12 or 20 (second series) questions with Shin Yu Pai

Shin Yu Pai [photo credit: Arzente Fine Art] is the author of several books including Ensō (Entre Rios Books, 2020), Aux Arcs (La Alameda, 2013), Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), Sightings (1913 Press, 2007), and Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003). From 2015 to 2017, she served as the fourth Poet Laureate of The City of Redmond, Washington. Her personal essays have appeared in CityArts, Tricycle, Seattle's Child, and YES! Magazine. She's been a Stranger Genius Award nominee in Literature and lives and works in Bitter Lake, Seattle. For more info, visit www.shinyupai.com.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

I published my first book of poems Equivalence in 2003, when I was 28 years old. I worked on it for three years and it collected together work encompassing the visual arts, Buddhism, and cultural identities. Assembling that manuscript felt like proof, to myself, that I would be able to sustain a creative practice beyond my academic program(s), and no matter what might be going on in my professional life.

I sent the manuscript around to a number of publishers and contests for about year and felt very discouraged by that process. Joanne Kyger, one of my former teachers at Naropa, suggested that I send the book to JB Bryan at La Alameda Press in Albuquerque. La Alameda had published some of Joanne’s work, as well as that of some of my other teachers — Anselm Hollo, Anne Waldman, and Andrew Schelling. Joanne thought it would be a good fit. She was right.

That book changed my life because of the nature of the collaboration with JB which went very deep. He was very supportive of how I wanted the book to look and invited my input and feedback on the cover art and design. Many of the poems laid out in unusual ways and this was never a design issue for JB.

I’m very proud that Equivalence was such a beautiful object as a published collection. Through JB and his partner Cirrelda, I came to know a vibrant poetry community in New Mexico and many of those friendships, with poets like Lisa Gill, Steve Peters, and Miriam Sagan, have endured throughout the years.

ENSO is a mid-career survey that looks back at twenty years of practice. It brings together the different areas of my practice: photography, personal essay, longer poem sequences, object-making, book arts, installation, sound, and performance. It is the first book that I’ve published since becoming a mother seven years ago and takes much greater risks in putting out work that ranges across personal interests and creative disciplines. It shows an evolution in my work and includes some of those early poems from Equivalence. If my earliest work was ekphrastic in nature, the place where I have arrived as a maker is in integrating my different interests and practices so that the practice itself is now much more hybrid. A poem literally takes the form of an embroidered textile, instead of being about an idea of cloth. Instead of concrete poems on the page, pieces now exist as moving poems that are projected into gathering spaces and experienced as temporary public art installations.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I grew up in household where English was a second language and the irregularities of how English was spoken at home made me self-conscious of my ability to write a perfect line of prose. The looseness of grammar and structure, and spoken language, seemed much more organic to poetry.

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 first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

It varies widely. At times, an image, or a line will arise in my consciousness and when I go to write the poem, it comes quickly without the need for much editing. Other times, I may sit with a fragment or a news story or an image for weeks or months or years, until the thing takes hold of my imagination and I’m ready to interrogate the subject on the page. My non-fiction work is heavily revised and goes through many iterations. It’s a longer form. I think poems and art projects are different. I come with a mental map or plan of the thing I’m trying to execute. Or I know how I want it too feel. I can visualize where I want to go and in that way the arrow hits closer to its mark.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I write poems and after a stack or a file of documents accumulate, I see patterns that emerge out of my present concerns and these reveal the structure of a larger preoccupation. That’s happening on a more subconscious level, but there are times when I feel more aware of a theme that I may be directly working with and writing towards that theme. Projects like my Love Hotel poems or Works on Paper were very intentional that way – poems curated and written around a theme.  Aux Arcs, a book that I wrote about my detour to living in the American South, came about more organically. I knew that there was a book in me about my experiences of race and place, but I didn’t know what that material would be or look like until it emerged. I didn’t know which geographies it would document until I was done.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Public readings give me the opportunity to better articulate to myself and to a public what it is I think I’m trying to do in my work. In that way, they create the circumstances to find the vocabulary to talk about my work, and that is useful. That said, my interest in giving traditional readings has diminished over the years. I enjoy visiting creative writing classrooms and talking about my work from a process perspective. I do a lot of hybrid talks that incorporate visuals, sound, and video alongside poem readings. And I also play around with presenting different kinds of content in live events to go beyond poetry. This might look like reading a piece in a history cabaret and singing a song. Or I might perform a talk poetry piece like David Antin, with a slideshow running in the background. I’ve worked as an events producer for a long time and I’m interested these days in creating an experience for the viewer and reader that can engage all of the senses.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I’m not big into theory. But I do think about power and positionality. I’m interested in the questions of what it is to be human together and to experience empathy. I’m trying to answer questions about what it is to love, to parent, to have a spiritual practice living in the world that we live.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

