12 or 20 (second series) questions with Cynthia Marie Hoffman
Cynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of four collections of poetry: Exploding Head, Call Me When You Want to Talk about the Tombstones, Paper Doll Fetus, and Sightseer, all from Persea Books. Essays in TIME, The Sun, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. Poems in Electric Literature, The Believer, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Cynthia lives in Madison, WI. www.cynthiamariehoffman.com.
1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?
When Sightseer wonPersea’s Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, it fulfilled my lifelong dream ofpublishing a book. In that sense, my life was changed. I joined a catalogue oftruly wonderful authors, and publishing opened the door to meaningfulconnections with readers and poets.
But I had a one-year oldat home and was fully settled in a non-academic job that had no expectations ofme to publish. So my day-to-day remained unchanged. Isn’t that how it is for somany writers, especially poets? Yes, I felt different. This incrediblething I’d worked so hard for over so many years was finally happening! But tomy coworkers, and to many of my friends and family, I was the same.
Exploding Head, mynewest book, is a memoir in prose poems about my lifelong journey withobsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), though it doesn’t say “OCD” anywhere inthe poems themselves. All four of my full-length collections form cohesivefull-length “projects” (if people are still using that word). But ExplodingHead is the first book that isn’t heavily based on research, spoken throughpersona poems, or influenced by historical figures, medicine, or architecture.It’s not only about me, but it’s about a part of me I never talked aboutbefore. It’s the most interior, vulnerable thing I’ve ever written.
2 - How did you come topoetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I loved writing littlepoems with my mother when I was little. Sometimes we wrote down familiarnursery rhymes and drew pictures to accompany them on the page. Poetry hasalways been in my life.
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?
Forever. It takes,seemingly, forever. I think I’ve been relatively prolific (compared to what? Idon’t know), but each poem I’ve finished has been hard-won. I often start withan idea of the structure of the argument I want to make (first this, then that)or a clear visual like a scene from a movie. Then I have the frustrating taskof putting it into words. Words are the hardest (and last) part of the poem toappear. By the time I have a “draft” on the page in a form others can actuallyread, it’s already in a very late stage of development. All the strands havebeen combed through, and I’ve just finally braided them together.
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’m working on a bookfrom the very beginning. For a while, poet NickLantz and I were curating an interview site on poetry project books called The Cloudy House. It’s still agreat resource (with more than 60 interviews!) for anyone who’s thinking aboutcrafting a book-length collection.
I’m more interested in booksthan I am single poems. I don’t know if that’s been good or bad for my poemsthat have to go out in the world on their own, but there is always aninterdependency at play. I do often revise quite a bit as the final book iscoming together. There’s no reason to keep re-establishing setting or identityif you’re building a memoir out of poems—so all those redundancies must be cutif the book is to be successful.
I spent a couple yearsresearching and building a book of poems about tuberculosis, but in the end, Iabandoned that project entirely. That’s a risk when you think “book first, poemsecond.” Those poems about my grandfather in the tuberculosis sanatorium in theearly 1940s couldn’t have been easily shuffled into a memoir about OCD.
5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy doingreadings. I don’t know that they’re a part of my creative process. It’s rarethat I’ll “test” a new poem on a crowd these days. But I used to. I learned howto read in 2-minute open mic slots during my time in London in the late 90swhen I was living there on a work visa with another poet, Sarah Kain Gutowski. Then, weread at open mic series in northern Virginia, and I even hosted a readingseries in Arlington and later in my MFA program. That early experience shapedmy ability to present my work confidently and to use the public space as anarena of experimentation. I’ve learned where certain poems work better off thepage: in a quiet library, in a noisy bar, in a big crowd or a small crowd.
The best thing aboutreadings is the immediate connection with the listener. We so rarely have theopportunity to be in the room when our poems are experienced in real-time. Ilove attending readings, as well. I go to as many as I can (onscreen and off). Writingis such an isolating endeavor. Attending poetry reading is so important forcommunity-building. I love to hear poets read.
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 first threecollections explored my relationship to history: as a tourist confronting thehistory of other countries (Sightseer),as a pregnant woman benefitting from our current day understanding of medicine(PaperDoll Fetus), and as an inheritor of my family history during thegenealogical research craze (CallMe When You Want to Talk About the Tombstones).
But ExplodingHead is the first book to explore the history of own mind—growing upwith undiagnosed OCD and anxiety and finding my way as an adult.
My current work continuesthis line of questioning about the self. If I’m not writing from research orabout others, how can I position the self in my work? It’s a new thing for meto be writing about myself.
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?
To document theexperience of being alive during our time, in whatever big or small ways suitthe poet’s skill. Even if we write about past events or speculate about thefuture, we cannot escape filtering it through the lens of our time. So even ifwe don’t know it, we’re always doing this work.
8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Poets have a verydifferent relationship with editors than prose writers. I experienced thisfirsthand having worked with several editors on essays I published last year.The process made my writing better, and I’ve been thinking about what poets arepotentially missing out on by holding our work so close and by editors largelytreating it as finished.
I do, however, depend onthe feedback from poetry groups assembled from my peers, and to whom I’mindebted for my development as a poet and for rescuing me from writer’s blockwith the looming force of communal deadlines without which, at some points, I mightnot have been writing at all.
