12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kira Rice

Kira Rice is a Chicago-based writer. She is inspired by non traditional forms of love, femininity, nature, mental health and humanity. Her published works include A Lengthy List of Lovers, Love Language, and Death By You Is Beautiful: Poems all available on Amazon.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

-       The first book I ever wrote and self-published was essentially a polished version of my own diary. It was a collection of short stories, going into an embarrassing amount of detail about every boy or girl I ever thought I was in love with. Each chapter was titled with the name (or some version) of them. Going through old diary entries and revisiting all of those memories, some of them fond and some of them painful, was therapeutic. I think writing that book was a necessary part in my growing up, becoming more self-aware, and moving forward.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

-        Poetry has always been my first love. When I was in middle school I thought I’d be a songwriter. I don’t quite now how or when I attached myself to it, but I assume it was my love for music as a child. It’s always felt like a safety net, or a security blanket. There for me to pick up and put down when I need it.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

-       It’s weird, because I’ll have an idea or two floating around in my head for months or years even. And then one day, I’ll have a completely new idea that I’m so excited about I get started immediately. Rather than sitting on it, and planning properly, I’ll just start feverishly working until I have some type of rough draft. And then I’ll find that the longer I take to rewrite and edit, the less I like it. So once I really get started on something, I try to get it out of my system as quickly as possible so to speak.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

-       I’m always writing poetry just to write it. I’ll post them to social media here and there or send them as submissions. After a year or two of that I’ll realize just how many I have sitting on my desk, and I’ll try to format some sort of book out of them. Once I have a theme, I’ll rework some, or write new ones to add.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

-        I so wish I had the guts to do spoken word poetry. The most I can conjure is to post videos online. It’s a goal of mine, definitely. But I haven’t quite crossed that bridge yet.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

-         I think I’m always writing a poem to work out an emotion or a memory that doesn’t quite sit right with me. Poetry helps me connect the dots, and understand things about myself and my relationships. So I think the question is always, what does this mean, how do I feel about it, and why?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

-        I don’t really know. It’s hard to place that sort of responsibility on anything creative. I don’t consider it a role, but I do hope at the most my writing puts words to feelings and situations that another person may not be able to, or helps them grapple with issues that may be similar to whatever I’m writing about. Books are a tool in that way, I think.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

-        So far I’ve actually never worked with an outside editor.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

-        When you’re in a creative slump or dealing with writers block, think of your project as an exciting new lover. Sneaking away at whatever hours you can manage to visit them. Seeing them with hopeful and fresh eyes.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

-         I haven’t published any fiction yet. It’s been difficult for me, actually. I haven’t figured out how to make fiction feel as honest and authentic as poetry. Maybe that’s the point and I’m missing it.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

-        I try to write every day, and I do most of my writing late afternoon to early evening. I have a day job and a family so I try to squeeze writing in wherever I can really.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

-        Anything nature helps me. Going on walks, looking out windows, sitting in romantic looking coffee shops and bookstores and listening to chatter. If that doesn’t work I’ll turn to films, music, other poets for inspiration.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

-        I’m from a pretty rural town in the Midwest, so naturally.. Fresh cut grass and the morning after rain.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

-        Nature!! And humanities collaboration with it. Film is big for me too, as well as music.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

-         I read a lot of intersectional feminist theory and nonfiction. I’m also drawn to books that speak to the complexities and nuances of femininity, womanhood, female friendships. I’m a sucker for a messy mother daughter story, too.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

-        Travel more. I’ve traveled a bit but not so much out of the country.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

-        I’ve always wanted to try acting or filmmaking. I admire both so much but the skill level and talent that takes is intimidating to me, for sure.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

-        Writing always came naturally. I’m not the best with words out loud, and writing has always been my way of saying what I really mean.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

-        The last great book I read was My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. I’m late to the party, but it was definitely worth the read. The last great film I saw was A24’s Civil War. Otherwise I’ve been rewatching a lot of my favorite horror films this season.

20 - What are you currently working on?

-        I just finished my new collection of poems, Death By You Is Beautiful, and it comes out November 8th. So right now I’m just working on trying to push that out!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Eileen Myles, a ‘Working Life’

 

The sky hates me
I must be calm
I must be calm
if I have any
chance of good
            ness

at all
a child in
a snowstorm
a man faces
death
slow (“Love Song”)

I’m working my way through the latest poetry collection by New York poet Eileen Myles, a “Working Life” (New York NY: Grove Press, 2023) [see my review of Myles’ selected poems here; and of a prior poetry collection here], a collection that offers, to open the “Acknowledgments”: “I wanted to say a ‘Working Life’ means the poems are the plan, not that this book is about labor exactly.” “That’s not a new thought / & every single thing u / Built is a perch,” Myles writes, to open the short poem “Painting Is the Sky.” A life lived through writing, as the legendary Myles continues their exploration across first-person directness—the clarity of a straightforward lyric that is rich in complexity—offering writing not a means to an end but a means of methodology and function: to write one’s way into being. “It is the first / day of the new / Year. The city honors / This day by not / Requiring us / To move our / Cars.” (“Pigs”)

Across a “working life,” Myles is the intellectual flaneur, writing of groceries, libraries, love and planets, building lobbys and blades of grass; a city poet since famously arriving in New York from Boston back in 1974, landing directly in with elements of the New York School and street-level punk poets. One can see echoes of the intimate directness and documentary through language of NewYork School poets Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley, as well as elements of the diaristic walking and thinking “I did this, I did that” lyrics of Stacy Szymaszek and Frank O’Hara, and the electrified language and intimate propulsion of Kathy Acker. “The poetry / of accident / haunts / like a circus / tent over / my days,” they write, as part of “March 3,” “and that / fades / and a new / one. I / begin to / write / about dying.”