This is a question that I ask of all of the poets that I interview for my poetry podcast Lyric World: Conversations with Contemporary Poets that I produce with Town Hall. The writer has many roles – to bear witness, to critique, to interrogate, and question. It’s not a role that all writers will choose, but this is what I believe the role of writers should be.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

It depends on the editor and the alignment of values between editor and writer and the ability to communicate those values effectively. I do not engage editors when it comes to my poetry. But when it comes to my non-fiction and personal essay work, editorial feedback is something that I invite, because I feel less confident or sure of my prose and am aware of mechanical and stylistic issues that benefit from the close reading of an outside editor. As a woman of color, I do feel that the match between editor and writer has to include an acknowledgment of where there may be gaps in cultural competency—I’ve primarily worked with white editors and there are content issues that I work with that may not be well understood by an outside editor who is not specifically grounded in the specifics of the cultures or histories that I write about. I do feel very fortunate to have worked with Chip Livingston at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He’s an amazing editor and teacher who really helped me get my prose into better shape.

While I find working with many editors a largely transactional process, I deeply enjoy working with a director or other creative consultant when doing performance-based work. Someone who can give me notes on movement and how to speak a work to an audience or how to sing a line. How to reimagine work off the page. In Seattle, Jane Kaplan of The Rendezvous and Vanessa DeWolf, a movement-based performance artist have both helped me with different performance-based works.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Rainer Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet was a very important book to me when I first encountered it in my teens. In that collection, Rilke dialogues with a young poet through letters. His interlocutor is a young poet just starting on his path. He talks to this young person, Franz Kappus, about interrogating whether the impulse to write is one that he can live without. This becomes the determinant of whether or not one should become a poet.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to essays/non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?

Moving between genres has been second nature for most of my life. There’s always been a camera in my hand or a notebook at my side. My poems tend to tell a story, versus burying a narrative. Sometimes it’s been necessary to explore longer forms and structures to tell some of the stories that I want to write.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I have a young child and we’re living in a pandemic, so I can’t speak to any writing routine at this moment. My day begins with a two-mile run. Then I clear out my mind and may do some writing before jumping into the day ahead. If I have a specific commission or assignment that I’m writing on, I’ll incorporate that into my workday. When my son goes to bed at night, I may do some editing. For me, the most fruitful periods of writing have always been in isolation, while in residency away from my daily life.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I go for a walk and get into nature. When we’re not in pandemic, I go to museums and galleries and look at works of art. I read books of poetry and nonfiction and I talk to trusted friends and colleagues who are working on interesting projects. I listen to music. I meditate. I trust that the stuckness won’t last forever.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Mrs. Meyer’s lavender soap and sandalwood or nagchampa incense remind me of my home in Seattle. The smell of green onions frying and Japanese oden stew remind me of my childhood home in Southern California. Also daffodils from my parents’ yard.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Visual art has been a huge influence for my entire life. My mother is a visual artist and I studied writing in the context of art school at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After graduating from art school, I taught in a museum and that daily exposure to work of visual art really imprinted itself deeply upon me and influenced my aesthetics. But it’s not just looking at visual arts, it’s also learning their processes and practices — bookmaking, ceramics, photography. Translation was also an important practice to me early on – the engagement with languages besides English. The notion of place – whether placemaking or placekeeping — are very important to me, and I use these terms in place of nature. Because so many of the places that I have interacted with have been urban environments.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Michael Ondaatje is very important to me as a writer who works in both poetry and prose. Joanne Kyger and some of the Beat writers, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gary Snyder were early influences. Arthur Sze and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge are AAPI poets whose work has meant a lot to me. Peter Levitt, the Zen teacher/translator/poet is important to me. The literature of the sacred is important to me. Buddhist sutras, teachings, song, and poetry. But also Shiivite poetry and the literatures from India, China, Tibet, and Japan.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I’d like to learn to play guitar and ukulele and record an album and sing more with friends.

