1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Maybe around ten years ago or so, I started working on an impossible book, one I never planned on finishing or publishing. Really just to see how it felt, and to learn to listen to the work. That didn’t become my first book, but it showed me what a book could be, how it could breathe, think, come into its own.
The first book I wrote and did publish was a work of documentary poetics. In many ways, my most recent book (Active Reception, Nightboat 2021) is extraordinarily different. But at the same time, it’s brought to life through some of the same workings as a book of documentary poetics – it’s a book of experience and a book that completes itself as a contained object, a concept book. Which is to say, the content might differ, and so too the themes, but I find myself working in similar ways in conceiving of a book, a collection, how it operates and structures itself.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I fell into poetry as much as poetry fell into me. I was always a reader of small press poetry and odd hybrid works. But I imagined myself becoming an academic, and was prepared to train for that kind of life. Poetry saved me, in so many ways, but most immediately by meeting me where I already was – what I was writing, in the academy, was its own kind of poetry that had to be worked into academic norms and structures. And I had no desire to make those changes, so I welcomed the realization that I didn’t need to.
I came to poetry confused and uncertain, but inspired. And I stay for the same reasons, but with so many more new reasons as well – the love, of the work and of the communities of poets I can exist in, the brilliance of my friends, the possibilities of what a poem can do, how it can become, all the ways it can be and grow.
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?
It’s always so new and so different. Some projects come all at once, the whole thing as a vision, the work flowing out sometimes too quick to transcribe. Sometimes, bits and pieces collect themselves when they want to make themselves visible, or legible. And sometimes, it doesn’t quite fit or click until the very last moment, when I can almost hear it whisper, “ah.”
I do all that I can, take notes when they come or when I’m presented with the material, transcribe it all, listen to the world around me, but more often than not, I feel the work coming out of me spontaneously, in ways I can’t predict or control. Some of those projects are their own fully functional beings, ready to jump out into the world, and some want to be held, even shelved, for years. I let the project determine its own needs, and practice listening to the work.
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?
Where does it begin? I find myself asking that same question often. I’ve tried to locate it, inside both my body and mind, but feel it coming in from so many places at once. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out. My best answer would be “magic” or “the shared energy that connects us all.”
When thinking of projects, I like to work around materials and concepts that create their own universe of language and experience, which I guess would mean that I like to work on a “book” from the start. But realistically, I find that the “book” emerges when it’s ready. That a constraint or a framework can both help and hinder the work from finding its motion, stretching itself out.
These days, shorter works have been popping up in places where they wouldn’t typically, and I’ve been enjoying them. I like to push myself to work in new and different ways, to learn always, which means that my process is always evolving, and always open to change.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Readings are a community space for me, where I can connect with people I love and respect dearly, and listen and experiment. In my day job, I work readings as a bookseller and events curator/coordinator, and I find that there’s nothing more helpful for my own practice than working or attending a good reading. There’s a kind of special reading that leaves the body so energized, so full of magic and the swirling word, and I don’t think I’d be able to create anything without that kind of energy.
And I love giving readings as they allow me to gauge what does the thing and what doesn’t. As someone who works readings, I like to think I have some sense of how an audience is responding to the work, and it’s extraordinarily helpful for me to feel that energy and channel it into revisions, structures, forms.
I guess this isn’t particularly fair to my audience, but I love the opportunity to experiment with new work, work that I don’t even fully understand yet, work that wants to be tried on and tried out.
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?
Absolutely, the more questions and concerns I try to answer, the more questions and concerns emerge as to-be-answered. They grow and multiply.
A stable concern I will always grapple with, is the question of what a queer language could look like, feel like, or do – and whether that’s an action, to queer language, an activity, a methodology.
And that question brings up many more – I spend too much time thinking about time, looking to pasts, imagining futures. Imagining collectivity.
I had a few good questions the other day, though, questions that have been swirling for a minute, that I like and I want to hold near me until I begin to understand them somewhat: how to write ambience, what is a writing of soundscape? And, what does it feel like to be rock?
I want to keep those next to the questions that are defining my current experience, which revolves around unionizing the bookstore I work at: how do we protect workers, in and beyond a global pandemic? And, how can we best show up for our fellow workers, our local and non-local communities?
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?
There are many roles for many writers, and writers I adore most often seem to create their own role, inside or outside of larger culture. Many mornings, I wake up with that classic Forster line from Howards End, “only connect!” for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, but can gesture at vaguely. It’s a good line, and does give me some sense of a role – connecting not only people to books, people to each other, language to other language, but also reaching across time and space, connecting with voices and presences that exist beyond the realms of the body. To bring the archive, the book, to life.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I so appreciate any kinds of engagement others want to give my work, it’s always so helpful, sometimes in expected ways, and sometimes in ways unexpected. An editor, a friend, a mentor, a loved one, all can give me a sense of the work outside of my understanding of the thing. And push me in places I haven’t even realized could be pushed, worked, or stretched. If the book is like a multitude of muscles, there are spots that can only be viewed from a perspective impossible to attain when the focus remains on writing.
Working with Stephen Motika on Active Reception was such a joy. Stephen’s an editor I’ve always admired (I really fell in love with his Leland Hickman book co-published by Nightboat and Otis Books / Seismicity Editions), and knew he had all the knowledge, feeling, and more to make this book what I wanted it to be – it’s an intimate relationship, between writer and editor, and one that needs to be formed around trust, trust that the editor feels what the book is doing, and trust that the book can grow and find its footing with the right attention, coaxing, edging.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I’ve heard this from a few people I trust very dearly. It’s so simple, but so useful. Just to be mindful, always, of the “why.”
