Ellen Burstyn
Author of POETRY SAYS IT BETTER
Ellen Burstyn photographed by Taylor Jewell
Known for her poignant performances (including Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The Exorcist, and Requiem for a Dream), Ellen Burstyn has been captivating audiences for more than seven decades. An accomplished performer of both stage and screen—she is co-president of the Actors Studio alongside Al Pacino and Alec Baldwin, and has won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony—admirers of her work may be surprised to hear that Burstyn is also a fervent and lifelong lover of poetry. Her latest offering, Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up is a delightful contemplation of the poems that have guided her through life.
“Poetry, especially great poetry, pierces the heart of the reader via their imagination. Sometimes the words are meant to be at face value, but not always in poetry. It is about the imagination.”
A celebration of language, joy, and connection, Burstyn’s collection is a testament to the prevailing power of a genre that is often dismissed by the casual reader.
This collection was written for people who aren’t familiar with, or don’t love poetry. How did that idea come about?
People are really missing out on something good if they don’t know poetry. It has really enriched my life so much. I’ve loved poetry ever since high school, and I carry that with me. My life would not be as interesting to me if I didn’t have poetry. It was an idea at the back of my mind. My agent said, I understand that you love poetry—why don’t you write a book about it? And I went YES! Exactly! And I know just who I’m going to be writing it for. It was already cooking. I leapt at the suggestion. I happen to love language. The thing that poetry does—it sets up images in your mind. It’s a combination of stimulating the imagination, and then at the same time the rhythm and the meter, and the music of poetry. I love that quote of Mary Oliver’s, “Poetry is the music of language.”
What was the writing process like? Do you have a favorite place or time to write?
I remember when I wrote my memoir, I got up in the morning, made myself a cup of tea, and wrote. I didn’t quite have the same kind of schedule for this—I did write every day that I could, and usually I started in the morning, but it wasn’t really regimented. When I’m writing, I find that I’m always writing. Even at night when I’m sleeping, I’m writing. It’s hard to turn it off. There’s something I found about writing that’s addictive. It keeps on going in your brain. When you put the pencil or pen down, it doesn’t stop.
“I want to share the consciousness-raising wisdom and pure pleasure of reading poetry with my fellow poetry lovers—but even more I hope I can introduce poetry to those who haven’t yet discovered how poetry can enrich both their minds and their hearts.”
—Ellen Burstyn
I love that you share so much about how reading poetry can make a person feel.
The fact of it sending off these images, I wrote in there about my niece who has this condition where her brain doesn’t form images, and I can’t imagine that. I asked her to listen to a poem and tell me what happens, and she told me afterwards that she heard the words and she understood them. And I said, no images came? And she said, no none at all. But that to me is just a deficit—to go through life and miss that. Because it’s such a beautiful experience.
There’s the words on the page and you read them, they come off the page and you understand what the words are, but then there’s also the music of the words, and how they relate to one another. How there are inner rhymes and meters and it’s like a verbal song of some kind. And then there are the images that come! It’s like a multi-sensory experience. You hear the poem, you see the poem—and then you feel emotionally the poem. It just plays on you, like you’re an instrument.
You write about growing up in a house without poetry or books. If you, Ellen today, could send your teenage self one book or poem which would it be?
The poem that woke me up, that said “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” - that made me go oh! I get it! It doesn’t always have to be like this! I can do what I want with my life. That was such a—it was like a blessing came and showered me with words. It made me be really positive about the future, because I was in very difficult circumstances. I think I loved poetry so much because of that—because the idea I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul— those words went into me so deeply and had such a profound effect that I fell in love with poetry. For life!
How has poetry informed your acting career? Would you ever use poetry as a tool to better know a character you were playing, to delve deeper into a role?
I’m not remembering a specific role, but I very often read poetry while I’m backstage kind of thing. I remember I did a film a couple of years ago and there was a young actress on it and when I came into the central room where we gathered she had on her chair a book of Mary Oliver. And I went—I’m gonna like this girl. Isn’t Mary Oliver just the most wonderfull?! She’s so brilliant and graceful and funny and deep and artistic—she’s just amazing.
I think she also gave language to what is so often overlooked. In my life, poetry sort of began in the garden. Being a child in the garden going through the weeds, the flowers seem so high, looking at them and taking them in - I feel that way when I read Mary Oliver’s poems, this sense of exploration, love, joy, fascination—and I think so many people walk by those things every day and don’t really consider them. They don’t really consider the gardens or the bees and Mary Oliver gives those things such a vibrant life on the page…
She really is the master. Just before she died I thought—I really want to meet her and I really want to talk to her. I’m going to try and get an interview with her, try for a meeting. I had my agent call her agent and was told no, she’s not meeting anyone anymore, she’s ill. She died shortly afterwards and I felt unforgivable that I didn’t act sooner.
At the same time, you’ll always be connected to her though her poetry. There’s something so special about that connection. But that would have been incredible if you would have been able to sit down with her and ask her questions.
I don’t know what kind of person she was—when I say that I don’t mean that she could have possibly be a nasty witch—there’s no way in the world, she was too beautiful a soul. But she might have not have been very sociable. It’s very possible, living her life as she did, going out in the woods everyday, writing a poem to a grasshopper. She might not have been a very social person.
Are there any poets that you’ve been excited to discover recently?
Kaveh Akbar I really took to when I met him. Jericho Brown.
Do you ever write your own poems or journal?
I journal. I used to journal everyday but since writing the book I haven’t, and I’m working on another book right now.
How your relationship to poetry has strengthened and deepened over time?
The more poems I know, the more go off in my head in various moments. Especially outdoors, walking. And I’ve collected more poems inside—and that’s very nourishing somehow. To be walking and something you see, your eyes trigger a poem and that unreels itself in your mind.
“One of the things I love about poetry is the way poets see. Their gaze penetrates the surface and goes to the heart of things. It’s not just the object being looked at—it’s more what the poetic gaze illuminates about the meaning of the object, whether it’s a flower, a path, a door, or a feeling.”
—Ellen Burstyn
Ellen Burstyn on the magic of "poetry packs"
I loved your poetry packs! I feel like I need to start my own.
I was just looking at my poetry pack this morning to decide which poems I’m going to travel with. It’s nice to change them up every now and then.
If you could host a dinner party with any three poets as guests, living or dead, who would you invite? What would you ask them?
Well, Mary Oliver would be number one! Edna St. Vincent Millay. Yates comes to mind. Poe… might be a little strange a dinner guest. Although, I don’t know. It would be worth his strangeness…
An interesting mix. That’s a party.
And who else? I guess I’m happy with those.
Near the end of the collection, you write - “Joy is the most blessed kind of spiritual food. It literally feeds the spirit.” I’ll end the interview with this question – what’s been bringing you joy lately?
My dog. Kerri brings me joy. Playing with her in the park. Throwing the ball and having her bring it back. And of course listening to music. I listen to classical music and I love that. Just what my eyes are seeing right now—the water, and the sparkly day. The cherry trees blossoming. I never noticed it before, but the white cherry trees are blossoming before the pink ones… I’ve never noticed that before. That’s enough joy isn’t it?!
Ellen Burstyn is an award-winning actress whose career has spanned over seven decades.
Poetry Says It Better: Poems to Help You Wake Up is available in bookstores everywhere.
Interview by Emma Leokadia Walkiewicz
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