12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jeffrey Skinner

Jeffrey Skinner has published eight full collections of poetry, and a number of chapbooks.  His most recent collection, Sober Ghost, appeared in 2024.  His Selected Poems won the Sexton Prize (England), and will be published in 2027.  In 2014 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and in 2015 was given an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award for literature.  His books have been winners of The National Poetry Series, The Crab Orchard Prize for Poetry, The Field Prize, and the Sexton Poetry Prize.  Over the years his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Paris Review, and Bomb, among many other journals.  His recent work has appeared in Volt, Fence, The North American Review, and Poetry Ireland.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life?

My first book was with Wesleyan, and it did change my life—it gave me the courage to quit my job and look for a teaching job, which is what I really wanted to do. 

How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

Because I’m at a different place in life, the surface concerns (which also have deep roots) are different, though it seems I’m obsessed still by the same questions.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Poetry excited me—I recognized something familiar in it—myself, probably.  I couldn’t read enough of it.  Then I started writing, in recognition.  It was like coming home, to a place I’d never been.  I loved novels too, but was oddly untempted to emulate them.  Later I tried writing stories but, as Creeley said, I couldn’t think of anything for the characters to do.  Dreamboat is a kind of in-between place—halfway between poetry and fiction.  That’s also the place my plays seem to come from.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project?

Sometimes it seems to happen right away, sometimes it takes years to percolate. 

Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process?  

When I’m writing it’s easy and fast, when I’m not writing it’s slow and impossible. 

Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I love revision, but it depends on the project.  Some things seem to come out whole, ready to be published.  Others take tons of revision, repurposing, collaging, etc.

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually begin for you?

Usually with a line, or the rhythm for a line.  Sometimes after three or four similar pieces, I’ll see the larger shape ahead and “aim” subsequent pieces toward that whole.

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 generally “just write poems” for a while, until it occurs to me what the pieces have in common.  Then, it usually turns into a book of poems, or, in the case of Dreamboat, prose poems.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Frankly, I enjoy them less as I get older, though I still do them with some pleasure.  I don’t find they have much to do with the actual writing process. 

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?

“Theory” doesn’t interest me, philosophy does.  The current questions are the old questions, which we still can’t answer—“Why is there something rather than nothing?” “Why are we here?” “What is meaning?”  Only the emphasis changes; these days the obsessive old question is “What is consciousness?” Which is especially worrisome because of AI.  But all the old questions lurk behind every work of art, every book of poems.

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 “writer,” if he has a role in the larger culture, has to do generally with how many books he sells.  Thus, “writers” when they are mentioned at all, are generally of the James Patterson variety.  The “literary writer” has no role in larger culture at all.  I’m not unhappy with this state of affairs.  I like working alone, in the dark.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I’m lucky in that I’ve had largely positive experiences working with editors.  With books of poems one generally finds the process of editing boils down to which poems to cut, sequencing, and titles.  I imagine it’s different with prose.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation.”

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to prose to plays)? What do you see as the appeal? 

It’s nice that I have some knack to move between genres, because I generally switch when I’m not in a poetry writing mode.  I can move from poetry to plays, and, when I’m dry in either of these preferred genres, non-fiction prose.

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 write every day.  Generally, I begin by reading prose—a novel or a science nonfiction book.  Then I read poetry.  Then I try to write.  When not writing, I wake up and worry, and try to distract myself from distraction by distraction.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I return to a book of poetry that was formative for me in my twenties: Ariel, say, or The Lice.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Cut grass.

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?

Yes—science, music, and visual art have always influenced me, and continue to do so.  I was the 2014 Artist in Residence at the CERN collider, for example, and I am still mining the inspiration of that stint.  But observation of my own life—its people and events, is still the main source of my “material.”

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I’m currently reading Lydia Davis, who I love; she gets me going.  But I can’t separate the work of writers and friends and family I know from their influence on me, which is immense. 

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I’d like to skydive. No I wouldn’t.

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?

Probably a courtroom defense lawyer.  But I hate to think about it. 

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

As John Ashbery says, “I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.”

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Serotonin, by Michel Houellebecq; movie: The Quiet Girl

20 - What are you currently working on?

A new book of poems. 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;