If you are interested in Myles’ work, I would also highly recommend James Yeh’s stunning interview with Myles in a recent issue of The Believer (Vol. 21, No. 2; Summer 2024). The interview is incredibly rich, as Myles offers their own knowledge based on skill, experience, and too much to repeat here:

I just think it’s repetition. It’s like anything. It’s really similar to how you know if a poem is good. You know because you’ve just been there and you’ve been repeating and repeating. For some reason lately I’m freaky on repetition as a value. Because everything that’s good, you’ve done it again and again and again and it becomes your friend and it becomes your turf and it becomes your nest and then it’s just the right place to be and the right way to be.

How to not only figure out how best to write but how best you should be writing. This is, after all, an important distinction, and one not everyone seems to have figured out. It took me close to a decade of active prose writing before I came to that same conclusion: not how I thought a novel should be written, but how best to write a novel in my own way. Give out all your tools, I say. A bit further on in the same answer, as Myles offers:

You kind of make your own nest, that’s the thing.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Douglas Cole

Douglas Cole has published eight poetry collections, including The Cabin at the End of the World, winner of a Best Poetry Award in the American Book Fest, and the novel The White Field, winner of the American Fiction Award. His work has appeared in journals such as Beloit Poetry, Fiction International, Valpariaso, The Gallway Review and Two Hawks Quarterly.

He contributes a regular column, “Trading Fours,” to the magazine, Jerry Jazz Musician.  He also edits the American Writers section of Read Carpet, a journal of international writing produced in Columbia.

In addition to the American Fiction Award, his screenplay of The White Field won Best Unproduced Screenplay award in the Elegant Film Festival. He has been awarded the Leslie Hunt Memorial prize in poetry, the Best of Poetry Award from Clapboard House, First Prize in the “Picture Worth 500 Words” from Tattoo Highway, and the Editors’ Choice Award in fiction by RiverSedge. He has been nominated Six times for a Pushcart and Eight times for Best of the Net. His website is https://douglastcole.com.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

The first book I published was a short collection of poetry. That opened some doors, I think, that led to other publishers perhaps looking more seriously at my work.  Each publication after that raised a few more eyebrows, journal editors paid more attention, and it all changed my way of thinking about the publishing process, the collaborative part of which I enjoy.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I didn’t really come to poetry first, but it was the first book form I published. I started writing fiction and poetry and had no plan to focus on one or the other. So, fiction, poetry, drama, essay and even screenplay writing all have poetry in them. The forms are just different.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I don’t tend to drag through fallow periods, as such. I also waited to publish until I had what felt like a good amount of work. When I’ve got something I feel pretty sure I want to make public by publishing, I tend to work quickly in the sense that I know I’m changing and given enough time I could change my thinking about a piece infinitely, so I try to stay focused so that the style or vision or whatever won’t suffer from gaps in attention. Some first drafts are just born ready and require only minor adjustments. Some, and I enjoy this journey, might get torn down to the studs and built up again, maybe unrecognizable to anyone else, but I know where they came from.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

It’s fun to work on something that can be more or less completed in a day: a poem draft or short story draft. They build up and then, hmmm, that could make a book. Sometimes a series of poems come together, and there’s a chapter. They don’t always go quicky, though. But I have set out to craft a novel, knowing I am making a novel. In those situations, I tend to set mini deadlines of manageable parts that will fit into a book. Sometimes, there’s just this whole story in my head and I have to stick to the road and get to the destination, the ending, if I have an idea what that is.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I’ve spent a lot of time teaching as well, so that’s helped my confidence in front of a group. Depending on the setting, reading can be a lot of fun, especially if the audience is into it and I can feel that lock-in, like we’re having a collective dream. Also, a good part about the idea of reading is that it reminds me that with poetry or prose, the words have to travel elegantly through the mouth. I feel that’s a target: not only to make whatever it is be beautiful on the page but beautiful to the ear. Reading aloud puts a spotlight on that.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Fascinating. I think of writing as an exploration. I’m less attracted to presenting textbook cases than doing a forensic close up. If the message is clear, what’s the point? I like a little mystery in what I read and write. I want the work to be more than the sum of my ideas and edits, even if that sounds odd. Art should be a window not a sandwich board. In other words, being too attached to “meaning” is like putting blinders on. Not that random, excruciatingly private references and haphazard language or automatic writing are better, but in the process, a little of that might open some thought, some vision I wouldn’t have had if I stuck to thinking I want to say X or Y or whatever.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

