12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jane Shi
Jane Shi [photo credit: Joy Gyamfi] is apoet, writer, and organizer living on the occupied, stolen, and uncededterritories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), andsəlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Her debutpoetry collection is echolalia echolalia (Brick Books, 2024). She wants to livein a world where love is not a limited resource, land is not mined, hearts arenot filched, and bodies are not violated.
1 - How didyour first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent workcompare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I wrote andpublished my chapbook Leaving Chang’e on Read (Rahila’s Ghost Press,2022) and then my full-length collection echolalia echolalia (BrickBooks, 2024) during the pandemic, so the idea of poetry ‘changing my life’makes me laugh. I’m mostly stunned that people want to read my work. And I’malso surprised that no one is voraciously tearing it apart the way I sometimes imaginepeople doing in my head. Which is to say I think seeing people’s kindness andappreciation for poetry and creativity is heartening in an otherwisedisillusioning world.
For me, from ayoung age, poetry was a source of escape, coded wordplay to dissociate into andhide behind. I’m learning to lean into poetry’s relationality, sociality, andsense of responsibility more as I write more seriously and expansively.
I would say echolaliaecholalia sprouted from Leaving Chang’e on Read in an organic way.Many poems from the latter are in the former. I had a really great experience workingwith Mallory Tater and Brandi Bird at Rahila’s Ghost Press; their insights intomy poems helped me prepare for my full-length for sure.
I enjoyed thespace a full-length collection offers. The other month at my book launch, oneof my first readers, poet Beni Xiao, reminded me that my first drafts of echolaliaecholalia was significantly longer. My editor at Brick Books, Phoebe Wang,helped me cut things down. She said that she’s more of a minimalist compared tome, and that was intriguing. I have a hoarding issue that I didn’t know aboutuntil a loved one pointed it out. So, I think that shows up in my poetry. Ilearned a lot about myself through writing both the chapbook and full-length: Iguess that’s probably what changed my life the most, the internal change. Ingeneral, I feel relieved that my work is out in the world, less fearful, andmore excited to be in conversation with other poets I admire.
echolaliaecholalia goes deeperinto things, perhaps, and talks more explicitly about the exploitation of marginalizedartists, filicide of disabled children, wanting to leave this world but stayingbecause you haven’t watched that episode of Arthur yet. I enjoyed beingable to play with multitudinous forms.
I’m especiallythankful that my book was able to help raise funds for different Gazan mutualaid projects via Workshops4Gaza’s bookstore at Open Books: A Poem Emporium inSeattle. Billie of Open Books—a bookstore that is poetry-only—invited me downto sign copies and it was a wonderful experience. Every person who entered thespace was a poet, which was the coolest.
2 - How didyou come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I have beenwriting poetry for most of my life, since I was eight, so it made sense to workon poetry more seriously as a first full-length book project. When I graduatedfrom university in 2018 the first thing, I said to myself was, “I get to writepoetry!! I get to write poetry!!” I remember the exact location in my formerplace living situation where I said this, too.
I write essaysand non-fiction outside of poetry, but I felt like the things I most wanted towrite about over the last few years only poetry can handle. For example, I havewritten about the abandonment of autistic children and reshaping language in myessay “Rewriting the Autistic Mother Tongue.” But you can use line breaks andmetre and white space on the page to convey what experiencing violence from ayoung age feels like, and what that does to the imagination. For me, poetry isabout learning to be itself, so the subject matter and the form naturallygravitate towards each other.
3 - How longdoes 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?
I write all thetime but the act of deciding that something is a project takes a bit moreintentional effort. What I learned most out of writing a first full-lengthcollection is that you don’t realize what you’re doing until you’re almostfinished, but taking a stab at things as if you do helps you along thatprocess.
I don’t takenotes unless I’m writing longer-form essays, but I copy-paste earlier draftssomewhere else, maybe the bottom of the page or in my notes app, possibly to belost forever. Sometimes reading poems in front of an audience helps me figureout what I need to work on, and I follow what I feel in my body as well. Thereare a lot of things I edit out because I didn’t enjoy how reading it made mefeel. Or I notice an audience member takes to a particular line, so I highlightthat in another draft. It feels very collaborative that way. And of course, ifyou’re not completely forgetful like I am sometimes, you acknowledge theirinsights and influence in your work. That’s probably why my acknowledgementsection is a bajillion pages long. And I’m almost afraid to look at it for fearthat I’ve forgotten to mention someone…
Mynot-note-taking tendencies is a bit frustrating because it makes it hard toreturn to drafts to figure out what I was thinking. But then it’s like, I’mcreating a palimpsest with another draft, and you can see faint outlines of theearlier one. Because between the moment you wrote the first draft and the next,your perspective has changed.
