Susanne Dyckman: California Poets Part 9, Four Poems

Susanne Dyckman

December 22nd, 2025

California Poets: Part IX

Susanne Dyckman

Four Poems

Light:   visual receptor stimulation to make possible inner truth

light passing

we are listening for it

light at play

our voices an occasion

of light

lost in the air of it

Air:  the invisible surrounding a celestial object

meeting here:

a guitar, a woman

the same and not

as the moon card which                     

does not cause the moon                    

but unwinds it     

Moon: visible chiefly by reflection

nowhere changes to somewhere

in minute variations—

lost in a labyrinth

strangers pass as ourselves

the moon disappears

the horizon rounds and fills

we too round and fill

each day, unpacking our story

while lightning and sand make glass

and arcs of white water turn green

Water: bluish in layers from above

our boat is a box

            that moves in a sea of giant ghosts

                                    one of wives and widows,

                                                                        robbers and men

the boat tattoos the water

and our speech, a kind of thunder

or madness,   

empties into the waves as wonder 

Interview

February 14th, 2026

California Poets Interview Series:

Susanne Dyckman, Poet

interviewed by David Garyan

DG: In Albany, California you hosted the Evelyn Avenue Summer Reading Series. Could you talk a bit about the reading series, the atmosphere, what writers appeared, and so on?

SD: I have a large backyard which I thought could be a casual venue for readings on Sunday afternoons, more of a poetry party than a formal event. I hosted several each summer with a group of two or three poets at every reading. I’d invite mostly Northern California poets to read but liked to include those who lived out of the area whenever possible. Given that there were up to three readings each year over a five year period (with occasional readings since) a complete list of poets who were highlighted would be too long to include here.

DG: The writing of After Effects was greatly shaped by the work of George Oppen, particularly the poem “Of Being Numerous.” In this respect, you have talked about your fascination with cities and people’s relationship to them. The poems themselves play with italicized lines and creative line breaks. Can you talk a bit about the composition of this particular collection and whether the form was meant to reflect the chaotic dynamism of cities?

SD: I very much like your phrase “the chaotic dynamism of cities,” and I draw on that in my work, though I don’t directly write about city life. I come from city people and feel at home in an urban environment. My family was from Chicago, where I was born, and I spent my formative years in West Philadelphia. Though I now live, and have for many years, in California, I have never lost a sense of being from, and belonging to, a major city, where all one needs to do is walk down a street to experience being part of a energetic whole. Oppen’s “Of Being Numerous” speaks to my appreciation of all a city encompasses, seen through both a wide lens and a narrow one.

After Effects started as a series inspired by  what was for me the quiet excitement of Oppen’s work, using a line or partial line of his as a starting place for my own poems. After writing a number of pieces after “Of Being Numerous,” I continued the process using the work of other poets as well. The full collection of After Effects is indebted to all of those poets whose work became my starting point.

The italicized lines in each poem were taken from other lines in the collection. My hope was that they’d add to my reflection on the circularity of thought. While the initial work was written in a dense prose form, the spaciousness of the italicized lines felt like a good balance to what had preceded them.

DG: The four works featured in the ninth part of California Poets all feature very interesting line breaks and spacing. When reading the poems, do they also signify pauses or is there a certain way they’re supposed to be delivered?

SD: I use a variety of approaches in my writing and my choices are often made intuitively. Using the page as an open canvas seemed appropriate to the subject and tone of the work included in California Poets. I think of my poetry as a kind of thought meditation, or a reflection of how the mind makes connections, and sometimes that comes as rapid fire and other times needs to slow down. The four poems fall into the latter category, and are all linked. The first starts with light and ends with air, the second starts with air and ends with moon, and the pattern continues with the third, finishing with the fourth. They are intentionally quieter than some of my other poems, and the spacing is meant to make room for that type of reflective response. Each word is allowed to carry more weight when spread out across the page. Space itself can be meaning.

DG: I’d like to stay with the poems and talk about the punctuation. In total, there are five commas, one colon (not including the titles), and one em dash in the four poems, but no periods. Is this done to preserve the lower-case letters in the pieces or is there also another reason?

SD: The general lack, or very limited use, of punctuation was another approach I used in the hope each line would move slowly, even cautiously, into the next. As a whole they are to be read slowly, and the placement of a colon, em dash, or comma was to allow for an extra pause in the overall flow of the words. I didn’t use any periods because I didn’t feel any of the lines needed a full stop, beyond the spacing.

