would WORK! I had learned where to stand, what direction to face, and the arm motions to use. I took photos expecting the thrill I had always found to there, but there was nothing inspiring: no sparkle in the water drops; no compelling designs on the ground where the water fell; plus I was getting soaked.

I dashed back into the house, grabbed a flower vase, calculated the angle of the sun and realized it was in the front of the house, not in the alley where I had been. I stood in the street, waiting for the cars to pass. I threw the water in the air…

…and guess what…I got something!

And now, with my phone on 10% charge and the clock ticking, it was time for the next part of my mission:
gazing at the photo and writing a haiku.

A haiku is 3 lines of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.
I came up with this:

Flinging the water
Singing, the sun shines through it
I just learned to fly

And I have just kept going.

What does literary success look like to you?

Opening, the book

finds its light and turns, softly

the beholder’s heart

To read good writing is to feel one has a friend in the world. 

First and foremost, literary success is writing that leaps from the mind to the heart to the “soft animal of your body,” as Mary Oliver puts it. It is writing that animates a visceral, felt connection between you and yourself that takes root and grows within you a new path to living in the ancient light of life. 

All worldly literary success grows from this.

After the writing’s finished, how do you judge the quality of your work?

everything is judged

by the way it makes us feel

not by what it is

I know if the piece of writing works if it gives me a feeling of “Ah HA!” Or, it might fill me with a feeling that the piece always existed and I’m just the messenger. I know I like it (which is different than judging it) because of how it makes me feel. That’s why all art is subjective. Sometimes you get the feeling right in your work, or at least to your own satisfaction, but it doesn’t resonate with your readers. Other times, you think you have got the feeling completely wrong and your readers tell you it’s one of the most meaningful things they have ever experienced. In any case, how it makes me feel is the starting point.

Who and what ultimately inspired you to become a writer?

you know what is right

you can avoid it, but still

it will track you down 

I love reading. I always knew I was supposed to be a writer. Early on, one of my English teachers told me I had “a great sensitivity to literature.” I loved reading SO MUCH when I was a child that my Mom would get mad at me for not doing my chores around the house instead of reading. When I went to college I felt guilty for reading books I needed to read for class! And if I’m honest, I still feel guilty as an adult about surrendering to a good book. I believe absorbing writing is a miracle, one of life’s dearest and most valuable companions.

Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?

I can probably 

do this if I can forget

I do not know how

This is a form of a question I get a lot. The basic question is: can anyone do this? Do have to have been born with something special?

I am one who believes that yes, anyone can write, all the time, in any circumstances, with no training or with all the training in the world. 

To the specific question of does one have to feel emotions deeply to write well, I say while emotion is one way in, there are many others. 

All writing, including songwriting, is an attunement to the sparkles on the water that you just keep following. You have to forget that you don’t know how to do it, and just follow. That’s it! I share what has worked for me in my “Sweet Spot” workshop.

How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

when they ask for it

you’d better give it to them

or they’ll stop asking

Another great question! Pretty much as soon as I started taking photos and writing haiku, people started asking if I would be making a book. 

I loved the idea…but when I reviewed the first three months of my work, I didn’t find anything that suggested to me I was ready to make a book. 

Nine months in, people were still asking, and growing more and more disappointed when I said no. I began to think, I actually have an audience asking me to make something for them! You know how rare that is? So I decided I would go for it. 

And don’t you know…once I decided I was going to make a book, my haiku and images got so. much. better!!!  I mean, notably better, at least to me. 

This taught me (again) that the audience knows best. Since then, I have embraced the audience as a collaborator and have given them avenues to join me in the act of creation with the “Haiku Your Milieu” segment of the Sunday Haiku Milieu newsletter, and with songwriters in the Haiku Milieu concerts.

What makes this book important right now?

reflect and connect

let go of what doesn’t work

come home to yourself

This book is a feast for the senses: the book itself has heft. The interior design draws you in. The photos and haiku are powerful because they ignite the imagination, and now more than ever we need to be reminded of the power and beauty of human creativity and our imagination.

How does your faith life/ethical outlook inform your writing?

once you have known love

you know that your only job

is to be loving

I take my responsibility as a person who has known love, to love. This is the lens through which I write and examine my writing.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

facing the blank page

one part terror, two parts joy

and then you begin

Facing the blank page is the most difficult part for me.  

I define “the blank page” as anything I have never thought before, or tried to express before. So many times while I am writing a haiku, I think, “Ohh…I didn’t know that I thought that!” And then while I am writing it, it is one part terror, two parts joy trying to do it justice in 17 syllables.

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