17 - If you could 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 have worked primarily in the nonprofit and philanthropic fields. I have not derived a significant income from my writing or art. I work with people, and the community, and that is what I enjoy, to a degree. But given to do over again, I think I would have enjoyed being an interior designer — making a home or space beautiful is something that brings me great pleasure, alongside decluttering and organizing. It’s a profession that relates to art, objects, interiors, space, and how space is used. Archivist/conservator also resonates for me for that love of objects and giving things another life.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

There were stories within me that I needed to tell — some stories that preceded me. My father is a storyteller, my mother is an artist. My father also told me a lie during a critical time when I was choosing a professional path. He told me that we were descended from the ancient Chinese poet Bai Juyi. It would take several years for me to learn the truth of our own name, but he planted a seed and that seed grew.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being.

Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Getting through the pandemic and finding full-time employment after being laid off in June. Promoting my new book ENSO. Writing about my experiences of dismantling a racist and misogynistic institution in Seattle through coordinated action. But also, I’m thinking through creating a new text-based video projection for a public space with a collaborator.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Diana Arterian, playing monster :: seiche

my father and i are preparing a meal

He has to go outside, has

to tend to something

He instructs me not to touch

his ingredients

to continue slicing mushrooms

I do, wielding a knife

too large for my hand

When he returns, I watch

out of the corner of my eye

as he stops to scan

the items on the counter

with heavy pause—

he so certain

I have tampered with them

I recently received a copy of Los Angeles poet Diana Arterian’s debut poetry collection, playing monster :: seiche (1913 Press, 2017), the first poetry title I’ve seen to come with a disclaimer: “While this work renders events from ‘real life,’ the author takes liberty with her representations of events, individuals, timelines, sources, etc., and makes no claim of factual accuracy in the work. Any similarity to any individuals other than the members of the author’s immediate family is coincidental.” 

The disclaimer, in certain ways, is as troubling as the content of the collection itself. Writing on “family violence and childhood terror,” the poems in playing monster :: seiche are disturbingly matter-of-fact, composed in a calm, unadorned and straightforward lyric. This is an extremely dark book, but written in a way that doesn’t embellish. Through her short lyric narratives, Arterian tells and re-tells, exploring the facts and details of what had occurred to the narrator over a period of years, from poems with titles that include 1974 and into the 1980s and beyond, writing of violence against the mother, herself and her siblings, from early fights between the narrator’s parents, to the furthering of violence even after the father is finally convinced to leave. As the poem “while in college” begins: “my older sister / begins to have flashbacks // She remembers / being in my father’s house / late at night // alone with him [.]” Throughout, Arterian’s poems offer no answers or even a resolution, even as the courts eventually take the narrator’s mother’s side, but instead offers a poetry of witness, writing out the details of a series of lives lived in fear, elements of the court system, and the father’s ongoing brutality, even as he extends his reach to starting another family, and starting the cycle anew. As the poem “my mother surprises us one easter –” ends:

It is during this argument

that my mother decides

he must leave—

when he knocks her

onto the bed and puts

his hand over

her mouth

to silence her

She sleeps on the couch

for nearly a year

but it is only

when she agrees to pay

fifty thousand dollars

of his debt

that he leaves

for good

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Diana Arterian

Diana Arterian is the author of Playing Monster :: Seiche (1913 Press, 2017), the chapbooks With Lightness & Darkness and Other Brief Pieces (Essay Press, 2017), Death Centos (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013), and co-editor of Among Margins: Critical & Lyrical Writing on Aesthetics (Ricochet, 2016). A Poetry Editor at Noemi Press, her creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Caldera, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo, and her poetry, essays, and translations have appeared in Asymptote, BOMB, Black Warrior Review, Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Born and raised in Arizona, she currently resides in Los Angeles where she is a doctoral candidate in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. 