9 - What is the bestpiece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Advice from my time ingymnastics transfers well to general life and poetry: don’t overthink it;just go for it; let go.
10 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?
Most of my day hasnothing to do with writing. But I try to keep a burner warm. Having a projectthat extends beyond one-poem-at-a-time really helps me dip in and out. I have ahard time getting started if I have to come up with a new idea each time I sitdown to write.
But the fact is, I’malways sitting. I sit to work, I sit to write, I sit to relax. I hope to getback into adult gymnastics again, or at least some more walking. As I’ve workedfrom home, the lines between work and writing have blurred. I write where I work.Sometimes I write on my work computer. Sometimes I check work emails during mywriting time. But mostly, my writing time and work hours don’t conflict; mymind is clearest and most alive late at night, when everything is dark andquiet. That’s when I’m most creative.
11 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?
I love reading poetry,but if I’m too immersed in the voices of other poets, I tend to lose my ownvoice. I find inspiration in history, research, interesting science facts.Sometimes, when I feel lost, re-reading my own manuscript helps me remembermyself.
12 - What fragrancereminds you of home?
In college, majoring inphotography and taking a color printing lab course, I was alone in a small,single-unit darkroom. I opened the drawer of the wooden desk beneath theenlarger, and a familiar scent wafted up to me. It was the fragrance of mygrandparents’ home in California, a place I’d visited only a handful of timesin my childhood.
I’m not saying,necessarily, that my grandparents’ home smelled like a musty, dusty old woodendrawer in a room of photo paper and chemicals, but all of a sudden, sounexpectedly, there it was—the exact smell. Good thing I was alone inthe dark, because the nostalgia came over me so powerfully, I stood there andsobbed.
13 - 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?
I’m often inspired by themusicality of natural speech, though I have a tendency to get stuck onrepeating certain phrases (as a symptom of OCD) that feels troublesome and notconducive to creativity. I’m always inspired by science, the animal world, ourunderstanding of (and the mysteries of) the universe. Watchingdocumentaries.
14 - What other writersor writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of yourwork?
The community of writersthat form my poetry and essay groups are so important to me. The more recentlybeloved books on my shelves include Eugenia Leigh’s Bianca andJames Davis May’s Unusually GrandIdeas for the way they explore mental health. Though I had finishedwriting Exploding Head before I discovered these gems, I feel my workhas a kinship with these collections, and as I walked the vulnerable roadtoward publication, I felt their presence farther ahead, having laid the path.
I was heavily shaped bymy early learning under Carolyn Forché,both by her own work and by her teaching. She opened her graduate courses toundergraduates, and I was lucky enough to be taking her classes as an undergradand again, years later, as a graduate student at George Mason University. Sheintroduced me to work in translation and poets I wouldn’t have stumbled upon bymyself. And she is the reason I came to love history, a subject I had famouslydespised for all my schooling years as I was forced to simply memorize datesand names. But Carolyn made history come alive; she made it magical. And suddenlyeverything made sense—the very reason we view the world as we do today. I feelso, so lucky to have been able to sit in her classrooms.
15 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?
See the aurora borealisin its fullest form directly overhead. Sleep overnight in a treehouse. Get myfull-twisting back layout all the way around.
16 - If you could pickany other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Gymnastics coach. Orphotographer. In the fourth grade, we each wrote a book of poems and bound themwith tape and cardboard and fabric. I still have mine. The “About the Author”page says I wanted to be a photographer. (No mention of being a poet, but Ithink that was something I didn’t comprehend “being”—it’s just something Iwas.)
17 - What made you write,as opposed to doing something else?
I became a writer inaddition to doing something else (i.e., a paying career). But day-to-day,what makes me write instead of sitting back in the red chair in the corner ofthe living room with a movie on tv and a cat in my lap? Having a deadline towrite something for poetry group, having a community of peers who check in onme (and I on them), and being in the midst of a project that feels obsessiveand urgent.
18 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?
I’m working through agiant stack of books I brought home from AWP and posting about them onInstagram (@cynthiamariehoffman). I’m calling it the “Book Fair Book HaulCrawl” because, let’s be real, it takes time to read all those new books we getso excited about, and there’s no reason to rush through. A few standouts so farhave been Lisa Fey Coutley’s Host,Jubi Arriola-Headley’s Bound,and Jenny Irish’s Hatch, butthere are so many more, and more that I have yet to read that will certainly bethe next great book.
As far as films, I can’tname one. I love movies, and I have a bit of an addiction to movies andtv. I’ll devour almost any movie. But they all kind of meld into a blob in mymind. Probably the result of too much tv.
19 - What are youcurrently working on?
Essays! In 2023, I made apoint of rekindling my first love for the personal essay. I’ve recentlypublished essays on OCD; one in Time Magazine online called My OCD Can’t Keep MeSafe From America’s Gun Violence—But It Tries, and another in TheSun called The Beastin Your Head. And I’d like to keep up my exploration of this form.
I’m also writing poems,but, for the first time, they’re not part of a pre-defined “project.” This hasleft me feeling lost at sea. But still, I write, hoping one of these poems willbecome an oar.
