12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kendra Sullivan
KendraSullivan
[photo credit: Laila Stevens] is a poet, public artist, and activistscholar. She is the Director of the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center; Co-director of the NYC Climate Justice Hub, a radicalpartnership between CUNY and New York City Environmental Justice Alliance toadvance frontline-led climate justice research, teaching, and policy;Co-director of Women’s Studies Quarterly; and Publisher of Lost & Found:The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative. She makes public art addressingwaterfront access and equity issues in cities around the world and haspublished her writing on art, ecology, and engagement widely. She is theco-founder of the Sunview Luncheonette, a cooperative arts venue in Greenpoint,Brooklyn; and a member of Mare Liberum, a collective of artists, designers, andboatbuilders imagining other ways to inhabit coastal cities. Her work has beensupported by grants, awards, and fellowships from the Andrew W. MellonFoundation, the Waverley Street Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the MontelloFoundation, the Engaging the Senses Foundation, the Rauschenberg Foundation,the Blue Mountain Center, and the T.S. Eliot House, among many others. Herbooks of poetry include
Zero Point Dream Poems
(Doublecross Press) and
Reps
(Ugly Duckling Presse).1- How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent workcompare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Thisis my first book! Though I simultaneously, or nearly so, published abook-length dos-a-dos with DoubleCross called Zero Point Dream Poems,after Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero. I produce a lot butpublish a little. In my opinion, writing is socially produced and producessocialites. Publications need to be brought into the world by the right peopleby the right press at the best time if they are to be received as meaningfullyas possible by the right reading public. While this is not always probable oreven possible, working with MC Hyland and Anna Gurton-Wachter at DoubleCross in2023 and Dan Owens, Kyra Simone, Serena Solin, and Milo Wippermann at UDP in2024 checked all these boxes.
Morebroadly, I break my weekly habit tracker down into three categories: being,doing, and making. My first book has shifted my way of being most: it’s afeeling state or felt sense of having landed somewhere. Or maybe it’s the feltsense of having finally cast off, the feeling state of “far out” or “offshore,”where, paradoxically or not, I feel most grounded. That felt sense is thebiggest shift.
2- How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Thedesire to write fiction is what propels me as a writer. Poetry that plays withnarrative comes out when I sit down to write. It’s the shape my thinking takeson the page. I’m also an academic writer. But even as a scholar writingscholarly prose, I write associatively, sentence by sentence, without a roadmapor an outline. Whether I’m writing poetry or critical theory, language is likea stone pathway that precedes my arrival on the scene of the text. Step bystep. I follow the stones. I don’t know where I’m going or when I’llstop.
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 copiousnotes?
Writingis like precipitation in my life. Sometimes the weather is too wet. Sometimestoo dry. Most of the time there is too much rain and too little containment:flood. Some of the time there is too little rain and too much thirst: drought.Sometimes the weather meets the needs of its immediate terrain: poetry!
4- Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an authorof short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you workingon a "book" from the very beginning?
I’ma project-based poet and my books reflect that fact. A conceit becomes apreoccupation that I iterate until I’ve cycled through all possible variationson a theme or method available to me. The circuit of experimentation eventuallycompletes itself and I begin to edit. Many times, during the editing process,subcircuits present themselves. Fractal arguments and counterarguments opendoors into doors.
5- Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you thesort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Onlysince having a child! Recently, my friend said to me that when she had a childshe was able to forgive herself for existing. This is true for me, too. Thereare many societal reasons this is a very distressing sentiment! A subject for ascholarly essay or book, to be sure. But nonetheless, when I gave birth, Iforgave myself for existing, and as a direct or indirect result, began to enjoyreading in public.
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?
Somany! Too many to list, but here are some main preoccupations.
Isempathy a virtue that affords greater social cohesion or a narcissisticexpression susceptible to political exploitation? What is compassion and how dowe act appropriately on its injunctions in contemporary life? How are we tolive “the good life,” by which I mean a values-driven life that makes room forthe possibility of joy, in the age of climate breakdown?
Whoam I; and who are you; and who are we; and where do we begin and end inrelation to the total environment, if at all?
BecauseI work in the knowledge sector, a lot of my poetry is concerned with theideological and material conditions of knowledge production and circulation.I’m interested in knowledge economies in general, or where and how knowledge ismade, received, and interpolated, and by whom. I’m interested in the wayssituated, lived, or embodied knowledge is honored (or not) in mainstreamscholarly discourses and policy development. I’m interested in research, or howhumans learn what they need to know in order to live well and remove barriersto collective wellbeing. And I’m interested in meaning-making, or how humansweave together their personal and social lives through deeply contextual,cultural, community-led, and value-laden activities, like for instance, poetry!
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?
