By Emily Valmana

“A typewriter changed my life” is not a typical phrase you would expect to hear in the 21st century.

For Florida State University alumna Jacqueline Suskin, however, that throwback machine is indeed what catapulted her into a fulfilling career as a poet.

Suskin graduated from FSU in 2007 with her English-Creative Writing degree, with a focus on poetry. Not long after she earned her diploma, she used that typewriter for a performance-based project she coined as “Poem Store.” Beginning in 2009, she would eventually come to write over 40,000 poems for strangers on the spot, in whatever town or location she was in at the time.

Now, after almost 15 years since she left Tallahassee, Suskin is a seven-time published author, speaker, educator, and of course, continues to be an admired poet who can draw inspiration for her writing from all walks of life. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, T Magazine, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and various other publications. She currently is working on her eighth book, A Year in Practice: Seasonal Rituals and Prompts to Awaken Cycles of Creative Expression, which is set to be published in December 2023. 

In a society so hyperfocused on technological pursuit, a career in poetry arguably does not currently rank high in sought-after college degrees. Poetry does offer an immense capacity for healing, however, as well as a powerful ability to bring people together, reminding us that poetry and poets should always be necessary.

Although the artistry and precise techniques for the craft are indeed skills you can learn in school as a poetry major, Suskin speaks on how there is no one single, linear or “correct” way to write poetry. In fact, she considers her experiences with traveling and connecting with nature to be her primary inspirations rather than a specific set of techniques.

Even with that perspective, though, she says her education at FSU was invaluable, and she speaks of her time as an English major with immense appreciation.

“I was a huge David Kirby fan while I was a student, and I really do think that my background as a poetry major at FSU really helped me a lot,” she says, referring to the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English and author of 19 books of poetry and other creative publications.

Kirby refers to Suskin as "one of my heroines."

"She pretty much invented herself, and the Jackie Suskin she came up with is an amazing dynamo who takes poetry to the streets and engages people who probably think poetry died out with Keats and Wordsworth," he says. "Most poets are like me, like artisans making mosaics one tile at a time. Not Jackie. She's a powerhouse. Really, she's poetry's best friend."

For many poets, taking the academia route and pursuing a graduate degree after receiving an undergraduate degree is the typical course of action, one that is generally considered to be a more traditional path to lean toward, in terms of job stability. Suskin, however, knew immediately after graduation that her path would not resemble this approach.

Instead, she traveled the country, working a variety of odd jobs, finding inspiration for her writing, and journaling along the way.

“Because I was so open to connecting and communicating with people out in the world, I felt all of these doors open for me,” she explains.

During that time, her career as a poet started on an impulse she had in Pasadena, California, where she purchased her manual typewriter, a vintage Hermes model, and met a poet who introduced her to the concept of improvisational poetry.

Poem Store was born.

“I would take my typewriter to either a public space, like a farmer’s market, or I would be hired to be at a private event, where people would come up to me and request a poem on their desired subject, and I would write it for them on the spot,” Suskin says.

She never struggled with knowing what to write because she relied more on an empathic response from the person rather than trying to come up with something perfectly curated.

“The creative process for writing these poems was so much less about me and more about the other person, I felt like I never struggled to know what to write because I was in a sort of communication with them,” she explains. “As long as I was there and present and listening to them, there was plenty of subject matter for me to pull from, even if they didn’t say that much. It was like we were having a conversation through the poem.”

Suskin wrote one of her poems, titled “Kindness,” for actor Busy Phillips, who had TV roles on Freaks and Geeks, Dawson’s Creek, and ER, among others, as well parts in several films. In early January 2023, Phillips discussed and read the poem on her podcast Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best.

“So fun to revisit this poem I wrote for Busy Phillips a few years ago in L.A.” Suskin posted on the News page of her website. “I love it when old poems from the past resurface and align in the present moment.”

Poem Store was Suskin’s only job for 12 years, during which time she grew not only as a writer but also as an empathic communicator.

“Doing Poem Store for so long really taught me about the human condition,” she says. “I’ve written for all types of people from all different demographics and places and lifestyles, and yet they were all sad about the same things and happy about the same things and craving the same things…it was a beautiful example of how we are all actually very connected and very much the same.”

Suskin considers her poetry as “offerings of relief, healing, or affirmation.” She speaks about how a poem can provide support in a condensed, visceral way that outwardly contributes to a greater cyclical process of collective healing. In several of her books, specifically Every Day Is A Poem, she reinforces this power of poetry, as well as describes ways for people to have a poetic outlook on life.

Through her own experiences, poetry not only evoked an emotional or healing response but also had a real-world, tangible impact. Poem Store connected Suskin with many unlikely individuals, and through one of those experiences she formed an unexpected friendship, a collaboration that helped Suskin develop her current project, called Poem Forest.

While she was living in Northern California, Suskin wrote a poem for a man who, unbeknown to her at the time, was the senior vice president for a large U.S. timber company.

“As a big, ecstatic earth worshiper, it was a strange path for me to cross with this person—he is the type of person you would imagine to be my enemy,” she says.

As they became friends, they eventually collaborated on environmental issues. Suskin connected him to local environmentalists with a common goal aimed at protecting a local forest from being destroyed.

Their efforts were eventually a success, and the forest was spared.

“From this experience of just writing a poem, this forest ended up being fully protected, and it shows how one poem can actually do a lot for the world,” Suskin says. “It’s cool to have that tangible example of how poetry can cause real change.”

Suskin attributes much of her poetic inspiration from nature, and she continues to head in a direction that leads her to taking actions to help the environment. Currently, she lives in Detroit where she works as a teaching artist with InsideOut Literary Arts, bringing nature poetry into classrooms.

“I’m about to take this big turn where I'm working more with nonprofits and more community-based work,” she says, discussing her new project, Poem Forest. “We will be working with local urban schools in Detroit, teaching a nature curriculum and teaching students how to write about the natural world in their community, but then at the end they also get to plant trees in the community.”

Her own poetry continues to be recognized for its depth and significance. In late July 2023, Planet Detroit, an independent nonprofit local news organization that writes about the environment and public health in Detroit and Michigan, published Suskin’s poem “Time” as the winning submission for a climate writing contest.

An excerpt from the work reads, “We are cut like the melon, made of mush,/ drowning in the sweet, thick summer stick/ of the mind that keeps churning./ The plants never stop singing directions.”

Suskin describes her goal for Poem Forest to be a hybrid between an eco-poem creative outlet for students as well as a way for them to be an active force in helping the environment.

“Getting people to remember that the Earth exists and that they are a part of it, and that when people harm Earth, they are also harming themselves, is one of my biggest goals as a writer,” Suskin says.

Suskin also writes for One Commune, a newsletter that focuses on global wellness. In her July 14, 2023, post, which includes three of her poems, she writes, “Throughout my career as a poet and educator, the earth has always been my guidepost. Our planet is the place I like to take my readers and it’s the main thing I’m trying to get us all to remember through descriptive verse.”

Read more about Suskin, including her poetry, at www.jacquelinesuskin.com.

Emily Valmana graduated at the end of the Summer 2023 semester with double majors in English-Editing, Writing, and Media and in psychology. 

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