Joseph Rathgeber [photo credit: Ananda Lim] is an
author, poet, high school English teacher, and adjunct professor from New
Jersey. His story collection is The Abridged Autobiography of Yousef R.
and Other Stories (ELJ Publications, 2014). His work of hybrid poetry
is MJ (Another New Calligraphy, 2015). His novel is Mixedbloods (Fomite, 2019). He is the
recipient of a 2014 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship (Poetry)
and a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship
(Prose).
1 - How did
your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to
your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, a collection called The
Abridged Autobiography of Yousef R. and Other Stories (ELJ Editions, 2014)
felt validating and legitimizing. Until it didn’t. I found ways to minimize and
undermine the accomplishment. The experience (and several others that arrived
on its heels) soured me to the publishing industry insofar as publishing is an
industry, and there are so many conflicting interests and agendas inherent to
it. I resent having to play that game. Still, I’m sort of full of shit, because
I rather have that book in the world than not.
Artistically, I feel I’m better at doing what I’ve always set out to do
with my writing. Mixedbloods, my
upcoming novel, attempts to do some things I’ve never been very interested in;
namely, put forward an actual plot and sketch out emotionally rich characters
and scenarios. That might sound strange, but my writing (fiction and poetry,
both) is so driven by language—by seeking to establish a deep verbal
topography, as Gary Lutz puts it—that I’ve sidelined
those other qualities in the past. With Mixedbloods,
I tried to do it all. Sustaining that language-centric writing style over the
course of 80,000 words was no easy task, though.
2 - How did
you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I think I came to poetry first because I perceived it to be easier. And
it was. When I first started writing poems, I would write them in a matter of
minutes and be done with it. Fiction seemed (and, indeed, turned out to be)
much more demanding. I could make any excuse for a poem I wrote when I was
seventeen. It’s different now, but I still write poetry in short bursts and
only make edits months after the fact, once I’m thoroughly estranged from the
words.
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?
Mixedbloods—because it’s a novel that concerns an actual
native people (the Ramapough Mountain Indians) and a
history of colonization, iron mining, and environmental racism in a specific
region—required a lot of research and note-compiling. The notes weren’t limited
to facts either, though—I also amassed a bevy of words from my reading and
research: flora, fauna, jargon, esoteric terminology. I work better like this.
Those notes in and of themselves inspire both plot, character, and setting.
They dictate and determine those intimidating structural decisions. I comply.
Once I’ve gathered enough material, magpie-like, I begin the assembling.
Clauses and sentences are puzzled together, collaged. Sentences are crafted,
edited and revised, as I go along. It can be a tedious and plodding process,
but I enjoy the approach (I know of no better way to do it), and it’s
gratifying in the end.
4 - Where
does a poem or work of prose 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 used to be one-offs, but more and more I find poems emerging in
sequences. I embrace this, as the sequence is often well-suited for a chapbook.
Though I’ve never done the whole linked stories thing, my short fiction does
exist within a particular universe. Though many might balk at the suggestion
New Jersey is as mythological, storied, or romantic as Yoknapatawpha County,
Mississippi (it’s more pronounceable, at least), I prefer to ground my
characters in the state. And so my stories, once there are enough, can be
painlessly collected.
5 - Are
public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort
of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love the performative aspect of a public reading. Probably the reason
I teach, too. I like being out there communicating directly to the people, and
I enjoy the challenge of making it interesting. Readings are typically boring
affairs, for me at least. The poet-voice kills me. And the “stage” presence is
worse. Maybe it’s because I used to battle rap that I expect writers to
acknowledge the existence of their audience, interact with them, joke, etc. You
know, entertain. I also find it loathsome when a writer treats the reading as
some sacrosanct event. It should be casual. I recently saw Michael Lally read,
and he had no problem interrupting himself, mid-poem, to share some tangent
that came to his mind. It was so honest.
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 suppose I should hesitate to say I’m always writing through an anarcho-communist
lens—I should hesitate because that might rub some people in the most abrasive
of ways, might alienate others, might simply make the work seem contrived. But
with fascists emerging from behind computer screens, I don’t really care to
disguise my intents. I’m an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, gender abolitionist
who thinks we can develop alternatives to prisons and policing. That said, my
poems and stories and novels aren’t instructional manuals on a.) how to rid our
world of such ills or b.) how to build a just, nurturing, joyful society. My
writing documents the catastrophe as it unfolds and unfurls in flame walls. If
I’m on my game, I do that with the prettiest of language.
The work asks more questions than answers them. And I hope they are the
same questions Patricia Stuelke cataloged in a recent Post45 piece: How to confront accelerating climate disaster,
worsening refugee crises, unbounded global war, mass incarceration, femicides,
resurgent white supremacist movements, and the crushing burden of work and
debt?
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 don’t think the writer has a role in larger culture. Writers won’t
change the world. The role of the writer should be to mask up.
8 - Do you
find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or
both)?
