1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Nearly every poem in Where Babies Come From, like Mr. Peanutbutter’s memoir in Bojack Horseman, “just fell out of me”: beginnings, parallel worlds, childhood (which is a parallel world), alternate realities, anxieties, and strange explanations for how we live in a time that's simultaneously magical and mechanical. I'm still looking for explanations for how we live, but now rather than finding an unexpected feather to treasure, I get into the dirt and comb through it, like someone who has stopped dreaming of flying and instead falls asleep to burrowing.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
The first words we understand must be a poem. It’s always been there. But then there were so many stories: Aesop Fables, Blueberries for Sal, and the tales of Chelm read to me by my parents, and Taran the Wander, read to me by my brother.
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?
Some poets set themselves to write a crown of sonnets about how 14th century Slavic puppeteer Vladimir Richevski losing his leaf-stuffed kupalo in a fire foreshadowed the triumph of morality over superstition in itinerant minstrel shows, and each word and each day is a step towards completion. Every poem is a leaf caught falling from a tree: I tend not to be able to grab more than one at once, but I do like making a pile.
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?
A poem has an interesting life cycle. At least one of the poems in Where Babies Come From came into being over 20 years ago. Several began 10 years ago. A poem appears in space because the gravity of the words brought it into being. That first poem attracts other words, which sometimes coalesce into other poems with their own gravitational pull. Gradually a collection begins to form.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
It hardly enters my creative process, but I love the opportunity to introduce audience members to something new and surprising, and to connect. I hardly know what I'm going to read until a couple hours (or less) before a reading starts, and even then it may change based on the appearance and mood of the audience. I don't have favorite poems to read, and prefer to mix it up, instead referring to current events, the weather, how I slept the night before, or taking cues from the 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 struggle with the role of the “first-person” and personal and communal identities. In my prose poetry collection, the first-person rarely appears; in manuscript I’m working on now, many more poems are in the first person, but I still feel constrained by a sort of taboo-of-self: how much do I want to share about my body? How much of my identity is private, and how much is communal? But outside of my continuous fear of oversharing (which may not be possible in poetry), how can I connect with other readers who are struggling to live in a rapidly changing world, especially when what we hope for may be out of reach?
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?
The role of a writer is to convey their experience of the world in a way that enriches the world for someone else.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I relish having an editor, but I think it’s just, or maybe even more important to read widely and seek out poets who both reinforce and challenge my conception of poetry.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Don’t be afraid of writing shit poems. For a while, I was in a poem-a-day writing group, and nearly everyone who lasted more than a month wrote a shitty poem occasionally. Write recklessly. Write without shame. Keep writing.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I lived in the in between for a long time, completing an MFA in Nonfiction Writing, then writing exclusively prose poems for many years. I guess I usually prefer a little argument to a long one. I like small, carefully crafted arguments, that are non-Newtonian, but fill out a container. One day my arguments stopped responding the same way; they sheared instead of compressing. But I’m going back and forth now: I understand my forms of argument better.
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 try to make it part of every day. For several years that meant writing in the evening, after the 9-5 work day was done, for an hour. I think a routine works best, but sometimes I fall out of the routine, and almost as important advice as not being afraid to write shit-poems, is to not to berate yourself when you can’t lure the right words.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
So much of writing isn’t writing. If I read a new poem in a literary journal, that's part of my writing routine. If I change three words in a poem that hasn't been accepted, but is getting nice notes from editors, that's part of my writing routine. Sometimes, particularly in the summer, my writing routine is making a root beer float and then waiting for the globe of ice cream to fully sublimate.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Home has been many places for me, but one of my earliest scent blends is honeysuckle and chlorine from when we used to pick blossoms off the fence surrounding the pool at the Jackson, MS Holiday Inn.
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?
In Wales, the Preseli ponies will be your friend. Mt Monadnock is the most climbed mountain in the world. I was lucky to be taken to Alinea, and saved the bag the smoked (Alder, maybe?) potato chips came in so I could take whiffs of it later. I was floored when I discovered Ken Nordine’s Word Jazz. I’ll never stop, a la Tom Waits, asking “what’s he building in there?”. At various points I’ve had Janelle Monae, Curren$y, Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations (including rehearsals), Rob Crow, and Beck on loop. Lindsey Mendick is doing hilarious and disturbing things in narrative ceramics. I invariably rub my eyes after chopping Thai chilies. There are so many delicious and surprising forms of inspiration.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
So much of my poetry is predicated on impossible possibility that it's maybe unsurprising that outside of poetry I spend most of my time reading scifi and fantasy. I typically read 1-2 of these books a week, and often go back to these worlds, sometimes several times. If you haven't read N.K. Jemison's Inheritance Trilogy, now is always a good time. Seanan McGuire’s catalog ranges from doors-to-high-logic-worlds to killer mermaids: it’s endless and wonderful. You’ll fall in love with Bonedog from T. Kingfisher’s Nettle and Bone.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
My wife (essayist and potter Emily Maloney) and I have talked about starting a literary journal that's printed on a brick and pays contributors one brick.
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?
Sometimes, I think I’d like to mong. There’s a store front around the corner from us that would be great for a cheese shop.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
You’re saying we get a choice?
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I love the cozy sci-fi of Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I'm just starting to submit a new manuscript, currently titled Every Special Offer is a Special Celebration, which is primarily backyard financial anxiety pastorals. You can read recently published work from the project in the last issues of No Contact Magazine and Stone Circle Review.
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