12 or 20 (second series) questions with Beatrice Szymkowiak
BeatriceSzymkowiak
is aFrench-American writer and scholar. She graduated with an MFA in CreativeWriting from the Institute of American Indian Arts and a PhD inEnglish/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the authorof Red Zone (Finishing Line Press, 2018), a poetry chapbook, aswell as the winner of the 2017 OmniDawn Single Poem Broadside Contest, and therecipient of the 2022 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry for her full-lengthcollection
B/RDS
, published by the University of Utah Press in 2023. Herwork also has appeared in numerous poetry magazines, including TheBerkeley Review, Terrain.org, The Portland Review, OmniVerse, TheSouthern Humanities Review, and many others.1 - How did your firstbook or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare toyour previous? How does it feel different?
The publication of my first chapbook RedZone was definitely a moral poetry boost! Being a writer means dealing witha lot of rejections, so every publication is a celebration and anencouragement!
Red Zone and my full-lengthbook B/RDS are located on the same ecological axis, and belong to thesame investigative project into the roots and consequences of the Anthropocene:Red Zone through the ecologically devastated lands of WWI, and B/RDS throughthe ecologically shattered skies of North America. Both are experimental andintersect history and science. However, while Red Zone plays with someexternal texts, B/RDS is bringing intertextuality to its full extent, asthe collection was written by erasing the entirety of Birds of America ––theiconic ornithological work of John James Audubon. B/RDS is alsopurposefully much more lyrical, as if a song.
2 - How did you come topoetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
To some extent, I inherited myfather’s love for poetry. Also, what I always have loved about poetry, is itscapacity of dissent, against ideas but also against language itself ––both beingintertwined. Discovering Baudelaire and Rimbaud, two poetry dissenters, was adefining moment for me, as a poet. Baudelaire shattered the idea of beauty anddeveloped a symbolist aesthetic towards Modernism, while Rimbaud shatteredmetric versification towards the Modern free verse, and then, just abandonedpoetry!
I will not abandon poetry, however I alwayshave been interested in non-fiction too. Non-fiction finds its way in my poetrythrough preliminary research and/or through intertextuality.
3 - How long does it taketo start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It always takes me a while to start awriting project. I do a lot of thinking and research beforehand. For example,for B/RDS, I researched 19th century naturalists and exploredposthumanist philosophy and Object Oriented Ontology (OOO). The work ofphilosopher Timothy Morton (another dissenter!) who wrote the fascinating TheEcological Thought, was particularly influential. Morton’s work led me towonder what could be an ecological, lyrical pronoun, and to experiment with thepronoun “we.”
I still continue researching andreflecting, even after I start the project. I am rather a slow writer. I liketo spend time on a poem, which means that revisions are usually not extensive. ForB/RDS, the revisions were mostly focused on the prose poems and theorganization of the manuscript. The constraint that I had given myself on theerasure poems (keeping the order of words from the original text) made anyrevisions of these poems difficult, so I really spent time on their initialdraft.
4 - Where does a poemusually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combininginto a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?
I like to have a project ––to have arough direction towards which I write my poems. Then, overtime, I redirect,which may lead me to drop some poems or revise others for the coherence of theproject. For example, Red Zone was included in a much bigger project.However, I felt that the project was lacking coherence, so I decided to cull itand keep only the poems related to the ecological and historical impact of WWI.
Poems themselves often begin with animage, a moment, or a word collision. For example, the poem “Vimy” in RedZone comes from the paradoxical, bucolic sight of the sheep used to mow thegrass in the red zones of France. The red zones are former WWI battlefields prohibitedto the public because unexploded explosives and harmful chemicals, from leakingammunitions, riddle their soil. Hence the use of sheep to mow the grass.
5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?
I absolutely enjoy readings! I lovehow a poem becomes different once you voice it, where you recite it, or how the audience interprets it in so manyvarious ways. Because my poetry projects are research projects, I also like toprovide the background or context that help readers appreciate the poems morefully. It sometimes generates incredible discussions.
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?