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book-length poetry manuscript, Playing Monster :: Seiche (just out of 1913 Press), has changed my life in that it is a kind of memoir in verse. To have a life story—or at least a childhood story and its reverberations into events from adulthood—out in the world and available to strangers to read, consider, and respond to is thrilling and a little terrifying. Thus far those responses have been with keen understanding of my intentions, and often in ways that are thought-provoking for me. Playing Monster :: Seiche has also given those close to me greater insight into my past. My first chapbook, Death Centos, came out from Ugly Duckling in 2013. It was accepted in 2011, which was right after I finished my MFA, only a few journal publication credits to my name. As someone who recognized UDP’s valuable contributions to publishing, it was immensely affirming to me at a time when I was mostly getting rejections and muddling through the beginnings of an understanding of my creative work. These two works are different in that Death Centos is entirely found-text/conceptual, and Playing Monster :: Seiche has only a handful of found-text pieces. The chapbook was a kind of peering into the unknown of death, seeing what those at its precipice might be able to tell us (whether on a death-bed or killed by a governmental power), while the full-length book is trying to hold multiple tethers through first-person poems regarding abuse and violence. 

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I think, like so many, I started penning some unsteady verse as an angst-ridden teenager. The page was a place to set my feelings. And poetry to me, more than other genres at that time, was a space to explore the messiest of feelings without the strictures of narrative or greater meaning beyond teenage solipsism. It also doesn’t involve the consistency of journaling, or garner the attention of a prying sibling’s eye. My siblings and I read each other’s diaries all-too-often in my house when we were growing up—we’re all experienced heart-shaped lock pickers by now. I have since deeply embraced nonfiction, particularly autotheory, too. Fiction and plays continue to elude me, but you can’t have everything.

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 first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

This largely depends on what is happening in my personal life, and the path of the work. If I am enjoying some quietude—which feels rare these days—I can indeed return to my desk daily and pen work. This can come like a torrent, if I’m lucky. More often than not those torrents come with the daily practice, reminding your mind and body that this is the time to write. Right now things feel particularly hectic, so my writing involves me scribbling on any paper I can find, throwing it in a drawer, and hoping I will be able to stitch it together later. Another manuscript-in-progress, which I’ll address farther down, has involved an incredible amount of notes and research. I have written out chronologies and family trees, filled notebooks. It’s a lot. The poems in Playing Monster :: Seiche did indeed come quickly, as they were two prongs of the same life story, and written with a spare quality that is simultaneously difficult and quick. Once you get in the rhythm of that mode, your diction becomes exacting, and it flows out. 

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

I’m always working on a manuscript from the get-go. Years ago, I tried to buck the book-length poem. It is difficult to place one or two poems in a journal when they are a small fragment of a larger picture. This used to feel more important to me than it does today. Despite my best efforts, I fell back into the long poem. I find myself in remarkably happy company of so many poets (more and more, it seems) who are writing book-length work, work where the poems are making something greater through accretion. This is not to denigrate the power or importance of poems that operate as discrete pieces, but I have found I am not often that kind of poet.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Having the ability to proclaim, This is my art, and I hope it is for you, is roughly how I feel when I read. I have done readings before a group of strangers, and it is amazing when some of those strangers have suddenly shifted out of strangers into those connected to you. I have only read from Playing Monster :: Seiche at my book launch so far, so I’m curious how it will land elsewhere. Writing can feel like a lonely life, so that public engagement is often vitally important to me. I’m also a curator of a reading series, and organizing readings is an immense joy—particularly when so many people (readers and audience members alike) respond with gratitude for the labor of assembling performers for the community. 

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Generally theories of trauma and witness circle me, and I’m trying to learn to get used to those ghosts rather than shoo them away. As far as I can tell, they will continue to define my writing—at least for the next few manuscripts on the horizon. The concern that dogs Playing Monster :: Seiche, and made me consider abandoning any attempts at publication for a while, is the idea that it is a painful story. Why publish something as difficult as the reality of profound child abuse and, later, stalking? The cycle that so many of us artists remain within seems to be that pain/trauma leads to artistic production. While I hope to quit that circuit, somehow, though the means to do so haven’t revealed themselves to me—yet. 

