12 or 20 (second series) questions with Leah Souffrant

Leah Souffrant is a writer and artist committed to interdisciplinary practice. Sheis the author of Entanglements: Threads woven from history, memory, and the body (Unbound Edition Press 2023) and Plain Burned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable (Collection Clinamen, PULG Liège 2017). The range ofSouffrant’s work includes poetry, visual art, translation, and critical work inliterature, feminist theory, and performance. She teaches writing at New YorkUniversity.

1 - Howdid your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare toyour previous? How does it feel different?

Every time a book is published, it isimportant. That affirmation, showing that your work reached a reader, canenergize the works that come next, and that’s been true with my books.

2 - Howdid you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Poetry had been the most freeingwriting, where sound and idea and image intermingle in unexpected ways. Givenhow poetry is often taught with emphasis on form and received “meaning,” thisliberating relationship to poetry isn’t always the case for young writers. Inrecent years, the categories themselves – poetry, fiction, non-fiction, memoir,and so on – have felt restrictive. Now, writing is most free when I’m not boundby those categories, or where the boundaries blur. A poem composed ofsentences. An essay that slips into poetic lines. Non-fiction infused byimaginative sequences. This flexibility revives the sense of freedom I recallwhen poetry first seduced me as a writer.

3 - Howlong does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writinginitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear lookingclose to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

Writing is fast and slow at the sametime. Some of my most satisfying writing comes in bursts, quickly written, butwhat the reader eventually encounters is the result of a slow process. Instarting a poem, I might see or hear something, and it begins, and throughwriting I figure something out. Then I re-write, often for sound and oftencutting the first couple of lines or moving them to a later moment in the poem.

Writing longer-form prose is both fastand slow, too, but on a more sprawling scale. Writing prose, what I’mencountering is often research. So that takes time, collecting those encounterswith reading and experience and research. I write as I go then rearrangethings. I love both the urgency of getting ideas down, reacting to thoughts –my own and others’ – and I love the slow meditation on the shape of the line orthe shape of the paragraph.

One of my favorite things to do withmy writing is to move things around and see how those changes impact thewriting, the experience of reading. It’s extraordinary and fascinating, how theorder of the encounter impacts our mind and feelings. Or, I might say, How theorder of the encounter impacts our mind and feelings is extraordinary andfascinating. And to do that, I have to slow down.

4 - Wheredoes a poem or work of prose 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 begin noticing something – a word ina book, a sensation in the body, and experience in life. Often thoseobservations build into a pattern of observations, which eventual become abook. That can feel like a “project” once I start to fix on tracking thosepatterns of encounter. I want a book to have a sense of wholeness, whichbecomes more coherent when a project emerges. But it’s often hard to know whatwill inform that coherence until later in the writing process. Nevertheless, weall have preoccupations, and that informs what we write.

And as a reader I love project booksand focused series. Today I’m thinking about The Glass Essay by Anne Carson or the Lucy poems in Break The Glass by Jean Valentine come to mind. I love TheRupture Tense by Jenny Xie.

5 - Arepublic readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sortof writer who enjoys doing readings?

Pacing, repetition, coherence,variation, silence and noise, ambient sounds we can’t control or anticipate… Theyall fascinate me. Public readings push me to be thoughtful about what and how Ishare with a live audience. Some books – likely most of my book Entanglements– are more impactful when encountered privately by a reader. I’m interested inthe different ways we come to knowledge, and a live performance is a differentencounter than a private reading.

6 - Doyou have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questionsare you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the currentquestions are?

Memory and embodiment – how what we doand remember (and forget) relates to how we understand and make sense of theworld – are endlessly interesting to me, and lately I’ve been especiallyinterested in the ways these theoretical concerns emerge in everyday or mundaneexperience. I’m deeply interested in questions about love, in private and incommunity. My writing returns again and again to women’s experience, and moregenerally those experiences that are underexamined or difficult to name.

Abiding concerns in my writing and artinclude what is difficult or impossible to convey, yet are essential to humanexperience, understanding, knowledge and ignorance. My first published book, PlainBurned Things: A Poetics of the Unsayable, works to name what is often mostpowerful to me in books: the ways what is blank or silent in a work of art isoften holding something important, often traumatic, and the difficulty orimpossibility of conveying that importance is very exciting to me as a readerand writer and artist. My recent book Entanglements: threads woven throughhistory, memory, and the body, enacts the principle that what weexperience, what we read, what we learn, what we inherit, all impact knowledgeand ideas.

