Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 9

Éireann Lorsung, Pattern-book

 

BRAMBLE CUTTING

Five-petaled, milk-white—say
thin as milk, aswholesome: 

pithy centres turn topulp
in July. All year, canes 

overrun garden paths,empty
lots. Bramble is a lesson 

in plant economy.
       —In another life

I could be bramble: or
rain on bush shelterroofs, 

the taste of saltstepping
off a train. An estuary 

in the morning under fog
not to be seen through. 

Bunkers overgrown withthicket.
These last times I was agirl.

Itwas very good to spend a few days with Pattern-book (Manchester UK: Carcanet,2025), the latest full-length collection by American poet (recently returned afterspending a few years living and teaching in Ireland) Éireann Lorsung,especially days prior to hearing her read from the collection [see my notes onour shared Dublin reading here]. Slated to take over editing of South Dakota Review this fall, Lorsung is the author of three prior full-length collections— Musicfor Landing Planes By (Minneapolis MN: Milkweed Editions, 2007), Her book: poems (Milkweed, 2013) and The Century (Milkweed, 2020),winner of the Maine Literary Award in Poetry—with a further title, PinkTheory! forthcoming with Milkweed Editions in 2026. The poems in Pattern-bookprovide a curious sequence of crisp narratives, each of which begin with aspark, a speck, that broadens as each poem carefully and deliberately unfolds. “Nowclouds pass / the sun, for a moment, and are gone,” she writes at the centre ofthe poem “DESIDERATA,” a poem subtitled with the quotation “reverie alonewill do (Dickenson),” “and everything retains / its gold, and all / we needis in this / meadow, its / umbels and its star- / shaped yellow heads of ragwort/ and, floating off somewhere, / a train’s sound.” Her line-breaks often hold apause, a held breath, through quatrains, couplets, sonnets and other form-shapes,and even seem to employ elements of the English-language ghazal, offering leapsof narrative between lines that allow for wider narrative gaps. 

POSTCARD TO SHANA WITHPHOTGRAPH OF
FLORALIËN GHENT, 1913

Everyone I know is losingcities this year. Yesterday
I heard the cuckoo forthe first time, which means 

it’s spring. Since I lastwrote, teams of gardeners
have gone to work allover Ghent, secateurs catching 

light; in days theneighbourhood was transformed.
Gardenias, azaleas. A youngman stood near a shallow 

pool breaking flowersfrom a peach branch and setting
them in water. Industry unrecognizablein its new 

horticultural clothes. Youknow I have been tending
to an orchard of my own:peach tree and cherry 

trees; apples; plum. The lawnis stippled bright with daffodils.
I thought, if I leavehim I will lose the garden 

I made. I thought, Ican make another garden anytime.
Nevertheless (the lambsare playing now—again!), I stayed.

Throughoutthe collection, Lorsung riffs off lines and poems by such as Emily Dickinson,Gerard Manley Hopkins and Gwendolyn Brooks, John Berryman, Walt Whitman andEdna St Vincent Millay, among others, in her exploration of rhythmic thoughtacross the American Midwest and English Midlands, of the details anddifferences of geographic, cultural and domestic space. As the poem “LINNAEANSYSTEM” begins: “You know the rose is in five pieces. / You know the centre ofthe split apple copies it. / The skin of a nectarine, a pear, an almond, apeach makes my mouth burn.” There is something of Lorsung’s careful precisions,her narrative care that occasionally attempts to shake lose from itself, writinggardens and photographs and paintings and swans, that I find slightlyreminiscent of the work of Montreal poet Stephanie Bolster [see my short review of her most recent book here]. “I have a sense of history as if it were a picture:,”she writes, near the end of the poem “FEBRUARY MOTHER,” “here the donkey/ struggles uphill under its load of sticks, and here the pigeons //pick at grain. The fire never burns out. No one dies. The world / is alwaysthere, under the tympanum’s perfect sky. The point // of the painted world isthe blue of our world that lives / and dies. There is no other point but that.”

Hannah Brooks-Motl, Ultraviolet of the Genuine

 

POVERTY MOUNTAIN

a reference qua the epics
an evening
“coming out of my wormhole”
into the hollow
what’s good for thescurfpea
to be like the soul
crisply transpicuous

Notlong ago, I discovered, thanks to the chapbook Poem Staple Collage / forJonathan Rajewski / & Other Poem (Chicago IL: The Year, 2024) [see my review of such here], the incredible work of western Massachusetts poet HannahBrooks-Motl. Her fourth full-length title, and the first of her full-lengths I’veseen, following The New Years (Rescue Press, 2014), M (The SongCave, 2015) and Earth (The Song Cave, 2019), is Ultraviolet of the Genuine (The Song Cave, 2025), a book self-described as “an expansive record of time andthought, weaving together philosophy, science, theology, dreams, grief,literary theory, criticism, history, and ideas of utopia—becoming a book thatcontinuously surprises and is nearly impossible to categorize.” “If you thinkwords are made of poems,” she writes, as part of the extended fragment-sequencepoem “POET DILEMMA,” “I mean poems made of words / As we’re taught // I know plentyof words / Though I come from the provinces / Where the earth is filled withviolence [.]” There’s something remarkable in the swoop and the rush of Brooks-Motl’slyrics, a simultaneous sense of compression and expansion, one that allows lessa narrative trajectory than a sequence of thought-clusters that interconnectacross every other moment and cluster across such wider expanse. “In Exeter,England one June or July,” she writes, to open the poem “EXETER,” “we slept onthe floor / Rhetorically, sentimentally—I bring / this up— / not to interpretroses or be watched / by the deer on Pulpit Hill Rd. / Yes it is strange / Ineveryone there is a certain no one / The garden, the blankets     the poem / should be a world, a real world/ Savanging the carved stone / Ymaginator / and the demi-angels now / justshapeless blobs [.]”

Acrosstwenty-five poems, some short and some extended, Brooks-Motl clearly delightsin extended meditation and play; she delights in structure, delights in howpoems get built and are built, across meaning and rhythm and purpose, across avenuesof articulated exploration. The strength of her poems emerge through the blendof collision and clarity, set precisely in that foundation of poems builtthrough the building blocks of words, achieving far more than a straight lineever could. With each poem, it feels as though Brooks-Motl is slowly building somethingincredibly detailed and impossibly large. All of it, as she said, built out ofwords. “Nothing was plain or open,” begins the poem “MUTTS OF AQUINAS,” “no one/ was invited to explain           Chained up all day / you might wonder:       To whom does the good accrue?”

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Luisa Muradyan

Luisa Muradyan isoriginally from Odesa, Ukraine, and is the author of I Make Jokes When I'mDevastated (Bridwell Press, 2025), When the World Stopped Touching(YesYes Books, 2027), and American Radiance (University of NebraskaPress, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston andwon the 2017 Raz/ Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Additionally, Muradyanis a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and nonbinarywriters from the former Soviet Union.  Additional work can be found at BestAmerican Poetry, the Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and OnlyPoems, among others.

1 - How did your first book change your life? Howdoes your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book will always be a reminder to myselfthat what I have to say matters to someone out in the universe. When I startedwriting poetry, my wildest dream was that a press would actually take myridiculous poems about sentient sexy potatoes, Prince, and Predator seriously.I am still amazed that my poems find readers and now that I have a second bookout, I am constantly pinching myself that this is my reality. After I finishedmy first book, American Radiance,which is largely about my family, I promised myself I would move on and writeabout a new topic. My second book, I MakeJokes When I’m Devastated, is even more focused on my family. I realizedthat I’m essentially going to write the same book over and over again, becauseevery poem about my grandmother is ultimately a poem about the moon, andeveryone knows how poets feel about the moon.

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

I am drawn to poetry for the privacy. Most of thetime, I feel naked writing in prose, and while I love reading novels andessays, I need the distance that the lyric provides, or to put it lesspoetically, I want to keep my top on.

3 - How long does it take to start any particularwriting project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slowprocess? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or doesyour work come out of copious notes?

Writing is a long process for me. I think of mybrain as a crock pot that I’m constantly shoving images into. Eventually, Ipull images out after a few hours of staring at my computer screen. A finaldraft often looks nothing like the original version of that poem, and that’stypically because I don’t have a clear idea of where the poem needs to go. Occasionally,I’ll tell myself “I’m going to write a love poem that starts with prunes,” but that’sabout as much direction as I tend to give myself.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Areyou an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, orare you working on a "book" from the very Beginning?

Poems often begin for me with images. I’ll see abursting peony bush and immediately think, “obviously I’ll be writing about youlater,” and continue on my day. I am rarely a writer who works on “projects”and mostly just assembles manuscripts slowly over time. I obsessively writeabout ten different things over and over again, and eventually those poemsbecome a book.

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

I adore attending readings. I often think of themas a place of tremendous inspiration, and I often feel energized when they areover. For me, there is something magical about hearing poetry read out loud byfriends or poets whose work I am not familiar with.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behindyour writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?What do you even think the current questions Are?

My concerns are endless. I have a thousandanswers for “what do poems actually do?” but none of them feel like the rightone. As a poet who often writes about war in my birthplace, I think about thisquestion often.

7 – What do you see the current role of thewriter being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think therole of the writer should be?

I generally avoid prescribing what the role of awriter should be. As a teacher of young writers, I see firsthand the tremendousimpact that poems have for helping people understand themselves, and also forunderstanding others. To me, empathy and poetry are connected in a way that isessential. I teach “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” by Adam Zagajewski everyyear because that poem saved my life; I don’t know what role that gives me as awriter. Mostly, I’m not that different than a person handing out pamphlets onthe street. I’m giving you something that has transformed the way I see the world, Maybe you’ll remember a line from thispoem when you need it, maybe you’ll immediately throw it into the recyclingbin.

