1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My debut book hasn’t been out for very long, so it’s a little early to say if or how things will change materially in my life. But I certainly feel different post-book. It’s always meant a lot to me to get a book professionally published and out in the world, which isn’t necessarily a healthy way to think about writing. I believe, and I’ve always believed, that the value of someone’s art and artistic practice has nothing to do with any external measure of “success.” But despite my own advice, I put myself through plenty of dark nights of the soul, wondering whether I was wasting my life chipping away at a vain folly. The years of rejection really wore on me. But ever since the book got accepted for publication, I’ve felt like I have a broader capacity to focus more of my energy in positive, external directions.
I’m also trying to reacclimatize to becoming a somewhat more public figure now that the book is out. Independent debut poets aren’t movie stars, of course, but I’ve always been a very private person. After decades of desperately trying to avoid too much public exposure and embarrassment, it became trivially easy, literally overnight, for coworkers, relatives, and strangers to access the types of vulnerabilities I’ve only ever shared with four or five people over the course of my entire life. Obviously, this is the path I pursued knowing exactly what I was getting myself into, so I don’t regret or resent it. I’m deeply grateful for it, and I think it will probably make me a kinder and happier person in the long run. But it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m going to have to learn how to navigate this awkward new social reality in which anyone I meet has the ability to get know me in this radically intimate but totally one-sided way.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’ve always written poetry, but I wouldn’t really say I came to it before other types of writing. As a kid, I wrote silly little fantasy epics. Songwriting was a major passion for most of my teenage years and early twenties. I’ve dabbled in criticism, drama, essays, and short stories, and I’m currently writing a novel. But poetry has always been the most constant and consistent creative outlet for me, no matter what else I’m working on. Other projects ebb and flow, but If I go a few days without writing or reading poetry, I get twitchy.
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 slow poet. Ideas have to germinate for a long time before they ever make it to a page. Then, I overwork the hell out of everything. Drafts on drafts on drafts on drafts. Multiple documents with different edits over the course of months. At any given point, I have ten or twenty poems rotating in and out of the grinder, and it takes a long, long time for me to feel comfortable submitting anything for publication. The Worried Well actually contains a handful of poems that had existed, in some form, for ten years or so. To be honest, I’m a little afraid it will take me another ten years to pull my second collection together.
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?
The poems in The Worried Well weren’t originally written as a “book,” for the most part. They existed as individual pieces first, and I tried to assemble them into lots of different book-length projects with different titles, structures, and themes. I have dozens of manuscript drafts buried in document folders that technically contain many or most of the poems that wound up in The Worried Well, but they’re barely recognizable as part of the same process. Once I discovered what I truly, finally wanted the arc of book to become, I cut out a lot of poems, wrote some new ones, and edited nearly all of them to engage in a richer conversation with one another. So, I guess the micro-projects generated the macro-project, which then reflected its influence back onto the component parts that made it.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I’ve only recently started giving public readings, at least for the first time since my early twenties. They terrify me, but I also find them deeply fulfilling and enriching, especially when I have the opportunity to talk shop with other writers and readers. I gather a lot of inspiration from public events, so hopefully the stage fright will subside over time.
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 pretty obsessively about theory in the revision process, but I also try to remember that poems should always start and end from a place of emotion. Poetics, and art theory in general, is a lot of fun for those of us who have already bought in to its world, but it’s only really useful insofar as it helps us describe and understand our relationship with the things that move us. I have a lot of theoretical questions I hope my poems ask or address, but I don’t really think I would be doing my job as an artist or art lover if I were attempting to answer any questions.
For example, I noticed early on that my poems tend to feature a lot of refrains. I didn’t “choose” this technique at first, necessarily. It just felt right to me, perhaps as a carry-over from my parallel interest in songwriting or my love for the poetic forms of Old Testament prayer. But as I started to seriously analyze my poetic voice, I interrogated the function of this style more intensely. I came to appreciate how the inclusion of refrains imposes a loose form upon contemporary free verse. Repetition implies a rhythmic structure and allows for a tighter control over emphasis via assonance and rhyme. But more importantly for a book about anxiety, it replicates the cyclical, recursive nature of intrusive thoughts and other forms of neurodivergent experience. As I put this manuscript together, I taught myself how writing or reading a poem can formally mirror, reframe, or elucidate the disorders and imprecisions of the mind. I’m far from the first poet to tackle this idea, but I’ve been leaning into it heavily, both in my writing and reading projects.