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be? 

Writers, no matter the form, are attempting to shine a light on what is important to them, what has inspired creative production (rage, alienation, joy, etc.). That is an incredibly urgent role, as it gives us insight into the events in people’s lives, even if only obliquely. It gives us an understanding of those different than us, those similar us. It is a means for connection, as well as a reflection of our current moment. 

One of the greatest benefits of being a poet in the United States is you have relatively free reign in your form with little impact on your income. This is largely because only a small percentage make serious money on our craft. We are also a small subculture and generally considered weird (in a good way, to me). Not being deeply entwined within the capitalist system gives us a lot of freedom—though of course financial restriction is no small constraint. But the lack of concern about not getting a big book deal or saying something that will alienate a huge fan base gives us a lot of liberty. Many of us lean into that. That said, I give deep bows to the writers who, when they are given the attention that reaches outside the literary community, use it to inform people about the issues most important to them and of which many may be ignorant. Perhaps one of the most famous is when last year Lin-Manuel Miranda (who I consider to be a writer) made a plea to Congress regarding Puerto Rico’s financial struggles. More recently I’ve seen Viet Thanh Nguyen and Robin Coste Lewis (among many others) use their fame as means to raise awareness about the danger of travel bans or nuances of brain injury.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Working with someone who is generous enough to provide me editorial notes is a joy. This is often not only faculty, but those I have the honor of calling my friends. It feels thoroughly essential most of the time. I am a flexible writer and eager to see another’s responses to my work. I’m also an editor at Noemi Press, so as a person with some practice in the editorial process and methods I find it telling that the work I need to do to finish a manuscript still eludes me. Smart, objective eyes can make a work.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

I have a phrase I return to a lot: Honor your limits. I’m not sure if it was given to me or my mind proffered it up. I think, as someone who is a serial over-worker, it is hard advice to heed. Also, in terms of creative and life work: Follow the heat. Don’t let that which feels exciting grow cold! Pursue it at breakneck speed, if you can. These can read as opposing prompts, but you can do both, I think.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to translation to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

Moving between genres is indeed one that feels uncomplicated, and my best mornings involve a little of each. I think the appeal is that, while they all seem to turn on the same curiosity within me, they do so differently. When I begin to feel sapped with my poetry, say, I can pull out pages from my critical work. It’s a means of letting my brain remain engaged without becoming exhausted. Beyond this, each provides an alternative method of grappling with the issues I want to write about—they can operate so differently, and thus provide similarly different tools to turn those concerns over and over.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

Usually my weekdays start early with some exercise and a few other things before I prepare a cup of tea and sit at my desk. Once there, I work for as many hours as I can until snacks aren’t enough to sustain me, my brain is tired, and I’m ready for a break. This usually lasts about four hours, give or take. 

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration? 

My bookshelf. I have so many new books to read, and this often helps. If those works throw me deeper into despair (which happens now and then), I return to the books that have inspired me time and again. Also discussions with those friends who are incredible writers and thinkers—often if I chat with one or two of them for an afternoon I’m all lit up again. 

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

They say your olfactory senses are the most deeply connected to memory, but this feels a little hard to pin down—usually it’s clear only when some random scent wafts my way. Pine needles in the sun certainly remind me of Arizona, as we had a pine tree in our yard. Overall, it’s probably any number of laundry detergents I have used/have been used on my clothing from childhood. 

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

My creative endeavors do certainly come from other literature, but current events and social interaction feed a lot of it, too. The other forms are valuable in ways that are perhaps less clear to me in terms of art production, but I interact with them a lot (particularly nature, music, and visual art).

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Maggie Nelson was my mentor during my MFA, which was a total gift of fate. Her patience, thoughtfulness, and overall approach to editing my work has been undeniably important. Her writing, and her ability to move between scholarship and hybrid writing is of course something so many of us aspire to emulate. Alice Notley’s work, particularly The Descent of Alette, made me completely rethink how poetry can operate on a grand scale, and it remains one of my desert island books. Gwendolyn Brooks’ writing, which only relatively recently found its way to me, has similarly given me paradigm-shifting insight into the power of form, the line, and diction. I want to avoid giving all the names of those within my expanding tribe of poet friends, so many of whom have ascended in remarkable and deserving ways. But our conversations, their work, and the work we do for each other is essential.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Complete my dissertation and my doctorate! That may feel a bit too much of a goal based in reality (and likely). Otherwise to fully learn a second language. I am (shamefully) a monoglot, with only a smattering of abilities in a couple languages to get by when I travel. 