DG: You have taught creative writing at the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State. What do your curriculums generally look like? What authors do you like to assign? And how do these activities inform your own work?

SD: While I taught several classes and was a thesis adviser as well, teaching was never my full-time job. But I did love to do it and learned much from my students. It also strengthened my belief that powerful poetry can be written in many different forms and on many different subjects.

For the undergraduate class, which was a something of a survey class, blending lectures and a writing practice, I used A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Frances Mayes, and Postmodern American Poetry: A Morton Anthology, edited by Paul Hoover. For the graduate level classes I sampled a number of poets (some from the works above) but the focus was primarily on the students’ writing and experimentation with styles. I also worked as a thesis adviser for MFA graduate students, where we collaborated on how best to put their existing work into a coherent manuscript.

DG: When is the best time to write? And do you always write in the same place?

SD: When I was working full-time, I’d always try to write in the morning before leaving the house. Since I’m no longer limited by a nine to five schedule, I find the best time for me is from mid-morning through early afternoon. I do tend to re-read work late in the evening, which allows for a different perspective, useful for editing.

Though I used to write in a small, somewhat dark office space, during  the COVID years I switched to my kitchen table, where all living seemed to take place for a time. That is where I now continue to write, feeling it’s the center of my home, having the most windows and best natural light.

DG: The hardest thing for a writer is finding time to write. Apart from teaching what other things are you balancing in life at the moment and how do you find space for yourself in the midst of that?

SD: I haven’t taught for a number of years, and as I’ve mentioned, I’m no longer rushing off to an office job every morning, so the challenge of juggling work, family, and writing has eased. That my life continues to feel full is something I celebrate, but it also requires that I still find a way to balance my needed time alone with other activities of daily living, both the necessary and the pleasurable.

DG: No writing is ever done alone. It cannot exist without readers, at least, and preferably a community of supporters. Who are some people that’ve helped you along the way and that you’re thankful for?

SD: I have many to be thankful for. The bonus of having gone back to school for an  MFA was that it facilitated my becoming part of a community of writers with whom I’m still in touch. The faculty during  my time at the University of San Francisco was excellent, and they opened for me the possibilities of poetry,  through both their teaching and their own work.

I agree that writing requires readers, and I am fortunate to be in the company of other poets with whom I can share  work. I am part of two writing groups that meet monthly , and I meet once a week with a friend to exchange comments on whatever are our current projects. I get to read and discuss the work of those in my groups and am always impressed by their skill. Each poet has a distinct approach to what constitutes a poem, and I feel that reading their work enriches my own.

DG: What are you reading or working on these days?

SD:  I recently read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, which was, in contrast to the version I read as an undergraduate, fascinating. That Wilson portrays Odysseus as such a morally ambiguous character was eye-opening. I can also include Marjorie Stein’s An Atlas of Lost Causes which I found beautifully written and haunting.

It’s a pleasure to discover something new, but I do have favorites  I return to when I need or want the comfort and inspiration of known poetry. Among two I reach for often are Wallace Stevens and Pattie McCarthy. Just now, scanning my bookshelves to answer your question, I had to restrain myself from adding other names to this list, though I do want to include Dictee, by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. There is too much good poetry to read, and that’s a wonderful thing.

As for my own work, I finished a full-length manuscript last year and have been looking ahead to whatever might be next, without a clear idea of exactly what that will be. I have found that I am most productive when I let something develop unexpectedly. It’s a type of serendipitous approach. In the meantime, I’ve been sharing writing prompts with two other poets and have been pleased with the results. I enjoy the feeling of “what would happen if” when I set out to try something new. And that helps me grow as a writer.

Author Bio:

Susanne Dyckman is the author of the full length  poetry collections equilibrium’s form (Shearsman Books), A Dark Ordinary (Furniture Press Books), and Rendered Paradise, a collaboration with the poet Elizabeth Robinson (Apogee Press). She’s had six chapbooks published, and her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, most recently Posit, Winter in America (Again), and Two Cherries. She has taught in the creative writing programs at the University of San Francisco and SF State University, and for a number of years hosted the Evelyn Avenue Summer Reading Series. She lives in Albany, California.