I’m also very interested in how the lessons of other artistic media can be applied to poetry, and I spend a lot of time asking myself how I might approach a problem in a poem as if it were a photograph, stage play, etc. For example, I’ve discovered that I really prefer poems with some element of the character conflict we expect in fiction. If my poems are written in the first person, I want the voice to demonstrate the types of “flaws,” hypocrisies, and idiosyncrasies we would expect in a good novel or memoir. I want the reader to feel like they’re walking in on the “I” of the poem in the midst of some kind of moral or emotional uncertainty. And I want to be sure that moral or emotional uncertainly is unresolved at the end of the poem. If anything, I want it to end with further complications. Mise-en-scène is important to me. Shot composition. What is in the room, and how is it framed relative to the action? I wouldn’t say I want my poems to “tell a story,” necessarily, but I do want them to appear as though they exist within a story. I want them to imply, insinuate, and ripple.
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?
This is an important question, but I’m afraid it’s one I can’t really answer to my own satisfaction. I struggle with this a lot, especially in an era when reactionary, fascistic politics are snowballing across the world and the arts are becoming increasingly automated, mass produced, and algorithmically commodified. A part of me wonders whether it’s wasteful to write about anything other than urgent human rights abuses or environmental degradation. But another part of me feels that, while I respect and love plenty of explicitly “activist” art, there’s also something to be said for the creation and consumption of art that deals primarily with the abstract or interior. Poetry addresses those things so well, and we need those things addressed.
Sometimes, writing a poem about my dumb little feelings seems like such an indulgence. Like I’m standing next to a burning building full of screaming people, and I take the opportunity to make s’mores. Other times, I remember how existentially crucial other people’s art has always been for me. That includes impassioned, well-researched exposés of injustice, but it also includes monster movies and songs about breakups. I don’t want to take it for granted that my own art could meaningfully enrich someone else’s life one day, but I also don’t want to rule out the possibility.
I definitely believe all art is inherently political, but I don’t think I believe all art necessarily has to be “activism” in order to be valuable or even to affect political change. I think the primary function of good art, and good writing in particular, is for authors and readers to communicate empathetically, back and forth with one another and the people around them. When we read and write, we’re honing our ability to relate to other people on an emotional and cognitive level. We’re asking ourselves to parse the difference between what was said and what was meant. We’re engaging with the power of omission and emphasis, order, syntax, implication, reference, etc. We’re always exploring what if, why not, so what? And I think those skills are roundly applicable to local and global politics. I don’t want to imply that people who love literature are in any way superior to people who don’t, but I will swear by literature as an effective method for broadening and deepening one’s perspective on being a human and sharing a planet with other humans.
So maybe I’m naïve, or maybe I’m just trying to inject some self-importance into this thing that takes up all my time. But I hope and suspect that the literary arts – and the humanities in general – make a positive cultural impact just by virtue of existing. I know this has been a rambling, contradictory answer, but I promise it’s much less clear in my own head.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Both, but with a special emphasis on essential. I’m as sensitive and stubborn about my work as anyone else, and I’m not immune to having my feelings hurt. But I’m a strong believer that the writing only really gets good once it’s been opened up to constructive criticism. My editors at Autumn House Press have been spectacular to work with, and my book would never have gotten accepted for publication in the first place without the wisdom of the friends and peers that read early drafts. Writing is a lonely pursuit, and it often benefits from the singularity of vision it represents. But the intimacy we all have with our own work easily transforms into codependency, and we lose our ability to evaluate it with the kind of clarity a good edit requires. You don’t always have to take outside advice, of course, but it’s only ever healthy and productive to receive and consider it. Even when you feel like your readers or editors are missing the point, it’s invaluable to understand where the experience of your work isn’t landing how you’d intend or expect it to. Notes can be painful, but they’re necessary for creative growth.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I’ve heard a lot of variations on the idea that inspiration follows from writing, not the other way around, and I totally stand by that. If you wait for your best ideas, they’ll never come. They generate in the process.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to songwriting)? What do you see as the appeal?
As I mentioned before, I write pretty fluidly between genres. Poetry absolutely occupies the majority of my time and output simply because, for whatever reason, most of my ideas happen to take shape in the form of poems. But I love all the arts, even the ones I’ve never spent any time with, and I wish I could live for thousands of years so I could dabble in everything. I resent that I won’t be able to explore woodworking and tango dancing and oil painting to the extent that they deserve. My problem isn’t fluidity – it’s focus. I have to train myself to stop pivoting to writing a short story or a song midway through writing a poem, or vice-versa.
