12 or 20 (second series) questions with Bianca Rae Messinger
Bianca Rae Messinger is a poet andtranslator living in New York State. She is the author of pleasureisamiracle (Nightboat, 2025) and the most recent chapbook “parallel bars”(2021). She has published translations of works by mauricio gatti/comunidad delsur, Juana Isola, and Ariel Schettini among others. Alongside poet Toby Altmanshe co-edits the journal What Happens.
1 - How did your first book or chapbook changeyour life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does itfeel different?
pleasureis amiracle is my first full length work of poetry. My first chapbook was published, verymuch on a whim, for a strange art project in Switzerland; and was more of anovella, a rip-off of Story of the Eye, compressed into the form ofcouplets. I guess pleasureis amiracle sets out to do more—the work canbe seen as less “narrative” though I of course love to pull from that strangeway of dealing with event which we call narrative. pleasureis amiraclealso includes a version of my chapbook “parallel bars” (2021), which attemptsto address the structural problems of events and the feelings around them—so weget into a bit more of the visual space in it, through textual depictions anddiagrams. The “visual space” here being a thing which Leslie Scalapino refersto as the authoritarian space. The work attempts to push against the supremacyof the visual field. The book is also different in that it attempts to addressphilosophical or aesthetic questions more specifically, directly.
2 - How did you come to poetry first,as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Great question! Well, I’m not quite sure ifI did come to poetry first, though it definitely was the thing I startedpublishing first. I have always thought of the two (poetry and fiction) sharingso much space. The first poem I ever published was in honor of National DonutDay, and was put up on the wall of the local Krispy Kreme. But I’ve always beenwriting what you could call fiction, a particular response to images. Poetrycame to me because of its flexibility I guess. Of course in high school I foundGinsberg and wanted to be a beat poet, but everyone does that. But at the sametime I was writing these terrible short stories with overly elaboratedepictions of mundane things, or just baroque-like descriptions of fireplaces,and thought there’s no way anyone will read this—so poetry seemed like a spacethat made more sense. I’m not sure if it still does.
3 - How long does it take to start any particularwriting project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slowprocess? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or doesyour work come out of copious notes?
I wouldn’t say I’m a writer who necessarily knowshow they work on a complete level. But I think I’m a writer who starts manythings and needs a lot of time to find out where everything goes—pleasureisamiracle in particular came out of a process with many many versions. Theinitial writing comes quite quickly but goes through a large revision processto find the form I’m looking for. Poems can get chopped up or moved arounduntil the language I want appears, maybe it’s a bit barbaric.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin foryou? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into alarger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?
In terms of the beginning of pleasureis,it’s largely a response to a serious bout with depression that began in2018, though who knows when things really begin. But it was a moment when themental and physical could not be separated—I was unable to control my heartrate—things spiraled out of control. The book begins with claustrophobia, and“chronophobia” as Hejinian calls it, about mental illness (but also the larger colonialorder) as an inability to let time pass. So the book really became a way togive back to time, which is also a way of giving back to memory,and a way for me to start letting it pass, which I’m still bad at. What led tothe experience of pleasure, which is the second part of the book, was music andmasturbation, specifically Joanna Brouk and her looking for the space betweennotes, some metaphysical fabric which made sound possible. I’m not sure shenecessarily found it though as she left music entirely and dedicated her lifeto transcendental meditation. The book also began as I was beginning my medicaltransition and having to relearn how to do a lot of things that I realized Inever knew how to do in the first place.
pleasureis amiracle is a bit different than my past work in that it is more of a set of shortpieces that talk to each other. I might have a general sense that the workscomprise a “book” but it’s more of a loose term that generally takes the shapeof something. Many of my poems begin as letters, or as prompts that friendshave made, or specifically dedicated to an artwork or a lover or a piece ofmusic. For instance, Joanna Brouk and Pauline Oliveros are major influences inthis one, and Laraaji. It’s hard for me to be rooted in language, specificallyfor a poem, without it being attached to a more concrete situation, even ifthat means the concreteness of a finger plucking a string. I don’t know,somehow that feels more concrete than writing about a cloud, to me at least.Having said that many of my poems start out as dreams, but that’s because weoften talk about dreams as narratives.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter toyour creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I find them a nerve wracking but I writepoems with my friends in mind so reading them out loud, to people, feels like anecessary element.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behindyour writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?What do you even think the current questions are?
Hah. This could be a long question. Well, Ithink it’s part of what I’ve said before, breaking free of the supremacy of thevisual aspect, I guess specifically in a trans sense, because of how damagingit can be. The book sees music, sound more particularly, as the tool with whichwe redefine the limits of love, language and the “visual space.” I have alwaysbeen very interested in the question of what is a priori and what is a posteriori—but that’s getting bitfarther afield.
