(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Why you should know who she is: Having written four self-published books of poetry and co-founded the annual poetry marathon Urban Epiphany, Celia White is entrenched in the Western New York literary scene. Since 1998, Urban Epiphany has gathered poets of all sorts and levels of accomplishment to read their pieces in two-minute time slots. This year’s event takes place on Sunday (April 30) starting at 3pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church (695 Elmwood). When White sits down to write, she says it’s like putting together pieces of a puzzle: “Often it’s a collaging experience, where I collect lines over time into my notebook, and eventually arrange them into a poem, rather than writing something start to finish,” she says. Her patient and gentle method produces poems that demand to be read out loud.

Education: Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts

Day job: White works as a consulting librarian, conducting research for local arts organizations and the tobacco control community.

Upcoming work: Letters, a collection of her poetry, will be released by Ambient Press in May.

Major influences: James Baldwin, Patti Smith, e.e. cummings, Sharon Olds

When did you discover your love for the written word? “I’ve been writing poetry since I was a really small child, probably about seven. And it’s been a very serious interest of mine ever since then. It’s always been a part of me. I kind of look around the world and wonder where the poetry is, and that’s how I experience life.”

What inspires you to write? “In the past it’s always been very much an emotional impetus to write, but the older I get the more I think there are certain themes that need to be explored, or ideas that I would like to explore and language that moves to the forefront for that. So it becomes more of a thought process than an emotional process.”

Are there themes that dominate your work? “Definitely sensual experiences. Probably the search for truth and self-knowledge.”

What do you think makes good poetry? “To me, good poetry is an expression of genuine feeling put into language that can really connect with someone else. Usually metaphor is the best way to do that. So to put an image in someone else’s mind allows them to have an experience that you have also had.”

Which work are you most proud of? “Probably it would have to be my forthcoming book. I’m putting out a collection of poetry in May, and it’s going to be called Letters. That will be a collection of all my previous, self-published chapbooks.”

You also write fiction, and a lot of that work features young adults. “I think I write about young people, young women especially, because that was a time of such vivid consciousness for me. I’ve always kept a journal, and during my teenage years I probably filled more notebooks than I ever will again [laughs]. At the time that a lot of those stories were written, I was teaching at City Honors High School, so that was sort of an influence, watching how my students related to the world and the kinds of things they might be experiencing or might need to know in the world.”

How much of your stories are autobiographical? “Not very much actually. Fiction is a place where I really allow my imagination to run wild. I would say my poetry is much more autobiographical.”

You lived in San Francisco for a while, and it appears as though a lot of your fiction takes place in different locations. Where’s you favorite place? “Definitely Buffalo. I’ve moved away and come back many times, and I really want to stay here. It’s my favorite place.”

Why? “I really find the arts community incredibly rich here, even more so than San Francisco. I just really like being part of the way music and art and writing all intersect here.”

Tell me about Urban Epiphany. “I started it with Joe Todaro, who’s still my co-organizer, in 1998. And shortly after that we both moved to San Francisco, so we were on hiatus. But we also both moved back at the same time, and we’ve done it for the past four years, steadily. So this is our fifth year—we’re both excited about that.”

What made you start the event, and what are your goals for it? “I was inspired by the St. Mark’s [Church] Poetry Project in New York City. They have a New Years Day poetry marathon, which I attended one year. And I just thought that Buffalo really needed a showcase for the diversity of literary talent in this town, and it’s very much become what I had hoped. It’s a place where students, or senior citizens, or academics, or people who are just writing at their kitchen table can come and share a little bit of their work.”