12 or 20 (second series) questions with JSA Lowe
JSA Lowe’s first book of poetry, Internet Girls, was published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have recentlyappeared in Biscuit Hill, LaurelReview, Michigan Quarterly Review’s Mixtape, Missouri Review, Screen DoorReview, Sinister Wisdom, Southeast Review, and Superstition Review. Her essays recently appeared in Denver Quarterly and Rupture. Her academic articles have appeared in Humanities, Journal of Fandom Studies, and TransformativeWorks and Cultures. She is an adjunctprofessor of literature at the University of Houston–Clear Lake, and she liveson Galveston Island with her cat Zoë.
1 - How did your first chapbook change your life? How does your mostrecent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I like that book—it’s a chunky little long poem, DOE, that Icall “Little House on the Prairie only with fucked-up pronouns.” What was niceabout that was feeling that someone was listening, if only the editors. That Iwasn’t just talking to myself in my office alone at 2 am to the cat,or at least not only that. Honestly I don’t find anything I’m doing thatdifferent now. At 55 I’m pretty set in my poesis, and when Carson says it’s thetask of a lifetime to avoid boredom (in the introduction to “Short Talks,”which I have memorized)—you can’t reinvent forms every time utterly, I find Ihave to operate within the parameters of what I’ve already mastered, to somedegree anyway.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction ornon-fiction?
I started writing songs when I was a kid, like maybe five or six, and amstill a songwriter, and I think it’s pretty much the same lyric instinct.There’s an absence, a lack, and the only thing that even begins to soothe it isthe heartbeat, the rhythm, and the arcing melody of plaint. (I’ve also alwayswritten fiction in my head, but only had the courage and the technicalabilities to start writing it down in maybe the last three years? I’m workingon a crime novel now, strangely enough.)
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 draft fast these days—again after, what, forty years? of writing poems Iwork a lot by instinct now, and don’t have to agonize over everything (at leastnot until revision). I generally start poems in the car/shower/on walks, scrawldown incoherencies, and then develop those phrases/melodies/thoughts later,when I type it up. I used to insist on drafting by hand, thanks to Brodsky andWalcott both being so insistent about it, but now I draft on my laptop, printout, and then revise by hand. I’ll go months only writing fiction and thensuddenly switch to poems. Last year an entire 85-page poetry manuscript fellout in a couple of months, and I’m laboriously revising that now.
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?
Both. I have, I don’t know, eight or nine manuscripts that haven’t beenpublished, and some are collections, and others are book-length long poems. Soeither can happen, and will.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Areyou the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do love readings and I wish I got to do more of them. I have distinctways that I hear my poems—usually as kind of sharp and furious—and I love toinflict this reading on others. It’s tons of fun. Certain kinds of poets arescenery-chewers by nature and I guess I’m one, for the same reason that I lovelecturing to students, stalking around and expostulating, spittle flying likeI’m onstage at the Old Vic. And also—yes, they can help with revision. I’llrevise while I’m reading; the second I hit a word and feel that twinge ofdismay like, “oh no, I can’t actually say that aloud, that’s wrong.”
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 used to worry about this as a younger writer, what is my matière as the Old French poets used to say. Inevitably one has the same set ofconcerns, and equally inevitably those change. So now I’m more obsessed withe.g. my aging parents and aging self than my love life, which is no longer ascolorful (thank god). I suspect death, who has always been front and center,will continue driving the car. Aren’t we all trying always, though, to answerthe conundrum of late capital. The offensive ridiculousness of the carbon age,the excesses of the west, the ongoing cruelties of colonialism.
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?
I suppose this sort of came up in my last answer, but Brodsky used to havea very clear take on this: “A writer is a lonely traveler, and no one is [his]helper.” We can’t set to work with the idea of having a “role” in “culture,”we’ll faceplant. The only thing to attend to are the parts of speech, the slantand near rhymes, the pulse of meter, the felicity of a word or its fecundassociations. That’s my only business and if anything endures, that’s up tohumanity and time. My role is mostly to shut up and pay attention. Some peoplejust pay more attention than others (cf. Jorie Graham).
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult oressential (or both)?
I haven’t had a close first reader for a while now and that’s definitelybeen a bitterness, and a difficulty. (Although the writer Jael Montellano and Ihave been swapping drafts and gosh, she’s wicked smart.) I’ve never had aneditor pay that kind of close attention; I think I’d enjoy it, though?