All literary genres are load-bearing. Poetry is unique in its ability to reframe language and open the mind to new conceptual bridges. Song lyrics, at their best, are able to interact with their melodic and rhythmic structures in ways that transcend the sum of their parts. Theatre can play with artifice and the chaos of live human interaction in a way that nothing else can. The novel offers a type of depth and complexity that can only be achieved through time, and words, spent. There’s no weak or redundant genre.
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 have a day job and a family and several chronic health issues, so I just need to find little cracks in my day and cram in as much writing as I can. Early mornings work well, and I try to set aside time on the weekends. I also travel a lot for work, and airports and hotel rooms can offer the type of isolation and boredom that tend to be conducive to writing. I’d love to have a more regular schedule, but it’s not usually an option.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Reading! It takes me forever to read a great collection of poems, because I’m constantly getting new ideas that I have to go jot down.
13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
Samwise Gamgee
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. All the above, really. As I touched on before, I draw inspiration across the arts. Music is my secondary creative love after literature, and I see the two disciplines as operating in constant conversation. I keep books of my favorite visual artists, like Hokusai and Klimpt, right on my desk and I regularly leaf through them for motivation and stimulation. I find video games to be extraordinarily meditative and centering, and I often find that the “flow states” they generate help me disentangle the knots I write myself into.
Outside of the arts, I get a huge amount of inspiration and joy from nature and travel. A quiet walk in the woods with my wife and dog will almost always generate poetry later on. And I think the ability to transplant oneself into a cultural environment one isn’t used to does wonders for the imagination. I know we’re not all lucky enough to travel the world whenever we want, but even spending some time in unfamiliar parts of our own communities can really refresh and rekindle our excitement for the world around us. I’m also profoundly inspired by animals. I think watching another form of life closely, trying to understand how its patterns of motion and behavior echo or contrast with our own, is very similar to the process of reading and writing poetry.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
The book that made me fall in love with literature was The Lord of the Rings. And although I read and wrote poetry as a hobby since childhood, the book that made me realize I wanted to “take it seriously” as a life pursuit was Actual Air by David Berman. As a teenager, I basically just wrote rip-offs of his poems and songs. These days, some of my favorite poets are Mary Ruefle, Tracy K. Smith, Solmaz Sharif, and Larry Levis. But that’s just a tiny excerpt of an enormous and ever-changing list.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I’ve never taught poetry formally, and I’d love to give that a go one day. I’ve done lots of tutoring/mentoring/manuscript consulting, etc., but I wonder how I’d do with a college class or writers’ workshop.
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?
When I was younger, there came a point at which I did sort of choose writing over music. The stage fright and imposter syndrome hit me hard, and I felt safer developing my skills in a medium that didn’t require such a heavy performance component. I don’t regret focusing my energy on literature whatsoever, but I’ve always reserved a bit of grief for the opportunity cost. I write as a serious vocation, and I play music as a serious hobby, but there’s a significant part of me that wonders how life would have progressed if that focus had been flipped. I know it’s silly, but I get desperately jealous of great musicians, particularly ones whose musical practice is an integral, scheduled part of their lifestyle. I realize I could always try to reopen that avenue one day, but I’d have to shake off a lot of cobwebs and put a lot of other projects on the backburner. Also, I’m pretty over-the-hill by musician standards, and I’m only getting sleepier and achier. Sometimes I try to look up which of my favorite musicians released their first albums in their thirties or later, and it’s not an encouraging list. Leonard Cohen was 33. I’m older.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Again, I wish I could spend a lifetime with all the arts. But writing has always felt obvious to me. Unavoidable. It’s just the way I process thoughts and emotions whether I like it or not. That’s not to say writing comes easily or that I think I have any natural aptitude that other people don’t have or can’t learn. It’s just to say that I can’t imagine what a non-writing life would feel like.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book I read was Late to the Search Party, the debut poetry collection from Madison’s poet laureate, Steven Espada Dawson. I can’t possibly overstate how brilliant this book is. How moving, how delicate in its craft, how dynamic and singular its voice. This is the type of book that inspires people to become poets, and I urge everyone reading this interview to order their copies immediately.
I’ll also join the chorus on Sinners. One of the most purely entertaining movies I’ve seen in years, but also one that’s just dripping in depth and passion. It’s a crazy mish-mash of genres, overflowing with references to history, music, folklore, and other movies. But it maintains such a clear and focused vision, with so much to say and so much love for its characters and world.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I’m
currently working on a novel! It’s a fairly big and ambitious project, at least
for someone who’s more accustomed to writing poems. So it’s slow going, but I’m
giving it my love and attention.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
