Mindy Kronenberg Talks Writing, Brooklyn, and Taking Risks

This excerpt is taken from “A Deep Dive with Mindy Kronenberg: Poet, Editor, and Professor.” Read the full version.

Visiting Assistant Professor Mindy Kronenberg is a celebrated and widely published poet—one who believes it’s important to engage with art in all its forms and find the rhythm in everyday life. Having first come to Empire State University as an adult learner informs her approach to being a professor—for the past 30 years, the memory of what initially brought her to the university has guided her approach to teaching and connecting with her students.

Kronenberg: I was an adult student. I had gone to school, was not able to complete my degree, and I did go on develop a career in writing, but that was always a big gap that I wanted to fill. I can really relate to that aspect that exists in my students. I say, ‘Hey, listen, you’re doing it now.’ I needed that pep talk myself, those many years ago. I’ve been at Empire for quite some time in the capacity of student, and as faculty.

Irigoyen: Can you tell me a bit about your upbringing?

Kronenberg: I think I learned early on that money could buy many things, of course, the necessities, but life is what you make of it. My parents were very literate, active, and interesting people. There were all sorts of books in the house, and music. There was a lot of dancing … I didn’t get to suburbia until I was about 16. My parents moved to Long Island, but I very much value my urban days. I’m still kind of an urban chick, you know? I’m a Brooklyn gal.

Irigoyen: Let’s get into your writing a bit. What was the moment that made you realize that you were a writer?

Kronenberg: I’ve been asked that question before, it comes up in class sometimes. I’ll tell you something similar to what I tell my students: most people I know who are writers, they don’t call themselves writers. They just do it. It is a practice that is connected to you, your personality.

I’ve been taking pen, or pencil, or crayon to paper for as long as I can remember … I would scratch out little songs, gravitating to the process of expressing myself. Maybe that’s partly because I was surrounded by people who did the same thing. The need to express oneself is really important in education … investigating something simply because you’re interested or curious.

I ask what writing does for her, knowing that each person derives something unique that sustains them from their art.

Kronenberg:  It keeps me alive, frankly … writing is a response to living. [Writing] really comes to life when you start to share it—when it comes out of isolation and becomes more of a communal activity.

It’s also important to remember that writing exists for the sake of the ideas that bring one to write. It’s not just about the technical prowess. Sometimes it has to do with not just the merit of the piece, but the thing that Robert Bly called “the psychic echo.”

Art is really two things: it’s not an accident, and it’s not impractical. But you have to remember—when you go to the page, or the canvas, or whatever it is—the desire to do it validates it. Sometimes we can stop ourselves if we question it too much.

Going to poetry readings. I’m always delighted. I have my colleagues who’ve been doing this for a million years, and then you have somebody who’s up there shuffling papers. You can see how nervous they are, and they get that poem out. They hear the applause. They’re relieved because they’re received well, and they’re relieved because it’s over.

I like to go up to them after the reading, congratulate them, and say, “You’ve done it and you’ve lived through it, so that means you must do it again.”

Irigoyen: Can you share a surprising, delightful fact about yourself?

I went on this ride in Disney World. I went down there with friends, when we were celebrating our 70th birthday—and I don’t go on roller coasters anymore, but I went on the “Tower of Terror” ride. And some people would say, “Oh, child’s play.” But I never go on these rides.

You reach a level when you drop you down, it’s like zero gravity. So, you’re out of your seat—of course you’re belted—and on a sensible day, you would ask me, “would you do that?” I would say, “Oh, no.” But we’re down there, and then… I went in, and it was exhilarating. I’m trying to live life to the fullest, and I consider myself not a very close-minded person.

If we can go back to an earlier question about what I tell students, it’s to take some risks. I’m not talking about stepping into traffic, but take some risks and go outside your comfort level literarily, artistically, to see where it brings you, because sometimes we cut off possibility by restricting ourselves without thinking about it. I think all of us need that advice as we get older, too.