Please tell us about the making of “Commute.”
I wrote this poem in Jason Koo’s Fast Break workshop at Cave Canem. Jason gave us a prompt each week that focused on a strategy poets use to capture the motion of the mind. We discussed Frank O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died,” Morgan Parker’s “I’m Not Like the King of Black People,” and Ross Gay’s “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian.” I marveled at how these poets turn thinking into motion on the page. I knew I had to start this poem with a concrete action. After a few false starts, I wrote “I hop off the 5 at Bowling Green” in my notebook at 11 p.m. and proceeded to write the entire poem by hand in under twenty minutes. I typed it up and workshopped it into its current form.
Which common piece of writing advice do you loathe?
“Write every day.”
Do you find writing prompts to be helpful?
Yes! I take workshops because prompts and due dates are very helpful to me. I like it when workshop instructors spend a lot of time on the prompt. I like to dissect examples from other poets and start to answer the questions “What does this writing strategy accomplish in a poem?” and “What content can come alive with this strategy?”
Do you workshop drafts with other poets?
Yes! Formally through Brooklyn Poets and Cave Canem workshops and informally with awesome poets I’ve met this year.
Name some influences on your writing that are not literary.
Nostrand Avenue, opera, local history, visual art, my pit bull… everything, really.
I wrote this poem in Jason Koo’s Fast Break workshop at Cave Canem. Jason gave us a prompt each week that focused on a strategy poets use to capture the motion of the mind. We discussed Frank O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died,” Morgan Parker’s “I’m Not Like the King of Black People,” and Ross Gay’s “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian.” I marveled at how these poets turn thinking into motion on the page. I knew I had to start this poem with a concrete action. After a few false starts, I wrote “I hop off the 5 at Bowling Green” in my notebook at 11 p.m. and proceeded to write the entire poem by hand in under twenty minutes. I typed it up and workshopped it into its current form.
Which common piece of writing advice do you loathe?
“Write every day.”
Do you find writing prompts to be helpful?
Yes! I take workshops because prompts and due dates are very helpful to me. I like it when workshop instructors spend a lot of time on the prompt. I like to dissect examples from other poets and start to answer the questions “What does this writing strategy accomplish in a poem?” and “What content can come alive with this strategy?”
Do you workshop drafts with other poets?
Yes! Formally through Brooklyn Poets and Cave Canem workshops and informally with awesome poets I’ve met this year.
Name some influences on your writing that are not literary.
Nostrand Avenue, opera, local history, visual art, my pit bull… everything, really.