17 - If you could 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?

Certainly a librarian or someone who does archival work—what includes books and history. Trying to preserve in order to open up access to knowledge and information. I sometimes pine for this line of work, still. 

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I began my college career as a classical violinist, only to soon suffer from severe repetitive motion injuries. I had to leave music school, and picked up random classes at the university that appealed to me for one reason or another—including an introduction to poetry class. I got the bug.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film? 

I think “great” is a hard term to wrap my head around in some ways (perhaps because it holds so many meanings). The most recent book of poetry I’ve read that floored me is CAConrad’s While Standing in Line for Death—like Conrad’s other works it is immensely exposing and miraculous and invites you to challenge yourself as a poet and art creator. I think it may be my favorite work of his, second only to Book of Frank. I wrote my responses to your questions while on a plane, so I finally had the time to sit and watch Birdman, which has been on my list a long while. I love Iñárritu’s films. They’re gorgeous and horrible—an unflinching eye on who we are when we’re alone and when we’re with others, with a flash of the phantasmagorical only once you’ve forgotten it exists in the worlds he creates.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Currently my poems are a manuscript about the Roman historical figure Agrippina the Younger. She was empress for a time, and used her son Nero as a prosthetic to allow her total control of the empire when he was later the Emperor. She did a lot of manipulating and (some argue) murdering and fucking to get herself to that position of power. While Agrippina was undoubtedly an important person in the history of Rome, there isn’t much about her life in the Ancient Roman historical documents, and often those historians were biased against her. I am trying to consider the events of her life, known and unknown, as well as my own experiences trying to research someone as elusive as herself. There is a lot of play in Agrippina’s biographical gaps, and the first-person pieces are hybrid bits about me moving around in Rome trying to locate different places and objects to see her more clearly.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Andrew Wessels

Andrew Wessels currently splits his time between Istanbul and Los Angeles. He has held fellowships from Poets & Writers and the Black Mountain Institute. Semi Circle, a chapbook of his translations of the Turkish poet Nurduran Duman, was published by Goodmorning Menagerie in 2016. His first book, published by 1913 Press, is A Turkish Dictionary.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

This is a question I’m still discovering, as the book is still in its early stages of release. My circumstances haven’t changed at all, but something emotional has. I’m both more relaxed (no longer worrying about finding the home for the first book) and more anxious (worried about whether people will read the book and find it interesting, worrying about my next projects). In the end, I’m finding myself in basically the same space: working every day, trying to write and read every day, and hoping to do something interesting in my work and my life.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I’ve never really worried too much about genre, which I think probably comes across in A Turkish Dictionary. It’s a hybrid work that utilizes aspects of poetry, history, memoir, photography, travel narratives, and other forms. I didn’t really think about writing “poems” and I didn’t really think about writing “a collection of poems.” I really just thought about writing “a book” and this is the form that happened. Right now, the publishers that are open to this kind of work tend to classify themselves as poetry presses. And, in general, the poetry publishing world is more open to this multitude than other genres. So I don’t really concern myself too much with the classification, but I feel like the book is at home in this poetry world and at 1913 Press.

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 first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I’m a slow worker. A Turkish Dictionary was crafted over about eight years of work. Four years to get to a first manuscript version, and then another four years of incremental editing and revision. Within that stretch of time, though, it’s common for the writing to come quickly. The initial version of the middle section of ATD was written in about a day and a half. That day and a half, though, came after months of reading, thinking, false starts, and abandoned attempts. And then it was followed by many more months of editing and revision. Looking back at that first full manuscript version, I think the same book is in there but it’s also changed fundamentally. Much of my work over the years has been as an editor for various literary magazines and presses, and I think I bring that approach to my writing: I create a cohesive draft and then edit it over and over and over again.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