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily givento you directly)?
Kerouac’s “Belief & Technique for Modern Prose.” So much goodness inthere: “You’re a genius all the time”; “Like Proust be an old teahead of time.”And then, my beloved old Zen teacher used to say, “Just show up.” That’s prettygood advice. Show up for your life.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry tocritical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I started writing proper academic papers in media studies about ten yearsago when I finally realized I didn’t have much to add to maybe, say, Dickinsonscholarship, but I was unshutuppable about Tumblr memes of Marvel characters.After a decade of conference presentations, a couple of peer-reviewed articles,a book chapter, etc., however, I no longer feel I have very much to contributethere. These kinds of writing/thinking use completely different parts of thebrain, and while it was fun, with the limited time I have left on our planetI’d like to prioritize fiction and poems.
Also, I was twice a semifinalist for the Fulbright to Taiwan and bothtimes didn’t make the cut. It kind of knocked the stuffing out of me, and Ithink someone else who’s better qualified can write about the queer girls andtheir queer fanfiction, and why it’s so crucially and culturally important.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even haveone? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Shower, coffee, feed the cat, take my meds, check Discord and Twitterbecause I’m hopeless, then lately I’ve been revising one poem a day. My springsemester has included new courses and 70 students and feeling like my hair ison fire, so I generally spend the morning doing schoolwork (although do not getme wrong, I’m happy as a pig in mud teaching film and literature; I always sayit’s like the crack cocaine of teaching). Fiction tends to happen, if ithappens, in the afternoons, but during the summer—the catnip used to lureacademics—I write all day, gloriously, joyously.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (forlack of a better word) inspiration?
Art museums and galleries are good, also films in languages I don’t speak.I call this filling the well. Long walks, and drinking a lot of water. Writingletters to friends.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Fresh hay.
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?
Just off the top of my head: botany, Lou Rhodes, Chopin, medicine, CyTwombly, Agnes Martin.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simplyyour life outside of your work?
The usual suspects, especially during my long education; but lately I onlyread Chinese webnovels called danmei, which are queer genre stories. Myfavorite author is pseudonymously known as Priest, and someday people will readher alongside Dostoyevsky, I think. Sha Po Lang (Stars of Chaos) and Mo Du (Silent Reading) are my two favorites atpresent. They almost tempt me to write papers again.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Actually finish a novel! I keep starting them and then panicking halfwaythrough. I also have a secret list of places to visit, even though I can’tafford them and will never get to go there. I’ll tell you three: Hangzhou,Dakar, Oaxaca. I had some idea I would learn to surf at fifty, but that…hasn’thappened. I love to watch surf videos, though. Maybe that’s close enough.
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?
I had an ex who used to claim that every single artist had wanted to besome other kind of artist, at first, and had failed—something about Ornette Coleman wanting to be a painter, maybe? I definitely wanted to be asinger-songwriter throughout college, and an actress in my teens. Those thingsare still there in me, just rearranged. I still rehearse lines in my car, forno clear reason. The body/face/voice just want to be shaping words, projectingthem into the world. I come from a family of musicians and will sing and playuntil I die, probably. You can’t stop the signal, Mal.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It was cheap and I had no money. And a few people made the mistake ofpraising me, early on.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
In my mythology class we just read Anouilh’s Antigone, and in my film studies course we watched Ousmane Sembène’s La noire de…/Black Girl. Not bad. On my own? I got to see Chen Kaige’s restored director’s cut ofFarewell, MyConcubine in the theatre and sobbedfor hours afterwards. What a horrifying speedrun through the worst parts ofChina’s twentieth century, and also the heartbreak of being queer and cut offfrom the one you love, your people, your place, your own soul.
20 - What are you currently working on?
This crime novel, Beaconto Nowhere: harried New Englandwomen’s college dean (who just wants to be left alone to write her book) has tocope with an unfolding scandal involving a Title IX complaint and what’sstarting to look like a sex cult, and also she might be falling for her dependablecampus safety officer. Sort of dark academia/queer romance/cosy mystery?Heavily influenced by Robert B. Parker, because I devoured the Spenser books inhigh school like it was my job to do so. And, the new collection of poems, Idon’t know what it will be called yet—maybe Alpenglow? Maybe Sins of Old Age? Maybe Not Again, because I’m just immatureenough to think that’d be really funny.
