Please tell us about the making of “A Rank, Bleak Devotion.”
“A Rank, Bleak Devotion” was a difficult poem to write because I wanted to address a fractured relationship with language that presents itself as silence while also… being a poem that is not silent. I wanted to talk about the difficulty I have with writing, when I simply can’t stand to hear my own voice ― or when I’m not giving myself the time and care to get past those mindless daily motions (e.g., that keeps everything surface-level). There is power in putting something unsaid into language, but it is much easier to never put anything into words, because then you never have to deal with it. You never have to take responsibility for it and come face to face with it. This poem comes to terms with the fact that writing ― that entering the space of language, the space of others ― is inherently a violent act. To “inscribe” is to cut, to imprint, to mark, and it changes the surface that is being written on. To express something in language is to reduce its reality, but to amplify its power. So what does that mean for a writer? At the same time, there are truths that need to be written about in this poem, truths that the writer needs to approach before they can make real, human connection. A poem “is not about; it is out of and to” (Adrienne Rich).
This poem is actually one of the first post-election things I’d written. I am not someone who can sit down and write an occasional poem, or even simply address something that happened that day. It takes me awhile to make myself mindful and address something in language. I was at the Vermont Studio Center, where I connected with these brilliant and kind writers and artists whose first instinct was to heal, and to give mercy. I was also listening to a podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, which starts from the premise that secular works (like Harry Potter) can be read and studied, much like spiritual texts, as ways to grow and connect to others. We can use the things we love as instruction; we can glean wisdom and meaning from what we love. I was in a place where I had never applied the words mercy and healing toward myself ― if you think you deserve how you feel, or what has happened to you, why would you accept it?
How do you tend to utilize white space in a poem?
I really like white space as a generative tool, even though I am probably not as “risky” or “experimental” with it as I could be. Because so much of my writing process depends on these big leaps of association, I like it as both separator as well as connector. I also really hate the feeling of limited, controlled sequence ― that one word, or one line, HAS to follow another ― that they can’t be read at the same time, or blur into each other. Every word, then, becomes a decision, and if you are someone who is paralyzed by decision and commitment of decision, then you are s-c-r-e-w-e-d. So, that frustrates me when I write ― I’ve always wanted to write poems on door panels, so that they can be placed side by side, or over or under; separated out but also still deeply connected at the core.
Which three words do you overuse in poems?
While we tend to think of overusing certain words in poems as lazy, I often find that I overuse certain words because they are still huge, heavy concepts that I am still trying to work through ― almost like recurring dreams. They just keep happening, until you can figure out a precise exit strategy that gives you back the control. And of course those two things can happen at the same time. You can be lazy and also be trying to work through something. I found that I overuse the word body a lot for this recurring dream reason. It is a vague and imprecise word, and it stays vague and imprecise because I am someone who is not great at seeing or feeling the reality of my own body, where its boundaries are. But what I keep doing ― as I keep trying out and recalibrating this word, is figuring out more precise ways to make it a concrete, lived, present thing. I also use this, there, here, etc., for the same reason.
Do you workshop drafts with other poets?
Right now, strict workshopping is not what I need. My struggle is with production, with generation, with allowing for risk and openness and not being afraid to make a mistake. I am so lucky to have two angels, AKA best friends and extraordinary poets ― Caroline Cabrera and Anne Cecelia Holmes ― with whom I can share my work, and vice versa. Most of the time, we just send each other drafts of things that we’ve written. We’ve done manuscript critique, but often we send each other first drafts, joke poems, or even just pieces where we say “okay, so I know this doesn’t work as a poem, but it ends up saying something that I want to share with you.” I need to be able to feel like the next poem is more possible, not less possible.
Has your role as an editor changed the way you view your own work?
Being an editor is the single most vital influence to my own work. It recharges me, it connects me to other real humans, and it helps me do what I do best ― obnoxiously brag about other people, lol. After being in academia and on “the grind” for so long, my idea of what was expected from me got narrower and narrower, and I found myself less willing to write because I wasn’t challenged or excited by possibility. Being an editor shows me that possibility, that there is no one way to make a poem ― each poem creates its own world for itself, and so each one becomes its own contract. You have to stick by each one and fulfill its contract ― not some imagined contract you feel like you have with the outside world.