4 - Where doesa poem or work of fiction 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’m only morerecently thinking about things in terms books. But at heart I think in terms ofa collection of images and feelings, of dreams. I want those things shaped andmade concrete and alive and sometimes that’s a poem and other times it’s abook. Other times it’s an essay or a meme or a doodle.
5 - Are publicreadings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort ofwriter who enjoys doing readings?
I really enjoythem! A few months ago I took the time to work with spoken word poet Kay Kassirer to practice performing more. I appreciated that a lot as, in part, thepandemic has limited opportunities to read in public, and I felt out ofpractice. I like telling jokes between my poems and making people laugh. Readingscan be public spiritual acts and acts calling for rebellion and change.
6 - Do youhave any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions areyou trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the currentquestions are?
I’ve talked a lotabout this with my friend shō yamagushiku. I noticed, when I was reading hisbook shima, that a lot of the collection takes place outside, whereas alot of my book takes place inside. It feels like the questions my poems areconcerned with are related to what happens behind closed doors, what getshidden in plain sight. I tend to write about the bigger, external things inessays. The mundane, household things that appear in my work make me think thatmy poems are listening for the secrets of everyday objects and what theyeavesdrop and collect along the way. So maybe, on some psychic level, my poemsare concerned with what everyday things can teach us about ourselves.
Intimacy withinterior spaces is also a gendered, disabled experience. So, animating disabledqueer interiority feels like a huge concern in my work, one that hopefullyreminds us that the revolution starts at home (as the book about intimateviolence within activist communities suggests) and that we sometimes need toteach ourselves (or reparent ourselves) how to do it.
7 – What doyou 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?
A few words thatcome to mind are noticing, tending, interjecting, remembering, and dreaming.Writers are assassinated for telling the truth about the state of the world.They often play the role of ringing an alarm and dousing cold water on us whenit’s needed. Writers can be dangerous to empire, or they can choose to serveit.
A few months ago,I learned from WAWOG Toronto that of all the arrests for protesting genocide inthis country, literary events have had the most proportionately speaking. So, Ithink writers around me, those I want to align myself with, are doing the workof redefining what writing ought to do. That’s seen as dangerous by the powersthat be.
If nothing else Ithink writers ought to write to free themselves or imagine a way to do so, andto consider who else they’re freeing in their work. June Jordan says itbeautifully: “Good poems can interdict a suicide, rescue a love affair, andbuild a revolution in which speaking and listening to somebody becomes thefirst and last purpose to every social encounter.”
8 - Do youfind the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (orboth)?
I really enjoyworking with an editor. I enjoy disagreeing with someone and knowing why andknowing why something lands in a different way than I intended. Editors alsohelp you recognize the things you’re doing and how they are or aren’t alignedwith your vision.
The thing I enjoythe most (while also finding it terrifying) is to be read intimately. Forexample, earlier on in the editorial process, Phoebe pointed out the speaker inmy poems have had a hard life. I was very confused when I heard her say it: Don’tmost people have a hard life? Why would I write poetry if I had an easy one? Butthat comment prompted me to put a line about having a hard life in my poem“Catalogues of Tearing.” Others reflecting what you’re doing is crucial to thewriting process.
9 - What isthe best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Wayde Comptonsays that your writing is often wiser than yourself. I think that helps me letgo of control and needing to understand what I’m doing all the time.
10 - What kindof writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does atypical day (for you) begin?
I start my day bytopping up eSims. They’re electronic sim cards we’ve been sending to people inGaza since December through the Crips for eSims for Gaza project that I beganwith Alice Wong and Leah Lakshmi-Piepzna Samarasinha. I feel uneasy having awriting routine when there are multiple ongoing genocides and crises impactingpeople around the world, including locally. But I write all the time anyway.It’s just that right now, my routine looks a little different, and I pour moreof my time into these organizing projects and write towards them.