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

I have been lucky to work with some reallygenerous editors throughout the years. For individual poems, I really onlyshare them with a handful of friends and mostly as proof that I am stillliving. When I am struggling with a poem, I find that sharing drafts with a friendI trust is tremendously helpful. I worked with Katie Condon on my last book andshe was essential in helping me iron out some poems that I had over-edited whenI was putting my manuscript together. Since Katie understood my work, she wasable to provide some suggestions for not only how to make the poems better buthow to shape them towards what I wanted them to be.

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

The best way to learn about writing is by readingas much as possible.

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend tokeep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Admittedly, I am on the “parent of three youngchildren” routine which means I’m often writing poems on my phone in betweenhockey practices, in a school pickup line, or during my lunch break betweenclasses I teach.

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

Stanley Kunitz reading “Touch Me” will likelybring me back to earth for a few seconds after I’ve died. When he leans intothe microphone and says “remind me who I am” at the end of the poem I gaspevery single time.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Home is a complicated idea for me as I came tothis country as a refugee when I was a child. What reminds me of Odesa? Thesmell of meat section in the Pryvoz market or the peonies that grew outside ofour apartment building. What reminds me of Kansas City? The smell of bbq andthe park after it rains. My current house smells like mint leaves from tea Imake throughout the day, scented markers in my children’s playroom, or theabsolutely horrific scent of unwashed adolescent hockey gear that lives in my garage.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books comefrom books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whethernature, music, science or visual art?

I am moved by visual art and often begin writingpoems in my head as I walk through museums or galleries.

14 - What other writers or writings are importantfor your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Gerald Stern is a poet that will always pull meout of whatever writing hole I find myself in. I also have a deep love forMarina Tsvetaeva, Wisława Szymborska, Robin Coste Lewis, Kathleen Peirce,Mahmoud Darwish, Ross Gay, Stanley Kunitz, Adam Zagajewski, Anna Akhmatova, Ada Limon, Tiana Clark, Ilya Kaminsky, Ruth Stone, Matthew Olzmann, Li-Young Lee,Safiya Sinclair, and so many others.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven'tyet done?

I’d love to write a children’s book length poem.I promised my oldest child that this would be our summer project.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation toattempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?

This might be too close to the same wheelhouse aswriting but I think I would be a very good namer of things. I want to bewhoever is in charge of naming nail polish colors, newly invented cheeses,flavors of candy, or recently discovered insects. Are you a beverage companywho doesn’t know what to call your strangely hued newest creation? Allow me tobe drunk with power and name that juice.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doingsomething else?

For a long time writing was the thing that Isaved for myself as a reward for doing all of the other things I had to dothroughout the day. Eventually, I got tired of putting my joy Last.

18 - What was the last great book you read? Whatwas the last great film?

I just finished Traci Brimhall’s Love Prodigaland I recommend everyone with a beating heart buy this incredible book. I alsosaw Sinners last night and it was brilliant.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I typically allow myself to go through a quietphase after I have a book come out. I am currently working on getting back to writing poems morefrequently.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

i got knocked off facebook on july 2nd, (and where to find me otherwise,

in case anyone was wondering where I've been. I have been fielding an array of emails on the subject, asking if I've blocked or unfriended anyone; I haven't, I've been knocked off, with a perpetual "you submitted an appeal" notice when I try to log in, saying that it usually takes but a day or two to "review your information," but I've been in limbo since, as I said, July 2nd. It's maddening, as it means I've lost hundreds of friends and family contacts. It isn't the same, but if you wish, you can follow me via bsky here, or my instagram here, or sign up for the weekly "Tuesday poem" email list, which often includes multiple other notices for readings, publications, above/ground press, periodicities, Touch the Donkey, the ottawa small press book fair etcetera. I've also a bsky account for periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, the ottawa small press book fair, Chaudiere Books and the (ottawa) small press almanac (given all those facebook groups are now lost to me). Separately, we've a monthly email list for VERSe Ottawa/VERSeFest: Ottawa's International Poetry Festival, or you can sign up (free, if you wish) to my weekly and incredibly clever substack here (where I've been offering excerpts of various non-fiction works-in-progress), or to the above/ground press substack (entirely and completely free), where one can be reminded of events, new publications and even a bunch of brand-new interviews with above/ground press authors. Not the same as facebook, I know, but I don't know what else to do there, as the whole system seems deliberately built to refuse anyone support. Might it reappear? God only knows.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Geoffrey Olsen

Geoffrey Olsen is the author of Nerves Between Song (Beautiful Days Press 2024) and seven chapbooks, most recently In Sleep the Searing (New Mundo Press 2025) and Neck Field (Portable Press @Yo-yo Labs 2025). He lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

1 - How did your first book orchapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to yourprevious? How does it feel different?

The primary change for me is that thecreation of NervesBetween Song allowed me toconceive of writing “books”. As a young poet, I could write series -- 5-7 poems-- before losing focus, then I eventually shifted to chapbook length forms forthe next decade of writing. NBS accumulatesfrom these 10 - 20 poem series. Now, I write in terms of the book-length work,as if the book gave me permission for this practice.

I feel more assured in my activity aspoet and it’s been nice to have more people reach out to me. More friendships,more sense of the visible nexus of poets and our community that invigorates thewriting.

In some ways, Nerves Between Song is my“previous work”: the oldest poems in the book are over a decade old, thoughedited and changed over that time. Across my work there’s an attention to themotion of the poem -- a sense that the poem beckons, but does not dictatemeaning. The writing that follows is always going to play against the impulsesdriving the previous work, as I try to ascertain what new possibilities canemerge.

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

I wanted to write fiction at first: itseemed the only way to  be a writer. Isoon realized that I was not interested in narrative, in character, and thatinstead I was interested in the emergence of detail and language as in motion.I’ve always been drawn to improvisation when it comes to creative activity, andpoetry seemed the ideal medium for me to explore this.

3 - How long does it take tostart any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly,or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their finalshape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

Each work is continuous on some level,though I have been interested in exploring particular forms. Despite writingwithin somewhat similar structures throughout my work, on some level it isimpossible to repeat the form of the poem as it moves with a continuallyaltering pulse of consciousness. We respond to unceasing change: the conduitsof material crisis promulgate poetic intent. Writing exists as accumulatinggesture of undercurrent and submerged energy.

Poems start in motion and do not changemuch from initial writing. There’s a pruning of the work that always happens:cutting away here and there, growing out other aspects.

4 - Where does a poem usuallybegin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into alarger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?

It is difficult to think of the shortpieces that I write over time and the final book itself as distinct. It tendsto morph as it moves along. That said, my recent manuscript, Rend, -- a portion of this has just beenpublished as the chapbook InSleep the Searing -- wasintentionally prepared as a book-length series of formally united poems: myfirst time writing a sustained work where the form is stable andself-contained, rather than determined in its gradual unfolding over a seriesof poems.

5 - Are public readings partof or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoysdoing readings?

I love doing readings! In the past, Iwould get so nervous and do them rarely, but I’m fortunate to have had enoughopportunities to do them over the years so that the anxiety they generate canbe channeled into excitement. I want to think more about my reading practice,particularly in relation to music. Readings with the musician Ceremonial Abyss,who generates a sonic field alongside the poetry, have been incredibleexperiences and helped me hear the work in new ways. I know I’m not alone inthis -- Ceremonial Abyss has been relentlessly touring and reading with so manypoets across the US. It’s energizing to see the collaborations he’s convening,not just with him but with other musicians, such as with composer and movementartist Lia Simone, who performed with poets Jared Daniel Fagen and Jessica Elsaesser the evening of my first reading with Ceremonial Abyss.

6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?

This is a huge question! The currentquestion for me is how can the US continue to exist in this way where itexploits beings all over the planet so as to perpetuate the control of thewealthy? And then the second question, which comes from this, is where doespoetry arrive and occur in this calamity? What is the space of imagination asinterwoven with our concerns for survival? I also wonder at what can be “said”with the poem, and become more immersed in it as beautiful noise, churningwithin what I experience, what I want to know, what I fail to understand, andyet still drawn to a more abstract music that moves with this, vacated of me.There’s always a certain skepticism involved in my approach to language, andwith that a lot of uncertainty.

7 – What do you see thecurrent role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? Whatdo you think the role of the writer should be?

Reading Eleni Stecoupolous’s wonderfulnew book Dreaming in the Fault Zone: APoetics of Healing reminded me of the George Oppen quote that poets imagine themselves “legislators of the unacknowledged”. This brings to mind Robert Kocik’s call for poets to make law. I don’t know where I stand. In the unknownprobably.

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

Working with Beautiful Days cofoundersand editors Joshua Wilkerson and George Fragopoulos was such a satisfying andsupportive experience. They were very thoughtful about the work and onlylightly intervened to refine NervesBetween Song. Poet and novelist Brenda Iijima, who published my chapbook NECK FIELD several months ago, is alongtime friend and influence. I am deeply fortunate to have her as an astutereader of my work for almost two decades now, and as an editor she helped mehone in on the underlying root structure of the poems. It’s essential!

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

Alan Davies once told me that one has todo the same thing again and again first before the new emerges, but to do thiswithout repetition. Something about being in the dialectical tension of therepetition and the seemingly new is where poetry happens for me. I feel theprocess is generating a personal syntax, and rhythm, as if one is improvisingon an instrument. That all the discipline is turning toward the practice inmotion.

10 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?

My practice is centered on reading andlistening. “Writing” is a continuous occurrence, typically inside as I moveabout my day. I usually write in the interstices of my reading, since withpoetry or theory and then turning to my notebook and writing out a poem. Ialways handwrite poems and type them out usually months later.

I work a fulltime job as a staff at theNew School, so most days start with a commute, but I do try to read poetry inthe morning.