Inmy poems, I often ask how we can loosen the strictures of Western, empiricalknowledge regimes without descending into a pit of relativisms that renderthought vulnerable to conspiracy, misinformation, and polarization. Can poetryhelp us live with integrity while accepting uncertainty? Certainly. Can wecritique patriarchal scientific methodologies while embracing the fruits ofscientific study and analysis? Yes, I think so. Does poetry contribute toefforts led by theorists working on the ground, in the streets, or in theacademy who advance situated, embodied, and author-saturated understandings ofthe worlds we inherited alongside the worlds we want to pass along? Totally.Are phenomenological understandings of meaning-making inherently feminist? Subversive?Dissident? Is poetry research? What would it mean to read it as such? I don’tknow!
8- Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult oressential (or both)?
Helpful!The more dialogic the writing and editing process, which are continuous andcoextensive in my practice, the more faceted the crystallized artifact of thatinteraction becomes.
9- What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to youdirectly)?
Writein community. Deepen your relationship to your existing communities. Seek outnew communities to be, do, and make with and for. Weave yourself into ever morecomplicated social fabrics with your words.
I’vejust realized I didn’t really answer your question. That’s my advice.
Advicethat I recently heard and really appreciated is to ask yourself everyday, “whatam I walking toward and what am I walking away from?” Step by step, youcan get “there” from “here,” wherever here and there are for you. Walking maybe an alienating verb for some, since it implies a baseline of personalmobility and/or environmental safety that is not universal by any stretch. Soif that’s your experience, maybe you could swap “walking” out withanother verb that resonates with your intrinsic motivations, like“writing.”
10- How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to art tocritical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
Iam a poet, a scholar, and an artist. My art practice is what is sometimestermed social sculpture. I build boats, teach people to build boats, and getpeople out on local bodies of water to talk about environmental ecologies andeconomies as part of a collective called Mare Liberum. I like to think thatbuilding boats has prepared me to move between genres: land and sea, public artand activist scholarship, academic administration and poetry creation. It’s acontinuum of practice.
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?
Ihave a small child who has more power over my daily routine than the sun andmoon could ever hope to! I have no routine. I write whenever I find aminute.
12- When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack ofa better word) inspiration?
Iread. I wait. I exercise. I play. I work. I get outside.
13- What fragrance reminds you of home?
Whata lovely question! It reminds of the PJ Harvey song, “You Said Something,” from Stories from the City. Stories from the Sea. While looking at Manhattan froma rooftop in Brooklyn she sings about the “smells of our homelands.” This linealways reminds me that I don’t know where home is: the city (where I live) orthe seaside (where I grew up). Depending on my mood, the smells of my homelandare either trash & heat (rising from asphalt) or salt & sulfur(released by dead and dying plants in the marshland). Home is such a scaryplace for so many. I am privileged to love my homes.
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?
Allof the above! I would add that institution building and institutionalethnography both layer my thinking about poetry creation. The practice ofinstitutional ethnography was developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy J.Smith. It’s a research methodology that aims to describe how individualbehaviors, beliefs, and activities, taken en masse, give form to the social.This way of looking at things helps me understand the coordinated doing,making, and working across scenes, sectors, and geosocial spaces that give riseto poetry as an institution. Counterinstitution is actually a more capaciousand less contestable term to describe the work of poetry in the world. AmmielAlcalay’s motto for Lost & Found is “follow the person.” I think ofcounterinstitutional ethnography, and I’m not sure he’d agree with me here, of“following the people,” to understand poetry and its operations at scale.
15- What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply yourlife outside of your work?
Toomany to name! I’ll give a shout out to my Lost & Found poetry fam.Ammiel, Sampson Starkweather, Stephon Lawrence, Joseph Caceres, Tonya Foster,Coco Fitterman, Daisy Atterbury, Irish Cushing, Zohra Saed, Oyku Tenken, Miriam Atkin, and Marine Cournet. I’ll also shout out my Geopetics working group:Celina Su, Sahar Romani, Mónica de la Torre, Richa Nagar, and Kahina Meziant.And my poet.mamas listserve!
16- What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Justkeep writing, publishing, performing, and archiving. Write continuously, likeDiane di Prima. Publish continuously, like Alice Notley. Perform continuously,like Mariposa Fernandez. Archive and activate/preserve archives continuously,like Lois Elaine Griffith. I’d also like to focus on a daily visual log, likeEtel Adnan. I was trained as a painter and I’d like to paint more like I brushmy teeth, every day, as a kind of maintenance. (Naming aspirations here; notmaking comparisons between myself and these phenomenal beings!)
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?
Iwork my dream job. Even so, I have a fantasy that one day I’ll go to Yale’sforestry school.
18- What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It’spossible that I began writing seriously after 9-11 in NYC because painting andboat making, my two main visual arts practices, required too much storage.Poems don’t take up any space; on the contrary, they create space.
19- What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
RichaNagar’s Relearning the World through Radical Vulnerability. Alice Diop’sSaint Omer. Both, to me, in part, develop methods for buildingsolidarity with near and far “others” without the crutch ofidentification.
20- What are you currently working on?
Aninstitutional ethnography of CUNY called Uneven Ground: Making the PublicUniversity Work Anywhere People Gather, Learn, and Grow.
