1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I think anyone’s first book is huge. It’s so difficult to get a first book of poetry published. Most of us have to go through the terrible rigamarole of spending hundreds of dollars on first book contests and/or praying for open reading periods and hoping you stand out enough for someone to take a chance on your work. It’s a deeply inequitable and alienating process.
My new book, ballast, is very different from my first book. It’s not narrative, it’s a long poetic sequence instead of individual poems, it’s very much a project-based book. It’s also not concerned with legibility for/speaking to a white audience or gaze.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I actually came to hip-hop first. Poetry, with its interest in sound, meter, and the sonic weight of the line, made it a natural progression once I got disillusioned with rap shit.
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’m a research-based poet, so I think in terms of book-length projects. It usually takes a fairly long time for me to find something that can support a full-length collection. Most of my writing is reading, so I would say it’s fairly steady. I tend to read/research a lot and then spend time in bursts of drafting actual poems. But the whole process is writing for me.
I’m definitely not a poet that iterates with drafts over weeks/months/years. By the time I even start a poem, I’ve likely gone through ten or so drafts in my head. And by the time I reach the end of a poem on the page, I’ve read it dozens of times and revised along the way. So it’s technically a first draft, but the first draft has 20+ drafts inside of it.
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?
Poems typically begin with images for me (even if that’s not where the poem itself starts, its nascence is owed to a specific image). And I’m always working on a book from the beginning.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Readings are great. Poetry thrives in and requires community. There are many ways to arrive at being in community with other poets and readers, and public readings are an important part of that. I definitely enjoy giving readings and being an audience member.
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?
All I have in my writing are theoretical concerns, probably. My theoretical concerns are the same as the theoretical concerns of Black Studies: to observe, document, critically examine, celebrate, and interrogate Black life within an anti-Black world. The question in my work is: how do we live?
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 the writer's job is to pay attention. And to care about things. And to not be a dick, mainly.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Everyone needs an editor. ballast’s editor, Maya Marshall, is a divine gift.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
That 90% of writing is reading.
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 don’t really keep a routine. Outside of going to work during the week. I write when I can and when I have energy. I do everything I can to have as much energy for my work as possible.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Gwendolyn Brooks and Aimé Césaire.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Doughnuts.
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?
Any art that I encounter shapes my own art. If I’m thinking about it or reacting to it or criticizing it or praising it, I’m putting myself in dialogue with it. Which is expanding my thinking and my understanding. Those expansions always show up in some way in my work.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
There are too many to list. I am indebted to so many Black writers and scholars and thinkers. The first few that come to mind are Christina Sharpe, Fred Moten, GwendolynBrooks, Aimé Césaire, Saidiya Hartman, Marwa Helal, Dawn Lundy Martin, Evie Shockley, M. NourbeSe Philip, Dionne Brand, Will Alexander, Eloise Loftin, Lorenzo Thomas, and so many others.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Write my next book.
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?
If I were better at math, I would love to be a quantum physicist.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
An interest in survival, mainly.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book I read was I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane. The last great film I watched was the futurist documentary Wall-E.
19 - What are you currently working on?
Currently, I am working on finishing a large bag of tiny citrus fruits.
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