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Sometimes the poem needs prose! The beauty of poetry is the freedom to feel what the work needs, and to experiment in finding the form that fits. I think of prose as just one means by which the poem can get itself across, and a very useful one at that.
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 write when I feel called to write, and sometimes that hits me in a regular fashion (when I’m lucky), and sometimes it comes and goes. I try to structure time for experimentation daily, to give myself the space to channel what’s coming. I begin each day by taking in what the night has brought me, taking stock of what the day has in store, preparing myself. I find that laying the foundations for each day prepares me to write when it does come, as I have some sense of how I’m called to exist in the day, how I’m meant to bring it all together.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Sound and motion always get me going. Often together. Sometimes I just need the hum of the world, or the noises of a busy street, or even the calm of a lazy day. I’ve always turned to ambient music to realign myself with the inner workings of the world, and of my mind. Or classical music too, to feel the breadth of emotional pulls, what it means to feel human.
Sometimes I’ll need the activity with the sound. I’ll play piano, I like to sight-read whatever sheet music I have around. These days it’s this Czech composer I’ve found interesting recently, Leoš Janáček, whose work with Moravian folk melodies is astounding. I guess I’m interested in tonality, in sound and language, and listening to sonic expansions helps me find those connections across forms, and focus on the relationship of words to each other in maintaining some form of stability, the tonic.
Or I’ll take a walk, take in the world, feel what surprises it has in store, its little pleasures. Something as simple as what flowers are in bloom, or finding a new street to get lost on. That’ll do it.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Wild anise. Running my fingers through the stalks, pulsing the greens in my hands to expose the thick smell always brings me home.
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?
Absolutely, much of my work is influenced by queer histories at large, which are everywhere. I’m particularly interested in visual art and film when looking to the queer archive. I look to Derek Jarman always, Gregg Araki, Jack Smith, Gregg Bordowitz, the wonderful fluid bodies and open assholes of Jeffrey Cheung’s art, the visuals of the ACT UP movement, the many faces, genders, and masks of Claude Cahun, the holy recycled kitsch of Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Kevin Killian’s Tagged project, the collages and paste-ups of Jess (Collins), Colter Jacobsen’s beautiful and sometimes haunting drawings and watercolors, the abstract landscapes of Etel Adnan’s paintings, the list goes on…
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
So many…the New Narrative movement, Bay Area queer poetics at large, some Language poetry too, with special gratitude and debt to Robert Glück, Bruce Boone, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Camille Roy, David Melnick, Aaron Shurin, Paul Mariah, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Pamela Lu, Karen Brodine, Steve Abbott, so many more.
And queer writers from all over, John Wieners, Stephen Jonas, Hervé Guibert, kari edwards, Ronald Johnson, Dennis Cooper, Leland Hickman, Essex Hemphill, Tim Dlugos, Nicole Brossard, Peter Orlovsky, Michael Rumaker, magazines like Fag Rag and Gay Sunshine, lots of gay smut.
I don’t know where I would be without the work of Hannah Weiner, Lorine Niedecker, Alice Notley, P. Inman, Diane di Prima, Lyn Hejinian, Juliana Spahr, Joanne Kyger, Margaret Randall, giovanni singleton and many authors who have published with and around Nightboat, Bhanu Kapil, Brian Teare, Nathanaël, Caroline Bergvall, Erica Hunt, Kathleen Fraser, Rosamond S. King, Asiya Wadud, the list goes on…
One of my biggest consistent influences is concrete/visual poetry, with special attention to Dom Sylvester Houédard, bpNichol, bill bissett, Mary Ellen Solt, Robert Lax, Ilseand Pierre Garnier, Luciano Ori, Augusto de Campos, Wlademir Dias-Pino, Jiří Valoch, N. H. Pritchard, Cavan McCarthy & Tlaloc, Petra Schulze-Wollgast & the reinvented Tlaloc, ToCall, the work of the Swedish press Timglaset, so many more…
And, of course, I learn so much from everyone I publish at Baest, it’s a joy to be connected to queer writers, some of whom I already love and adore, but many who are new to me.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I think I’d like to work in narrative one of these days, maybe write an opera…
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?
To be honest, I think I write, and work in a bookstore, because I just hate work. And even more than that, I want nothing to do with a career. So I have a hard time imagining what I could do, or what I would like to do, beyond thinking through what would pay the bills. I could see myself playing archaeologist, digging trenches and recording finds, that could feel right. Or maybe as someone who clears hiking trails, maintains them. I guess this just points to a need to be outside more. Or maybe bypass work entirely, some utopian, self-sufficient commune lifestyle…is that an occupation? Is living an occupation enough?
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I didn’t expect to write, really never planned on it, but just felt called! So I listened. I’m open to the signs, and follow where they point me, but immersing myself in queer literature of the past does ground me, and holds me as well. If I can contribute in some way, give something back to all that’s given me so much, I’d be more than happy.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I’ve read too many good books recently, but having just received and devoured the finally-released and highly anticipated Lyn Hejinian/Leslie Scalapino collaboration Hearing, wow. What a sensory pleasure. And probably also Carrie Hunter’s Vibratory Milieu, a brilliant book.
I’ve been in a vampire film moment, and recently spent some time with the original Blade movie from 1998, which is worth a watch for its blood-rave-in-a-slaughterhouse opening scene alone.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’ve got a few projects going on, but most immediately, I’m working on getting a first contract together for our new union at the bookstore where I work. I’m wondering whether that will want to become a book project, and think it could, it’s already brewing. But beyond that, I have this Saint Sebastian project I’d shelved a while ago, and some visual/typewriter/rubber stamp/Letraset work I’m playing with. I’m currently collaborating on some dry transfer pieces to be placed on furniture, some frames and maybe a table, so expanding the sense of the poem-object. We’ll see!
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