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 proved I could do it, on the one hand. Creatively, I’m also really proud of the form both in the poetry and of the book as a whole, which I think channels the energy of the poetry and prose in it. What I’m working on now feels similar in that I really want the collection to have a strong and obvious structure, and different in that the look of the structure is pretty different. Each poem has its own voice, and so each collection of poems ends up being a distinct kind of chorus of all of the poems.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
● I’d say poetry came to me. I sometimes go to prose, to fiction or non-fiction, and they are fun trips, but with practice, poetry started coming to me. I can’t remember who he was quoting, a Google search turns up Stephen King (which I don’t think was the case), but Paul Nelson told me, it’s easier for the muse to find you if they know where you’re going to be.
● At first it was an attraction. I heard rappers and other spoken word artists, songwriters, and poets, and I really liked what I heard. I felt like I could do something sort of like it, and then, once I really committed and developed a practice of writing poetry, I found it started to just pour through me. If it’s been a while, a day or a month, usually not longer than 5 weeks, I have to write it down or say it out loud or I dunno what happens.
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?
● Yes… My website is titled “unfinished”, so I believe that no art is ever truly in a final shape, but… (it’s also an unintentional ironic judgement on my upkeep of the site…)
○ I have one project that I’ve written the first draft at least 20 times. I’d like it to be an illustrated children’s book about mice who save the world from a metaphor for the climate crisis. It’s been about 3 years.
○ Often, poems come out looking pretty similar to how I choose to share them. The thing is, if I’m working on a larger project, I can’t always choose what the next poem is that comes out, so often I end up with multiple larger projects at a time.
○ Often, the poems I choose not to share end up being a part of something else. They had some kernel of energy in them, I just got in the way somehow, so if I can strip the ego away and get that kernel out, releasing the energy helps the new writing.
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?
● A poem could begin anywhere. Jack Spicer shared the idea of the poet as a radio, who receives the poem from some outside source. He talked about the martians, but really it's just outside yourself. Often from the Bioregion, other art, somewhere there’s a strong channel of energy. Quell the ego. Lots of my poems begin from other poems. When I’m trying to make a larger thing, though, I don’t usually like to just throw poems together. In Projective Verse, Charles Olson, quoting Robert Creeley, wrote “FORM IS NOTHING MORE THAN AN EXTENSION OF CONTENT.” To me, that applies to each individual poem, but also to the form in which they are delivered, be it a book or a dance. If you watch a dance, and it does not set you up with certain expectations about it, the kind of movements you can expect throughout and some emotion connected to the movement, it will not be able to guide the energy of the room, and eventually break those expectations it set up for itself to deliver punchy moments. When I’m working on a book, I like it to have a cohesive logic for that reason. I think each project, of any scale, from one line to a poem to a collection, should have its own defining logic. By setting that up, its form, its movements further reveal the content of the poems. It doesn’t necessarily have to work toward some climax, but now it is a guide for the energy, and when the rules it has set up for itself are broken, a greater energy is released.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
● I love doing readings. I recently did a performance with a dancer, Christina Fraij, at the Columbia City Theater in Columbia City, Seattle, for the PNW Climate Week variety show (set up by Natalie and Erika). I love the written word, too, but damn. At a good public reading or performance, it’s a different type of energy. I’ve learned a little bit about Buddhism and Zen and there’s this idea of Indra’s Net, which is a metaphysical network of energy that connects all things, represented as gems. At a good performance, I feel like I can see the jeweled intersections of that energy net. At the variety show, I felt like Christina and I were pouring energy into the world, into that net.
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 the current questions with regard to art (and hence, my writing) have to be related to the current questions that face our culture. These are various and significant in scale, including the climate crisis and social justice (or human rights) in the big picture, but, I believe, actually all related. How I seek to address them in my writing is to put objects and actions next to each other in an interesting way in order to reveal small pieces of the web of relationality that is the Earth, and more broadly, the universe. But that’s a very heady response to a heady question. One important current question is this: How do we take our waste and make it into something useful?
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?
● There are so many different kinds of writers. And now, with AI, there can just be the metaphorical 1,000 monkeys on a typewriter operating at all times. So, to a certain extent, the role of the writer is washed out because it’s…everything. At their worst, writers dumb down and act as “yes-people” to the culture. They encourage surface level engagement that results in wasteful behaviors. At their best, though, they do the opposite. They push the people, and hence the culture, to discover the best versions of themselves. They engage the senses and perceptions of the culture in order to dive deeper into our shared consciousness and subconsciousness. They practice creativity and hence they breed it in others. They engage ethical and moral thinking and demonstrate ways to practice in daily life. Right now, in this moment, I think the role the writer needs to fill is specifically to connect us to the land. To show us new ways of living deeply where we are, in reciprocity with all our human and non-human neighbors.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
● What I find most difficult is finding an outside editor who gives good advice. I’ve only published one book and have never actually worked directly with an outside editor in a process like that one. A lot of people I’ve asked, certainly friends and family outside of the arts, and even many poets and artists, often tell me they love my work, but that’s not the most actionable feedback. I met Xavier Cavazos, a Senior Editor at Poetry Northwest, at an open mic in West Seattle, Poetry Bridge. We hit it off, he asked me to join him to recite a poem of his in Spanish on stage, which was a blast, and then he offered to take me through a few editing exercises he had. The exercises were really quite fun and working with him was quite easy.
