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?
The poems of my first
chapbook feel ethereal when I read them now, as if they are swimming toward
something they never quite reach. That quality of reaching-toward is still
present in my current work, and also the idea of poems as musical scores—each
poem returns where other poems have been, not in a linear way but in a messy circuitous
manner. My first chapbook was an unforgettable experience. The three women
involved in its production, Alex Cuff, Jen Hyde, and Emily Brandt, were
amazingly supportive. I have been very fortunate with the people I meant
through publishing. Freddy LaForce from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press being
another person with whom was very rewarding to work.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction
or non-fiction?
I tried writing fiction
before poetry but always ended up fragmenting the writing, organizing it in
vignettes. I arrived late to poetry (I think) perhaps because of writing
creatively in a borrowed language. I didn’t think it would be possible. While I
now know plenty of models for translingualism or bilingual writers, for a long
time, I wasn’t aware of them. Furthermore, I had little understanding of
contemporary Anglophone writing. So, one day I was reading Will Alexander’s Compression & Purity. I remember thinking “I’m just going to write whatever I want.”
It sounds silly, but it was only then that I realized I had been tied to ideas
about writing that didn’t excite me. I wrote my first poems shortly after.
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 am a very slow writer. I
have to write a bit every day. Otherwise, it won’t come at all. Usually, a
manuscript results from being able to commit daily time to writing. If I study
the idea too much or stop to take notes or research, or whatever, I often lose
interest. So, I try to write as much as I can. Then I stop and rewrite quite a
bit.
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 tend to write long poems.
I would say my first poetry collection is a long dramatic monologue divided
into sections. The manuscript I am working on now, for example, is a musical
score in two parts. So, I tend to write pieces that build on each other,
echoing one another semantically and rhythmically.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?
Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Yes! I do. Readings allow
me to hear my work more accurately. I wish I could read every week.
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?
Writing has to be attentive
to the ideological functions of words, tropes, languages. Poems should
destabilize messages that have ossified and become corrosive. They should be
attuned to the causticness of normative and normalizing conceptions. What normalizes
a standard usually expresses the vision of a power group that oppresses. A poem
has the capacity to withstand ideology.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger
culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer
should be?
I suppose writing uplifts
attention from the mud of daily life. It zooms in on the experiential potential
we all possess, but that keeps getting buried and neglected. Some books speak truths,
so they actively oppose the harm of false, hateful ideas. Some books resurrect
our ability to imagine and attempt transforming what oppresses us. Some books
make us feel less lonely. I suppose there isn’t a single role but that they are
all connected with achieving the best possible iteration of an embodied life.
Writers (whenever possible)
should also try to promote other writers through publishing and reviewing. I recognize
that this takes time, effort, as well as entails free labor.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor
difficult or essential (or both)?
I do not find working with
editors difficult at all. I wish I had more opportunities to do so. I love to
collaborate, and also, when others make me verbalize why I made certain
choices.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily
given to you directly)?
I am not sure whether I
have a single piece of advice to share. I prefer to couch this question in
terms of teachers. Anselm Berrigan taught me more than anyone, but it had
something to do with the quiet and generous way he taught me to hear myself
more clearly. He modeled listening very well.
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 write in the mornings.
It’s the first thing I do when I sit at my desk. As the day progresses, my mind
feels cluttered with thoughts that interfere with writing.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return
for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
It depends on the project.
I’ll read the books that have informed or inspired the work I am writing and
re-read what I have in order to discover the flow of a particular project.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Eucalyptus trees.
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?
Music and visual arts. I
write in rhythmic forms. I am interested when poems and images coalesce with
rhythms.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work,
or simply your life outside of your work?
The writing of Will Alexander, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Anselm Berrigan, Leslie Scalapino, Alice Notley,
Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, John Yau, Karl Marx, Divya Victor, Tonya Foster, and Brandon Shimoda, and many others.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I would like to translate,
write performance pieces, and collaborate with other writers or artists.
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?
I can’t imagine being
without books. I could be an archivist of some sort. I often wonder whether I
shouldn’t be working in the non-profit activist world with environmental
organizations or incarcerated people’s advocacy groups.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I feel that writing is part
of me: it shapes me. I don’t think I ever felt like this toward any other
activity.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last
great film?
19 - What are you currently working on?
I am working on a manuscript entitled How
to Make Words of Rubble. What if the choral ode sections of Greek tragedy
stood alone as form? This is one of the manuscript's formal premises. The other
is the musical score. One night I dreamt that a sudden gust of wind stole my
daughter away. I realized this dream was connected to news that another
hurricane of unprecedented force was approaching the US. In the dream, I saw my
daughter from the standpoint of my own disappearance. These poems emerged from
this dream and these feelings. Grendel's mother from Beowulf became a helpful image to speak of maternal grief and the
maternal body. Section II of the manuscript integrates old English words that
capture the gist of how Grendel's mother is presented in the epic.