I haven’t had any difficult editor experiences. The few people who have
been willing to help me in that capacity have made valuable suggestions to
improve the quality of the work. If I feel strongly about something with which
they disagree, they’ve always relented. Essential, though? I don’t think it
would be fair for me to say working with an editor is essential considering so
few writers are privileged enough to have one, myself included. Sometimes you
just need to lock the poem or paragraph away for six months and come back to it
with new eyes.
9 - What is
the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Never return a wave to somebody from across the street.
10 - How easy
has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short stories to the
novel)? What do you see as the appeal?
I move between genres pretty damn gracefully, if I do say so myself. I
think any effort to dismantle these genres should be encouraged. I think it’s a
thing of beauty to not be able to describe what it is you’re doing in such
simple terms. I appreciate the freedom of movement between aesthetics.
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?
A typical day for me doesn’t include writing, though I jot notes often
enough. I write late at night after everyone else is asleep. That’s not every
night, though. Writing nights happen here and there. I write until the morning
birds start chirping or until I hear something and scare myself. Then I grab a
knife (I usually write in the kitchen), recon the house, and retreat to my bed.
And I back up my file because I’m not a fool.
12 - When
your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a
better word) inspiration?
I usually do some manual labor—dig in the dirt or something like that.
Pull weeds. Clean the bathroom top-to-bottom until I get a bleach headache. If
I’m intent on getting the writing going again, I’ll read some sentences by
Lutz. Or open to a random page in Moby
Dick. Also artsy films, but Netflix has fewer and fewer of those available
to stream. Thanks for nothing, Netflix.
13 - What
fragrance reminds you of home?
Butter burning in a pan.
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?
For sure. The second Mobb Deep. Audrey Wollens’ Instagram page—I’ll scroll through that from
time to time. I like sitting outside and watching the treetops sway in the
breeze like Tony Soprano always did. This collage artist named Nicholas Lockyer who I just stumbled upon one night. I know nothing
about him, but his shit is dope and immediately puts me in a writing headspace.
I peruse the Queer
Zine Archive Project (QZAP). I’m easily inspired. The internet makes it easy. I
know how to summon the Muses like a motherfucker.
15 - What
other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life
outside of your work?
It’s surprising to me how my interest in fiction has waned over the
years. I’ve become very picky when it comes to a story or a novel. An interest
in non-fiction has emerged, though. And I find non-fiction enriching in ways a
novel isn’t. The intellectual stimulus, the learning, is probably something I’m
seeking to make up for due to the limited knowledge I gained in high school.
Things I’ve read recently that have made an impression: Franco Berardi’s Heroes, Alex Vitale’s The End of Policing, Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? I enjoy Sean Bonney’s old blog abandonedbuildings. Zines provide
me endless glee. Zines on prison abolition or anti-work or direct action. The
ideas contained therein shape my understanding of issues and fuel my
creativity. I’ve revisited Anne Boyer’s essay “No” so many
times that I brag about it to friends. My writing interests, for better or
worse (for better, I’ve decided), are inseparable from my life interests.
16 - What
would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Visit Alaska. Pierce something. Cover my arms, legs, and neck in
moderately small tattoos—black ink only. Eat a slice of pizza without puking.
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, writing isn’t my occupation—teaching is. I didn’t plan to be a
teacher, but it’s the best fit for me. Where else but a high school could I
talk about literature all day—interrupted by tangential outbursts—and not have
the police called on me? I’m able to spend hours trying to get kids to dig
reading and writing the same as I do. It also provides those summer vacations
where I can pretend writing is my
occupation. If I didn’t end up as a teacher, I’d be a wandering hobo, a
freighthopper—still would be writing, though.
18 - What
made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Writing always seemed the most manageable. The tools were at my
disposal. I’ve made music before, and that requires so much technical know-how.
I guess I could paint or draw, but I’m not too good at those mediums. I do make
collages—scissors, glue-sticks, and paper. But that’s mostly for myself. The
writing process is probably most in line with my neuroses.
19 - What was
the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The Sellout by Paul Beatty (like Phife
Dawg—he’s got styles upon styles upon styles), and I finally got around to
watching Room. It caused me to stop
my complaining about being stuck in the house with my kids during the winter.
Temporarily, anyway.
20 - What are
you currently working on?
I’m working on another novel about a teenager with congenital adrenal
hyperplasia who patricides their father. Coming off the dead seriousness of Mixedbloods, it’s been a joy to use
humor through a first-person narration.
That’s my fun, but my passion project is currently a nonfiction book
about an experimental underground rap collective that formed and flourished at
the turn of the millennium. The book juggles race, the role of the primitive
internet, subculture, and geographical de-centering. It’s part-music criticism,
part-autotheory, part-oral history. It’s the critical evaluation of an
overlooked scene. I’m conducting interviews, scouring archives, and structuring
and re-structuring the thing. I’ve gotten a little over my head, but I’m
comfortable with that. I trust it will eventually take shape as I write.
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