Tuesday, November 30, 2021

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Dani Putney

Dani Putney is a queer, non-binary, mixed-race Filipinx, & neurodivergent writer originally from Sacramento, California. Salamat sa Intersectionality (Okay Donkey Press, May 2021) is their debut full-length poetry collection. Their poems appear in outlets such as Empty Mirror, Ghost City Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Juke Joint Magazine, & trampset, among others, while their personal essays can be found in journals such as Cold Mountain Review & Glassworks Magazine, among others. They received their MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women & are presently an English PhD student at Oklahoma State University. While not always (physically) there, they permanently reside in the middle of the Nevada desert.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
It’s difficult to think that my first book changed my life in any significant way. I know some folks expect something to feel different post-publication, but it’s pretty much the same for me: write, revise, submit, repeat. No glory. (But then again, I don’t think most writers do it for glory...) However, my most recent work, especially the poems I’ve written since my book was accepted for publication at Okay Donkey Press, is very different tonally than the pieces in my collection. Perhaps it’s a more “mature” voice, but in any case, I feel that the speaker (or speakers, rather) I write into my poems now view the world, and themselves, much differently than before.

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

I actually didn’t come to poetry first! Like many writers, I started writing fiction first, but it quickly became apparent to me that the genre was, well, too prosaic. Too many words, too much time wasted. I wanted narrative to be in my work, sure, but the narratives of fiction felt too constraining to me. Poetry was the next genre I toyed around with, but it stuck—it made the most sense to me. I also write creative nonfiction, but when I was first starting out as a writer about 8 years ago, I wasn’t too familiar with the genre. Now, whenever I have an idea that’s too long for a poem, I turn to CNF to meander a bit; I mean, the word “essay” does come from “assay,” to experiment.

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 suppose the best answer is “all of the above.” Sometimes I write poems very quickly, in less than an hour, but they usually take me several hours or a few days. Now, when I say “several hours or a few days,” I’m talking about the exact amount of time I spend writing a poem, not the in-between or break periods. With that in mind, it could easily take me, say, 10+ hours to crank out a “first” draft of a poem. But I suppose all the hours I spend on the front end ultimately mean I take less time on the back end, that is, during revision. Even after receiving lots of wonderful feedback on a poem from a workshop, for example, the revision period for that poem, at that particular point in time, might only be about 2 or 3 hours. I’m the type of person to meticulously craft something so that it appears pretty solid from the outset, but I still spend a good amount of time revising my work afterward. I’m just not, you know, somebody who can sit at a desk and sprawl; I’m always in the process of crafting my poetry.

4 - Where does a poem 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?

Poems almost always begin as small phrases I write down in the notes app of my phone (which I lovingly refer to as my “journal”). For example, I recently wrote a poem about balikbayan boxes, a piece that started as the word “balikbayan” in my journal. I wrote this word down right after I’d walked by an LBC. (To give some context, balikbayan boxes contain items sent from overseas Filipinos to their family and friends in the Philippines. LBC is a popular Philippine courier service with many branches in the US.) You can essentially apply this process to, say, 80 percent of my poetry. However, I sometimes work on longer, multi-poem projects, which, of course, require more advance planning. As for writing with a book in mind, I think I always do that! When writing my first collection, for instance, I always thought about which poems could appear in the book and how I could eventually order it. Lots of pieces didn’t make the cut, but I was always thinking about the final “product,” if you will.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love me a good reading! I’m such a natural performer that any attention I can get gives me energy and life. It helps that I’m an ENFJ (if you know your Myers–Briggs personality types), with the “E” meaning “extroverted,” so I thrive at public readings with other poets and writers. I also think that there are so many bad readers out there—really, even some of the greatest writers are terrible at publicly reading their work—so I always come to a reading with the mindset that (1) I don’t want to suck and (2) I want to give somebody an experience, something they couldn’t get on the page alone. I think the fact that I mainly write poetry helps, too, because it started many years ago as an oral art anyway.

