Talking to Ellyn Maybe on the phone is a surreal experience. You can hear the ideas swishing around in her head before they tumble through the receiver. She giggles and pauses to think about her response. She says “Ye-a-a-ah” stretched and slow showing that she’s thnking about something you said. The tone of her voice colored by her Milluakee childhood and a 60’s hippie vocabulary. She has a tendency to trail off as if her answers continue toward infinity on some different plane.

Jazz: How did you get your nom de plume (Maybe)?

Maybe: I felt too shy to ever read. The first time I read was at an open reading where they had 19 readers and they wanted 20. People were going, ‘Oh Ellyn can read!’ So I read at that, really shy about the whole thing… People were encouraging. The first few readings I went to, when it was time to sign up, I put in parentheses (Maybe I’ll read) because I wasn’t sure. It was pretty scary.

Jazz: Will you keep the 'Maybe' or revert back to your given name?

Maybe: I think I’ll keep it, because I can be indecisive. It seems to be good, kind of serendipidous in a way.

Jazz: Is 'Maybe' a persona, or differnt than the person you were before. I tend to think of 'Jimmy Jazz' as a public persona.

Maybe: That’s interesting (she giggles.) I think because I’m pretty shy and stuff reading is still… when I read I can get giggly, things can just happen… It’s a fun name. I like it.

Jazz: Tell me about your life before you were a poet and doing readings in public.

Maybe: Oh Wow! I lived in New York. I grew up in Wisconsin, in Milluakee until 11th grade, moved to [CA] with my family. I’d always wanted to go to NY on a trip, but everyone is kind of scared, intimidated by NY. When I was 20 I decided to move there, because it seemed a place that beared years to be there really… So I lived there from ‘84 to ‘87. I was an apprentice at the Village Voice and the Actor’s Studio, like stage productions and research and fact checking at the Village Voice. It was an intense thing.

Jazz: So I can guess that your literary aspiratrions started out early in life. The things that lead up to you being a writer and a poet.

Maybe: It’s interesting because I wrote when I was really little, stories and things, quite young, but I didn’t have a lot of confidence; I still don’t have a lot of confidence. In NY I walked by a bookstore and there was a mannequin holding books in the display window and these lines of poetry just came in my head, these images and I went back to the ‘Y’ where I lived. It was the 92nd street ‘Y’ which was really intense ‘cause they had a poetry center and a library and a chamber orchestra. It was a really cultural place, really neat. I wrote a poem which just came stream of conscious, and that’s how they all have come. Then I came to CA. I started to go to poetry events to hear stuff. My first reading was November 1988, the first time I read in public.

Jazz: Do you still have writing from when you were a kid?

Maybe: Yeah, it’s around, but with the earthquake. I don’t know how easy it is to find. We had to evacuate our apartment.

Jazz: Obviously you see some kind of growth, but is there a progression or a point where you suddenly become a “great poet?” 

Maybe: When I was living in Milluakee I wrote this story about coming to CA and meeting Barry Manilow. It was a triolgy. It was dreamlike, kind of a hope. So I guess I’ve always written long stuff (giggle) cause I write longer poems.I’m sorry I ‘m so surreal in talking.

Jazz: It’s okay Ellyn. How did you meet Howard Zinn?

Maybe: I go to a lot of different talks and lectures and I listen a lot to KPFK [public radio in LA.] I like learning. I went to hear Howard Zinn and Michael Parenti, these historians-­wonderful, just really insightful historians. Sometimes when you really admire someone’s work, you want to show them what you do too, you feel a kindredness. I gave them my chapbook. They both wrote me within a week these nice letters about my poetry and I was just stunned. I was like dancing in the post office. ‘This is so amazing!’

Jazz: What connection do the historians have to the writing in Cowardice of Amnesia?

Maybe: I like writing about different things that inspire, like the free speech movement. I’ve gone down to the Pacifica Archives and listened to some of the talks, something I enjoy doing is the archival thing. It’s part of the fabric of the poems, it’s so close to my heart. There are a lot of different eras that I feel resonant with.

Jazz: I notice that Zinn’s work has a way of telling history from his own presonal experience. Do you see that in your work too?

Maybe: Yeah, a lot of personal feelings toward different experiences. I also like how Zinn and Parenti incorporate humor.

