Gion Davis, Designated Stranger

You can actually run away. You are allowed to go, at least for a little while. You can drive all over the place and end up in California and eat fried cod in Fort Bragg and half-joke about moving there even though you know you won’t because small towns you can only get to by wild little highways aren’t really your thing anymore.

 

You are allowed to have the most perfect day you can remember, even though you are tired from sleeping on an inflatable mattress in some stranger’s living room. It’ll be a day where it doesn’t matter than you are trans, that you are newly twenty-eight, that you are waiting on the hospital bill from your boyfriend having to go to the ER with COVID after you lost your insurance because you quit your job three weeks ago to run off into the country.

 

It won’t matter that you’re a poet standing under some giant redwoods and wondering if they ever have perfect days and what those days are like. Maybe just the right amount of sun, just the right amount of rain, just the right amount of passing nutrients back and forth to one another underground in secret. It’s hard to imagine anything going wrong for them. I stood in the burned-out heart of a tree that was still healthy and enormous everywhere except right at the bottom in the middle which was empty. You could have lived inside it. Maybe someone has. (“The Thing No One Wants You to Know”)

Following his full-length debut, Too Much (Ghost Peach Press, 2022), comes Denver, Colorado-based poet Gion Davis’ latest, the collection Designated Stranger (Logan UT: Thirdhand Books, 2026). “there are parts of me / I will never see / there are parts / of Louisiana / that are underwater,” he writes, as part of the poem “Simple Divorces.” There’s a restlessness to the poems in this collection, one that emerges from a narrator seeking out their place; wandering, for the sake of seeking somewhere to settle, or even feel comfortable, perhaps, working to articulate a wandering period of youth, and the current realities of being transgender and poor in America. “You can’t imagine it: the smell drying onto cardboard & into an old / Red wheelbarrow full of stomachs heavier & whiter than the moon.” begins the poem “Nothing’s Hanging Out Going to Whole Foods,” “They do not / Do that where you are from. Where you are from, a velvet rope runs the circumference / Of death & you stood in line with a ticket just to touch it.”

As the press release offers, the book “spans years, states, genders, and climates as it confronts the concurrent apocalypses of being trans and poor in America,” as Davis offers poems that are smart and exploratory, exhausted and declarative, utilizing a sharp use of both the lyric sentence and the line-break, prose poems and accumulated phrases. “I wanted to live / in this junk drawer / of a city with you / among the pyramids,” begins the poem “Goddamn Universe,” “and piles of ripped up / rebar like wads of hair / from a brittle brush / beside the Mississippi.” Or, as the poem “How to Be a Good Man (If Conditions Are / Better to Be a Wildfire)” ends: “Wear a shirt that is nonthreatening. / Try on that pair of Wranglers / again. Maybe they’ll fit you / if you surprise them. / Come home to one person / in your bed every night / and stay who you are / for the rest of your life.”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Patty Nash

Patty Nash's first book, Walden Pond, was published with Thirdhand Books in August 2024. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, the Washington Square Review, Annulet, and elsewhere. Website: patty-nash.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?

Walden Pond is my first published book, but it’s my third or fourth manuscript, depending on how I’m counting. My earliest manuscripts consisted of single poems that I had more or less haphazardly stapled together, the later ones were more interested in specific topics. With WP, I was narrowly interested in a broad constellation: nationhood, institutions of religion and language, the exchange of capital, how these make us identify and relate in codified ways. I was particularly interested in national narratives and figures, like Martin Luther, whose high German translation of the Bible paved the way for Germany to think of itself as a nation. I live in Germany, and for about two years, I would intentionally seek out sightseeing trips or site-specific “research” that made sense for the book. This was different to my writing process before, which entailed me sort of waiting for things to happen. I also started working on longer poems and series in this book, many of which didn’t even make it into the final manuscript. It was originally over 200 pages long…

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

I started writing poems because I thought I didn’t have to know the rules. What others called “good” poems seemed to me totally random at the time (I was a teenager), at least compared to novels, which had (to me) clearer markers of success or failure. I’m not sure I still agree with my earlier self, but I still feel more freedom writing poems than I do in other genres.

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? 