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’d say theory is always at the back of my mind when I write poetry. Much of my first book, for example, dialogues with and reflects on ideas popularized by various philosophers and, more specifically, literary theorists. One of the poems in my collection ruminates on the mirror stage, a concept from Jacques Lacan. Another poem in my book is a direct address to Judith Butler’s earlier work regarding gender theory. Getting even more esoteric, I have a poem called “Jouissance” in the book that engages with Leo Bersani’s concept of the same name, as explored in his essay “Is the Rectum a Grave?” I wouldn’t say I’m answering any particular questions so much as I’m extending these theorists’ lines of thought and, more than that, appropriating their ideas to reflect on my own sense of identity as a poet. Specifically, much of the theory-focused poems in my collection deal with facets of my intersectional identity: my queerness, non-binary gender, etc.

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 think writers have a specific societal role. To me, writing is a very selfish thing—but not in a bad way! I’m so glad I have readers who enjoy my work, but at the end of the day, I write for me. Publishing my work is an afterthought, not the impetus for writing. However, if I had to think of one thing writers do well in terms of larger culture, I’d have to say that they provide representation in a way that helps to make the world a more empathetic place. Of course, it’s a more complex phenomenon than simply encouraging empathy, but if we didn’t have writers, you know, selfishly writing about their complicated identities or sharing their experiences, then people would be much more in the dark about others’ diverse perspectives, I think.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Definitely essential. The suggestions I received from the editorial team at Okay Donkey Press helped make my book an even better, well-rounded collection. We reordered some parts, added some poems, and took out a couple of pieces. I didn’t expect to receive such care for and attention to my poetry, but Genevieve and Matt at OKD gave me that and more. I understand the resistance to editors looking at one’s work, especially if one thinks the piece is “finished,” but trust me, they almost always have something helpful to add.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
This is tough because I tend to think about all the bad advice writers receive! But if I had to choose one thing, I’d say it was when I was reaffirmed that I didn’t have to write each day. I’ve never been somebody to write every day, so hearing another person say it was okay to do so when, well, I’d been told for a long time that “good” writers were putting in daily work was very uplifting for me.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
Not that difficult, to be completely honest. I think poetry and CNF are incredibly alike; the latter simply appears in prose form. But even then, there’s so much experimentation allowed, and encouraged, in CNF that I feel at home when writing in the genre. I think poets and CNF writers are lucky in that regard. Of course, if a poet is writing really esoteric stuff that has no confessional or narrative elements at all, then I think it would be more difficult for that person to write CNF. However, that’s an edge case—most poets I know have at least tried to write a personal essay!

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?
Funny for you to ask this after I’ve already outed myself as somebody who doesn’t write every day! My answer, then, is that I don’t have a routine. Sure, I shouldn’t rely too much on moments of inspiration, but I do have some semblance of a structure in mind when I write. For instance, my bare-minimum goal every month is to write one full poem. Most of the time, I end up writing two, or even more, pieces in a month, so it ends up working out for me. Also, even if I’m not writing a poem, I still think and see like a poet every day, that is, I engage with the world, as well as with my interior self, in a deep, reflective way. This practice ensures that I always have ideas to write about and that my poems have fresh images.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Here’s the thing: I don’t believe in writer’s block, so I don’t believe in, well, such stalls. I write when I want to, meaning that I don’t feel stalled or blocked when I’m composing. If I weren’t in the mood to write, I wouldn’t be writing anyway. Maybe this is a cavalier attitude, but I’m not the type of person to force something to happen. Of course, when I write in an academic or professional setting, I must compose at inconvenient times, so there might be some blocks there, but creatively speaking? Nope, I try to enjoy the ride.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
I’d have to say petrichor, or the smell of rain on dry earth. I’ve called Nevada my home for many years now, which is the driest state in the US, so when it rains, it’s a memorable experience, replete with a memorable aroma. I’ve yet to find a candle that perfectly replicates this smell, so if you know of one, please let me know!

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?
Yes, all of the above! The landscapes of the American West, particularly across northern Nevada, are a work of art unto themselves and deeply inspire my poetry. In fact, my entire first book is set against the backdrop of the West, with deserts and mountains galore. I’ve also written poems directly inspired by ABBA and Orville Peck, as well as pieces that respond to scientific phenomena—like the formation of mountains via tectonic plate collisions or the Pauli exclusion principle in physics—or to visual art (I love me an ekphrastic poem!).