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

Back to music, back to reading, back tofilm. Medium transfer transmutes stall into flow.

12 - What fragrance remindsyou of home?

Decaying leaves. I grew up on the edge ofa forest. Teenage afternoons were spent on the paths that ran through thewoods. I just would walk and be slightly spooked by the surroundings. 

13 - David W. McFadden oncesaid that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influenceyour work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Music always and often film. The poetryI’ve been working on lately has been influenced by electro-acoustic music andfield recordings, and often pieces of music that operate in both genres. Taku Unami and Toshiyo Tsunoda’s Wovenland series heavily influenced my recentchapbook NECKFIELD, particularlytheir attention to estranging “natural” sounds, generating a sort ofanti-pastoral of parks and streams and other populated outdoor spaces. Theestablished the field in which the horrors of the genocide in Gaza werereverberating through my daily attention and remain the focus of my politicalactivity outside of poetry. My work is (for better or worse) never direct, yetsomething about how they were approaching sound obliquely let me register morein the poems the dire urgency of this moment, when the United States continuesto arm Israel’s war machine over 600 days into this intensification of thegenocide.

As for film, I’m still trying to clarifyits direct importance to my work. I often reference films in my poems --frequently it’s been the filmmakers or . They both offer a duration of image that feels like thinking. Ilike to write alongside and into the feeling that opens up.

Recent work has been engaging with thefilms of Robert Beavers after I had the chance to see many of his films at aretrospective at the Anthology Film Archives. Rebecca Rutkoff’s incrediblerecent book on his work, Double Vision:On the Cinema of Robert Beavers led me to read his film almost as poetry,and as a medium of language, even if that may not have been his intent. I’minto rendering as poetry that which cannot be truly held by it.

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

My core poets: Leslie Scalapino, Will Alexander, Larry Eigner, P. Inman, JH Prynne, Myung Mi Kim, Roberto Harrison,kari edwards, Brenda Iijima, Nathaniel Mackey.

For theory (recently): Samir Amin,Vladimir Lenin, Raymond Williams

15 - What would you like to dothat you haven't yet done?

Write many essays and reviews. This hasbeen something I’ve found very challenging for some reason. It feels abrasivein relation to my poetry practice, requiring a focus that does not come to meeasily. I would also like to write a long poem, though this may or may notalready be underway.

16 - If you could pick anyother occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I honestly don’t know how to answer this.Maybe a musician, though part of why I became a poet in the first place isbecause that dream of music collapsed pretty quickly.

17 - What made you write, asopposed to doing something else?

I wanted to be a musician at first -- Iplay the piano, pretty much purely improvisation in solitude. When I began torecognize that wasn’t going to go anywhere, I switched to poetry as animprovisational mode that seemed more suit me much more, and not requireperforming with others, which seemed impossible at the time.

18 - What was the last greatbook you read? What was the last great film?

The last great film was Frederick Wiseman’s Essene: his documentary of a Benedictine monastery in upstate NewYork, released on public television in the 70s. There is a beautiful intimacyand fragility to how the monks relate to each other. It was moving, even ifreligion is not a part of my existence.

The last great book is challenging so Iwill list three! Tessa Bolsover’s Craneis a uniquely ambitious work that straddles theory and poetry. I was raptreading Jennifer Soong’s My EarliestPerson. Thomas Delahaye’s Numéraire wasa work that truly surprised me, a work that delights as the poetry turns inwardon itself.

19 - What are you currentlyworking on?

I started a second manuscript in 2021while I finished editing Nerves BetweenSong and submitted it for publication (which took three years from thecompletion of the MS).

This work, Rend is much more dense and led by sound that the more diffuse andambient Nerves Between Song.

While wrapping this work up on Rend, I have started a long poem. It’snot clear to me yet what this will be as it’s still unfolding. I want it to besomething unspooling wildy, playing with the sentence, which is not usually thelevel I operate on.

12 or20 (second series) questions;

Kimberly Campanello, An Interesting Detail

 

The Language

The books don’t know what’sinside their covers, or they don’t care. Just when you learned what washappening, what direction to face, how to move and what to carry where, thelanguage changed. You were reassured it was all still working and thetransformation would be total, just as before. We could just as easily go tothe top of the dune and play with roots in the sand. We could even kneel downand twist them around our hands and wrists to hold ourselves down. As I understandit, the heart can be seen to beat if you can get a glow to show up properlyaround it. Any background will do.

Thelatest poetry title by Irish-American poet Kimberly Campanello, currently aProfessor of Poetry at the University of Leeds, is An Interesting Detail (Bloomsbury, 2025), an expansive collection of sequences, prose poems andstand-alone lyrics that extend a sheen of surrealism grounded in concretemoments. “The family walk the sandbar for sand dollars,” the poem “Family Walk”begins, “slip them between toes, foot to hand, and bucket them. The dollars dryto death on the condo patio. The family walk to the cave paintings. They find awild horse in a sinkhole just before it dries to death at the level of theirknees.” I describe the poems within as expansive, but at less than seventypages of poems, this collection is compact, thick as stone and incrediblysharp. “begins with shouting / in sleep I am naked / on the carpet in a powerstance,” opens the poem “Moving Nowhere Here,” “sensing an army nearby / I amcharging the ghost / hanging on the back of the door [.]” Campanello’s poemsbegin with small objects or moments, offering descriptions that expand intolarger ripples of narrative, akin to surreal kinds of field notes.

Much of the collection is constructed via the prose poem, each of which extendout their narratives, both echo and counterpoint to her more traditional lyrics,built of accumulated, almost stand-alone phrases and sentences. Two sides of thesame poetic, one might say, the line-breaks articulating further spaces betweenphrases and thought, although not always where one might immediately think. “Oneremarkable item,” the prose poem “Receipt” begins, “found with a man buriednear where I used to live, turned out to be a whistle made from a carved andhighly polished human thigh bone. Dating suggests it belonged to someone wholived around the same time as him. To bring you up to speed on this, I’mcertain they could squeeze me in here among the greats. It’s what I want. It’simportant to let people know your wishes in advance.” Through Campanello, hersurrealism is held with an anchor to the real, allowing elements of truth toshimmer across the skin of her narratives. As the poem “Use Value” begins: “If Ihad studied / STEM things might / have been different. / If I had fed / intothe meeting / there would have / been an outcome. / The tin whistle / is apassion of mine. / Aren’t I lucky / to do what I’m / passionate about?” Herdetails are moments, and her moments are vast.

They Didn’t Expect 

hedges steeplesthe time it takes
to cut awaythe chutes purpling
lips down thepromenade past
nationsstepping forward fire
blocking fireimportant speech
looped in adarkened room
hardy sightseersin rainproof
jacketseverlasting bunkers
farmers orfarmers wives or
farmerschildren blown
up mundanetasks running
commentaryalong the bottom
of thetapestry build up
of bodieswhere do we go
when we diethe lovers
eating theircrêpes her
outrageouslyclassy flowers
their rollingcigarettes like sex

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Latorial Faison

Latorial Faison  is an award-winningpoet, author, and Assistant Professor of English at Virginia State University,a Historically Black College & University (HBCU). A native of ruralSouthampton County, Virginia, Faison earned a BA in English with a minor inReligious Studies at the University of Virginia, an MA in English at VirginiaTech, and a doctoral degree in Education at Virginia State University. Herwriting boldly explores Black Southern traditions, race, and African Americanculture and identity. Faison’s most recent poetry collection,  Nursery Rhymes in Black , received the 2023 Permafrost Poetry Prize and waspublished by the University of Alaska Press, an imprint of the University Pressof Colorado. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a recipient of fellowshipsfrom the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), VirginiaHumanities, and the Furious Flower Poetry Center.

Faison’spoetry and prose have appeared in acclaimed literary publications, such as Callaloo,  Obsidian, PrairieSchooner, West Trestle Review, Artemis, RHINO, AuntChloe, About Place Journal, SouthernPoetry Anthology, Stonecoast Review, SolsticeLiterary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, and Virginia’sBest Emerging Poets. Her work is also featured in notable volumessuch as Three Minus One and the NAACP Image Award-winning Keepingthe Faith. Faison is the author of numerous poetry collectionsincluding Mother to Son, LOVE POEMS, and the Amazon Kindle best-selling trilogy 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History. She is also the author ofthe historical study The Missed Education of the Negro: AnExamination of the Black Segregated Experience in Southampton County, VA,and children’s books Kendall’s Golf Lesson and 100 Poems You Can Write.Faison has received multiple honors, including the Tom Howard Poetry Prize. Shehas been a finalist for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, Louise Bogan Poetry Award,North Street Book Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, and others. A VeteranMilitary Spouse and proud mother of three sons, Faison has served on thefaculty of various colleges and universities throughout the US as well asabroad—wherever military duty called. She holds Life Membership in The PoetrySociety of Virginia, College Language Association, and the historic WintergreenWomen Writers Collective.

1 - How did your first book change your life? Howdoes your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feeldifferent?

My first book was a small chapbook collection of poems, entitled PoeticallySpeaking. It allowed me to see what was possible. Holding a book in yourhand with your name on it is powerful, inspiring. I sold over 250 copies ofthat chapbook, which helped to finance the self-publication of my first bookcollection, Secrets of My Soul. That book changed my life in that theworld around me recognized me as an author, a poet. I was invited to myhometown to do a reading and book signing the local community college. Thepeople showed up in support of it, and they enjoyed the poems. That wasassuring, life changing. The people at home, my family, friends, teachers, andcommunity had always had faith in me, supported me. They showed up, purchasedbooks, told their friends and family about it, and the rest was history. Booknumber one made book number two a reality. You can write books. You can sellbooks. But neither are worthwhile without readers. That first book establishedmy audience—the fact that I could even have an audience—and in essence, itchanged my life.