For example, inmy essay, “When the Poem is a Spreadsheet: Joining Us in #ConnectingGaza,” Iweave doing this organizing work with thinking through the role of poetry andthe role of writers in the world. Weaving disparate parts together is a poet’swork, and it’s also the work of engineers, and I found it moving to think aboutthe role of engineers and poets in tandem. I had intended to complete thisessay months earlier. But for better or for worse, I hadn’t really processedwhat we were doing fully and needed time to prepare logistics. I felt theresponsibility and inadequacy of weaving my experiences into urgent mutual aidwork of thousands of people and their families. I also, in the process, taughtmyself how to write an instruction manual and likely have way more to learn.That’s a totally different genre than poetry!
I often writelater in the day, usually at night, when things are quieter, when my brain isoveractive. I also write down my dreams first thing in the morning.
11 - When yourwriting gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a betterword) inspiration?
I wouldn’t say mywriting is ever stalled but would say there are times when my heart, body,mind, and spirit aren’t aligned or speaking to one another. Or because of life,trauma, hardships, they don’t feel settled or still enough to focus on writing.
Sometimes when Iread earlier drafts, I see that I was processing lots of anger and resentmentand shame that I didn’t know I was feeling. Those drafts are still importantbecause they teach me something about what I was feeling at the time. On thecontrary to ‘writer’s block,’ I struggle with wanting to share every thought Ihave with the world; I think that’s partly because I grew up with the Internet.In a lot of ways, a writing practice is more about creating a filter for myblabbermouth-brain, scaffolding my voice with intention.
When I struggleto read, I often turn to film or music. I write Letterboxed reviews of nearlyevery film I see.
12 - Whatfragrance reminds you of home?
Sesame oil.
13 - David W.McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other formsthat influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
In echolaliaecholalia, I bring in , the film Arrival, the bandsI used to listen to as a teenager (that, apparently, teenagers still listento!), Twitter polls, Matthew Wong paintings, cartoons, video games, and TikTokvideos. As Rebecca Salazar suggests in their blurb of echolalia echolalia,the poems are chronically online. The Internet is a place that my work inhabitsintimately. Existing on the Internet as a preteen in the early 2000s is aspecific experience that feels important to document.
14 - Whatother writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your lifeoutside of your work?
I was deeplyinfluenced by reading José Saramago growing up and likely wouldn’t have becomea more experimental poet with an eye for satire were not for reading Vladimir Nabokov and Chuck Palahniuk in those years as well. In the last few years: TheresaHak Kyung Cha’s Dictee; Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries; thewritings of Kai Cheng Thom, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Jody Chan, Beni Xiao, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Alice Wong, Lucia Lorenzi, bell hooks, Rita Wong,Mercedes Eng, Christina Sharpe, and Dionne Brand, etc. These days I’m alsoreading Octavia E. Butler, Wendy Trevino, June Jordan, and Rasha Abdulhadi.
15 - Whatwould you like to do that you haven't yet done?
So many things! Iwant to try writing short stories and speculative fiction. One day I’ll try myhand at a film.
16 - If youcould 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 a writer?
I wanted to be atherapist as a younger person but realized, after working briefly in socialservices, that I couldn’t stomach the exploitative landscape of psychologicaland psychiatric institutions.
I suspect I couldhave gone into film-editing or visual arts.
17 - What madeyou write, as opposed to doing something else?
As silly as it sounds,I’m not a painter because it’s expensive to get your own studio and I’m notgreat at cleaning up a physical mess. I’m also a touch sensitive to scent. Thetech aspect of filmmaking also feels daunting in a way that opening a Word docisn’t. Writing, on its own, feels like I can do anywhere and anytime. Writingis painting with words, cinematography with language.
18 - What wasthe last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I recentlyfinished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. Reading about LeGuin talk about her opposition to the Vietnam War… this novel feels like itcould have been written today.
TokyoGodfathers is a gorgeousportrait of family and the interconnectedness of neighbours. One of the bestChristmas films.
19 - What areyou currently working on?
I’ve beenthinking about what it takes to not just observe and witness injustice butconfront power and end systems of domination. What makes it possible for peopleto fight back collectively? What problems do we inherit from our ancestors inthat work and what problems do we replicate in our attempts at liberatoryaction? How can we build towards liberatory futures? I’m working on differentways to write about that and think through those questions.