7 – What do you see the current role of thewriter being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think therole of the writer should be?
Hmm, I guess it would depend on what wedefine as larger “culture”—and I think it means something very differentdepending on the genre one writes and the place one writes. For poets, I thinkit is a focus on trying to find the language you need to find—and hopefully inthat search the language you find serves as a lens or a light which can piercethrough “larger culture.”
8 - Do you find the process of working with anoutside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Well it depends on the editor…My editors atNightboat were absolutely incredible. 10/10.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard(not necessarily given to you directly)?
About writing? Or life? For writing, ore onepiece of advice might be something Shiv said to me once, a while ago, or to agroup I was a part of; that you need a foil, someone you are sparring with inyour writing. For instance, Catullus writes to Cornelius Nepos, disparagingly,but it provides the emotional backdrop for what would otherwise be a ratherboring description of some rolls of papyrus. This is an example of a real foil.But it could also be a metaphorical foil. Bernadette Mayer’s poems often containfoils, even if the foil is herself. I guess you could also call this a sense ofintertextuality, but I think the term foil is more fun.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move betweengenres (poetry to translation to critical prose)? What do you see as theappeal?
I always have at least one translationproject going. My critical prose is the thing that needs more work at themoment. I think the two of them are modes that poets find themselves in forwhatever reason. I kind of wrote about this in my editor’s note for the PoetryProject Newsletter, when we did the translation issue last winter. It’s a wayto keep going despite the big voice of poetry in your ear. One needs to keepwriting regardless.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend tokeep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Oh, I wish I had a good response for this. Itry everything, minus the Kathy Acker writing while masturbating method. But Iprobably like writing in the morning best, I don’t know, some days are good andsome days are bad. I like waking up in the middle of the night and writing, butit is usually just to jot down some dreams.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do youturn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Walking. Going into the world, taking thetrain to the beach alone—anything that will get me out of the apartment. Butit’s true that one does need to spend a lot of time in one place in order towrite. I mean, in a general sense. When my writing gets stalled I read also,reading is so much of my writing process.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Hmm I don’t have a good sense of what homesmells like. I would say it smells like a person I am in love with. But I loveperfume, flowery, frutal perfume mostly. The smell of old flowers, wet roses. Thesmell of moisture. There is a particular smell that you get in NorthernVirginia (where I grew up) in the summertime that is hard to find in otherplaces, but it’s a weird place to call home. There you get the heat of theSouth but not the piney smell of North Carolina, it’s a sticky, wet, hot smell.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books comefrom books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whethernature, music, science or visual art?
I think I’ve mentioned music above. That’sfunny he would say that because books come from trees! Specifically new agemusic was what started me off on pleasureis amiracle, which I know isembarrassing but I had to start somewhere, where the space between notes andletters stopped having so much rigidity.
15 - What other writers or writings are importantfor your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
A lot of them are in the back of pleasureisamiracle. But Judge Schreber’s Memoirs of MyNervous Illness is a key text, Rousseau’s Confessions, in terms of“non-fiction.” Fiction-wise Mackey’s From a Broken Bottle…which I amalways in the process of finishing. Scalapino and Hejinian are two biginfluences for me, and especially in my new book. I feel as though Scalapinoisn’t as read as she should be. Simone White turned me onto her, when we read waytogether—and I didn’t know anyone could write like that. I’m stillsearching for what it is that she does to language which renders it novel likethat. Oh, Joey Yearous-Algozin’s A Feeling Called Heaven also hada huge impact on this current book, another meditation on time.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven'tyet done?
Visit and or live in France.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation toattempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?
Hmm anyone who knows me would probably sayan automobile mechanic. I think that’s true. I don’t know, I love carsunabashedly. I could also work on train engines, but they’re almost too big.Small plane engines could be fun too. It’s a terrible business though, for carsat least, no one can make any money fixing them anymore. I am also a teacher,does that count as a separate occupation?
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doingsomething else?
It is just the thing I have always beendoing, regardless of whatever else is going on in my life. What else would Ido?
19 - What was the last great book you read? Whatwas the last great film?
Mark Francis Johnson, Diary of a String;Edward Berger’s Conclave (2024)
20 - What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a forthcomingnovella involving two lovers trapped in a penal colony, sleeping with eachother, reminiscing about their pasts, and trying to escape. It’s a kind ofDelany-inspired 18th century epistolary novel, or at least that’sthe direction it’s headed. And who knows maybe there will be some poems inthere too. Scalapino’s novels have this great lack of solidity which allowsthem to be poems, to me at least. But I have a feeling this project might belonger than novella length so I might have some major editing to do. Sometimesit’s hard to figure out where one thing stops and the other starts. Oh, I amalso writing a collaborative fan-fiction novella of Xena Warrior Princess butthat is much farther afield. For another day.
