12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jane Huffman
JaneHuffman’sdebut collection, Public Abstract, won the 2023 APR/Honickman First BookPrize, selected by Dana Levin. Jane is a doctoral student in poetry at theUniversity of Denver and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She iseditor-in-chief of Guesthouse, an online literary journal. Her work hasappeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, andelsewhere. She was a 2019 recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy SargentRosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Online at www.janehuffman.com
1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Thefirst book didn’t change my life, but I’m happy for the new opportunities andconnections it has brought me. I’m working on something very different now.
2- How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Istudied it seriously for the first time as an undergraduate, taking classes atKalamazoo College with Diane Seuss. Before that, via e.e. cummings: Complete Poems, edited by George J. Firmage, which my dad bought me when I was a kid.
3- How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does yourwriting initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appearlooking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
Itend to work on a draft to completion in one or two sittings. I revise as Iwrite. I tend to decide quickly and intuitively whether a poem is going toamount to something.
4- Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short piecesthat end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a"book" from the very beginning?
Poemsusually begin with language rather than ideas. I never thought of the poems in Public Abstract as a book until it suddenly was one, and then it took on various manifestations, forms, shapes, titles, before it was ready to be published. The project I’m working on now feels more like a project, more congealed.
5- Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you thesort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Ienjoy reading a lot, but since COVID-19, I have become extremely wary of largegroups. I love Zoom readings and would like to do more of them.
6- Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds ofquestions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think thecurrent questions are?
Lately,the idea of “firstness,” “secondness,” and “thirdness” from Charles Sanders Peirce, which proposes how an “idea” emerges. I am also interested in theories of illness and recently began writing about the “cough” as a semiotic unit, a driver of repetition.
7– What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Dothey even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Tokeep record. To add to the human archive. To be humane. And if they teach, toteach energetically and ethically.
8- Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult oressential (or both)?
Iwelcome editorial feedback whenever it is available. I have a few trustedfriends who read new work and can tell me if something is getting warmer orcolder.
9- What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to youdirectly)?
Fromthe al-anon community: Easy does it.
10- How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to criticalprose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Ifind it extremely difficult, and so by necessity, one register bleeds into theother. I think that is also the appeal.
11- What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one?How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Idon’t have a writing routine. I write when I can, as much as I can. A typicalday begins stallingly, mid-morning, with coffee and a dog walk.
12- When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack ofa better word) inspiration?
Ireturn to reading. Or listen to talk radio. In each, I’m trying to pick up on amode or register in an outside voice.
13- What fragrance reminds you of home?
CanI say a sound instead? Snow-blowers blowing before sunrise.
14- David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there anyother forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visualart?
Ihave been learning ceramics, and I love how, unlike a poem, you work from thebottom to the top. This concept has informed my current writing project.
15- What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply yourlife outside of your work?
Somany. I’ll narrow to a few who sat with me as I wrote Public Abstract: Emily Dickinson, Kay Ryan, Kimiko Hahn, Jean Valentine, John Keats, Dionne Brand, Rosmarie Waldrop.
16- What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Answerthe unanswered emails.
17- If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or,alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been awriter?
Iwould be training horses in rural Michigan.
18- What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Idon’t know. Despite many tortured efforts, I was a terrible singer, dancer, andmusician.
19- What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Currentlyreading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Recently loved Brian Teare’s Poem Bitten by a Man. The film that comes to mind is Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow (2019).
20- What are you currently working on?
Asecond manuscript of poems that incorporate parentheses. Also a PhD in Englishand literary arts.
