Among her many creative pursuits, poet Jewel Mathieson is author of “Silk Tracks, Purging Silences from Cells” and “This Dance, A Poultice of Poems.”

DH: In Hollywood, you’re what they would call a “poly-hyphenate” because of all that you do. If you were going to put them in a row, what would they be?

JM: A mother-dancer-poet… You know what? I feel that I’m a seeker in all of those – the basic underlying thing is that I’m a seeker.

DH: Well, have you found it yet?

JM: It? There’s an “it” to find?

DH: Perhaps that was naïve of me.

JM: I try to find love wherever I go and get out of my way.

DH: Get out of your own way?

JM: Oh, yeah, I’m my biggest enemy.

DH: You don’t have another nemesis out there somewhere?

JM: If I do they haven’t proclaimed themselves – and please don’t.

DH: That’s the most insidious kind.

JM: Absolutely. I’m sure I have a few of those, but my biggest enemy is like my own private jihad in my head.

DH: If you could eradicate your own personal jihad, would you?

JM: You know, for me, that’s grist for my art.

DH: That was my next question.

JM: When something tortures me, I take it to the alchemy of art and transform it. To do like a crazy dance, the de-possession dance, dancing the demons out – those are hot dances. My poetry is also “poultice poetry” – poetry for healing.

DH: What’s the next step in your art?

JM: When I got cancer, I had all these projects on the back burners, several different things I had spinning. Right now, I’m in completion mode. I finished my children’s collection, I’ve been teaching my rhythms craft to children forever. Coming to fruition and completion of that is what I needed to do. I had a lot of creative juices flowing but nothing finished – you just look at that bottom drawer and say “That can’t die with me. There are some good poems in there. I could at least lift out the best lines!”

DH: When it comes to creative work, is it the process or the end product that inspires? Is it better to finish or to do?

JM: I always love the doing, which is why I have a problem finishing. I love being in the moment. Even in performance, to go back and memorize my stuff feels like going back in time. I always like to be present, but if you’re going to be successful as an artist, you need to package your art and get it out. You need a balance.