Ryan Schmidt
What do you write?
I am a prolific writer of emails, occasional producer of scholarly research, and nascent creator of what I like to call poetry. When I want to seem smart, I say how my writing explores the intersection of self-awareness, conceptualization, and the mystery of life. Other times, I claim not to have any particular set scope. Like many writers who came before, I write to make sense of my thoughts, to discover what’s really on my mind.
Is there an author or artist who has most profoundly influenced your work?
I am naturally drawn to abstract concepts and thought. My poetry, by extension, tends to drift in that same direction. Naturally, at least. I am discovering new poetic influences every day that shake me out of my natural state, but I’d say William Carlos Williams was the first who showed me the power and complexity available in clear and simple imagery. His “no ideas but in things” harkens back to phenomenology’s “back to the things themselves.” Both are calls for being more present in the world. Something I aspire to be.
Why did you choose Stonecoast for your MFA?
There were only ever two options for me. Stonecoast. And that other program. I’m a pretty loyal guy, so once I narrowed in on what truly mattered to me (poetry focus, cross-genre flexibility, social justice ethos, residency model, and home court advantage), it was Stonecoast or bust. As luck would have it, Stonecoast felt the same way about me. The rest is to be determined…
What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?
That I can talk about publicly? That limits my options a bit but the late-night Ransom Notes games with fellow creatives (Fiction writers too!) while sitting around a roaring fire in the depths of a Maine winter certainly ranks near the top. Mid-semester cohort socials have also been a great source for building meaningful memories and solidifying long-term friendships.
What do you hope to accomplish in the future?
I would like to die of natural causes, late in life. Preferably after a great dinner with generous portions of red wine and ice cream. I want my greatest accomplishments to be warm conversations with my wife and daughters. Upon said death, I picture my family pulling my various writings off the bookshelf and staying up late into the night reminiscing, together. This is me saying I hope for love and peace and joy and everything else sentimental in this one, and hopefully long life. I’d also like to retire early. Very early.
If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?
Easy! Pre-pandemic, when I was aggressively pursuing a mid-life crisis, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six-part, 3,600 page, “My Struggle” series showed me how even the mundane can mesmerize. While I did not write this masterpiece, it did prove to be a discovery that launched me into a world of purposeful, and sometimes creative, writing. For that, I am thankful.
Dependent
After William Carlos Williams
I hear you sitting
next to me in bed
taking up half the space
wondering what I’m reading
and if you could read it to.
“So much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow”
you read,
six going on twenty-five,
but what depends, I wonder
and why so much
until I hear it again
in your voice
at your age
with all that might.
There we seek it
in the collective and the critique
arriving, revealing an evocative midriff
of bared stones, an au naturel poetique
exposed to the coast like a hieroglyph
in need of a safe harbor, our sacred
artistry carved and gutted, then hung by
the fire, burning irrationally, warmth eschewed
for ransom note soliloquies
magnetically upholding the lies
of an imposter idiom, for all
intensive purposes, there’s no hiding
our writing in this skit, residually
acting like neanderthals just beginning
to let our eyes adjust to the dark