rm - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
ixs - i’m not sure i have an answer to the first question yet—it’s ongoing—& since the book just came out, it’s like a whole new framing of relation reveals itself daily. i def feel exposed in a way i’ve never been—like it’s one thing to read your smutty gay poems to a room of friends, & another thing to have those poems accessible from, like, Amazon.
My recent work feels totally different. It’s like all of this impetus to tell you who i am—that’s done, chapter closed. A first book can be such a catch all (stemmy things certainly is), & now i feel free to concentrate on specific projects that interest me—obsessions, things like that.
How i approach the page is also changing. stemmy things is so maximalist, & i’m finding that playing w empty space slows my thought process & allows me room to vibe. The poems i’m working on these days are all 10-15 pages in length, but very sparse. My process used to involve making a draft, saving it, editing, then numbering & saving that draft, ad infinitum. That all changed though late in 2021 when i was watching Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back—when Beatle Paul just pulls the titular song outta thin air, just messing around. Seeing this amazed me! i was like oh, you PLAY the draft & keep playing ‘till you find what yr looking for. So now i work in one or two rolling documents.
My second manuscript is nearly done. It’s provisionally titled weird connections & is filled with lengthy poems influenced by concrete poetry. It’s full of citations & is obsessed w questions like what is language? what is a word before it leaves the body? what’s the relation of naming, thus othering, thus thing-ness to whatever the god-thing is? Also, it’s a love letter to many literary idols. Mostly, it was written during my time as an Emerge Surface Be Fellow at the Poetry Project, guided by the mentorship of Stacy Szymaszek.
rm - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
ixs - Honestly, i’m unsure, but was fortunate as a child in the sense that reading was encouraged & i always enjoyed it. i know i’ve had a notion in the past (perhaps still do) that writing fiction—a novel or something—would somehow be harder than writing a poem. Like, that must be something one builds to. Of course that’s not true, but maybe poems just felt more achievable.
i do remember the first poem i ever memorized—Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar.” What a delightful child i must’ve been…
rm - 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?
ixs - All of the above, emphasis on copious notes. Everything is process though. If the words aren’t coming, i don’t sweat it ‘cuz i know i’m gathering.
rm - 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?
ixs - stemmy things definitely started out as discrete poems (the oldest being from 2017). i accumulated a lot of poems & fragments during my time as an MFA student, but i always think in terms of projects. When it came time to assemble my thesis, i wanted it to be a book––to flow, have rhythms & specific themes. When Nightboat took the manuscript, i began a lengthy process of drafting, re-drafting, making new work & filling in the gaps re the shape the book was taking. i made seven or eight drafts of the manuscript after it was already a manuscript lol!
My new manuscript, provisionally titled weird connections & nearly complete, is definitely project oriented. It’s asking questions about what language is, where it comes from in the body, its relationship to some kind of “godthing.” It’s also about the endlessness of literary life & is full of citations within the poems.
stemmy things wound up peak first book: it’s basically a trans memoir & tries to hold space for every thought i’ve ever had & how i got to them, & then the relationship to culture therein. i don’t wanna do something like that again. The way i hope to carry on working is to pose a question, or set of questions to myself, play around in them for a few months, do some writing, & when i feel satisfied, that’s a book. Ideally no book would take more than a year to conceive & get to manuscript form.
rm - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
ixs - Put me on a stage & i will make something happen! i love love love performing, & it’s definitely part of the process. You can learn a lot about rhythm by reading aloud, not to mention getting some kinda feeling as to how the work lands w ppl.
rm - 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?
ixs - My theoretical concerns vary project to project. i talked a bit earlier about weird connections, its concerns. stemmy things is ultimately about how selfhood(s) form, disperse, form, trans-, & how that process sits in relation to racist, sexist, homophobic, white supremacist & imperialistic society. Necessarily, more questions are posed than satisfied, but i hope the work gets at some perennially important questions.
As for what those questions are—that’s a matter of context, of where one stands in relation to so many factors. i think of Audre Lorde & the necessity of telling the truth of our lives, in relation to the world w / in & around us.
rm – 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?
ixs - i want to avoid absolutes, & thus won’t speak to what the role of the writer should be. What i will say is that i hope to be useful & accountable to my community(ies), in terms of ethics, aesthetics, questions posed, vibes offered up, etc.
rm - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
ixs - i love collaborating & editor(s) feel essential. In my dreams, i have the kind of relationship w an editor one imagines Brian Eno having w some group or person he’s producing. That kind of entering into process, playing & pushing it in new directions. At the same time, if i’m set on something, i’m set on it, ya know? My wonderful editors on stemmy things all encouraged me to cut poems. Looking at the finished work now, in a sense, they were right. The book could perhaps be more taught, more precise. In my head though, it was always this unruly mass—an overgrown garden or a double album of the rock n’ roll era (think something like Sandanista! or Exile on Main Street, the white album or Sign ‘O’ the Times, which were all actually templates). Sure, you could trim those records down & they’d be perfect in a sense, but you’d miss all the play & weirdness. Looking back, maybe they were right, but also, i had a vision & wanted to stick w it, however it wound up shaking out!