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Definitely Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, two women I have, literally speaking, tattooed on my thighs. (This was the inspiration for my poem “Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf Talk on My Thighs.”) I’m also inspired by Chen Chen, Ocean Vuong, C. T. Salazar (whom I proud to call my friend!), Janine Joseph (my PhD advisor), and many others.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’d really love to visit Mexico. I’ve talked to my partner about this (in a casual way, of course), and he’s down to go as well. I’ve been reading lots of Silvia Moreno-Garcia books set in Mexico recently, and I feel an intimate connection to the country. Maybe it’s because I love the deserts of Nevada so much that, well, any other place that reminds me of home is appealing to me. (I also feel a strong connection to Australia’s Northern Territory for this exact reason.)

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?
Had I not pursued poetry, I’d probably be an art historian. I absolutely adore art, but more than that, I love learning about the sociohistorical context that surrounds a work of art, as well as the different artifacts the art dialogues with. Fortunately, I’ve gotten to study art history a bit anyway throughout my academic career, but yeah, if I didn’t love poetry so much, I’d put all of my eggs (or at least more of them) in the art history basket.

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

It was a boy! What a sappy story, right?! But seriously, I wrote my first “serious” poem at the age of 17 because I was in love with a boy. Ever since then, I haven’t looked back. In high school, that is, pre–being in love with said boy, I thought I was going to be a doctor or a scientist, and I took all the AP and honors science classes to prepare me for that career path. (I was good at them, too!) However, I’d always been good at writing, and I’d always liked to do it, so even if I hadn’t fallen in love with that one boy, I probably eventually would’ve switched over to writing—it just would’ve taken a few more years.

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

For the book, I’d have to say Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This novel knocked my socks off. It really turns the horror genre, specifically the haunted house subgenre, on its head. I was gripped by suspense the whole time I read it. I highly recommend this book to everybody—and yes, even to those who say they don’t like horror! As for the film, this is a bit tougher for me to say, but I’m going to go with Supernova. I’m a big Colin Firth fan, and while this movie features two straight men in a gay onscreen romance, I was captivated. Plus, I love that this particular film doesn’t center the couple’s queerness, that is, it’s about their struggles, and they happen to be queer.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m presently writing and ordering my second full-length poetry manuscript, tentatively titled Mix-Mix, a poetic exploration of my mixed-race heritage. It features a lot of reformulated archival text (like from my late father’s Asian Romance Guide to Marriage by Correspondence handbook), as well as reformulations of verbiage taken from my AncestryDNA Story. I also explore many topics related to my Filipinx ancestry that I haven’t written about before, so that’s exciting. I hope to have this collection finished in the next couple of years!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Monday, November 29, 2021

Yesterday, not my photo

 

1.

This tornado’s funnel kiss along the waters of Lake Huron.

Port Albert beach: a foreign language might be stripped

of borders, nothingness. The air thins, tinny. The scent

of low pressure vacuum. The hairs on each arm.

 

2.

When Amy and Andrew visited, he and I each gathered

our combined small children—two

toddlers, two infants—for a playground jaunt. I caught

the shift in the air and said, we have to go. We held

our boundaries. This onslaught of rain. We barely made

it back to the house.

 

3.

Environmental. I wish to make my questions

known, from lifted references. My beloved clash.

I found this image on the internet, I no longer

remember where. But it makes my point.

Displacement: where the rain meets silence,

where the word meets open space. The calm

converts to lawn.

 

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Maw Shein Win, Storage Unit for the Spirit House

 

Theater in Three Acts

 

where are the minnows
song of gongs in mini-mall

 

what happens to the body after soliloquy
mine in mottled fur coat

 

when does the future arrive
birthmark on forehead in shape of flame

California poet Maw Shein Win’s second full-length collection, following the chapbook Score and Bone (Nomadic Press, 2016) and the full-length debut Invisible Gifts: Poems (Manic D Press, 2018), is Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Oakland CA: Omnidawn, 2020), a collection composed in short sketches, writing the small moments and perspectives that form together to articulate a particular stretch of both the external and internal workings of a life being fully lived. In a dense and sketched-out lyric, hers is a poetic of accumulated dailyness, a lyric journal of dreams and domestic composed via shorter units of precision around ordinary extraordinariness. She writes portraits of medical appointments, local landmarks, storage units and strange dreams, a litany of family and subconscious images, children who won’t sleep and a house on the lake. “she runs on four legs along a dry / river bed,” she writes, to close the poem “Bottle,” “mother sleeping // the sun blinking / the scar questions // why why the chickens / why why jam & eggs // why why the hand /caught in a bottle of laughter [.]” There are points at which her portraits lean into the dream-like and surreal, offering different levels of concrete detail, all while offering an otherworldly portrait, it would seem, of what might otherwise be considered uniquely and innately familiar. “tinctures for pain,” she writes, to open the poem “Hospital,” “capsized vessels / hand reaches into warm body / she believes in magic & so do I / painted things [.]”

