Inspired by Mini-Magnets! An Interview with the FridgePoet

Rekindling a sense of wonder … that’s the key to getting back your creativity and breaking writer’s block.

You can’t force wonder, though — especially not while you’re living on coffee and anxiety and listening too much to the Inner Critic. You have to step back and let yourself play.

But how?

Let me introduce you to someone who’s been teaching me — writer Katherine MacKenett, known on the interwebs as the “FridgePoet.”

Katherine’s poetry is brimming with childlike wonder and play (even among the more mature themes). Even more inspiring, though, is the fun, creative method she’s developed to keep the fires burning.

It’s called the FridgePoet Project, and it basically involves a fridge, mini-magnets, memo pads, and lots of imagination.

But I’ll let Katherine tell it in her own words …

So, Katherine, what is the FridgePoet Project, exactly? How does it work?

Very kind of you to ask! The FridgePoet Project is my mini-magnetic battle against writer’s block. Every day, rain or shine, I create and post a poem-of-any-quality made of mini-magnets and neon-colored memo notes. Currently, the magnets and I are in the midst of a 365-day challenge.

What inspired you to start the FridgePoet Project?

Funny story.

Every writer has a nook, right? That one place where you can curl up and feel pretty well assured that inspiration will meet you there eventually, if you’re patient enough. Well, in late 2014, I moved — and I lost my nook, along with my inspiration crossroads.

The irony was that I’d moved into a beautiful cabin out in the woods specifically because I saw that it could be a whole house of “nook.” A writing haven. But I couldn’t write there, which was kind of frustrating. I tried all the old traditions that had called up inspiration before, and none of them worked.

Fine, I thought, I’ll just start a new tradition. What do I have around here that’s not too serious or intimidating, but still Has to Do with Words?

Turns out I had a magnetic poetry kit and some brightly colored memo notes. Thus, the idea of FridgePoet was born.

How has the project developed since then? Do you have a daily routine or system now?

The detailed systems that have cropped up around something this simple are actually kind of bizarre and fascinating to behold.

For example, I’ve learned to construct the poems on the side of my refrigerator (not the front), and to photograph them during a specific window of sunlight in the mornings — otherwise they don’t turn out well. After a few months you figure out which magnets play nicely together and which push apart at weird angles. You find the trick to getting the paper to stay the way you want it while you’re layering tiny magnets on top of it, and how to actually organize those 1,400+ tiny magnets on your fridge so that you have some vague idea of where the word you need is at any given time … I could go on, believe it or not.

So yes, everything has a neat little system now — except for the writing process itself.

How do your daily poems usually begin?

The mini-magnets, I have learned, defy the word “usually.”

As soon as I start to get comfortable with one way of playing with them, they decide it’s time to try a new game. Sometimes they kick us off with a couple words, and I contribute the rest. Sometimes I contribute most of it, and they fill in the lingering blanks. Sometimes they make me write a whole poem with my back to them. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and get walloped with an idea (from the direction of the fridge) before I even climb out of bed.

At first this was actually kind of annoying. My full-time job as a ghostwriter comes with waves of crushing deadlines, and on the worst days you wish there was a predictable go-to process just so you could write this darned poem and go to sleep already.

But then you have to remind yourself: playing is kind of the point of this, after all.

Indeed! That sense of playfulness has come through in many of the poems, and it’s inspired me to “play” a little more, myself. What kind of response have the mini-magnets received from other poets?

They make other poets write poetry.

I absolutely love this, because I had no idea it would happen when I started posting these online. More and more, the poets who read The Daily Magnets (as the mini-magnets and I have dubbed our daily poems) write response poems to what they see — sometimes in the comments, sometimes as full-fledged pieces that they post independently. Artists do this, too, illustrating the poems from some truly fantastic perspectives.

Either way, the mini-magnets and I think that this is just about the coolest thing in the world. We’re even thinking of arranging some kind of group thing where you can win a bi-weekly or monthly prize for writing (or sketching) little daily creations of your own. Stay tuned.

What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned from the mini-magnets so far?

I perpetually learn new things from the mini-magnets. (And oh, do I ever mean that literally. I could almost write a book of mini-magnetic wisdom, at this point.) But if I had to pick one thing? Right at this moment?

You have to start. Not just once, either. Every day is a completely blank slate. It doesn’t matter if you wrote the best poem of your life yesterday, or the worst one. A new poem is waiting for you to find it as soon as you open your eyes in the morning, through a door you’ve probably never seen before. And that is both the smallest and largest blessing I can imagine.

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Katherine MacKenett is a writer, editor, ghostwriter, and mini-magnetic revolutionary.

Frolic with Katherine (and the mini-magnets) on:

• deviantART: http://fridgepoetproject.deviantart.com
• And her shamelessly sparkly blog: FridgePoetProject.com

BLOGGER’S NOTE, May 2020: I have just learned that Katherine passed away a year ago after an illness. Her work is still available on deviantART to inspire us; please pray for her and her loved ones!