12 or 20 (second series) questions with Mike Lala

Mike Lala is the author of The Unreal City(Tupelo Press, 2023), Exit Theater (Colorado Prize for Poetry, 2016),and several chapbooks, including Points of Return (Ghost Proposal,2023). Poems appear in A Public Space, American Poetry Review, BOMB,Boston Review, Fence, New American Writing, the PEN PoetrySeries, and Hauser & Wirth’s Ursula. Lala’s installations,performance, and libretti include Whale Fall (2021), Madeleines: TellMe What It Was Like (2020, with Iris McCloughan), Oedipus in theDistrict (2018–19), and Infinite Odyssey (2018). They have beenshown widely in New York City, where he lives. www.mikelala.com

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does yourmost recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different? Exit Theater didn'tchange my life, but it did as give me an excuse to rethink my process, as Icould look back and see what it took to make a book, how to have a healthierand more rigorous practice toward that making, and what the limitations andpossibilities of poetry are. The Unreal City takes up many of thesame thematic and formal concerns, but expands on and pushes into them further.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction ornon-fiction? I took a few classes with the poet Diane Wakoski in undergrad. I've beenwriting poetry ever since.

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? Wasted work, thinking, notes, outlining, lost dreams,emails to self, written-down fragments of dreams and insights in the middle ofthe night—at some point it all becomes unbearable and I put down a terribledraft, then add and slash and revise dozens of times. Often the initial shapeor impulse is recognizable, but it's become something entirely other.

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? It depends on the poem and theproject, but I like the way poems can support each other, so I gravitate towardunity.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings? I do not enjoy givingreadings but they are an opportunity to enact the work in a different way, so Ido them.

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? The questions are different for everyone.For me, some are: Why should anyone care about this? Is it worth a reader'stime? What is the work doing in relation to the history of the form, and whatdoes it contribute? What are the ethics of its formal qualities and ofconveying this subject in this way? What might it do in the mind of a readerand what might that do in the world?

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer beingin larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of thewriter should be? Art, as it is received (or not) in the public,reflects the culture that receives it at least as much as the artist who madeit. A writer's job is to make work that is true to them and their time—tofollow their desires and instincts, to push into the hidden and uncomfortableor taboo—and then to let work be in the world, with others, tolive its own life. What exactly the work should be or why you should make it—noone can tell you what to do or who to be.

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

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)? "None of the books I've written were publishedin the order I wrote them." - Anselm Berrigan

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to soundinstallation to performance to libretto)? What do you see as the appeal? Noteasy, but fun.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even haveone? How does a typical day (for you) begin? I do my best writing inthe morning, and since I work full time, I usually write for two hours beforework, starting at 6 a.m. When I can't sleep, I write at night.

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

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home? I grew up many places, sothere is no one home in my life. But sometimes the fragrance of someone I lovewill trigger a feeling like "home."

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are thereany other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science orvisual art? Mostly books, but yes, paintings, videos and films,journalism, music, memories and experiences, meditation—it's all available.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simplyyour life outside of your work? There are too many to count here—insome sense everything I read is important for it.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done? I wouldlike to write full time.

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? For a long time I wanted to be a journalist inenvironment or nat sec. I'd also have liked to have been a filmmaker or a painter.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else? Istruggled with perspective in visual art, and reading and writing camenaturally to me.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last greatfilm? Truly great? Javier Marias' Your Face Tommorrow. JiaZhangke's Ash Is Purest White.

20 - What are you currently working on? A new book of variationson Catullus' poems, another group of new poems, and, for once, some fiction.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;