My tendency is to struggle for a long time around a single conceit, like for months. Then, after some break in routine, everything coheres and suddenly starts working, or I find a form that’s so much fun I can’t stop wringing it out. Still, most of my writing is a slog. My early drafts are quite messy and often quite different from their final versions.

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?

Since writing WP, I have become convinced of long poems. The longer the better! I like working on a “book” from the very beginning, but the “book” often splinters off into other iterations or siblings… I enjoy pursuing a question without having fully articulated it yet, because then everything I do has a poem underneath it. That sounds instrumentalizing, but it really isn’t – my poems often surprise me in how they confound my initial experience of something, be it a wedding or a group excursion into the woods or a doctor’s appointment.

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

I love public readings. The poems that are best suited for public readings aren’t always the ones that make it into journals, sadly – which is why I like reading them, looking the audience in the eye. That’s my big thing: eye contact.

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?

This is a big question… I’m not sure I can answer completely. More recently, I’m thinking about the forces that allow or impel me to think of myself as a subject in the first place, someone with descriptive or denotative authority. Isn’t it curious – the fact that my experience can be trusted, at least in certain contexts? Why is that? If these are current questions, I think they’re also perennial questions writers ask – about relations, about power, about systems, about death, but also how we make sense of them, how we emote in them. For me, the central instrument of that sensemaking is my “I,” but it’s so strange and arbitrary that I have come to think of myself in this way, and not some other pronoun or grammatical unit of affiliation. It seems quite constructed, but also conflated with my whiteness, my German-Americanness. I also see this responsibility to look at that instrument as an instrument of power. If there were a question I’m trying to answer with my work, it would be “What is going on?” And then: “What happened?” And then: “What’s that?” Of course, the central question of “Who am I”, which is quite common in lyric poetry, attends as well… I don’t want to take anything for granted, and I don’t want to detect these big questions in monuments or grand historical gestures, but like, when I’m eating breakfast, for example, or watering my houseplants.

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 think good writers make everything strange, or at least call attention to how “normalcy” is a motivated aesthetic device. To be more sentimental: it’s bizarre that we are on this earth, and equally bizarre that the world is the way it is! Isn’t it? I think writers should be as various as they want to be. Broadly speaking, I am glad that there are lots of different kinds of writers and texts.

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

It’s absolutely essential. My work would be terrible without the input of readers, friends, and editors. The editors at Thirdhand Books (Lindsey Webb and Kylan Rice) absolutely made my first manuscript better than I could have alone. 

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

I am frequently told that taking a break will make my writing better. It’s true, but I don’t always follow the advice, and instead churn out dozens of middling poems until I become too frustrated with myself to go on. Then I take a break and things are indeed easier and more exciting.

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

I’m currently writing my dissertation, and it’s frightening how similar that process feels to me compared to writing poems, though on the surface the process would seem so opposed. I have the same associative compositional style and many similar formal questions when I’m writing the dissertation, i.e., a vague question that I can only articulate when seeing it written. I also research a lot, though it’s questionable how much of that research makes it into the poems themselves. And in both I force myself to slog through even when the productivity has long since waned. Unfortunately, the creative energy I bring to the dissertation drains the poems, so I have to be careful about how much I’m working on each.

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?

Sometimes, I do a daily writing practice, often sharing the poems in a poem-a-day doc started by a friend, poet Emily Bark Brown. Then I have months when I try to sit down twice a week to look at my poems or write a new one. Typically, it’s about four or five times a week, however. Before starting the PhD, writing was like popping a zit, a compulsion, because it felt so necessary compared to my day job. Now I have to be more intentional about carving out time and, more importantly, interest. I typically write in the mornings, after I get back from the gym and before I sit down for the “real work.” My best poems are written, however, when I haven’t scheduled writing and actually should be doing something else.

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

With the exception of Wikipedia and select Youtube videos, the internet is horrible for my writing. When I feel stalled, I do something I (ideally) feel ambivalent about, like going to a museum or forcing myself into an uncomfortable social interaction. I like churning that ambivalence into a poem. The resulting poem is usually not very good but it is a good distraction. If I have the means, I skip town – breaks in routine are fantastic for my writing and usually the best way to start something new. I honestly think the best thing for my writing, however, is not writing. I have this compulsion to always be writing and I think it leads to bad poems.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? 

