MHCC Dean Sara Rivara Up for Book Award

Did you know that our Dean of Humanities and Social Science departments at Mt. Hood was just nominated for an Oregon Book Award for 2024?

Sara Quinn Rivara is an accomplished vocalist and poet, who recently published her third book of poetry, “Little Beast.” You’ve maybe seen her on campus, but now you get to hear about her personal thoughts and her literary work, through a recent Q&A session.

Advocate: When did you first start writing poetry?

Rivara: I have been writing since I was little, but I didn’t really think poetry was the thing for me until my freshman year of  college. I enrolled in a fiction class and the teacher was a total jerk. So I dropped out, then I happened to go into Diane Seuss’s Intro to Poetry class and I just fell in love. She was so weird, and suddenly it was like poetry wasn’t this hard thing that nobody understood.

A: What inspired you to write?

R: My life, I guess. So, Little Beast is my third book. All three of them have been about – and they weren’t supposed to be – but my first book, “Lake Effect” and then “Animal Bride,” which came after, all were written after my divorce from my first husband, which was no bueno. Don’t get married at 21. It was a really horrible situation being married to that man, and then being a single mom. One of the things when you are in an abusive marriage is that I didn’t think I was allowed to talk or tell my story. When I turned 30 and got divorced, I was just like “I’m gonna just tell the truth and I don’t care who hears it.”

So, I don’t know what inspires me. Just being alive? If I always waited to write until I was inspired, I’d never write anything at all.

A: Was there a central event or feeling that made you write this particular book?

R: Yes. I started writing this one in 2016. I’m probably not supposed to be political in my position, but (then came) the election of Donald Trump… My current husband – the good one – said, “No crazy person like that will ever get elected,” and I just remember watching that interview with Trump where he said something about how he’s rich or he’s famous so he can “grab women by the pussy.”

That is not okay, but it didn’t surprise me. I have seen how in family court and through living with an abusive partner, that people don’t listen to women. I was really angry. I had a lot of rage in me and I wanted to channel that. I think that was the precipitating event and then I don’t know, just the continuation of the hell I was living in at the time.

There has been a lot of good stuff in my life. I moved (to Oregon), I got married again, my kid loves it out here, but I also was just tired of writing about myself. I could see the parallels in my own life and what was happening in the larger world, and I wanted to explore things like, what have I learned from my experience that could be helpful to others?

A: Were there any poems you wrote that didn’t make the final cut that you wished had?

R: No, when I first started putting together books, I wanted to put everything in. But I learned to become a ruthless editor. I think teaching English for a long time was helpful with that. There are poems that will probably be in my next book that were written around the same time as the poems in this book. I feel pretty confident in my ability to cut things out, even if it feels like my baby.

A: What is your favorite poem from Little Beasts?

R: I think my favorite is that last poem, the title poem “Little Beast”. There’s a couple poems in the book where I wanted to be writing from this different persona, and I imagined this angry, avenging angel. Female, non-binary, non-cis-het male angel who was just pissed off and ready to light the whole world on fire. The last poem is short; I don’t usually write short poems because I talk a lot, obviously. That poem is why I titled the collection after it. I knew when I finished writing it that this was going to be the heart of whatever book I’m writing. I had been so afraid in my life for so long that I wanted to write a poem where I wasn’t afraid – where I was angry.

A: Is there anything you want to achieve with your writing in the future?

R: Well, you don’t become a poet to make a million dollars. I’m really grateful that I can write and I have a job where I get to talk to people who talk about writing. I guess being nominated for the Oregon Book Award was totally a shock, because that’s not something I ever thought would happen. I just wrote a little, tiny book on a little, tiny press (Riot in Your Throat).

Really, what I hope is that someone who is in a situation like I was in can read it. I felt voiceless for so long, and having taught for 15 years I knew that my students, what I had struggled with, they were struggling with, too. I saw women in shitty marriages, and single moms, people who came to class with a black eye and a pair of sunglasses.

I want, by being able to have my voice heard, to inspire others to find their voice.