Shari Caplan (she/her) is a poet, actor, and event producer with a passion for enlivening our collective imaginative potential. She’s the author of “Exhibitionist” (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2024, Paul Nemser Prize Winner), “The Red Shoes; a Phantasmagoric Ballet on Paper,” (Lambhouse Books, 2023), and “Advice from a Siren” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). A wearer of many tophats, she has produced and performed in “The Poetry Circus,” “The Fairy Tale Poetry Walking Tour,” and other cross-pollinations, including the Boston chapter of The Poetry Brothel, an international immersive cabaret series (founded by The Poetry Society of New York). Shari’s work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sinister Wisdom, Grimoire, Angime, Drunk Monkeys, and others and has earned her a scholarship to The Home School in Hudson, a fellowship to The Vermont Studio Center, as well as nominations for a Bettering American Poetry Award, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rhylsing Award. She graduated with an MFA from Lesley University in 2014. Find her work, workshops, monthly love letter to creativity, and upcoming events at ShariCaplan.com.
Kristina Marie Darling: Your new book, Exhibitionist, just launched from Lily Poetry Review Books. What would you like readers to know before they delve into the poems?
SC: The opening poem, “Ars Poetica with Influence from Marina Abramović” serves as the welcome message before you proceed into the exhibit hall.
For those who like some grounding in biography, the root of this book is my fundamental question about what the female gaze means. These poems are part of my process in exploring my discomfort, dysphoria, and evolution as a bisexual woman who discovered my attraction to women after marrying the man of my heart. They wonder about the value of being perceived as sexually attractive, how this perception warps us and the art we make, what forms love can take, and how to find wholeness in a society which constantly objectifies you. I’m also thinking through questions about persona versus the personal and how much the artist conceals/reveals for the audience’s catharsis.
While I write from my own experience, I think it’s important to reflect on how the words we use shape perception and include/exclude others. I’d like to state explicitly that when I use the word “female” in phrases such as “the female gaze,” I am thinking about the feminine as an energy we each possess. Our language around gender is evolving; my relationship to writing about gender as a cis woman who supports trans rights and gender expansiveness is always in process.
KMD: I love how your collection incorporates images and artworks. What’s so compelling is that the relationship between text and image isn’t merely illustrative. Instead, images complicate the poems, call them into question, enrich them. Can you speak to the rewards and possibilities of text and image hybrids?
SC: Thank you! I’m glad to hear that. I think it’s important that the images really serve a purpose if they are to be printed alongside text. For one thing, it’s expensive to print images, especially in color. I’m extremely grateful to Lily Poetry Review Books for seeing the necessity of printing the collages for Exhibitionist. I created the “collage sculptures” to add pauses for the reader without hard section breaks. I think of “Exhibitionist” as an installation or gallery which the reader walks through. I wanted to give them room to stop and consider and I saw that there was an opportunity to enhance the conversation I’m having with visual art at the same time. Each image reconfigures sculptural elements to reflect the theme of the body treated as object versus whole being. Over the course of the book, the collages move away from objectification towards integration. The process of creating them was intuitive and organic and I wanted to preserve that in the book, while also ensuring that there was a thematic resonance between the image and the poems surrounding it. This book is less logical than section breaks would allow.
Two books which I looked at as successful models for including image with poetry were Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen,” and Shira Erlichman’s “Odes to Lithium.” Rankine curates a series of images by black artists as well as from current events. Her cropping of the photograph “Public Lynching” John Lucas shows the crowd of white participants/spectators, shielding the black body while emphasizing the responsible parties. She illustrates the current, personal stakes of the image in the preceding poem, where she writes “we are all caught hanging, the rope inside us, the tree inside us... when we open our mouth to speak, blossoms, o blossoms.” Erlichman’s book gives us a glimpse into her experience living with bipolar. No matter the form a poem takes, there’s a dominating neatness to a poem on a page, while Erlichman’s images feel raw, tactile, in process. Not everything can be said, some things have to be worked through between the mind, the eye, the hand, and we get to go with her on that journey.
