12 or 20 (second series) questions with Ian U Lockaby
Ian U Lockaby
is the author of
Defensible Space/if a crow—
(Omnidawn,2024), and
A Seam of Electricity
(Ghost Proposal, 2025). Recent work canbe found in Fence, West Branch, Noir Sauna, WashingtonSquare Review, Poetry Daily, etc. His translation of Mexican poet Diana Garza Islas was recently published by Carrion Bloom Books. He edits theonline journal
mercury firs
, co-edits the chapbook press LUCIUS withfahima ife, and lives in New Orleans. 1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your mostrecent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
It has not been out so long, so looking back on its publication interms of a life narrative turn is difficult. But having a book to share andknowing that the work and the object is having a life beyond me feels strangeand expansive. I don’t want to over-legitimize the book for book’s sake, butit’s true that a reader can live more immersively in a poet’s world with the physicalfact of a book, or can co-create a world with them, and I feel lucky that somepeople are living and co-creating with mine. It was also cool as hell, verylucky, and very affirming to publish a book with Omnidawn, which has long beenlegendary to me. Learning I won their contest (back in 2022) encouraged me tokeep doing my thing—after much rejection and discouragement, of course. I wrotemost of that book like 5 and 6 years ago, so it feels like a different era of aestheticattentions and impulses. Life has changed a lot since then. I always feel likemy new work is very different—I like to chase new music!—but there are certainlyshared concerns.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fictionor non-fiction?
I don’t think I came to poetry first—I think I wrote prose first, ina poets’ manner. I read a lot of fiction as a kid. I wrote everything/anythingthrough high school and college, honestly don’t think I considered genre much,maybe because my favorite writers even then wrote in-between things. And I alsodidn’t have much conception of doing it for any other reason than the making ofit, so I didn’t have to decide on a genre or figure out what to call it. Inever really tried to publish anything until much more recently. A professorsenior year of undergrad told me what MFAs and suggested I consider one, and Isaid thank you, ain’t no way. I was done with school, until years later,you know how that orientation changes sometimes. But I was still fully engagedwith literature, it’s always been a main obsession in my life.
I guess my last year of undergrad is probably when I stepped more firmlyinto poetry. I began to feel that poetry could contain or obtain thepossibilities of all other forms of literature because poetry is beyondliterature. It’s the form that felt most porous to life itself and opened newpores in life, and life was my main concern. I was exposed to some important thingsthat year—I read Aimé Césaire for the first time, when I was assigned Notebookof a Return to the Native Land, Clayton Eshleman’s translation, and I readit in one sitting late at night and everything was different afterwards. Icouldn’t believe it. Carried the book around with me for days rereading it. Iwas also working with a poet named D Wolach who introduced me to George Oppen anda lot of contemporary experimental poets—David Abel came to our class; Rob Halpern’s work was another revelation. That was an important dive into morecontemporary poetry and after all that I just kept going deeper.
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project?Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do firstdrafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out ofcopious notes?
It varies a lot. Though it does tend to all be very slow for me,and rarely do first drafts appear close to their final form. Things come inbursts, then I tinker endlessly and put things away for long periods. Everythingis long gestation, and things get shuffled around. In a way, I feel like all thewriting projects are just the writing project, because anything mightbelong to another thing.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author ofshort pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working ona "book" from the very beginning?
They begin everywhere and anywhere. Sometimes I write fragments innotebooks or notes app when I’m driving, or voice-to-text dictations (I likethe errors), and later—days or months—I cull and combine lines and see what’sthere. Sometimes I work out a few stanzas by memory over the course of a couplehours before I write them down. Sometimes I decide I’m working on a longerthing and find a form and start throwing everything into that vessel for weeksor months at a time. I get ideas for “books” a lot, but you know, very few ofthem have actually happened.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creativeprocess? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I enjoy doing readings a lot, yes, usually. Especially if it’s agood space with some good people (‘good’ can be a lot of different ways, ofc). Thepoems change when I bring them to a reading, and I get excited by that. Onething I love about poems is their ability to shape-shift, to be differentthings at different times. I like to see what poems can be when they arearranged differently, new cadences, in new rooms… I don’t ever want the poemsto be static. The pressure before performing is good for editing too. SometimesI edit as I’m reading—like suddenly I realize just in time that a line orstanza really ain’t going to hit, or I decide I don’t like it, so I skip it andknow it’s never coming back. Or other times, I might accidentally say the wrongword and roll with it—gotta roll with it in my opinion—sometimes you say abetter word. All that is fun, making it live in whatever present.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? Whatkinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you eventhink the current questions are?
I have theoretical concerns behind my writing, sure, some arelasting, and some are constantly changing based on whims or readings or variousencounters. Sometimes I figure them out after things are written. Lately I’vebeen thinking about metaphors for God, and the language of infrastructure. I donot try to answer any questions; I prefer finding more questions. Answers in poetryand literature generally usually feel like dead ends, or concerns for themarketing, and I don’t care for that.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in largerculture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer shouldbe?