I don’t think my initial work, my first book, quite compares to mymost recent work or this last book collection. The passion for the poetry wasthere in the beginning and the dedication to learning the craft, but my worldhas changed so much then. The world we know has changed in so many ways, forbetter and for worse. How could I ignore it? So much has changed since thatfirst book. In the first book, I was writing out of adolescence and girlhood, asort of early becoming, seemingly with a little naivete and a lot lessexperience. I was a new, young wife, living on love, a new mother, a newmilitary spouse, a college graduate. In my most recent book, I’m writing out ofthe old-fashioned wisdom not only passed down but called on in times oftrouble. I’m writing out of two decades of coming to full grip and reality withsystemic racism, racial inequality, gender inequality, societal capitalism, religioushypocrisy, and having raised our own young Black sons through two eras just asterrorizing to Black males as Jim Crow. My latter work has been a labor of loveand war, joy and pain, awareness, and necessary family, community, nation-building.If we don’t teach and pass down our own history, who will do it for us. Thechildren must know the ways of the elders, how they made it over. My latterwork speaks to the woman I have become; it is a credit to the strong women whohave defined me. It tells a story. Nursery Rhymes in Black is an act ofamplifying Black voices—the elders, the mama’s, the fathers, the sons, and thedaughters. It’s historic, cultural, identifying, and shifting.

I don’t like to compare thework because the one exists because of the other; they each have theirplaces and purpose. But it does indeed feel different because it is different.My first book felt nice, easy, inviting, calm, but strong, assuring,accommodating and bold even. My latter work feels more prolific yet inspiring,intentional, radical yet creative, aggressive yet inviting, demanding yetcollaborative, lyrical, telling, epic, and historic. There’s somethingancestral, mature, and grown-up about the poems I’ve been writing. NurseryRhymes in Black is a collection that marks time, documents history, callsreaders to lean in, listen, to give history and my people attention. I wasn’tnecessarily commanding these kinds of things in my first book, Secrets of MySoul. I was finding my way, sharing my soul intimately, introducing myvoice to the world in a shy kind of way. In these recent works, I have lost allshyness. I am grabbing the mic, owning my feelings, thoughts, and ideas. I’mstanding center stage on the page and confronting so much, everything, usingthe everyday lives of people I knew and loved. Their stories mattered; theirlives mattered. That’s it. I’m telling stories, documenting history in myrecent work. There’s an homage to my upbringing and those who brought me up—allthose experiences culminating in the sum total of me. I was likely paintingpictures and finding myself, my voice in my first collection. In fact, thetitle poem read “Dare me to pursue this / to pen the secrets of my soul / infather time’s precious ink royal black and memory gold.” There’s a difference;there’s an innocence. I was born in that first book. I have come of age in thislast one with lines that must be reckoned with, “Likethree blind mice, three white churches stand watch covering blood shed by whitehoods: one for their fathers, one for their sons, one for their holy ghosts.” Idon’t mince words or hide behind facades in the latter work. I bring it,without hesitation. What I may not have said over twenty-five years ago, I haveto say it now. So much has happened in the in between years. Life demandsthe poetry that I now write.

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

Nothing has had more influence on mylife than the historical literary and musical tradition that is rooted andgrounded in the Church, the Black church, the Black Baptist church—it’s music,its liturgical, ecclesiastical, oratorical, and theological ways, means, vibes,logos, love ballads, shouts, hollers, and spirituals.

I came to poetry by way of the Blackchurch. I remember holding the Bible and The Baptist Hymnal in my hands asearly as I can remember and following along in Sunday School, Sunday morning worshipservices, Bible studies, and vacation Bible schools in summer with the words ofscriptures, prayers, praise songs, hymns, chants, Negro spirituals.

Scriptures and songs were myintroduction to poetry and old deacons and church mothers’ well-rehearsed andmemorized prayers. I memorized so many. I fell in love with the ebb and flow ofthe words, with the rhythms, the rhyme, with the spirituality of it all, it wasamazing, the most amazing thing I’d ever read or heard or learned or fathomedat those very young tender, teachable moments in my life. I mastered them.

This is how I came to poetry. It drewme—the voice of god, a savior—the lyrics of so many songs inspired by god orwritten to and about god; it was hypnotic for sure, healing, comforting,hopeful, believable—the absolute best therapy and coping mechanism ever for mylittle young, Black self, the best EVER. So, it was poetry from day one, andlater the poetry became nonfiction. I don’t play around much with fiction. Ilove truth. It saves. It heals. It delivers. It liberates. It’s not easy, butit’s freedom.

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 firstdrafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?

It can take anywhere from a minute to years. My writing projectsare not usually things that I’ve started, not my poetic ones anyway. Mydissertation, of course, was a project that I had to plan, start, finish, anddeliver. The poetry doesn’t must happen in that way, whether it’s a single poemor an entire collection. I’d much rather write poems that come to me than tohave a poem commissioned. I like to write what I feel, and you have to feelthings and then be free enough to write about them. Over the years, when Iworked less, writing was easier; there was more time. As my children becameolder and life became busier, more demanding, I have found it harder to findtime to write, to finish projects. My best poems have come when there has beentime—time to feel all the things that I want to capture and deliver in a poem,time to travel back in time or think far into my future about what is, whatwas, and what could be. My grandmother passed in 2008; the poem I wanted towrite for her didn’t come until about three to four years later. I didn’t wanther poem to be something I wrote in a few minutes, day, or a month even. “Mamawas a Negro Spiritual” was a poem I pieced together just like a quilt. It camein patches, in pieces, in figments of my memory and imaginings. For mygrandmother, a poem had to be grand. In the end, it was. It was award-winning.So, it’s a slow process because I like it to be. But sometimes words, phrases,they come quickly, and I jot them down, save them up—they are the patches, thepieces, that ultimately come together in the end. First drafts, second drafts,and sometimes un-trackable numbers of drafts appear. I often know how I want apoem to look but most importantly how I want it to feel, and that’s what I longto master in the final shape and draft of many of my poems, all of my work. Theend is important. Through notes on napkins, notepads, in my phone texts, ordigital notepads and messages, they are worked out and pieced together in myhead and on paper and via computer. It’s a magic that happens, a poem comingtogether.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author ofshort pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working ona "book" from the very beginning?

Poems, for me, can begin with a single word or a phrase that Ilove. They can also begin with a moment, a line from a book or movie or even aconversation. I write short pieces and long pieces. I think my best fallssomewhere in between. In my early writing, I wrote many pieces that cametogether without really thinking of themed collections; they were generalcollections. Today, I write on various themes and subjects (as PhillisWheatley’s first collection), but with more of a theme in mind when writing forcollections or calls for submissions and prizes. I don’t necessarily think of abook from the beginning of a poem. But I do have book ideas. There are kinds ofpoetry books that I’d love to write, various kinds. I must find the time, takethe time, make the time.

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

I have been a public speaker since I was a child. My love forreading in public, like my love for poetry, was also formed in the Blackchurch. I was tasked with reading scriptures and leading songs, publicly, as akid. I don’t mind it at all. I like it even. It comes easy for me. Some havesaid I’m a natural.  So, to read my workis natural, to read or recite my poems and talk about them, that’s notnecessarily a part of it, and it’s certainly not counter to the creativeprocess. I don’t write a poem or a book with the intent to publicly read it(thought I now know that comes with the territory), but I mostly write for mefirst. There’s some freedom and deliverance in writing and publishing for me.Secondly, it’s to be read and to inspire or help heal or educate others, toenlighten. I am a storyteller at heart, and even my poems tell stories. So,they don’t have to be read by me. If they are read, that’s enough. But I don’tmind public readings. There’s a dance that can happen between reader or authorand audience, poet, and people. The interaction usually always leads to someamazing, wonderfully engaging, or powerful experience in itself.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? Whatkinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you eventhink the current questions are?

I don’t set out to have theoretical concerns behind my writing,but I know they are there. I’m a Black woman writing. Race in America ispolitical. Gender in America is political. If it’s political, it’s theoretical.I am concerned about Black life, womanhood, the underprivileged, the voiceless,hypocrisy, the evil men do in society—those are my concerns. I am not so muchtrying to answer questions as I am telling a story, testifying, documentinglife, history, and times of people, places, and ideas. I think that we shouldall be asking the questions that will cause us to work harder to make lifebetter. Questions engage. Questions inspire critical thought. We need morequestions, more critical thinking, more engagement, more change, moresolutions, more kindness, compassion, more understanding. I’m interested in whywe do what we do and to whom we do it, and why. It’s circular. It’s systemic.It’s layered. Everybody has a story; everybody’s story is important. I tellmine and many of the stories I know, via poetry, nonfiction, narrative.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?

The writer has always had a responsibility to take readers, thepublic, on a journey, down a road, for a ride—the responsibility of giving onea glimpse into a life and/or time they’ve never known or may not be fully awareof. Writers have the role of teaching, providing escape, enlightenment,entertainment, simulation, rhetorical analysis, theorizing. Writers wake us,take us, and catapult us into other worlds where we can be better. The writingmust be, should be, an experience, that changes one for the better. That’s therole of the writer in larger cultural. As an African American woman writer, Icarry the responsibility of cultural analysis and critic, ethnographer, truthteller, revealer.

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

I think it’s both difficult and essential, working with outsideeditors, depending on the editor(s). I enjoy working alone, writing alone,going it alone and having it edited in the end. I don’t think I’d like writingin tandem with an editor. Editors are very necessary for the professionalreputation and readability of the work. I don’t write novels. I gather thateditors could be crucial in the various stages of novel writing. I’veself-published for nearly three decades for a reason. I don’t like the idea ofhaving one’s work validated by others, and sometimes that is what happens inrelationships with some editors. Editors have control, and I believe writersshould be in control of their material. Advice is great, but I think a goodeditor knows that and knows there should be a line drawn.