“A Rank, Bleak Devotion” was a difficult poem to write because I wanted to address a fractured relationship with language that presents itself as silence while also… being a poem that is not silent. I wanted to talk about the difficulty I have with writing, when I simply can’t stand to hear my own voice ― or when I’m not giving myself the time and care to get past those mindless daily motions (e.g., that keeps everything surface-level). There is power in putting something unsaid into language, but it is much easier to never put anything into words, because then you never have to deal with it. You never have to take responsibility for it and come face to face with it. This poem comes to terms with the fact that writing ― that entering the space of language, the space of others ― is inherently a violent act. To “inscribe” is to cut, to imprint, to mark, and it changes the surface that is being written on. To express something in language is to reduce its reality, but to amplify its power. So what does that mean for a writer? At the same time, there are truths that need to be written about in this poem, truths that the writer needs to approach before they can make real, human connection. A poem “is not about; it is out of and to” (Adrienne Rich).
This poem is actually one of the first post-election things I’d written. I am not someone who can sit down and write an occasional poem, or even simply address something that happened that day. It takes me awhile to make myself mindful and address something in language. I was at the Vermont Studio Center, where I connected with these brilliant and kind writers and artists whose first instinct was to heal, and to give mercy. I was also listening to a podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, which starts from the premise that secular works (like Harry Potter) can be read and studied, much like spiritual texts, as ways to grow and connect to others. We can use the things we love as instruction; we can glean wisdom and meaning from what we love. I was in a place where I had never applied the words mercy and healing toward myself ― if you think you deserve how you feel, or what has happened to you, why would you accept it?
How do you tend to utilize white space in a poem?
I really like white space as a generative tool, even though I am probably not as “risky” or “experimental” with it as I could be. Because so much of my writing process depends on these big leaps of association, I like it as both separator as well as connector. I also really hate the feeling of limited, controlled sequence ― that one word, or one line, HAS to follow another ― that they can’t be read at the same time, or blur into each other. Every word, then, becomes a decision, and if you are someone who is paralyzed by decision and commitment of decision, then you are s-c-r-e-w-e-d. So, that frustrates me when I write ― I’ve always wanted to write poems on door panels, so that they can be placed side by side, or over or under; separated out but also still deeply connected at the core.
Which three words do you overuse in poems?
While we tend to think of overusing certain words in poems as lazy, I often find that I overuse certain words because they are still huge, heavy concepts that I am still trying to work through ― almost like recurring dreams. They just keep happening, until you can figure out a precise exit strategy that gives you back the control. And of course those two things can happen at the same time. You can be lazy and also be trying to work through something. I found that I overuse the word body a lot for this recurring dream reason. It is a vague and imprecise word, and it stays vague and imprecise because I am someone who is not great at seeing or feeling the reality of my own body, where its boundaries are. But what I keep doing ― as I keep trying out and recalibrating this word, is figuring out more precise ways to make it a concrete, lived, present thing. I also use this, there, here, etc., for the same reason.
Do you workshop drafts with other poets?
Right now, strict workshopping is not what I need. My struggle is with production, with generation, with allowing for risk and openness and not being afraid to make a mistake. I am so lucky to have two angels, AKA best friends and extraordinary poets ― Caroline Cabrera and Anne Cecelia Holmes ― with whom I can share my work, and vice versa. Most of the time, we just send each other drafts of things that we’ve written. We’ve done manuscript critique, but often we send each other first drafts, joke poems, or even just pieces where we say “okay, so I know this doesn’t work as a poem, but it ends up saying something that I want to share with you.” I need to be able to feel like the next poem is more possible, not less possible.
Has your role as an editor changed the way you view your own work?
Being an editor is the single most vital influence to my own work. It recharges me, it connects me to other real humans, and it helps me do what I do best ― obnoxiously brag about other people, lol. After being in academia and on “the grind” for so long, my idea of what was expected from me got narrower and narrower, and I found myself less willing to write because I wasn’t challenged or excited by possibility. Being an editor shows me that possibility, that there is no one way to make a poem ― each poem creates its own world for itself, and so each one becomes its own contract. You have to stick by each one and fulfill its contract ― not some imagined contract you feel like you have with the outside world.