KMD: You have stated previously that you have a dual passion for the accessible and the experimental. What advice do you have for poets using experimental techniques who might struggle to connect with their audience on a more affective level?
SC: To me, “experimental” involves thinking about the modality, making choices to challenge, transform or transcend the art form. This is why experimentation is often meta. Abstraction asks the viewer to bring more of themselves to the work, while representation is more directive. Experimentation also means playfulness and fun! Having fun is important. It doesn’t always lead to an experience the viewer can enter into.
When it comes to accessibility, it’s a question of two things for me: first, are you giving people enough grounding? Alienation may come from them not having enough of a foothold to enter the work. Second and relatedly, who is your audience? If you know who you aim to speak to, it’s easier to see where that line is between affecting and experimental. Maybe you only want to make this piece for other poets with a background in a certain mythology or school of thought and if they get it, you have achieved your goal.
I will also say that sometimes experimental work has a longer timeline, so folks may not have an immediate response. Some of my favorite artworks, from dance pieces to readings to sound events have been difficult because they challenged my ability to stay present and attentive, but later, I was so grateful for the experience.
Personally, as long as there is an emotional core to my work and as long as I know there’s an electricity to the poem, I feel there’s enough of an entry point for the reader to continue to unfold with it if they choose to.
KMD: In addition to your accolades as a poet, you are a trained actor with a specialization in feminist retellings. What has acting opened up within your practice as a poet?
SC: Oh, so many things! I’m a real nerd about acting, but I’ll try to keep it brief. As an actor, I get to try out all these wild scenarios and difficult experiences and conversations and choices without any personal consequences. I can vulnerably share the most intense desires and actions with the audience without them knowing anything about me. The truth can be shared without the biography.
As a writer, I like to try on characters and see what from my own subconscious will come out through the mask of persona. While I do share raw personal truths through poetry, I go back to the question of how much the artist owes to the audience’s catharsis. “Impostor Syndrome Visits Queen Elizabeth” processes my ongoing debate with myself about how much to reveal/conceal as a writer.
The theater has also led me to experiment with the script as a format. I started writing multivocal texts. This led me to my recent chapbook “The Red Shoes; a phantasmagoric ballet on paper,” (Lambhouse Books, 2023) which translates the experience of being in flow onstage while retelling and queering Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of the same name. It also pays homage to the 1948 film, which I worship.
I also think the sense of play in rehearsal, of trying things out and seeing what does and doesn’t stick, helps me be less precious as a writer. Acting works the muscle of experimentation. It also requires one to eliminate self-consciousness. I almost never have to battle an inner critic when it comes to drafting poems, though I am a rigorous editor when revising.
KMD: Can you speak to the importance of exploring other disciplines, and having experiences outside of and beyond the literary community, for one’s writerly craft?
I think every writer can benefit from having interests outside of writing – even if only to have a well-rounded, robust life! We can underestimate the importance of our own happiness.
Cate Marvin talked to me about the writer’s “palette” when we worked together and how living in different places adds more colors to your palette. Douglas Kearney, a force in opera and poetry, taught me a revision technique based on music videos. Everything informs what we write. Every skill has its own vocabulary; when I was writing “The Red Shoes” I learned a bit about shoemaking and there were words like “spirit lifter” and “welt beater” just waiting for me to pick them up and drop them into a poem. It all goes into the pot, so whatever you do outside of writing will become part of that rich broth. Let it all into the work and you will have something no one else could create.
KMD: What are you working on? What can readers look forward to?
SC: I will be touring throughout 2024-25 and readers can look for me in London, NYC, LA, Philly, at AWP 2025, and of course in the Boston area. I’m excited to teach a workshop with Lily Poetry Review on May 9 about reading your work to an audience, so folks can come learn some helpful techniques from me there. I love helping writers learn to be more authentic and connected onstage.
My chapbook, “The Red Shoes; a phantasmagoric ballet on paper” was released in September 2023 through Lambhouse Books, so people wanting more can purchase that now. I have another chapbook which is essentially finished, which centers around Tippi Hedren’s fraught experiences with Alfred Hitchcock when filming The Birds and Marnie. I’m not ready to release that into the wild just yet.