If poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion, then Lachlan Woodson aptly captures that flow when she creates poems on the spot for passerbys who request her custom typewritten poetry. Woodson was born and raised in the Florida Panhandle with a writing practice born out of the compulsion to release thoughts and emotions. She finds inspiration in the words of others, and her poetic influences range from Rainer Maria Rilke and Emily Dickinson to singer-songwriters like Jenny Lewis and Phoebe Bridgers, as well as pop stars such as Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey.
You can find Woodson at Palafox Market on Saturdays, or you can delve into more of her personal writing with her latest zine: The Bloom/Wilt Cycle at Open Books. When she isn’t working on custom poems, her current writing project is a book about her time in the Pentecostal church as a child and the way it affects and inspires her to this day. After long since leaving the church and the faith, her book will answer the question: “Do I still feel the Holy Spirit just the same?”
Why create typewritten poems?
The typewriter really was a practical choice. I knew I wanted to do live writing–to write brand new pieces for people right in front of their very eyes and I knew I wanted to do it right on the street. A manual typewriter doesn’t even require electricity, so I can take my little desk literally anywhere. I type on a Stirling Smith-Corona. (Shoutout to my mechanic, Stephen Fulton, who sold me the typewriter out in Milton and still services it for me to this day.) I saw typewriter poets on the streets of New Orleans for the first time many, many years ago and thought to myself ‘oh, well there’s no way you’ll ever catch me doing that. This can’t even be real. There’s no way they can focus enough to write with people watching. Must be a scam.’ It turns out that it’s not, and that if you just practice writing enough, and get some really good over-ear headphones, you may just be able to tune out enough noise to access your imagination and write, regardless if people are trying to ask you questions in the middle of your writing flow.
How does your personal background shape your work, even when writing poems for others?
My background is what dug my creative well, my emotional well. I’ve been through a lot in my life. I’ve endured bullying, abuse, I’ve lost many loved ones that I held very dear to my heart, I’ve experienced major bouts of illness that lead to devastating isolation. All this and yet none of it has taken my imagination, my perspective or my voice. I go to the same well to write whether for myself or for someone else. Every layer of my inner world can now become a part of a patron’s poem as well as mine.
How has your poetry evolved since you first started writing?
My writing has gotten faster and more visceral. There’s less inside me standing between my voice and the page than ever before, so it has become more confident, less apologetic, and really just juicier.
What is your typical writing process like? Do you start with a theme, a phrase or an image?
My home writing process is quite different from my street writing process. At home, I start with a feeling, I see a tempest just off the shore and I know I must find my pen fast and capture my feeling. On the street, it starts with my patron’s prompt. This can be anything from a personal story they want captured to a single word like “renewal.” When I’m live writing a poem for someone on the street, I’d say it takes about 5 minutes once I’ve started typing. The whole process of gathering the prompt, mulling over my notes and then writing probably takes more like 10 or 15 minutes. Then I have poems at home that I’ve been chipping away at for years.
What is one thing you know now that you wish you’d known when you started writing?
By recognizing that I’m only ever hiding from myself. By remembering how to come home to my inner world and returning there over and over. The average reader does not need you to be as good as Rilke or Audre Lorde to appreciate your writing where it is right now. The highest expectations you’ll encounter are your own. Don’t wait to be “good” or “good enough” to start sharing your voice. Once you’ve felt the rush of connection through craft regardless of quality, you’ll have broken through a lot.