Douglas firs! Gasoline.

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?

I do like opera a lot, but I’m not sure it influences my work. Same goes for movies. I think fantasy RPGs have found their way into my poems, surprisingly – I like this idea of suspended contingency, of being someone else and trying things out, erasing them, moving around. I played Morrowind while writing Walden Pond. My boyfriend introduced me to it and I spent hundreds of hours there… I hadn’t really played any games before, besides The Sims.

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

This is so hard, because there are so many. But I do wish I could write with the same unabashed ambition as Thomas Mann and Leo Tolstoy – I sense this desire to combine forms, fiction and history. I love reading both of their works, though I have to say I don’t always love the books themselves, if that makes sense. The books are so determined and controlled, and yet with historical distance it’s also possible to make diagnoses from afar – Magic Mountain is to me a book about this deadly idea of Europe as much as it is about sickness, time, and modernity.

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

I really would like to write a libretto. I have started a few but don’t have a composer yet, sadly.

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 honestly like being a poet, but I wish I had picked up training for a job that would allow me to earn a living wage without working more than 20 hours a week. Does that exist? I really love writing, but I hate having to earn money and worry about that.

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

I wish I knew! I enjoyed writing and it was easy to do logistically (I didn’t need extra equipment, or anyone supporting me). I think that was the main reason.

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

The last great book I read was The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky and this time translated by Michael R. Katz. The last film I enjoyed was Dahomey, directed by Mati Diop.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am pregnant and, if all goes well, my baby is due in 1.5 weeks. Pregnancy is a very strange experience and has, rather predictably, consumed my writing. When I found out I was pregnant, I started a book called The Experiment, which is composed of various little sections, but also inspired by a pregnancy experiment I’m taking part in at the Berlin Philharmonic. (You’ll have to read the book to learn more.) But the bigger, more looming project is another one. For the past three years, I’ve been working on a book-length poem about historical Hanses, titled HANS – “Hans” being the diminutive of Johannes in German, and related to names John, Ian, Sean, Giovanni, Jean, Yahya, Johanna, Hannah, Ivan, Anna, Nancy, and many more. The book is interested in historical reproduction and repetition, which occurs through the same name in different persons. There are a lot of historical Hanses that could make it into the book. The issue is actually keeping the number down…

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jordan Dunn

Jordan Dunn is the author of Notation (Thirdhand Books), Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (Partly Press), as well as various chapbooks and ephemeral prints including Common Names, Reactor Woods, and A Walk at Doolittle State Preserve. He lives with his family in Madison, WI, where he edits and publishes Oxeye Press.

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

I published my first book, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, with Partly Press in 2022. Partly Press is edited by Chuck Stebelton and housed at the Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee, which is a wonderful non-profit that has many missions in addition to running its literary press. This meant that my first book appeared in a location slightly off-center from traditional poetry channels. It felt good to appear in a new space, and that experience helped me feel confident that poets can appear in different kinds of venues.

My new book, Notation, is like Physical Geography in that it’s a book constructed out of other books, and it relies heavily on intertexts to bind itself together. The subject matter of Notation was different for me, however, in that it was partially inspired through more personal experiences, including the loss of several friends. Notation also feels different in that its duration is more containable, and it looks quite different on the page compared to Physical Geography.

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

I’ve always been attracted to the portability of poetry—it is an activity that can be adjacent to whatever life I have at any given moment in time. I’m not positive I’m a poet, but the poets gave me a seat at their table, so here I am, enjoying the good company of poets.

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 know when I am beginning a project. After some time, I notice groups of consistencies, and then I focus on those as points of attachment. Because I am interested in book arts, I often make small handmade editions. So, there’s lots of variability with time and process and drafting.

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?

Accumulation over time is necessary for me. I don’t really attempt to compose individual poems when I’m writing.

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

I used to be more invested in performativity when I would give readings because my writing was focused on permutation, and so the reading event felt like an extension of the writing process. These days, I am trying to focus on lifting static text off the page. I feel like I am struggling with that process because I don’t like it when text loses its subjectivity.

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’m deeply invested in literary community and the answers I can find through friendship with other writers and artists. I’m also interested in natural history and understanding the local ecologies and landscape histories in my area, as well as areas that I visit frequently.