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

It hasn’t been one single piece of advice but a compilation of somany pieces of advice:  Don’t try towrite like anyone else. Write what you know Write what you imagine. Write thekind of books you want to read. Write the books you have not read. Write foryour own self first. Tell your truth. Tell your story. If you want to be awriter, be a reader. “To thine own self be true.” Never give up. You can do it.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetryto creative non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

It has gotten easier over the years to move between the genres ofpoetry and nonfiction. My prose often becomes poetic or lyrical, and my poetryoften becomes narrative. It’s certainly becoming easier with time.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do youeven have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I don’t have a writing routine. I write when I one. I mostly doit, “when the spirit hits me.” I don’t write at certain times of the day or anyparticular way. I am a night owl, always have been. I will steal a momentanywhere to write words, phrases, lines . . . that later become poems. I amalways open to and looking for reasons to write, people, places, and things orideas about which to write. I love to document what I see and feel and hear.That’s the only routine I have, paying attention to life and feeling all of thefeelings it brings—capturing those feelings in poems, essays, or whatever.

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

When my writing gets stalled or when I feel there’s a block, Ikeep living. I read, watch tv, pay attention to what’s going on in my home, mycommunity, my state, organizations, globally. Things are happening to people,good and bad, every moment. Every moment there is something terrible or amazinghappening, things that bring joy and pain. That always pulls me back into thegame; it brings me back to poetry, writing. I am called to respond. So, I justkeep living, and eventually, something draws me to the page, summons me to getin the game and get busy writing.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

The scent watermelon, the smell of freshly cut grass, and thearoma of soul foods, especially sweets—reminds me of home, family, mygrandparents who raised me. I grew up in the country. My grandma was an amazingcook. My grandfather was an outdoorsman with a beautiful garden. My othergrandmother lived just down the road—her sweet potato pies where out of thisworld.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, butare there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science,or visual art?

Everything I see and hear, taste, smell, or feel influences mywork. McFadden is probably right. But books also come from experience. Poetryis experience. Music is an experience. It influences my work. Trauma isexperience; it influences my work. People influence my work. Places influencemy work. Circumstances, things . . . everything influences my work. And yes,books have influenced my works and so have movies, tv shows, documentaries,entertainers, historical figures, people long gone have influenced my work. Ihave written poems in response to nature, music, science, art, you name it.Poetry is an experience, a response.

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

There are absolutely too many writers or writings to name that areimportant for my work. I am in awe of historical poets and writers andlyricists. I have long been a fan of Langston Hughes' poetry, Phillis Wheatley,Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, DuBois’ Souls of BlackFolk, Woodson’s The Miseducation of the Negro, Hurston’s TheirEyes Were Watching God, Angelou’s poetry and iconic Caged Bird, JamesBaldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison’spoetry and cadre of works from The Bluest Eye to Song of Solomonand SULA, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls, August Wilson’splaces, especially Fences, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun,Alice Walker, Margaret Walker’s For My People, Mari Evans, NikkiGiovanni’s poetry, Sonia Sanchez, the late Val Gray Ward, voice of the Blackwriter and founder of Chicago’s Kuumba Theater.

In the last six years, I’ve come to know and love so manycontemporary African American scholars, poets, and writers. I am completely inawe of the work of poets Patricia Smith, Jericho Brown, Danez Smith, Rita Dove,Natasha Trethewey, Tracy K. Smith, Sharan Strange, poets who formed The Dark Room Collective.  I have found so manynew friends and sisters in this work as well through Furious Flower PoetryCenter: Joanne Gabbin, Lauren Alleyne, the Wintergreen Women, Nikki Giovanni,Trudier Harris, Daryl Cumber Dance, Maryemma Graham, Meta DuEwa Jones, DaMaris Hill, Desiree Cooper, Opal Moore, Ethel Morgan Smith, Hermine Pinson, Renee Watson. 

Oh, and I LOVE Ariana Benson, Cedric Tillman, and Remica Bingham-Risher. The work of Joan Kwon Glass, Jamaica Baldwin, Kendra Bryant,Adrienne Christian, Adrienne Oliver, Glenis Redmond, JeMayne King, DarleneAnita Smith, and Judy Juanita. Gabrielle Pina wrote two amazing books that Icame across when she joined the faculty at my University. Dr. Ayo Morton, anamazing poet, spoken word artist, writer, and scholar is also a new colleagueand sister writer friend. The sisters are writing, and the work is liberating.Then there’s the talented Carmin Wong and gifted Angel Dye, young women, poets,playwrights, spoken word artists, and scholars on fire and on the rise. Avery Young, Chicago’s poet laureate. Jessica Care Moore, Detroit’s poet laureate. Theprolific Dominique Christina who is absolute FIRE!! Tony Medina at HowardUniversity. Amazing!

I am surrounded by beautiful people, by women, by beautiful Blackwriters, artists of all colors and creeds who write powerfully, who arechanging worlds like Liseli Fitzpatrick, Alysia Dempsey, and Leah Glenn founder of the Leah Glenn Dance Theater and Dance professor at The College of William& Mary with whom I’ve had the opportunity to perform and collaborate. Icould literally go on . . . I have not scratched the surface of all the artistswho have engaged me in powerful ways. Durie Harris, Ebony Lumumba, Roxane Gay,and Nikole Hannah-Jones, I love what they are doing in the literary world. Infact, I’ve left somebody out of this group of amazing writers who inspire me,and I’m sorry. But I am blessed to be in the company of some of the greatestwriters who have ever lived. I just met Imani Perry for the first time at aretreat. She is doing phenomenal work. Oh, and my goodness . . . poets Anastacia Renee, JP Howard, Cynthia Manick, Regina YC Garcia. The future is in goodhands.

Some great poets and writers have graced the Earth, left theEarth, but they have left us with their words, and I am daily inspired by poetsand writers who are both ancestors and contemporaries. We have inherited anAfrican American literary tradition and legacy that has kept us, sustained us,and these people are doing the work good, one poem, one play, one article, onenovel, one book at a time. I am happy to be a benefactor, happy to be a part ofit all, happy to continue such a great literary tradition.

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

Write a play. Write a novel. Write memoir. Edit a new anthology. Writemy life story, or some of my mom’s. Hers is an episodic thriller—s.h.i.t. thatsells, for sure (smile). See some of my work on the big screen someday, that’sa dream!

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what wouldit be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had younot been a writer?

I’d like to have my own talk show, perhaps radio or podcasting.Had I not been an academic, a poet, a writer, I’d likely have been a goodengineer, pastor, psychiatrist/therapist, or motivational speaker.

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

Life made me write. Trauma, tragedy, emotions, people,circumstances . . . life made me write; there was nothing else that held orkept or stayed with me like writing. It didn’t cost much to grow as a writer,just time and witness.

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

The last great book(s) I have read have included Black Pastoralby Ariana Benson, My Mouth a Constant Prayer by Angel Dye, Lot’sDaughters by Opal Moore, Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renee Watson, Blissby Gabrielle Pina, WORN by Adrienne Christian, What My Hand Sayby Glenis Redmond, The Fire Talker’s Daughter by Regina YC Garcia, and ThoseWho Ride the Night Winds by Nikki Giovanni (for the umpteenth time). I amcurrently reading What We’ve Become by darlene anita smith, We BeTheorizin by Kendra Bryant Aya, and Side Notes form the Archivist byAnastacia-Renee, and other collections. I read fiction and nonfiction, novelsand plays, but I am always reading a poet.

20 – What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on ways topromote my new book, Nursery Rhymes in Black, winner of the 2023 PermafrostBook Prize for poetry published by University of Alaska Press an imprint ofUniversity Press of Colorado. I am working on this in addition to stepping intothe brand-new role of Dept. Chair of The Languages & Literature Departmentat Virginia State University. I hope that readers will get the book. It’savailable via the publisher as well as online at Amazon and Barnes n’ Noble. Ihope that colleges and universities and organizations will invite me to doreadings and participate in festivals and conferences or deliver guestlectures. I have other collections in the works. I have more oral historyresearch on Black segregated education in Virginia that I’m hoping to publishas well as collect more stories and oral history. So, there’s more poetry andprose, more writing, in my future for sure; there’s work to do. All I need istime. Keep up with my new work and happenings online via social media like Facebook,LinkedIn, and Instagram. I serve on the Board of the Wintergreen Women Writers Collective. I am looking forward to all of the new work that will be inspiredby and spring forth from the Collective in poetry, novels, essays, research,scholarship, documentary, anthologies, and digital works individual andcollaborative. It’s a great time to be alive and writing! There’s a lot towrite about and so many good reasons to be a writer in this moment.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

a fool and his monastaries are soon parted: church and castle ruins, Inishmore (Aran Islands) and Galway quarters, (part two,

[see part one of these notes here] 

Monday, July 7, 2025: We woke in Belfast, as one does, and made our way to the shared bus with Rose and her choir, en route to Galway, where the choir would be setting the second city of their three-city tour. I made my slow way through Toronto writer Miranda Schreiber's fiction debut, Iris and The Dead (Book*hug Press, 2025), an intriguing novel composed as a series of journal entries on youth and trauma, seeking to articulate and clarify the past tense (a very readable book, leaning into the young adult, almost). We passed a sign for the Brontë Homeland, ancestral home of Patrick Brontë (b. March 17, 1777), father of writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne, as well as a sign for a Game of Thrones tour, the counterpoint slightly jarring, but providing a particular kind of Irish expansiveness in a very short stretch.

