12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kelly Weber
Kelly Weber (they/she) is the author of We Are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place (Tupelo Press, 2022) and
You Bury the Birds in My Pelvis
,winner of the 2022 Omnidawn First/Second Book Prize (December 2023).They have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Their work has appeared or isforthcoming in AGNI, Pleaides, Waxwing, Gulf Coast Online, ElectricLiterature’s The Commuter, Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Sheholds an MFA from Colorado State University. More of their work can be found atkellymweber.com.1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recentwork compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Writing andpublishing my first book really changed my life in that the manuscript reallybecame this unexpectedly relational object. Collaborating with people to puttogether readings and events, having readers from around the world connect withthe book—it’s been a much more tender process than I expected, developing newconnections with people as a result of the book. With every book I hope to findways to be even more honest, and I think my recent work finds ways to do thateven more. I think this most recent collection, You Bury the Birds in MyPelvis, leans even further into lyric intimacy and my formal interests as apoet. I think with new work I’m also increasingly interested in deconstructingmy old approaches to work, so each book feels like a new attempt at poetry.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction ornon-fiction?
I really wanted tobe a fiction writer and tried hard at it for a long time, but I ultimatelyrealized I have no interest in dialogue, character, or plot. Form and languageare interesting to me, so I think poetry was the more natural fit even though Iresisted it for a long time. But poetry was mostly just a cold intellectualexercise for me for a long time. It took a lot of work and practice and diggingto finally reach a place of feeling in the work for me.
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?
It’s a really slow composting process as I basically freewrite my waythrough what interests me, and then poems gradually emerge. Sometimes I sitdown and write a poem that’s basically in its final shape, but that’s usuallylate in the process of drafting a book, or after a really long period ofjournaling.
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?
I feel like Icatch the tails of poems before I find where they start, as they sort of emergein a messy journaling process. It’s also really hard for me to write severalshort pieces that combine into a larger project. I find poems usually comebound up together, in a plural that’s hard to extricate from each other, so Ikind of have to write through a whole book and figure out what the form of thatbook is before the final poems reveal themselves and their individual shapes.Divisions between poems can feel really artificial to me. Sometimes that’sproductive for the work, sometimes it's not.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I really enjoy thecommunal aspect of the readings I’ve been a part of. I like how there can bethis special group attunement that happens at readings, in the same way thatI’ve heard theatre folks talk about becoming very attuned to what others intheir group are thinking / feeling as they work and act together. A goodreading can be a really sensory, even sensual, experience, and in the revisionprocess, I sometimes try to think about how it would feel to give a publicreading of a piece, even when the work is very experimental in form. Will thisbe impactful for an audience?
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 thequestions are changing all the time for me. I’m not sure I could evenarticulate what they are—I feel like with every project I work on, I have towrite through several of them before the actual manuscript emerges with its ownset of questions. I do know that I don’t consider myself a very theoreticalperson at heart. I write about concrete things until something happens, maybe apoem, and then I look at the questions its asking from there.
7 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficultor essential (or both)?
Working with theTupelo and Omnidawn editorial teams to bring both collections into the world asfinalized aesthetic objects was absolutely crucial. Both teams were sobrilliant and thoughtful in all of the design choices and in bringing thesebooks into the world as beautiful objects for people to hold / engage with. Andboth teams published essentially what I submitted to them, with some finaledits from me, so it was interesting to really witness the manuscript becomethe final printed copy.
In terms ofdevelopmental editing, I’ve heavily relied on feedback from trusted friends onmanuscripts late in the revision process. Time is also a great editor—when Ispend enough time away from the work, the issues with a piece become morereadily apparent.
8 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)?
Ross Gay once saidthat counter to the advice he and many poets have been given—to just keep cutting,cutting, cutting a poem until it’s whittled down to only what’snecessary—sometimes you have to plant a garden in the middle of a poem instead.That radically changed my approach to everything in writing, especiallyrevision.
9 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even haveone? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I’m a morningwriter. I try to write at least an hour a day before work, etc. More when Ican.
10 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (forlack of a better word) inspiration?
I go back to thebooks I love and try to think about what I’m not understanding about thecurrent writing. Sometimes I just need a rest, but a lot of the time I can tellwhen I’m not understanding something essential about the work yet. I can tellwhen I’m trying to drive the work vs. the work is driving me, and getting tothe latter takes a lot of patience and a willingness to keep re-examining whatI want vs. what the work wants.
11 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?
I love costumes,but I feel so self-conscious in them! I think one of the last ones I wore was awitch, but I didn’t enjoy it like I enjoyed looking at other people’s costumes.
12 - 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?
I think filmsinfluence me the most because of how image-driven they are, since I’m soimage-driven in my work. My dear writer friends Margaret F. Browne, MichelleThomas, and Megan Clark introduced me to so many lush queer and horror filmsthat have influenced all of us to some degree. I also find myself drawn totrailers for good films because the speed, compression, editing, and imagery(often without context) can feel like a poem in its movement, when it doesn’tjust feel like another piece of marketing.
13 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, orsimply your life outside of your work?
Oh my gosh, thatlist could go on forever! Chen Chen, Jake Skeets, Victoria Chang, Solmaz Sharif, Kaveh Akbar, sam sax, torrin a. greathouse, Danez Smith, KB Brookins,K. Iver, Kay E. Bancroft, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Craig Santos Perez, Franny Choi, Ely Shipley, Lucien Darjeun Meadows, Natalie Diaz, Saeed Jones, Eduardo Corral, Cody-Rose Clevidence…
14 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I don’t knowexactly what that will look like next, but I hope every new book I write answersthat question. I can’t envision it until I have to write it.
15 - 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?
I really wanted todo environmental studies as a kid, and I think at heart I’m still fascinated byfield research. But I think the arts would always have to be a part of my lifesomehow, no matter what my occupation.
16 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
As much as I lovevisual art—I grew up in a household of visual artists—I just found myselfhooked into writing once I really tried it. I think I’m drawn to exploring theimage in written form, as opposed to on a canvas or through a lens, but it’s asimilar impulse to the other artists in my family.
17 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I just read TaylorByas’ I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, which is brilliant. I alsorecently saw and really enjoyed Godzilla Minus One, both for theever-welcome return of Godzilla and the bigger questions and concerns the movieis thinking about.
18 - What are you currently working on?
Newpoetry! I don’t typically share anything about work while it’s in progress, sothat’s all I can offer for now.