There is something curious about how certain of her poems are structured: stanzas single and even double-spaced within, but larger spaces between, akin to different sections/stanzas existing as a self-contained call-and-response, offering both perspective and reflection. Her play of space on the page allows for different levels of pause, break and connection, offering not, I suppose, hesitation, but levels of connection and commentary, such as the poem “Imaging Center,” that reads, in full:

the pointer stick she grips
trails my twisting spine

she plots movement
with the exactness of a fingertip

slow as the motion of a snail in love
my naked back on treatment table

 

 

coolness hardening into memory

The poem-portraits captured as part of her Storage Unit for the Spirit House each offer perspectives of moments large and small—everything that goes through the mind as her narrator moves through the world and her day—each poem oriented to the detail of their individual frame; the gaze of her poems expand and contract, offering both the larger view and one so close it can only exist within. As the first half of the poem “Phone Booth” offers: “a Brownie camera slung around a sweaty neck // telephone wires crisscross // you didn’t hear that did you? you did not didn’t you? // child in a burlap cape leaps through the garden [.]” The poems are not set as a scrapbook, but as a photo album of memories, moments and ideas. “how does a painting speak?” she asks, as part of the poem “Diorama,” “language is the difference / among three things // who enters the spectacle? the brave ones with their silk skirts [.]”

Saturday, November 27, 2021

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Lisa Summe

Lisa Summe is the author of Say It Hurts (YesYes Books, 2021). She earned a BA and MA in literature at the University of Cincinnati, and an MFA in poetry from Virginia Tech. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bat City Review, Cincinnati Review, Muzzle, Salt Hill, Verse Daily, West Branch, and elsewhere. You can find her running, playing baseball, or eating vegan pastries in Pittsburgh, PA, on Twitter and Instragram @lisasumme, and at lisasumme.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?

I wish this weren’t the case, but I definitely feel validated as a writer in a way that I didn’t pre-book. It’s also so nice when strangers reach out and tell you something positive they experienced when reading or hearing your poems. My book just came out this year, in January, but it’s been finished for a couple years now, and I’ve been working on other things. I finished a second manuscript in the fall, another collection of poems. I’d say it’s really different in that it’s just better. The poems feel a little more controlled and intentional. They’re just better because I’ve had more practice. In the second collection I’ve also delved into some topics I haven’t previously explored involving domestic violence, particularly in the home my mother grew up in, and the intergenerational trauma and grief that comes with that.

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

I wanted to be a fiction writer once I switched to being an English major in college! But those workshops always filled up, every single term until I was a senior, so I settled for poetry, hoping to get a teacher who would talk to me about how to write a novel. Little did I know I’d never stop writing poems after that first class. Writing poems is what has actually changed my life.

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 never think of writing as toward a project outside of assuming that once I have a big pile of poems I’ll make them into a book. The idea of starting anything new is pretty paralyzing for me, so I try to trick myself by doing very small steps like can you write a poem, any poem, this week. I was in a good rhythm for a couple years recently where I wrote a poem a week. A lot of those poems made up the second collection. My revisions don’t usually radically change a poem. If the poem sucks I just throw it away.

4 - Where does a poem 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?

Poems happen different for me all the time, but usually it’s from making myself sit down and carve out the time for it. Sometimes I’m so stuck I just kind of journal until I say something complicated or interesting, then I try to latch onto that and make a poem. Better than that is coming up with a really interesting image or sentence while on a run or something, but that’s pretty rare for me. I always have to keep the mindset of just one poem at a time because I can only handle small tasks and goals, and so I’ve learned how to make big things small. The fun part of making a book, actually, isn’t writing toward a thing, but taking all the pieces and seeing how they talk to each other / what kind of story they tell.

