1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Writing and publishing my first book really changed my life in that the manuscript really became this unexpectedly relational object. Collaborating with people to put together readings and events, having readers from around the world connect with the book—it’s been a much more tender process than I expected, developing new connections with people as a result of the book. With every book I hope to find ways to be even more honest, and I think my recent work finds ways to do that even more. I think this most recent collection, You Bury the Birds in My Pelvis, leans even further into lyric intimacy and my formal interests as a poet. I think with new work I’m also increasingly interested in deconstructing my old approaches to work, so each book feels like a new attempt at poetry.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I really wanted to be a fiction writer and tried hard at it for a long time, but I ultimately realized I have no interest in dialogue, character, or plot. Form and language are interesting to me, so I think poetry was the more natural fit even though I resisted it for a long time. But poetry was mostly just a cold intellectual exercise for me for a long time. It took a lot of work and practice and digging to finally reach a place of feeling in the work for me.
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 a really slow composting process as I basically freewrite my way through what interests me, and then poems gradually emerge. Sometimes I sit down and write a poem that’s basically in its final shape, but that’s usually late in the process of drafting a book, or after a really long period of journaling.
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?
I feel like I catch the tails of poems before I find where they start, as they sort of emerge in a messy journaling process. It’s also really hard for me to write several short pieces that combine into a larger project. I find poems usually come bound up together, in a plural that’s hard to extricate from each other, so I kind of have to write through a whole book and figure out what the form of that book is before the final poems reveal themselves and their individual shapes. Divisions between poems can feel really artificial to me. Sometimes that’s productive for the work, sometimes it's not.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I really enjoy the communal aspect of the readings I’ve been a part of. I like how there can be this special group attunement that happens at readings, in the same way that I’ve heard theatre folks talk about becoming very attuned to what others in their group are thinking / feeling as they work and act together. A good reading can be a really sensory, even sensual, experience, and in the revision process, I sometimes try to think about how it would feel to give a public reading of a piece, even when the work is very experimental in form. Will this be impactful for an audience?
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 questions are changing all the time for me. I’m not sure I could even articulate what they are—I feel like with every project I work on, I have to write through several of them before the actual manuscript emerges with its own set of questions. I do know that I don’t consider myself a very theoretical person at heart. I write about concrete things until something happens, maybe a poem, and then I look at the questions its asking from there.
7 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Working with the Tupelo and Omnidawn editorial teams to bring both collections into the world as finalized aesthetic objects was absolutely crucial. Both teams were so brilliant and thoughtful in all of the design choices and in bringing these books into the world as beautiful objects for people to hold / engage with. And both teams published essentially what I submitted to them, with some final edits from me, so it was interesting to really witness the manuscript become the final printed copy.
In terms of developmental editing, I’ve heavily relied on feedback from trusted friends on manuscripts late in the revision process. Time is also a great editor—when I spend enough time away from the work, the issues with a piece become more readily apparent.
8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Ross Gay once said that counter to the advice he and many poets have been given—to just keep cutting, cutting, cutting a poem until it’s whittled down to only what’s necessary—sometimes you have to plant a garden in the middle of a poem instead. That radically changed my approach to everything in writing, especially revision.
9 - 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’m a morning writer. I try to write at least an hour a day before work, etc. More when I can.
10 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I go back to the books I love and try to think about what I’m not understanding about the current writing. Sometimes I just need a rest, but a lot of the time I can tell when I’m not understanding something essential about the work yet. I can tell when I’m trying to drive the work vs. the work is driving me, and getting to the latter takes a lot of patience and a willingness to keep re-examining what I want vs. what the work wants.
11 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
I love costumes, but I feel so self-conscious in them! I think one of the last ones I wore was a witch, but I didn’t enjoy it like I enjoyed looking at other people’s costumes.
12 - 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 think films influence me the most because of how image-driven they are, since I’m so image-driven in my work. My dear writer friends Margaret F. Browne, Michelle Thomas, and Megan Clark introduced me to so many lush queer and horror films that have influenced all of us to some degree. I also find myself drawn to trailers for good films because the speed, compression, editing, and imagery (often without context) can feel like a poem in its movement, when it doesn’t just feel like another piece of marketing.
13 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Oh my gosh, that list could go on forever! Chen Chen, Jake Skeets, Victoria Chang, Solmaz Sharif, Kaveh Akbar, sam sax, torrin a. greathouse, Danez Smith, KB Brookins, K. Iver, Kay E. Bancroft, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Craig Santos Perez, Franny Choi, Ely Shipley, Lucien Darjeun Meadows, Natalie Diaz, Saeed Jones, Eduardo Corral, Cody-Rose Clevidence…
14 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I don’t know exactly what that will look like next, but I hope every new book I write answers that question. I can’t envision it until I have to write it.
15 - 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 really wanted to do environmental studies as a kid, and I think at heart I’m still fascinated by field research. But I think the arts would always have to be a part of my life somehow, no matter what my occupation.
16 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
As much as I love visual art—I grew up in a household of visual artists—I just found myself hooked into writing once I really tried it. I think I’m drawn to exploring the image in written form, as opposed to on a canvas or through a lens, but it’s a similar impulse to the other artists in my family.
17 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I just read Taylor Byas’ I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, which is brilliant. I also recently saw and really enjoyed Godzilla Minus One, both for the ever-welcome return of Godzilla and the bigger questions and concerns the movie is thinking about.
18 - What are you currently working on?
New poetry! I don’t typically share anything about work while it’s in progress, so that’s all I can offer for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment