“How Life Inspires Art: An Interview with Margaret Elysia Garcia” by Jeremy Barretta

At a young age, stability can be one of the most important qualities to help us grow as people, but, as part of a military family, Margaret Elysia Garcia did not find much of that sought-for stability. Unlike her very active brother, who would adjust to their new lives quickly, Garcia struggled: “It would take me six months to be comfortable saying hello to other humans.” In that sense of isolation, Garcia found solace in the act of writing. During our discussion, we talked a lot about how our life experiences create the backbone of the art that we, as artists, make. Garcia remarked that her time spent traveling weighs heavy in her work, and that “instead of focusing on any one identity, it kind of focuses on human experience a bit more.” We discussed how art can be used as a response to the events in our lives: “one thing for me I know, because I grew up shyer, feeling inarticulate . . . I felt ignored and I felt passed over," but “writing was a way for me to respond to people way after they left the room.”
Life experience plays a heavy role in her poetry collection the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023). The poems take a reflective look at what life was like living with her daughter during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. Garcia explained how she saw it as therapeutic and that “we both wanted to forget that time . . . but at the same time I just wanted to capture where we are and who we were in that space." I talked to her about the decision to turn those experiences into poetry, and she responded, "For the daughterland, it seemed like the best place to be was poetry." Life also inspired Garcia to write Burn Scars, a poetry chapbook memoir detailing the events of the 2021 Dixie Fire. The thing that pushed her to write Burn Scars was her disappointment in the news coverage of the fire. Life always throws us curveballs at the most unexpected times, and, as she describes it, “I never thought I'd be writing about climate change or wildfires." Alongside the daughterland and Burn Scars, Garcia also authored Graft (Tolsun Books, 2022) a short story collection that takes place in the lower parts of southern California, past the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. She is also the co-editor of Red Flag Warning: Northern Californians Living With Fire, slated for publication in 2024, and she has a blog called Throwing Chanclas.
As far as writing poetry specifically, Garcia informed me that "I've spent my life going back and forth on poetry." We talked about what separates poetry from other forms of literature, thematically speaking. Garcia explained to me how poetry has a sense of intimacy to it and how that intimacy allows her to explore broader topics more personally, “I use poetry for intimacy while a lot of our press is political . . . It is quietly political, in the individual-everyday-space political." This isn’t new. She mentioned that a lot of her inspiration for writing poetry came from the books that she read as a kid, and the themes and ideas that were present in those books.
Finally, I think the biggest takeaway I got from this chat with Garcia was the idea of identity. Even though she moved around a lot as a kid, she eventually came back to California and has stayed there ever since: "I just think I encompass the whole state." Location plays a big role in who we are as people, and a strong connection to the place that you came from can be a great driving force behind a lot of life’s endeavors.

Jeremy Barretta

It's really easy to tell that he was born and raised in southern New Jersey, as he loves to talk about it. One of his favorite things from the Garden State is Wawa, a thing that only people from the East Coast know about. He is a Game Design student, currently in his third year at Woodbury. He also has a passion for screenwriting. As a Game student, it's easy to assume you will find him playing video games in his free time, but he loves to read comics/manga and is always down to watch a good movie.