'I Learn by Going Where I Have to Go' with Poet Leila Chatti

On Tuesday, April 16, 2024, the Friends of Theodore Roethke joined virtually for the 'I Learn by Going Where I Have to Go' speaker series event with poet Leila Chatti.

Chatti began her talk by introducing us to her relationship with the poet Dorianne Laux, a mentor and later good friend, who taught her how to say things as they are when writing poetry. Chatti quoted Laux, “Save all the frills and jazzy parts for your clothing.” Chatti and Laux connected through sharing love and loss for their mothers, conversations which inspired Chatti to feel comfortable using the confessional poetic form.

Chatti continued by sharing deeply personal connections to her poetry. With encouragement from her mentor Dorianne Laux, Chatti wrote about her challenge with illness, writing poems during that period which ultimately lead to the publication of her chapbook, Figment. Before working through the emotions she experienced during this medical challenge, Chatti had felt that “to write about the body was to invite shame.”

Poet Anita Skeen engaged Chatti in discussing the importance of networking with other writers and poets for direction, encouragement, and inspiration. Chatti shared several of her poems alongside work from her mentor, Dorianne Laux.  Chatti mentioned how she was influenced by poems of Sharon Olds, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath, telling the audience that these women inspired her to share personal pain, and concluded by reading a poem by Plath, then one by Sexton, along with the poems she had written directly in response to those works.