There are so many kinds of writers, so it seems tricky to pin thatone down. But the kinds of poets I love best—I think they make things new(and/or to show how they are very old)—to expand what’s possible in language,and therefore in thought.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editordifficult or essential (or both)?
Depends on the editor? I’d say both. I like being made to questionchoices or defend them, when I feel like the editors have something of analigned vision or imagination. It was great, for example, working with KellyClare, Nora Claire Miller, and Alyssa Moore, the editors at Ghost Proposal on ASeam of Electricity, a chapbook of mine they published. They pushed me toexpand and sharpen it.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarilygiven to you directly)?
Here are two that often come to mind, from my teacher LauraMullen:
“Notice what you notice,that’s who you are as an artist”
“See what happens when youtry to test your endurance in the wilderness of experimentation”
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetryto translation)? What do you see as the appeal?
Very easy. They move through each other. Translation can be verydifficult of course, but it can also at moments, feel as easy as good reading. Andit opens new possibilities for my own poetry constantly. Questions oftranslation are also the essential questions of language.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do youeven have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
No routine. No typical days if I can help it. I have littlediscipline in such things, and I suppose I avoid routine. I always walk my dogin a different direction. I drink coffee. I look out the back door. I keep agarden in my yard, and sometimes I look at it while the water boils. If I canread or write first thing when I wake up, I love to, but that’s rare,unfortunately.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or returnfor (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Anywhere but a screen. I like to walk. I also like to drive. Andto read, of course. Talking to certain friends puts a faith back in me—Iremember that a few people care about what I’m doing and are doing it too.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
River water or frying garlic.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, butare there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music,science or visual art?
Encounters with good visual art make me want to write. Music iseverything, it’s all music. One time I thought suddenly that my love of DMX asa kid had been the basis for my entire understanding of poetry. Not thespecifics of his lyrical style—but his sonics. I not sure that’s true, but I’mnot sure it’s not. The cadences of rappers I listened to growing up (Ghostfaceis a big one) are like bedrock in my mind.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work,or simply your life outside of your work?
Aimé Césaire, Alice Notley, Etel Adnan, Ed Roberson, Henri Michaux, Lisa Robertson, CD Wright, Jimin Seo, fahima ife, Laura Mullen,Sebastian Gómez Mátus, Javier Raya, Carlos Cociña, Diana Garza Islas, many more.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Get these two chapbook/press projects in operation that have beenlong in planning. (On the way! LUCIUS, co-edited with fahima ife—first chapsummer 2025—& mf editions, physical branch of mercuryfirs.org,coming…soon…). I’d like to be able to publish full-lengths someday.
Also, I’d like to put out a few albums of my own music that no onelistens to.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what wouldit be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had younot been a writer?
If I hadn’t decided to go back to school when I was 28 or so, and endedup teaching as I’m doing now, I might have kept farming, which was myoccupation for most of my 20s. Often I wish I were a good carpenter. I don’tdream of employment; I do dream of non-employment. And I do think about usefulskills for the commune.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I have done and do plenty of something else’s, but I think Ialways come back to writing because, for one thing, it’s always available, alwaysan option, there as “a refuge but also a centrifuge,” as Eric Baus said to meonce. Like back in high school, which I did not like and did not excel, I’dignore lessons and write long free-associative prose-poem things for pages andpages, getting into a trance—that shit was thrilling, life-giving. It is a sortof meditation or transportation that I need—desperately then, and still now. Iwas semi-serious about music from my teens through my mid-20s, wrote lots ofsongs, moved to Austin for a while with a band. We were a mess and it fellapart quickly but I loved it and I miss that mode of creation/attention/collaboration.But it’s a lot to get band members and space and equipment together. And I tendtowards solitude—being in a band and playing out is very social. Writing hasbeen the most consistent thing, partly because it was something I could dounder any circumstances—moving around, broke, odd housing situations, etc. Poetrystays free.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the lastgreat film?
The Grimace of Eden, Now by Cody Rose Clevidence. I’vebeen watching for the first time—can’t stop thinking about WhereIs the Friend’s House? Also, Close-Up. Great-great-great.
20 - What are you currently working on?
A life outside of time (nothing doing).A book of poems called Vegetable With, that I’ve been working on quite awhile. A translation of Chilean poet Sebastián Gómez Matus’s collection AnimalMuerto. Another bunch of poems collectively called Half the Soybeans ofthe World Float by Me on the River, and maybe another bunch called 2 or3 Houses. Always a lot of different things. And always the editorial/organizational/etc.work of running mercury firs, and the aforementioned LUCIUS. All that isa ton of work, but I love it a lot.