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

I find giving readings to be pretty energizing but they don’t do anything for me in terms of my creative process really. It’s just nice to be in a room with other writers and seeing them do their thing. It’s nice to have someone tell you good job.

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 never feel like I’m working to answer any questions on a large scale, though I, of course, hope my poems inform peoples’ feelings about major things, like love and grief and how one cannot or will not exist without the other. It feels a little too expected or easy or something for me to say that my concerns are feelings, mostly my own. Which are broad and both theoretical and not theoretical at all. Right now, I’m kind of obsessed with time and how it passes and how it can be measured very precisely and yet, depending on where a person is, physically in time and space, and where a person is emotionally, how we perceive time to be passing, the rate of it, is affected by those things. I don’t really know what to say about what the current questions are, but I hope, for all of us, writers or not, we’re thinking about how to live in a way that treats others (people, animals, the planet) kindly, and navigating that in a genuine way—there’s questions we all need to ask ourselves in order to do that.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think it’s similar to what I think, for me, is the role of literature, which is to provide emotionally honest perspectives on things so that readers become more imaginative and, therefore, more empathetic.

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

Essential, probably. Difficult, maybe. I only have one experience with YesYes for my one book, and it was really positive. The most difficult thing, I think, doesn’t have to do with the writing or editing at all, but maybe with people just having different organizational skills and approaches to completing tasks. I guess that’s true of any work environment.

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

Be nice to yourself.

10 - 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 don’t have a writing routine right now. What’s worked best for me is trying to write a poem a week. But I take months-years of breaks from doing that. I may be getting back into the swing of it now, but still feel kind of fried from a long stretch of writing from the last few years. Started taking an intentional break in December am not writing much these days. All my best days begin with avocado toast on seedy whole wheat sourdough and a run after a night in which I went to bed early.

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

I turn to books. The more poems I read, the more poems I write, usually. Alex Dimitrov, Matt McBride, and Wendy Xu are poets who come to mind, whose books I take off the shelf when I’m really struggling.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Anything that has just been cooked and is cooling by an open window.

13 - 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?

Feelings lol.

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

Running is a big part of mental / emotional health maintenance for me that I think has helped me keep a somewhat clear head in which I’m able to kind of “organize” my feelings in a way that make sense for a poem, and helped me, too, I think with staying disciplined with writing when I choose to prioritize it, maybe from the high or the release that happens, maybe that helps me feel “motivated.” Reading books of poems and listening to music that make me feel excited about creating are important. All time fav poets are Alex Dimitrov, Olivia Gatwood, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Emily Skaja, Richard Siken, Danez Smith. But so many more, too.

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

Get good at skateboarding. Learn to play the drums. Maybe write prose, but really I waver on that.

16 - 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?

This is such an interesting question. I always think of occupation as job as how you make money. I don’t make enough money from poems to live. If I did, that would be the dream for sure, I think, though there’s always the feeling of when something becomes your job maybe you don’t really like it anymore.

I started college as a dietetics major and have, in the last year or so, been toying around with the idea of going to nursing school, though right now, today, I don’t really think that’s something I’ll follow through with. I currently work an office job and I really don’t want to hang out a desk for the rest of my life, though working from home most of the time has changed my attitude quite a bit. I’m really into moving my body and a stationary job isn’t very good for me. Maybe I’d have gone to trade school for some kind of more physical job, which would suit me better, but I just went to college like everyone else around me did, like I was expected to. I would’ve never started writing had I not gone to college and then switched majors, but I also think college is kind of a scam, at least in the current model that puts many people in debt for the rest of their lives. I will also say I went to school for 9 years and have 3 degrees. So I mean I love school. I just think it’s fucked up everyone who wants to go doesn’t have the same opportunity to do that.

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

How much I loved my freshman comp class in college.

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

I’ve been reading a ton of poetry this year and have come across some real bangers. Two that stand out are Wound from the Mouth of a Wound by torrin a. greathouse (Milkweed Editions, 2020), and Pine by Julia Koets (Southern Indiana Review, 2021). I don’t see many movies. Promising Young Woman was pretty uncomfortable in a way I enjoyed. I liked that movie.

19 - What are you currently working on?

Giving 100% at baseball practice. Navigating nonmonogamy. Right now it’s April, and me and my girlfriend are trying to write a poem a week this month. I’m doing it but it’s taking everything in me.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;