● I also have a few friends and mentors who have helped edit my work, Paul Nelson being a very cherished mentor and friend. His advice has usually been to keep writing, find new and energetic topics to delve deeply into. The world around you is rife with energy, if you look for it. He gives amazing writing exercises in his workshops that pull from news, essays on poetics, and a variety of poems which provide a ton of energy and make getting started on a poem almost easy, at times. And his advice on a specific poem tends to be concise and right on the money.
● Then I have a critique group that has whittled down to just 3 of us, Kory Fowler, Jennifer Carrasco, and I. Kory and Jennifer always give me honest and excellent advice. So, I absolutely think it's essential to have other people read/hear your work and give you feedback. I also think it’s important to know yourself and your work well enough to leave bad advice to the side, when you get it.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
● Hmm. Hard to say. Advice can be so timely, and it builds up over time in a kind of messy way. So I’m having a hard time saying what is the best piece of advice I’ve received. A few pieces that leap to mind are: “Listen to your body,” “...engage speech where it is least careless – and least logical,” “To be a poet you only need to have 3 readers, and one of them can be a tree,” “Apprentice yourself to a poet and translate everything they wrote,” from my Mama, Charles Olson, Brenda Hillman, and Pierre Joris.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to multimedia/visual art)? What do you see as the appeal?
● I wouldn’t say it's been easy, but I find a lot of energy between genres, so it pulls me in. At the Seattle Climate Week Variety Show performance I had a few minor movements as well, and memorizing the poem and choreography was a real challenge. It went great though, and we got lots of great feedback from folks. The multi genre approach bends people’s expectations, engages their perceptions from multiple angles, and offers alternate sources of energy to the piece. It reveals to an audience more of the web of relationality I referred to earlier, which allows them to move and feel with the piece in a whole host of new ways. I also think it's a more holistic approach, and helps both myself, my partners on the projects, and the audience to practice that holistic, intuitive sensing of the world, which is so necessary and lacking in our culture.
● I love doing multi-media visual art with painting, drawing, and collage. Keeping a broad range of practices helps keep the mind open to new things.
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 have a few long term projects and a few yearly, seasonal traditions that keep me in a sort of routine. Every summer I participate in the Poetry Postcard Fest from the Cascadia Poetics Lab, which creates a season of writing for me in the months of July and August. It always provides a ton of energy. Usually after the Fest ends I try a Day Song. I have an effort to write 10,000 haiku, which keeps me consistent on a more daily schedule (although, I admit to lapses at least a month long on that front). Maybe by the end of the 10,000 I will be able to write one true haiku in Japanese. But if I go a long time without writing a poem, which is sometimes a day, sometimes a week, sometimes a couple months, eventually poems just start bubbling out of me. I can’t really control it, it’s become a need. A mode of spiritual connection with the world.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
● My immediate world. The things that surround me. I try to write something short, like a haiku, which can be a kickstart to get the energy going again.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
● Patchouli, wet dog, leather, cinnamon.
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?
● Everything! Paul Nelson teaches a workshop titled “Life as Rehearsal for the Poem”, and for me that captures the spirit. My artistic work is influenced by my life, and vice versa. Nature in particular is a huge influence for me, but there are many musicians, poets, painters, collagists, etc… from whom I derive rivers of energy.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
● Charles Olson’s essay Projective Verse is a touchstone for me. Him, along with the other Black Mountain, Beat Poets, San Francisco Beat Poets, guide me in terms of form. Brenda Hillman’s work is another touchstone. Paul Nelson has been an incredible mentor to me since I met him about 5 years ago, both with regard to my poetry and how I want to live my life. The first poem I ever memorized was a Lorca poem, and his poetics are also a guide for me. A couple books I read recently that have really sharpened my perspective on how I want to live my life are Mini-Forest Revolution: Using the Miyawaki Method to Rapidly Rewild the World, by Hannah Lewis, and Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
● Plant a forest in a city. Make a poetry film. Learn horticulture.
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?
● Well, I’ve been a teacher the past 5 years. I’m in a career shift toward Landscape Horticulture right now. I want to be a gardener, but in the biggest sense of the word. I think everywhere should be a garden. A home, a hospital, a ballpark, a city, a farm, the wilderness.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
● I have to write and do something else. On the creative side, like I mentioned, I love doing mixed-media painting and collage work and I’m going to be learning how to be a gardener, which I also view as a creative outlet. But writing poetry is a spiritual exercise for me. If I don’t do it, I feel myself grow more distant from myself. I don’t know what made me write, necessarily. My mom has a Masters in English Lit. My family has always really valued the skill. I grew up in a time and place where songwriting was really important culturally, especially rap, so that was super influential for me.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
● I just watched the new Avatar: Aang movie, and fuckin hell. Absolutely brilliant. The message that things might not end up how you expected or wanted, but you can still find meaning and joy in them is so needed right now.
● As for books, I need to take a look at my shelf. I think what takes a work of art from good to great has a lot to do with timing. Trickster Makes the World by Lewis Hyde, Japanese Death Poems, compiled by Yoel Hoffmann, Cascadian Zen Vol I & II, from Watershed Press, The Miracle of Trees by Olavi Huikari. I mentioned Braiding Sweetgrass and Mini-Forest Revolution earlier too, and those, like I said, have been influential.
20 - What are you currently working on?
● I have an ongoing project to write 10,000 haiku in 100 100 verse cantos. The current canto is about daylighting streams. I’m working on a chapbook inspired by Neruda’s 20 Love Poems and a Desperate Song. Also a children’s story about a mischief of mice confronted by a series of challenges at their home in Mother Poplar’s roots on Alki Beach. Oh! Also a trinity of works inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. That’s going to be a surrealist genre bending work, including poetry, prose, theater, dance, and maybe some film. I’m still finding where it's going.