To your question though, i’ll reiterate the essentiality of collaboration, which can happen at so many points in the process.
rm - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
ixs - Once, in a workshop, my friend (the great poet & drag performer) Wo Chan said to me “the love is in the details.” i remember this whenever i’m trying to push against my language, which is whenever i write––to make it more specific, emergent from my materiality & set in relation.
rm - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
ixs - These days i’m working 9-5, more or less, so sadly, that’s how a typical day begins. In my ideal Writer’s Life, i’d wake up around 9, read news & drink coffee, & write from about 10:30 to 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Sometimes i’ll get stoned at night to unwind & will end up editing (w varying results lol).
rm - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
ixs - If the writing isn’t coming at a given moment, i don’t sweat it—just do something else. Maybe it’s a moment to rest, or gather, or fuck off completely. But shifting focus is really it—there’s no shortage of inspiration in the world, just put your body elsewhere, redirect your attention.
rm - What fragrance reminds you of home?
ixs - What immediately comes to mind is cannabis. Living in NYC, there’s a lot of fragrance. So tbh, sometimes it’s the smell of urine & i’m immediately on a subway platform, or it’s the mix of all kinds of food being cooked simultaneously in an apartment building. Maybe i’m away somewhere like in a rural setting, but smell garbage & miss my block. The way a sidewalk smells in summer after it's been hosed off. i say all this sincerely & w a lot of respect—i love my home & take it as it is. It smells like life being lived by the very much alive.
rm - 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?
ixs - All of the above. i love a slow “art” film—they teach me so much about pacing & duration. The same w novels & symphonies. But this list would be excessive, & definitely encompasses all mediums & then some.
rm - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
ixs - The work we do as artists arises from a communal place. Essentially, i’m really into my peers. Lately though, i’d answer this question by naming Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Cody-Rose Clevidence, Alisha Mascarenhas, Stacy Szymaszek, Aditi Machado, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Valerie Hsiung, Kimberly Alidio, Kay Gabriel, Laura Henriksen, N.H. Pritchard, Rebecca Teich, Wo Chan, Anaïs Duplan, & Rosie Stockton have all been crucial to me in the last year. Bernadette Mayer, June Jordan, Etel Adnan, Diane Di Prima, Lisa Robertson, Dionne Brand, Alice Notley, Bob Kaufman, CAConrad—they’re some perennials (i’m forgetting names, & this is just re poetry!).
Oh—Women in Concrete Poetry 1959-1979 is, like, my bible.
rm - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
ixs - Make large-scale concrete poems & have gallery show.
rm - 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?
ixs - Musician or filmmaker or gardener—like weird groundskeeper vibes—, maybe a theater actor. Hard to say really—making poems is the only thing i’m good at!
rm - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
ixs - IDK honestly. i love to read, & that might inspire one to write, but who knows? Haven’t ever thought of it in opposition to doing something else.
rm - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
ixs - As far as poetry goes, Kay Gabriel’s A Queen in Bucks County, Sawako Nakayasu’s Texture Notes, Gabrielle Octavia Rucker’s Dereliction, & Valerie Hsiung’s To Love An Artist have felt so generous. i’m halfway through Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman, which is obviously fucked up & brilliant, & my train book is Love Me Tender by Constance Debré—i love love love her long sentences, full of terse bits broken by commas.
A friend, noting my love of / for LESBIAN NUNS, gifted me The Bell by Iris Murdoch. Side Affects by Hil Malatino & In Praise of Risk by Anne Dufourmantelle have been constant companions in 2022. Same w Gravity & Grace.
At the top of my to-read list are Cat Fitzpatrick’s new novel in verse, The Call Out, Nico Vela Page’s Americón, & Chelsea Manning’s new memoir, README.txt.
Films…hmm…i’m riding high off seeing Bergman’s Persona & Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express at IFC earlier this year. It’s spooky season & i love horror, so Bride of Frankenstein & Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm have hit the spot.
i’m also trying to learn more about my own desires by uping my intake queer porn.
rm - What are you currently working on?
ixs - medically transitioning into the all around hottest version of myself
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