7 – Whatdo you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they evenhave one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Reading can make us slow down, payattention. We pay attention differently and to different things (ideas, worlds,experiences) when we read. This feels like an urgent practice to cultivate now,given the ways the “larger culture” forces an attenuation of attention in somany ways. Of course, not all writing challenges that force, but I valuewriting that invites a slowing, that seduces us to slow down.

8 - Doyou find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential(or both)?

I have a few readers I turn to duringthe editing process. I sincerely value the insights of those trusted readers. Irely on different people for different projects. Finding these people isessential work of writing, being in community -- and the challenge of findingreaders and editors you trust is something I appreciate more as time goes by.

9 - Whatis the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to youdirectly)?

I’m a writer because I write, and I’ma poet when I write poems, an artist when I paint. I really believe in the callto do the work. Create, write, persist. Put in the time. It’s a sort of faith,but it’s also practice. You just have to do to become, and if you don’t dothen you aren’t that – you’re doing something else – but if you are doing it,you can (and should) claim that practice.

10 - Howeasy has it been for you to move between genres (poems to art to criticism)?What do you see as the appeal?

Easy – essential, even.

11 - Whatkind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How doesa typical day (for you) begin?

Wake up early. Write anything. Thenpick up where you left off – a line, a reading, a sketch, whatever the work is.And at the end of your (creative) day, leave something for tomorrow to discoverand continue. Leave these gifts for yourself to keep you working next time youturn to the page or the studio or the file.

Depending on the time of year and myother commitments (teaching, for example), my schedule fluctuates, but havingmorning time to write makes a big difference to me. There have been times in mylife when that meant setting an alarm for 5am to make it possible. If I getsomething down first thing in the morning, the rest of the day is buoyed bythat effort.

12 - Whenyour writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of abetter word) inspiration?

Walking and reading – not at the sametime.

13 - Whatfragrance reminds you of home?

Less is more when it comes tofragrance; I’m keenly sensitive to smells. When I’m not distracted by anyscent, then I feel at home.

14 -David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any otherforms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Entanglements, my 2023 book, is in part a meditation on how everything impacts us. Isteadfastly believe all these influences and experiences are entangled in whatwe think and know and create.

15 - Whatother writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your lifeoutside of your work?

I often return to Simone Weil. AndRilke. They remind me of the profound power of thinking with others, of poetryand ideas. And Anne Carson’s writing has been very important to me, not onlyindividual books, but the ways Carson experiments and reaches across genres,disciplines, and conventions. Yoko Ono’s art and writing has had a deep impacton me, too, for similar reasons.

16 - Whatwould you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I’d love to show my art more widely,to make the connection between my writing and visual art more available, andperhaps to a different audience.

17 - Ifyou 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?

As a child, I thought about becomingan architect, because the architect puzzles out the use of space, but I’venever been very interested in precise measurements, so I wouldn’t trust myselfwith architecture. Then, thinking about similar puzzles of space and how anenvironment makes us feel, makes me think of interior design. Shaping theexperience of being in a space interests me, and interior design should be lessdangerous that an imprecise building.

18 - Whatmade you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Writing is a way of thinking – I needthis, and I’ve felt connected to that process for as long as I can remember.And it’s fun, too (sometimes!). Writing is fundamental for me. Even when it’shard. And beyond my own private needs for working out ideas and experiences, Ivalue sharing ideas with others -- in person, in conversation, in theclassroom, as a reader. As a writer, I enter this broader conversation byoffering ideas and images, even with unknown readers. Writing – and putting itout into the world -- is an act of optimism, compassion, and curiosity, all ofwhich are vital.

19 - Whatwas the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Great books are hard for me to narrowdown, but what stands out to me right now are Lewis Hyde’s A Primer forForgetting and Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the Worldand Deborah Levy’s The Cost of Living. (Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll likelyhave a new list!) The last great film I’ve seen – easy: Poor Things.

20 - Whatare you currently working on?

As usual, I’ve got a few irons on thefire. I spend many days in my studio painting and drawing. This summer Ifinished the first draft of a novel, which is a new genre for me, and I’mrevising a collection of poetry, working to bring together older and newerpoems. And I’ve continued a performance research project as part of the LeAB Iteration Lab with poet and theater artist Abby Paige. All this contributes todeveloping ideas about creative practice, memory, and experience, which areabiding interests.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;