My projects are conceived withinpostcolonial and posthumanist theoretical frameworks, and work towardsdeveloping a poetry of ecological awareness. I am particularly interested inenvironmental writing in the context of a critical investigation of settlercolonialism, extractivism, and ecological imperialism. For example, my poetrycollection B/RDS questions the disconnected approaches to themore-than-human world, through a lyrical erasure of Audubon’s iconic Birdsof America.
I am also fascinated by how the lyric“I” can withstand the interconnectedness of all beings, or translate theecological subject. What about a lyrical “we”?
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?
In these present times and society, Isee writers as disrupters, inspirers, and/or awakeners. I write with the hopethat poetry can shift perspectives and ways of seeing and being in the world,towards a kinder and more sustainable future.
8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
My work always benefits from theperspectives of outside readers/editors. And when the feedback or theconversation become challenging, it means it hit an important question orpoint. For example the final lay-out of B/RDS only came about afterseveral discussions with poets Brenda Cárdenas and Kyce Bello, as well as mywife, who is always my first and bluntest editor. So, yes, feedback isessential and challenging. But, to some extent, if it weren’t challenging, itwould not be constructive!
9 - What is the best pieceof advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I had a mentor, Joan Kane, whosuggested that before workshopping a poem, somebody else read the poem back to itsauthor. Having somebody else read your own poem back to you, should be part ofany feedback process!
10 - How easy has it beenfor you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see asthe appeal?
Moving between poetry and criticalessay allows me to approach a topic from different angles, so I do see them ascomplementary. I think they also influence each other. The critical prose mightaffect formal choices in my poems, while my poetry might support theoreticalcreativity.
11 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?
I like to have a wide swath of time towrite, because I need to really dive into a poem, to spend time with it. So Ioften write on the weekend. If I am really deep in the mix of a project, mywriting might spill over into the week, whenever I have time. I don’t reallyhave a routine, except a cup of tea, that inevitably gets cold!
12 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?
All my experiences somehow inform mywritings. For example, B/RDS was written during the covid lockdown, whichhad a direct influence on the collection ––the “cages” we were in, the birds wecould hear louder, the death toll, etc. However, to bring these experiences tothe surface, I sometimes need a catalyst: non-fiction and poetry books,podcast, documentary films, etc., and nature. So when I get stuck, I delve backinto these catalysts: grab a book or go for a hike!
13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?
The smell of bread, croissants, andbooks!
14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Nature greatly influences my work. Iam particularly interested in the relationship between humanity and themore-than-human world, in its zones of conflict and confluence. I am lucky tolive in an area (Northern Arizona) with magnificent and vast expanses of wildlife, however inexorably encroached upon. For example, the poem “Out of theirBreast / as if” in B/RDS came from hikes in the forest around Flagstaff.
Other great influences are science, history,and art. My poetry is always in dialog with external fields.
15 - What other writers orwritings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
As mentioned earlier, the work ofphilosopher Timothy Morton has deeply influenced my poetry. My poetry is alsoindebted to the work of many poets: CD Wright, WS Merwin, Craig Santos Perez,Sherwin Bitsui, Joan Naviyuk Kane, James Thomas Stevens, Santee Frazier, Alice Oswald, M. NourbeSe Philip.
16 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?
I would love to work in collaborationwith an artist from another field, or a scientist. I can’t but wonder forexample, what a collaboration with a scientist researching whale songs in thedisrupted oceans could bring. I am fascinated by forms of expression, human orother!
17 - 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 would have loved to be anenvironmental scientist, an archivist, a medievalist, a park ranger, or an astronomer!
18 - What made you write,as opposed to doing something else?
I am passionate with language andbooks. How fascinating that we can dialogue across time and space throughwriting, or that words can sometimes change the course of history! Think aboutMartin Luther King’ s “I have a dream...”!
Also, I might have leaned towards writingbecause it is an activity I can practice anywhere, at my desk, by a river, ontop of a mountain, etc.
19 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?
The last great book I read was To2040 by Jorie Graham, and the last great movie I watched, Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Céline Sciamma.
20 - What are youcurrently working on?
I am working on a new poetry project and a non-fiction essay.