Peat bricks in rows, again. The silence of cows, sheep. Finally, leaning off the highway, a roller coaster (why must they drive so fast, I swear to god) of narrow, ancient roads (often two narrow for passing cars) that took us to the Clonmacnoise (Cluain Mhic Nóis) Monastic Site, the ruins of a monastery originally founded on a slight hill in 544 on the River Shannon, providing a full view of the river distance. And the tower, also, providing an even better view, for when the Viking ships would have arrived for their usual plunder.


The views were stunning, and we even managed a short tour by one of the staff, an archaeologist (who specified that this is very different than a historian): how his job is to interpret the sites, and not simply what is already known (a bit of a slant on his part, I thought, but it made sense; but one can still "discover" new information through discovering new ways to interpret archival materials, but whatever). His name was Ruairí, the Irish name that anglicizes as "Rory" (I have a niece named such, as you might know), which also has the full Scottish variation as Ruairidh (such as the current Clan MacLennan Chief; do you remember when I met him?) (Rory can also be an abbreviation of Roderick). When I offered such, the guide suggested the Scottish was from the original Irish, which I'd be interested to know more about, actually (I had thought Irish Gaelic and Scottish both emerged from a single Gaelic language circa 1200, but I wasn't about to argue with an archaeologist).

Can you imagine this tower was originally twice the height? Apparently it got cut in half not long after it was built, so they made a whole new tower down the hill with the ruin, which is amazing to consider. Would such a tower have remained intact for near a millennium if it had been twice the height?

Our guide conjectured that the historians were incorrect that this was a tower for the sake of protection or as a longer view (one can see pretty far simply by being on a hill), but one of securing valuable items in case of a raid. If the vikings en route, a monk would climb inside (as the doorway is  raised up from ground level) with the valuable books, and lift the rope ladder up, thus preventing anyone from following. The only drawback being, of course, that the vikings would have simply tossed in a torch, and lit the whole thing up to either burn or smoke them out (not a perfect system, certainly).



The tour guide also introduced us to a whispering doorway, where one could whisper quietly into one side of the doorway and be heard if one were to place an ear on the other side of the doorway, as a kind of open-air confessional. Whisper quietly, to be barely heard, but to be heard. Some of the choir tested it, and apparently it worked.

Near the end, the choir leader, James, organized the young ladies within the bounds of the ruin of the main building, as they did an impromptu performance [I took photos but do not include here, as one does not post photos of other people's children upon the internet sans consent]. It was incredible, and brought tourists in from all corners of the site to quietly listen, take photographs and recordings (which I wasn't terribly fond of them doing) and simply take in. I've seen versions of this before in other places, other sites, but the experience is far more resonant when one of the participants is your child, after all.

I was curious about this particular ruin [above] just outside the boundaries of the monastery, as we were leaving, but it had not been mentioned. I would presume this an extension of the same thing, possibly. Hm?

From there, we returned to the bus, and the roller coaster of ancient roads (it made for a number of us to feel quite loopy/queasy), and eventually landed in Galway, a very pleasant and seaside tourist town. The whole time, I had a particular Waterboys song in my head, as I'd once heard they from here (although they're from all over Scotland and Ireland, it would seem). Galway smelled like Vancouver, a bit. There were little flags everywhere, as we seem to have found ourselves in a tourist area for dinner attempts. Once we landed, the whole crew, at our university residence, the choir went in one direction, and we went into another, everyone pulling bags and seeking rooms and figuring ourselves out. Although by the time we had completely figured ourselves out from our room, the choir had already been out and was returning from the city centre, where they'd had dinner (roughly a thirty minute walk, we eventually figured out), so we used their cab for our own attempt out into the world.

Upon landing, we saw our pal Susan with some of the older choir members, catching some bubble tea. An old resident sidled up to me there, a bag of wine bottles clattering along, as he insisted he knew me, he knew me. I gave him a "poem" handout, and he said, about time. He knew me, oh yes, he knew me. He was a Bishop, once. Oh, yes. The choir girls looked worried, a bit confused. When Christine mentioned I'd been in Galway back in 2002, he, what? No, he didn't live here then, he was somewhere else. [Reader: I do not think he knew me.]


Tuesday, July 8, 2025: We woke and quickly got on a waiting bus and accompanied the choir on a day-trip to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. At the ferry docks, an outcrop of tourist businesses (including bicycle rental, for those wishing to explore the island on their own) and an array of shops, pubs, horse and buggy rentals, that sort of thing. There were Bed and Breakfasts everywhere, scattered around the island as well. Thirty-one square kilometres and a population of less than a thousand. Enough stone everywhere (fencelines, houses, other structures) that one might think they grew from the ground (something I recall from when Stephen Brockwell and I drove across the west coast of Ireland back in 2002, even seeing some houses, roofs et al, made of stone).


We immediately went for a tour bus that rolls and strolls an hour around the island, slow meanderings into and beyond. Half-through, we landed in a bit of a courtyard, with some shops, and the bus driver told us we had about ninety minutes or so, before we needed to head back down to the ferry. 

The choir and their minders headed up the hill, an hour's walk or so to see some fort ruins, without much time for much else, so we decided to remain where we were, wandering a bit for the shops, the food trucks, the view. To be in a place, a moment, after all. Neither Christine nor myself felt much like rushing up a hill (and discovering later that there wasn't any information upon said hill on the fort or environs, which would have made for a less interesting vista). We're in Ireland: must we rush up a hill to catch a stone? There's stone down here, son.

I picked up postcards with local folklore imagery, akin to the animation of The Secret of Kells (2009), locally produced, of course. A t-shirt with one of them, also (of an old wizard, which I'm sure the children would have said I look like, anyway). You should look them up, they do absolutely beautiful work. I wrote postcards and made my plans for who might be the recipients of such. Throughout the trip, I had Aoife write postcards for each of her grandparents (they got two each: one from Northern Ireland, another from Ireland) and both of her sisters (I thought Rose might appreciate a postcard from Aoife once home). I wrote my usual thousands, and tens of thousands.

It is a curious thing, to be in this place of stone, of hills and grass. And bicycles. And tour buses.

Christine and Aoife purchased some lovely handmade sweaters from the Aran Sweater Market (as did a couple of the choir grown-ups). We saw they've a shop in Galway, also. It was cool on those islands, cool in the breeze, cool across the stones, the wind coming up across the water. Fourteen degrees, at most. An east wind, there.

While we were waiting for the group to make their way back down the hill, we wandered over to the remains of a small church, a space at the front where folk would leave coins. I suggested to Aoife that she leave where they were, as she was picking them up, uncertain why they were there. A photograph, that someone had left. I offered a small coin to her to leave as well, if she wished. A small token.

Dear spouse did not appreciate my suggestion that this building, this small church, was related to Donald Duck. Uncle Scrooge, proud member of the McDuck clan, could be a variation of Mac Duach, don't you think? I mean, it makes you think. The Scots and the Irish, never as far apart as both sides prefer to imagine.



A land of stone, this. A land of markers and moments and monuments, held in space. Stone left as footprints, so others might follow.


And then back to the bus, once the rest of the group made their way down that hill. And the bus rolled along, up and down the rolling paths and plinths of stone boundaries and small roads, held together by stone; held together against the boundary of sea, and of wind. The were more donkeys here than I would have thought, and mounds of horses, sheep. Little houses, spread out. Some new construction, often set alongside ancient stone homes left abandoned, fallow. And back down the hills to the bay where the main tour shops, pub. We hadn't much time, so I made my way to the pub and had a wee dram of their local Aran Islands Irish Whiskey. It was a lovely thing. I was tempted to pick up a bottle to take with, but there wasn't the time. I slightly regret it, as I couldn't find it elsewhere, including the duty-free in the Dublin Airport as we were heading back [the whisky I had on the Isle of Skye, at least, I can get from here]. 

The ferry ride back to Galway had a bit of a detour, heading over to the Cliffs of Mohar and Hag's Head, with the overhead informing us that the view had been included in the H*arry P*tter films, as well as The Princess Bride (1997), which I thought a good pairing, catching the age-range of most of the passengers, who would have to be familiar with at least one of those films. Inconceivable! (You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.). It took some time, and the boat veered here, there, up and down the waves. I tried to sleep for a part of it, worn out from our days (hiding beneath the hood of the coat Christine pushed me to purchase in Belfast, for warmth and cover; there were blue sunglasses also, but they kept getting mangled).

And then back to Galway again, City Centre. Dinner. Where are we? Back in the tourist centre, filled with churches, restaurants, shops, cobblestone. We needed to find our Aoife a name-plate with her name on it, near impossible on this side (finding Rose is simple enough, naturally). And apparently Lynch is quite the local name, with a castle, even. Might Chaudiere Books poet Meghan Jackson, formerly above/ground press author Meghan Lynch, know of such a connection? (Probably)


Wednesday, July 9, 2025: Outside the university residence, this Fairy Trail. I kept telling Aoife, as well as the choir children, not to take any food from the fairies (they kept looking at me strangely whenever I said this). Do not play with the fairies. Do they not know of fairies?

We made our slow way back towards the Galway core as Rose and her choir performed as part of a midweek service at the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas (founded 1320), a church that local legend dictates Christopher Columbus visited when he came to Galway. A church dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of seafarers (and possibly for explorers set on discovering places and things that others already knew about). As I saw in Belfast, also, I'm not quite used to seeing a church of any sort with a gift shop, but we picked up a thing or two, as we had there. Items for Rose as keepsakes, for her to remember the churches where she has performed. As ever, I've been quietly picking up city-specific fridge magnets, broadening our collection of such at home, each for a location that Christine and I have been to together (and since, with an accompanying Rose and/or both Rose and Aoife). A family collection, say. See all the places we've been! (Although Christine finds the whole thing rather irritating, it would seem)

The building is obviously an old one, and I'm fascinated by the history, and the building, as a tourist site, as well as one of active worship, is a curiosity, the blend of two sides that might not always meet. There were some very cool displays within the building, and just outside (it was closed to the public, beyond the service, that particular afternoon). Stocks!