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?

As I understand it, literary writing is rapidly becoming an analog fixture in our culture. That means it could have staying power and be used as a refuge, or it could gradually empty itself of meaning and become irrelevant. Hopefully the role of the writer is to protect against obsolescence.

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

Essential! Thank you to my past editors: Chuck Stebelton, Kylan Rice, and Lindsey Webb.

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

I finished college at the start of the Great Recession. I was living back at home, I was having a hard time finding work, and I was thinking about taking a job that involved writing scripts for a company that produced training videos for corporations. At the time, my dad was an ex-marine banker involved in commercial real estate lending, and when I told him about the job opportunity he said, “What, are you going to be a fucking sell-out?” So, I instead saved up money working in a warehouse, quit that job, and rode my bike across the country. Thanks, dad. XO.

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?

When I’m at my best and my schedule is at its best: I wake up, let the dog out, make coffee, and then retreat to my lower-level workspace. I like to write in the morning before the rest of the house wakes up. Often, the carnival of being a parent means I write whenever I can, and I often wear noise-canceling headphones.

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

I keep stacks of books around my desk and on shelves above my desk. When I stall, I pick up a book and read it until something wants to be transcribed, and then I’m writing again.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Lake Superior white pine.

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?

All of the above. I feel like books are simply placeholders for those other things.

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

Too many to list! A few writers/writings I return to: Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian, Thomas A. Clark, & Thoreau’s journals, among many others.

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

A thru-hike, like the AT or the PCT.

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?

Hmm . . . working with living things outside the world of finance?

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

Repetition.

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

Weeds in Winter, by Lauren Brown. A few weeks ago, I watched The Lost Daughter.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a new manuscript that feels attached to the methods used to write Notation. I’m trying to distill two years of daily/occasional writing with infused transcription and travel journals. I’m also working on several little book arts projects that include a disappearing prairie, collages from Thoreau’s journals, images of tidal sand, and images of hackberry bark.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Patty Nash, Walden Pond

 

The wheel of history is being turned

Terns skim the wetlands which are evaded by the tiller

The tiller is the lever which turns the wheel

The wheel levers the tiller and is attached to the rudder

The rudder maneuvers the ship like a shark fin

Fine establishment you’ve got here

Her? Oh, she’s my sister (“Lübeck”)

The full-length debut by Berlin, Germany-based American poet Patty Nash is WaldenPond (Colombia MO: Third Hand Books, 2024), holding as her title echoes of references to both American transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau’s infamous Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) as well as the celebrated pond itself, which rests in Concord, Massachusetts. Can such a sleek and sharp poetry debut survive underneath such cultural weight? As the back cover offers: “In Walden Pond, Nash probes and plays with the first-person pronoun, investigating the construction of national identities and the way nations in turn construct the identities of individuals.”

There is an absolute sharpness to her poems, her restless, thoughtful meditations, her cutthroat lines, such as the short poem “Economy,” the first in the final (and title) section, as she writes: “I’d like to perfect my technique, / Which I know is wanting // Though in order to do that, I’d need fresh / Hands on my sternum and my chest [.]” She writes a solidity of meaning and purpose that allows for a fluidity of lyric, almost reminiscent of the work of the late Saskatchewan poet John Newlove. Her poems shape an American terrain, offering perspectives from multiple points across a wide map, writing her “first-person pronoun” across fractures, fragments and sediment. “Don’t laugh,” she writes, in the poem “Worth Home,” “The order propped / Itself up in choir chairs / And didn’t wear underwear, and didn’t speak / And today we are meant / To be charmed by this and are dutiful.”

Set in four sections—“LÜBECK,” “PRECURSOR,” “THE PATRICIANS” and “WALDEN POND”—the poems in Walden Pond offer collage in a really precise through-line, leaping from moment to small moment with fascinating coherence. She carves out delicate lines through deep cuts of restless imagery. “Ah, summer.” she writes, as part of the title poem, “Life / is what happens / when you / remember May / 2012 in pure / dread and fear. / Life is also what / happens when / you say ‘I simply / cannot deal’ and / defer, tuck / spaghetti / bolognese in / napkins, I’m truly / excellent at that.”