Erin Hoover’s [photo credit: Kira Derryberry] poetry collection, Barnburner,
was selected by Kathryn Nuernberger for Elixir Press‘s Antivenom Poetry Award and will be published
October 1, 2018. Her poems have appeared
in The Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, and in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Narrative, Alaska Quarterly
Review, and Pleiades. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida.
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 been
exciting to be able to present the work in a way where the poems can speak to
each other. In Barnburner, which is very narrative, I’m not only talking about
craft as much as subject matter. For instance, how does a poem about the
destruction of the Appalachian natural environment connect to a poem about
waking up on the sidewalk after getting rufied at a bar in New York City? I know putting together Barnburner taught me something about what my “concerns” are.
I’m looking
next to deal less with personal narrative and more with the relationship
between the individual and institutions, like health care, education,
government—mainly because I’ve had a daughter as a single parent by choice and
I have been thinking a lot about how institutions see my family and how we
interact with them.
Like, if Barnburner is a particularly harsh
female coming-of-age story, now this is where I’m going to interrogate the
patriarchy that formed those experiences.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as
opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Growing up in a
rural environment, I was blessed with both utter boredom and relative
isolation, which made me into an observer. The other thing I should probably
mention, which will be familiar to readers of Barnburner, is that I came of age in a very conservative place. For
me, poetry has been an act of re-vision, per Adrienne Rich. I think narrative can be especially powerful
for those who stories have been pushed aside.
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 take
notes, but I do a ton of revisions. It
can take me 10 years to write a poem.
There is a poem in Barnburner
that was in its early versions 15 years ago. I think most of my poems probably
have a thesis, but they don’t begin with one.
Usually poems
come out of something that’s been bothering me.
For instance, when I was in college—actually, I was on a break from
college, working at Blockbuster video and waitressing—I was invited to party
where a bunch of people, all members of the same church, tried to convert
me. Weird, okay, but why is this
important? Aside from throwing my speaker into that party setting in
“Conversion Party,” there are two other scenes, one where as a little girl
she’s counting the collection plate with her father, because of course she grew
up religious, and one where she’s accused of stealing from the register at
work. As I was writing the poem, these
scenes expanded and contracted until they felt in balance, until I was able to
build what I wanted to say through connections between the images and scenes. I realized that what I was interested in was expectation,
in ordering as a form of expectation, and religion as a kind of ordering. The poem helped me understand this.
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?
It would be
nice to say I’m working on a book from the very beginning, for the purpose of
grant narratives and job applications. But
I think that finding a poem’s form and subject matter though the writing
process is like taking a break from how painfully organized I am in most areas
of my life, and the same goes for making a book. I once went as “Negative Capability” for
Halloween, so I’m that sort of person.
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 also love the sound of poetry and hearing others read, in person or
by listening to recordings or watching YouTube.
I’ve learned
that some of my poems work better on the page or screen. For instance, you read
a poem of mine in Queen Mob’s Teahouse,
“Takedown,”
which deals with the difficulty of being young and female on the Internet in
its early days. In places, that poem
appropriates abusive language. Young women who have been trolled online have
told me that it comes closest to evoking their experience as anything they have
read. But is it fun to read out loud to
a crowd of strangers? Not really.
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?
The epigraph
describes the origins of the word ‘barnburner’: the farmer who burns down his
barn to get rid of the rats. I intended
to signal the emotional “fuck all” that cuts across many of the poems in Barnburner, at least on the surface.
Americans see this in our politics, of course, where the only way to
demonstrate a belief is by one’s willingness to be annihilated for it. The book is attempting a kind of badass pose
in that way, while admitting the swagger is hollow.
Among many
other things, Barnburner is concerned
with work that is meaningless—I have certainly put in the time doing that work—and
the creeping sense of isolation in our communities, even as so many of us yearn
to connect. It has feminist concerns,
with poems explicitly about struggles with reproduction and rape culture. It tries to talk about whiteness.
What I hope
people also see, too, is that these poems believe not only in conflict, but in
kindness and generosity. I was trying to
have my daughter when I was writing Barnburner,
and I dedicated the book to her.
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?
Language is
political, naming is political, narrative is political—I think the writer
reminds us of this. I’m pleased when
writers and journalists and everyday people respond to injustice with plain
speech.
“Held between wars
/ my lifetime / among wars, the big hands of the world of death / my lifetime /
listens to yours” – thus begins Muriel Rukeyser’s poem, “Kathe
Kollwitz.”
8 - Do you find the process of working
with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I have learned
that high-caliber poets fool themselves with high-caliber bullshit. I needed to
find that person who could be a good reader for me, who understood my project,
and who would call me out. I took this
person at their word and rewrote the poems. Erin Belieu read maybe five or six
versions of Barnburner, poem by
poem. I am trying to do more of this
work myself, without an editor, but I will always need a reader.
9 - What is the best piece of advice
you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
James Kimbrell
saw an early version of my book and told me that the first five or six poems
each had the same curse word in them. I
realized that though I hadn’t intended to do that, this is what a reader would
see. Sometimes, notice the obvious
thing.
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 am a creature
of routine, but I try to keep routine out of my writing.
I keep notes
with ideas on my phone. Letting my mind wander while I’m thinking about
something else is generative for me, and I need let myself off the hook
sometimes—it’s okay to capture an idea and then pursue it later. I get the best ideas when I’m driving (and
write them down at red lights) or when I’m riding a train or plane.
11 - When your writing gets stalled,
where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
There are two
books I tend to pick up, and I feel like I learn something every time I
do—James Kimbrell’s Smote and Cate Marvin’s World’s Tallest Disaster. Both are Sarabande books, by coincidence.
I also a big
fan of trying not to think about the poem and then returning to it in a little
while.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Wet hot
asphalt. I must have spent a lot of time
playing in parking lots on very hot summer days.
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?
I have poems in
Barnburner that come from each of
these areas. For instance, in “Science
Fiction: A Love Poem,” I talk about crustacean biology, heroin, artificial
intelligence by way of Catherynne M. Valente’s Silently and Very Fast, a poetry feature in Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Wittgenstein’s philosophy of ordinary
language.
14 - What other writers or writings are
important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
This is kinda
twentieth century, but I haven’t gotten over Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. I hope readers will feel some of his brand of
bittersweet apprehension when they read Barnburner.
Since I grew up
in a place stepped in Pennsylvania Dutch culture, I’ve read John George Hohman’s book of folk magic, The Long-Lost Friend. The cover of Barnburner
is a spin on the traditional hex sign created by Seana Carmody. We worked together on the design.
15 - What would you like to do that you
haven't yet done?
I’d like to
attempt a book of nonfiction, not a memoir, but a researched work. I’m interested in failed American utopian
communities, so maybe I’d write about 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?
I would have
liked to be a fertility doctor. Having kids
with the help of one, as I did, can be harrowing. You have to be made of steel to do it. It would be inspiring to work with people on
that path.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to
doing something else?
Growing up, I
was competent at many things, but not truly excellent at anything. I can’t say that I am excellent as a writer,
but I’ve wanted to try harder at it than anything else.
18 - What was the last great book you
read? What was the last great film?
Last time I
answered this question, I was in a job interview, and the interviewer responded
with, “But you don’t write like him at
all!” I take this question to mean, what thing did someone else make that
you are in awe of? For poetry, the book
is Monica Youn’s Blackacre. And, this is not new, but the last film I saw
that I loved was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.
19 - What are you currently working on?
Mostly
publicity for Barnburner. But before
too much time goes by, I’m going to have to write about my daughter.
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