I'm finding it interesting, also, participating in services. We're there for Rose, certainly, but I've attempted to remain as far away from churches and religion since I left the farm at nineteen (churchgoing wasn't optional in our household). I've always been somewhere between atheist and agnostic, and raised Protestant, so the structures and rituals of the Anglican Church are quite foreign, and even a bit confusing, to me. We're there for Rose, who seems to be starting to lean in that direction, which is fine enough, as long as hers a considered faith, and not merely a following-along (it has led to some interesting conversations between us over the months that she has been in the choir). At the end of the service, I went over to the older minister to give my greetings (as it were), and compliment his younger co-hort on his service. He was a nice enough fella, although at the end, he turns to me and offers: Has anyone ever told you that you look like Billy Connolly?

Yes. Yes they have. (At least five times on this trip, overall, I'd say). Sigh.

And then, back into the light of midday, mid-week, we encountered this statue of Irish poet, playwright, and novelist Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) and Estonian journalist, critic and novelist Eduard Vilde (1856-1933). Check the link to find out why they are there.


There was an odd tourist-y train that rolled around the downtown that we decided to board, seeking out a medieval wall supposedly set in the basement of a mall (the mall having been constructed around it, naturally). We couldn't find the mall until the train pointed it out, but we got there. The walls began construction in 1270, and now they sit beside the food court.

And then an afternoon of laundry (on site, one space for the entire university residence), which the whole crew worked on, it would seem. I just happened to be first one in. The grown-ups came through to put through loads, and then, as the time went on, they sent various of the young ones in to retrieve. It was a credit card system for the machines, soap included. Although I did have to run my two loads twice, as I wasn't smart enough to put soap in the first time. Ah well. But where I was able to sit for a couple of hours with laptop and write out at least the first half of my notes from Belfast.

After that was all figured out (our trio did require fresh laundry, half-way through our twelve days), we stepped out for dinner (walking by the wooded space where the fairies actually live), and headed back towards the city core.

I saw this sign [above] as we walked. And while we didn't wander over to this particular island, I did look it up. Nun's Island, the Irish name for such means 'island of the flock of birds.' Lovely.

We saw a handful of locals fly-fishing in the water, also. You can see them, there, on the right, just in the distance. 

I don't know who this fella was (I'm a bit disappointed I can't find him online anywhere, given "red chair poetry" seems a very deliberate designation), but he was sitting with table and typewriter (and red folding chair), right in the tourist area, offering to write poems for passers-by, so I couldn't not stop. I gave Aoife some cash to offer him, and he composed a poem for her, about a pickle, as was her particular prompt. I gave him a "poem" handout, of course, but said no more than that.

And Galway, in one of the local tourist shops, as I kept asking where I could find items with Aoife's name (we only have last names here, not first names), before I found one where the fella said, Oh, not here, but in the other location, about ten stores that way! We landed, and Aoife emerged with a bag, including chocolate bars with her name, a nameplate, key chains and god knows what else (I've lost track); the young lady was extremely pleased.

The third most common girl's name in Ireland, I've heard. Although we didn't meet a single Aoife. There was certainly a head or two that would turn whenever I called her name.

Dinner, of course. And a quiet evening, otherwise. Aoife has a scrapbook she spent the trip working on, writing out her own report on what had occurred on our grand trip (with the extra page or two offered for tic-tac-toe).

next up: Dublin,

Mia Kang, All Empires Must

 

Travelogue

I faint
in flight and fall andfall. I come to 

a hill above the city.
There’s Rome, at a nice 

remove—seems like
itself from here. Each day,retrieve 

book from shelf. Out
the windows, in the pages 

figures of
a wall that might 

as well be mine. Aureliana
suits me; each gateopening 

new ways
not to arrive.

Thefull-length debut by Philadelphia poet Mia Kang, following her pamphlet debut, City Poems (ignitionpress, 2020), is the impressive All Empires Must (PortlandOR: Airlie Press, 2025), a title I found unexpectedly second-hand at BooksUpstairs in Dublin, of all places. “I summon my cruelty / but cannot / name him.”she writes, to open the poem “The Author Calls Him X,” “I am // failed / by myrage, / love // embodied in / an ardent relation / with limits, voice // madeby not / doing, not saying.”

Allroads lead to, and away from, Rome in these poems, as Kang writes around and throughan empire and a series of moments across the stories of ancient history,specifically the founding of Rome. There’s a coyness to her directness and viceversa, writing specific and slant through figures and stories known andless-known, getting to the heart of each character and encounter across awonderfully delicate lyric. As the poem “In a Roman Story” offers, writing RheaSilvia: “That wasn’t / what she wanted: she asked // to face the wall / to morefully be // -come the gate he sought. / Oh Mars, you mistook me // forsomeone / I briefly was.” There is such thoughtful and incrediblepacing across these poems, one reminiscent, slightly, of Canadian poets George Bowering or D.G. Jones, the slow hush and halt and play and propulsion ofCanadian postmodernism an accidental (I can only presume) patter across herlines. “I have to tell you: I made two. / Didn’t know how else // to make it.” beginsthe poem “Roman Couplets,” “I put them / a double return a // -part on the page,let them / fall through sky // side by side. I oppose / these maneuvers, butthe truth // is there were two— / one left me, one loved me, // they were thesame.”

There’ssomething magnificent in the way Kang articulates elements of Roman history, offeringelements on how to hold to a single thought, or reach across decades,attempting to articulate the ways in which one might live, might be; each poema small moment, each of which together collect and pool into accumulations oflarge movements. Through Kang, poems and books are composed out of moments, providinga powerful precision of thought, story and word. She writes a book-length narrative,one that provides both an expansiveness and a pointed specificness, held inspace, in amber. As the poem “Mars Falls / Honeymoon Suite” begins:

Mars at the podium, Mars inhis gmail, Mars on the platform, Mars in the elevator, Mars in the park, Mars inhis office, Mars on the steps, Mars at the door, Mars in his kitchen, Mars inhis room, Mars on the couch, Mars on the floor, Mars at the river, Mars on thephone, Mars at work, Mars at a conference, Mars in a paper, Mars by textmessage, Mars in a daydream, Mars in midtown, Mars across town, Mars in theheat, Mars at his desk, Mars at his books, Mars on the train, Mars in the mind,Mars in a memory, Mars in the summer, in May, as in May I?, but it was toosoon, we were wrong, it was spring.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Anthony Immergluck

Anthony Immergluck is a poet, publishingprofessional, and musician out of Madison, Wisconsin. His debut poetrycollection, The Worried Well , received the Rising Writer Prize fromAutumn House Press, and his work has been widely published in journalsincluding Copper Nickel, Pleiades, Beloit Poetry Review,and TriQuarterly. Immergluck holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry)from NYU-Paris and works for W. W. Norton.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your mostrecent 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 tosay if or how things will change materially in my life. But I certainly feeldifferent post-book. It’s always meant a lot to me to get a book professionallypublished and out in the world, which isn’t necessarily a healthy way to thinkabout writing. I believe, and I’ve always believed, that the value of someone’sart and artistic practice has nothing to do with any external measure of“success.” But despite my own advice, I put myself through plenty of darknights of the soul, wondering whether I was wasting my life chipping away at a vainfolly. The years of rejection really wore on me. But ever since the book gotaccepted for publication, I’ve felt like I have a broader capacity to focus moreof my energy in positive, external directions.

I’m also trying to reacclimatize to becoming a somewhat more publicfigure now that the book is out. Independent debut poets aren’t movie stars, ofcourse, but I’ve always been a very private person. After decades ofdesperately trying to avoid too much public exposure and embarrassment, itbecame trivially easy, literally overnight, for coworkers, relatives, andstrangers to access the types of vulnerabilities I’ve only ever shared withfour or five people over the course of my entire life. Obviously, this is the pathI pursued knowing exactly what I was getting myself into, so I don’t regret orresent it. I’m deeply grateful for it, and I think it will probably make me akinder 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 inwhich anyone I meet has the ability to get know me in this radically intimatebut totally one-sided way.

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

I’ve always written poetry, but I wouldn’t really say I came to it beforeother types of writing. As a kid, I wrote silly little fantasy epics.Songwriting was a major passion for most of my teenage years and earlytwenties. I’ve dabbled in criticism, drama, essays, and short stories, and I’mcurrently writing a novel. But poetry has always been the most constant andconsistent creative outlet for me, no matter what else I’m working on. Otherprojects ebb and flow, but If I go a few days without writing or readingpoetry, I get twitchy.  

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Doesyour writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first draftsappear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?

I’m a slow poet. Ideas have to germinate for a long time before they evermake it to a page. Then, I overwork the hell out of everything. Drafts ondrafts on drafts on drafts. Multiple documents with different edits over thecourse of months. At any given point, I have ten or twenty poems rotating inand out of the grinder, and it takes a long, long time for me to feelcomfortable submitting anything for publication. The Worried Wellactually contains a handful of poems that had existed, in some form, for tenyears or so. To be honest, I’m a little afraid it will take me another tenyears to pull my second collection together.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of shortpieces 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 triedto assemble them into lots of different book-length projects with different titles,structures, and themes. I have dozens of manuscript drafts buried in document foldersthat technically contain many or most of the poems that wound up in TheWorried Well, but they’re barely recognizable as part of the same process. OnceI discovered what I truly, finally wanted the arc of book to become, I cut outa lot of poems, wrote some new ones, and edited nearly all of them to engage ina richer conversation with one another. So, I guess the micro-projectsgenerated the macro-project, which then reflected its influence back onto thecomponent parts that made it.