The diversity of writers and their creations is our culture. I think writers both clarify the experience we’re having in this life in beautiful ways, acting as mirrors, commentators, guides. And I think writers (like all artists) are the creators of our religions, philosophies, laws, histories. All of them describing the elephant and some dreaming of bigger fish than that.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I’ve been pretty lucky to work with good editors, some great. Only once did I ever work with an editor who seemed less clear as the process continued. I pulled that piece eventually because it seemed like the process was going in circles and had less to do with the work than something else. So, by the time I’m ready to try and publish something, I relish the input.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“Get off the subject.” (R. Hugo)

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to screenplays)? What do you see as the appeal?

They’re different clothes that all fit well. And I like the way they inform each other. A little poetry might help a flat piece of prose. A little narrative continuity might help an impressionistic, lyrical poem keep its feet on the ground. In the same way you should know all the religions and philosophies but keep them out of your art, I think you should work in all the forms and treat them equally as language as much as formal adventures.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Well, I like to get up, have a cup of coffee, read a little, write a little, start the day with my head in the words. Sometimes a few fleeting dream images come along, and I often like to write them down because I think that’s information, experience, we largely dismiss as irrelevant or just too confusing to bother with. But it’s a great mystery well we’re nightly dropped into, and I think worth exploring, and good practice for getting beyond the limited, rational, conscious ways we think and feel about our lives.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

Reading. Walking. Playing guitar. And there’s no law against taking a break. While I love the mystery and exploration of writing, I’ve never felt I must be brilliant every moment. Sometimes writing is just a way to remind myself how to see, how to think more openly. I tend to be pretty disciplined about writing something each day, just for the fun of it. It doesn’t have to be on the way to a poem or story or publication. In fact, I didn’t publish for a long time to avoid the mindset that I need to “produce.”

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Rain, wisteria, woodsmoke, the sea.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

All of it. Movies, songs, paintings, dreams, but some of the very best sources have come from overheard conversations or a moment a scene unfolds on the corner of 3^rd and Pike Street on the way to work. So, always be alert!

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Roethke. Great teacher of the music. Patti Smith. I love the poetry of her language. She talks to you. But it’s beautiful poetry too! Borges. I love the surreal but again poetic language in his writing.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I think I really want to direct.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I love music, but I’ve never felt confident about my singing voice. I also teach, and I love that. I would have liked to be an astronaut, but we’re not really going anywhere beyond the solar system, so, I think I’ll wait.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

It was just a fun thing I could do on my own, anywhere, anytime, no technology beyond a pen and paper needed.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Great book…maybe Murakami’s Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I wrote a lot of notes in the margins. I also really loved Joy Harjo’s Crazy Brave. The last great film I saw…I liked Alejandro Iñárritu’s Bardo.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m editing another Book of poetry set for publication later this year called Drifter, poetry based on Guy Debord (French writer, part of the Situationists International) and his ideas on the dérive. “One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Dawn Lundy Martin, Instructions for The Lovers

 

In the end, I suppose, defeat is inevitable,
            the closing of something once delicately propped
open, a silk curtain floated back to its nature,
            or a mother, which is what this is really about—fetish of
the mother, the fetish of her under my tongue, bleating
            about. Even I can’t let go, can’t sift her being (that part
of her that’s her) from my hands. What’s wanted
            is not to be gotten, no frolic in dancing fields,
no cupping of the invisible cup, gentle water, soft hand,
            sweet ache of breath into mine. Mine, slats between—what
was it? What is it now? When your voice comes through
            my ear, technological and distant, the crack of it
as much a weapon as a frozen foot, as much the desert’s
            reflective waterwell as any (                                      )—
You see that? My hands arching around what would be absence
            If absence were rot inside the body. We both hold it. (“FROM WHICH THE THING IS MADE”)

The fifth full-length poetry title by American poet and essayist Dawn Lundy Martin is the remarkable Instructions for The Lovers (New York NY: Nightboat Books, 2024). I admire the delicate precision of Martin’s lyrics, set with a clear sense of music and the line. “The lover was here and then was not.” she writes, to open the prose-block “INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LOVERS,” This is always / the case. The lover persists in loverness and then, poof. / Not poof poof but out of the kitchen and casual naked- / ness. The lover is a long tail though. Whipping around.” Her poems hold a determination, weave and pitch; a clarity of purpose and a narrative delicacy, weaving simultaneously around and through her subjects, fully aware of the shapes of her stories.

Opening with a minimalist sequence, “[After wind was water],” the poems evolve across three section-clusters of sharp lyrics before ending with a sequence of prose poems, and an extended, accumulated phrase-lyric. While some might shift form as exploratory, Martin already employs a mastery across a variety of structures, all of which allow for her particular rhythm of narrative unfolding. “And yet,” the poem “A WILD WEED” offers, “what savagery disrobes inside order? / What street fight made fragile in a hot / face glow parted so that, so that / all liquid is in retrieval.”