Jazz: So when you write a poem do you try to make it funny? 

Maybe: Certain poems have that tone more than others, depending on the poem. It just happens.Yeah.

Jazz:I noticed themes run through a lot of the poems: music, virginity, your weight…

Maybe: Stuff that’s impacted me a lot comes out in the work. Yeah. 

Jazz: How did music get to be such a big part of your work?

Maybe: Oh wow. I’ve always loved it so much. My parents took me to this summer stock musical thater. When we were little we went once a year. It was just neat. And I’d hear stuff like Tony Bennet and Frank Sinatra. One time I read an article about Leonard Cohen, a vague referenceand then I was at someone’s house and they had a Cohen record and I said ‘Can we her this please?’ It was stunning! I constantly listen to the radio. I love it. I still listen to a lot of Leonard Cohen, Phil Ochs, Dylan. I like Stan Ridgeway a lot, X all kinds of different things… I feel like there’s a lot of inspiration in the local community too, the arts.

Jazz:Are there some themes that are finding your work right now?

Maybe: I’ll have to look back and see what’s there. I tend not to revise and I tend to write stream of conscious, but I also wait until the poem is so gelled that it just comes out when it’s ready. Basically, I don’t do anything until the poem is like saying in my head, ‘Hey, I want to come out, come on get the paper.’ I don’t know what it would be like to sit down and try to conjur something up…

Jazz: What does that say for a university writing class, when the professor says write a poem for class today?

Maybe: I can see that working too. I was writing music and event reviews for this paper called the Village View. But there were deadlines and I would only hope that something would gel and it tended to.

Jazz:Do youtend to separate the kind of writing that goes into a poem or an article?

Maybe: You know I haven’t. What happened was that they wanted me to write in the paper because they dug my poetry, but then I wrote poetic reviews. I mean sometimes they were very poetic. And then they started taking me off events ‘cause they said I was getting too far poetically. [I laugh.] It was weird ‘cause it brought me back to when I was in high school, they said I was a good writer, but I was too colloquial. They wanted me to rewrite the English paper because it wasn’t standard English. It was a strange experience because someone I like in journalism very much is Michael Ventura because there’s definitely a poetic and philosophical thing going on with his essays. He was very encouraging when I was going through that. ‘If you ever have any trouble call me,’ he said. ‘I like what you’re doing.’And Exene. I’ve been very lucky to have people I admire so much being just there.

Jazz:How did you meet Exene Cervenka?

Maybe: I met her originally at a benefit she did and I went up to tell her how much I enjoyed hearing her. And as I started  to walk up to her, she’s like, “You’re terrific!” It was so stunning. I was going to faint. She was so nice and sweet. She was asked to read at Beyond Baroquein ‘96 or ‘97 and pick who she wanted to read with and she chose me which was so nice. We did stuff there and on the radio--KPFK. She says she’s never done this, but she thinks I should have my work widely out there so she sent my chap book and a few other poems to Henry [Rollins] and she wrote a letter for his consideration and he liked it and wanted to publish it.

Jazz: That’s exciting and encouraging for young writers. That whole myth of being discovered. The poetry community has embraced your work. I know you were invited to the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle.

Maybe: Yeah, that trip was so fun. I just got back…That was amazing the warmth there. People were going, ‘You should stay here in Seattle.’ They want me to come back to these places. 

Jazz: You’ve written a lot about not having confidence. The more you get accepted and are asked to travel around to read, how do you think that will effect your work?

Maybe: Oh wow!

Jazz: I mean are you going to write about being flown to Austin or NY to do a reading?

Maybe: Oh I don’t know (she giggles.) It’s strange, there’s extremes I go through because of how I look and stuff. There’s some weird stuff that goes on… Weird vibes you go through because of the conditioning of society.I feel real lucky that I found this natural gift. There’s different things that make life kind of painful too. Yeah.  

Jazz: What are some of the places you’ve been this year. I know I saw you in Chicago and Austin.

Maybe: Chicago, NY, Austin twice, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos, Dallas, Amarillo, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver. In about a month I’m going to San Francisco. That should be fun.(We close out the interview talking about San Francisco.)
 
 
 
 
 

*Originally appeared in Uptown Magazine in 1998.