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

I’ve only recently started giving public readings, at least for the firsttime since my early twenties. They terrify me, but I also find them deeplyfulfilling and enriching, especially when I have the opportunity to talk shopwith other writers and readers. I gather a lot of inspiration from publicevents, so hopefully the stage fright will subside over time.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kindsof questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even thinkthe current questions are?

I think pretty obsessively about theory in the revision process, but Ialso try to remember that poems should always start and end from a place ofemotion. Poetics, and art theory in general, is a lot of fun for those of uswho have already bought in to its world, but it’s only really useful insofar asit helps us describe and understand our relationship with the things that moveus. 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 Iwere attempting to answer any questions.

For example, I noticed early on that my poems tend to feature a lot ofrefrains. I didn’t “choose” this technique at first, necessarily. It just feltright to me, perhaps as a carry-over from my parallel interest in songwritingor my love for the poetic forms of Old Testament prayer. But as I started to seriouslyanalyze my poetic voice, I interrogated the function of this style moreintensely. I came to appreciate how the inclusion of refrains imposes a looseform upon contemporary free verse. Repetition implies a rhythmic structure andallows for a tighter control over emphasis via assonance and rhyme. But more importantlyfor a book about anxiety, it replicates the cyclical, recursive nature ofintrusive thoughts and other forms of neurodivergent experience. As I put thismanuscript together, I taught myself how writing or reading a poem can formallymirror, reframe, or elucidate the disorders and imprecisions of the mind. I’mfar from the first poet to tackle this idea, but I’ve been leaning into itheavily, both in my writing and reading projects.

I’m also very interested in how the lessons of other artistic media canbe applied to poetry, and I spend a lot of time asking myself how I mightapproach a problem in a poem as if it were a photograph, stage play, etc. Forexample, I’ve discovered that I really prefer poems with some element of thecharacter conflict we expect in fiction. If my poems are written in the firstperson, I want the voice to demonstrate the types of “flaws,” hypocrisies, andidiosyncrasies we would expect in a good novel or memoir. I want the reader tofeel like they’re walking in on the “I” of the poem in the midst of some kindof moral or emotional uncertainty. And I want to be sure that moral or emotionaluncertainly is unresolved at the end of the poem. If anything, I want it to endwith 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’tsay I want my poems to “tell a story,” necessarily, but I do want them toappear 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 largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?

This is an important question, but I’m afraid it’s one I can’t reallyanswer to my own satisfaction. I struggle with this a lot, especially in an erawhen reactionary, fascistic politics are snowballing across the world and thearts are becoming increasingly automated, mass produced, and algorithmicallycommodified. A part of me wonders whether it’s wasteful to write about anythingother than urgent human rights abuses or environmental degradation. But anotherpart 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 artthat deals primarily with the abstract or interior. Poetry addresses those thingsso well, and we need those things addressed.

Sometimes, writing a poem about my dumb little feelings seems like such anindulgence. Like I’m standing next to a burning building full of screamingpeople, and I take the opportunity to make s’mores. Other times, I remember howexistentially crucial other people’s art has always been for me. That includesimpassioned, well-researched exposés of injustice, but it also includes monstermovies and songs about breakups. I don’t want to take it for granted that myown art could meaningfully enrich someone else’s life one day, but I also don’twant to rule out the possibility.

I definitely believe all art is inherently political, but I don’t think Ibelieve all art necessarily has to be “activism” in order to be valuable oreven to affect political change. I think the primary function of good art, and goodwriting in particular, is for authors and readers to communicateempathetically, back and forth with one another and the people around them. Whenwe read and write, we’re honing our ability to relate to other people on anemotional and cognitive level. We’re asking ourselves to parse the differencebetween what was said and what was meant. We’re engaging with thepower of omission and emphasis, order, syntax, implication, reference, etc.We’re always exploring what if, why not, so what? And I think thoseskills are roundly applicable to local and global politics. I don’t want toimply that people who love literature are in any way superior to people whodon’t, but I will swear by literature as an effective method for broadening anddeepening one’s perspective on being a human and sharing a planet with otherhumans.

So maybe I’m naïve, or maybe I’m just trying to inject someself-importance into this thing that takes up all my time. But I hope and suspectthat the literary arts – and the humanities in general – make a positive culturalimpact 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 difficultor essential (or both)?

Both, but with a special emphasis on essential. I’m as sensitiveand stubborn about my work as anyone else, and I’m not immune to having myfeelings hurt. But I’m a strong believer that the writing only really gets goodonce it’s been opened up to constructive criticism. My editors at Autumn HousePress have been spectacular to work with, and my book would never have gottenaccepted for publication in the first place without the wisdom of the friendsand peers that read early drafts. Writing is a lonely pursuit, and it oftenbenefits from the singularity of vision it represents. But the intimacy we allhave with our own work easily transforms into codependency, and we lose ourability to evaluate it with the kind of clarity a good edit requires. You don’talways have to take outside advice, of course, but it’s only ever healthy andproductive to receive and consider it. Even when you feel like your readers oreditors are missing the point, it’s invaluable to understand where theexperience of your work isn’t landing how you’d intend or expect it to. Notescan be painful, but they’re necessary for creative growth.

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

I’ve heard a lot of variations on the idea that inspiration follows fromwriting, not the other way around, and I totally stand by that. If you wait foryour best ideas, they’ll never come. They generate in the process.

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

As I mentioned before, I write pretty fluidly between genres. Poetryabsolutely occupies the majority of my time and output simply because, forwhatever reason, most of my ideas happen to take shape in the form of poems. ButI love all the arts, even the ones I’ve never spent any time with, and I wish Icould live for thousands of years so I could dabble in everything. I resentthat I won’t be able to explore woodworking and tango dancing and oil paintingto the extent that they deserve. My problem isn’t fluidity – it’s focus. I haveto train myself to stop pivoting to writing a short story or a song midwaythrough writing a poem, or vice-versa.

All literary genres are load-bearing. Poetry is unique in its ability toreframe language and open the mind to new conceptual bridges. Song lyrics, attheir best, are able to interact with their melodic and rhythmic structures inways that transcend the sum of their parts. Theatre can play with artifice andthe chaos of live human interaction in a way that nothing else can. The noveloffers 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 evenhave one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I have a day job and a family and several chronic health issues, so I justneed 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 alsotravel a lot for work, and airports and hotel rooms can offer the type ofisolation and boredom that tend to be conducive to writing. I’d love to have amore regular schedule, but it’s not usually an option.

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

Reading! It takes me forever to read a great collection of poems, becauseI’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 arethere any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, scienceor visual art?

Absolutely. All the above, really. As I touched on before, I drawinspiration across the arts. Music is my secondary creative love afterliterature, and I see the two disciplines as operating in constantconversation. I keep books of my favorite visual artists, like Hokusai andKlimpt, 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 oftenfind that the “flow states” they generate help me disentangle the knots I writemyself into.

Outside of the arts, I get a huge amount of inspiration and joy fromnature and travel. A quiet walk in the woods with my wife and dog will almostalways generate poetry later on. And I think the ability to transplant oneselfinto 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, buteven spending some time in unfamiliar parts of our own communities can reallyrefresh and rekindle our excitement for the world around us. I’m alsoprofoundly inspired by animals. I think watching another form of life closely,trying to understand how its patterns of motion and behavior echo or contrastwith our own, is very similar to the process of reading and writing poetry.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, orsimply 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, thebook that made me realize I wanted to “take it seriously” as a life pursuit wasActual Air by David Berman. As a teenager, I basically just wroterip-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 tinyexcerpt 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 oneday. I’ve done lots of tutoring/mentoring/manuscript consulting, etc., but Iwonder 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 notbeen a writer?

When I was younger, there came a point at which I did sort of choosewriting over music. The stage fright and imposter syndrome hit me hard, and Ifelt safer developing my skills in a medium that didn’t require such a heavyperformance component. I don’t regret focusing my energy on literaturewhatsoever, but I’ve always reserved a bit of grief for the opportunity cost. Iwrite as a serious vocation, and I play music as a serious hobby, but there’s asignificant part of me that wonders how life would have progressed if thatfocus had been flipped. I know it’s silly, but I get desperately jealous ofgreat musicians, particularly ones whose musical practice is an integral,scheduled part of their lifestyle. I realize I could always try to reopen thatavenue one day, but I’d have to shake off a lot of cobwebs and put a lot ofother projects on the backburner. Also, I’m pretty over-the-hill by musicianstandards, and I’m only getting sleepier and achier. Sometimes I try to look upwhich of my favorite musicians released their first albums in their thirties orlater, 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 hasalways felt obvious to me. Unavoidable. It’s just the way I process thoughtsand emotions whether I like it or not. That’s not to say writing comes easilyor that I think I have any natural aptitude that other people don’t have orcan’t learn. It’s just to say that I can’t imagine what a non-writing lifewould 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 debutpoetry collection from Madison’s poet laureate, Steven Espada Dawson. I can’tpossibly overstate how brilliant this book is. How moving, how delicate in itscraft, how dynamic and singular its voice. This is the type of book thatinspires people to become poets, and I urge everyone reading this interview toorder their copies immediately.

I’ll also join the chorus on Sinners. One of the most purelyentertaining movies I’ve seen in years, but also one that’s just dripping indepth and passion. It’s a crazy mish-mash of genres, overflowing with referencesto history, music, folklore, and other movies. But it maintains such a clearand focused vision, with so much to say and so much love for its characters andworld.

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’mcurrently working on a novel! It’s a fairly big and ambitious project, at leastfor someone who’s more accustomed to writing poems. So it’s slow going, but I’mgiving it my love and attention.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;