ATD was a book-length work from my first conception and the first words I wrote. My initial idea ended up being very different than the final published version, but I had an image of a journey I wanted to take and the book was going to be the result of that journey. My two manuscripts-in-progress are similar: I have an idea that I want to investigate within a book-length space, and so I start writing in, about, and through it. I’ve written individual poems off and on, here and there, but my focus and interest has always lay in the book as a space of investigation.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I just completed a little book tour where I read in California, Chicago, and along the east coast. Before that, I’d rarely read from the book—or done many readings at all. I always was reticent to seek out readings, feeling that I should present completed and published material. When asked, I would read, but I never sought them out on my own. I can be a bit of a perfectionist and eternal tinkerer with my work, so things never seem finished until the publisher literally takes it out of my hands and prints it up. As I say that, I also know that my favorite readings are when others are sharing in-progress work (like Trace Peterson’s amazing longer poem she shared in our reading at Berl’s). So there’s a distance between what I want to experience in the audience and what I’m willing to share of myself.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I think I could describe the book as a search for a beginning, an attempt to find a concrete starting point. At times, I’ve called it the dark zero, which I think is a gravitational core of the book. In life there really are no firm beginnings, and the book reflects this. Everything is always preceded and followed, at best it’s a lineage and in reality everything is just another point on a nexus. I’m always wondering “how do I start? how do I start? where is the beginning?” and what I find through the book’s journey is that the search for a beginning is in and of itself sufficient, whether that’s the origins of language, of life, of one’s own life, of meaning, of understanding, of a culture or country. Those searches in the book take me through Istanbul’s streets, the histories of Istanbul and Turkey, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and arabesques. So it’s this ongoing question, and I think the book proposes that there isn’t an answer—and that an answer isn’t the point, anyway.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

This is a question I’m trying to figure out right now. I always considered myself an ongoing apprentice—practicing and training to become a “real” writer (whatever that means). And the book was the inflection point. When I had a book, then I’d move from writer-in-training to writer-in-the-world. So I’m seeing what that means now, and what my responsibilities are and should be. I recently wrote an article for Lit Hub, my first non-fiction essay that wasn’t a book review,about the current political situations in Istanbul and the United States, how they’ve affected my ability to live and find a home, and how to navigate all of that with the book coming out. So I do think that a writer should be involved in the larger culture in some way, and I do feel compelled to do something that expands my literary voice and helps bring that literary work into a wider space, and vice versa to bring that wider space into my literary world.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I’ve been lucky to find a number of mentors, friends, and confidants who have been essential in helping me see my work. And as an editor myself, I know the value that an additional set of eyes can be on a manuscript. It’s going to be an inherently difficult process, as these are works of deep and intense love. But I do also think it’s an essential and positive process, as painful as it can be in the moment.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

“Just hold on.” The expanses of time between beginning a writing project, finishing it, finding a publisher, and getting the printed book in hand are incredibly long and filled with rejection and failure. Early on my path, I was told by a mentor that success oftentimes just comes from hanging on long enough for the success to arrive. I’m not sure if one book is success, but it is at least a success. Reminding myself of that advice through the ups and downs of these years has helped me remain both persistent and patient, and along the way I’ve learned to trust myself, at least a little bit.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (your own poetry to collaboration to translation)? What do you see as the appeal?

I see my poetry, collaboration, and translation as all part of the same whole, with one slight difference. When I’m writing my own work, it requires a total expenditure of all my time, focus, and energy. It’s all-consuming, which means that I also need to be in a specific space both physically and mentally to work through it. Collaboration and translation are creative works that I can perform in different mental spaces. When I collaborate (with Kelli Anne Noftle, as the author Steph Wall) I can write with a sense of play. Translation is a little bit different—it’s a combination of both creativity and labor. I can always sit down, even if I’m not able to create on my own, and do the “work” of translating and thinking about how to move a poem from one language to another. These activities keep my literary brain working, even when my own writing is stalled.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I’m trying to figure this out right now. A few months ago, I moved back to the US from Istanbul. I had a routine set up there, but my work situation was different. As I set up my life again here in the States, I’m trying to figure out the best ways to carve out time to dedicate to writing and reading. The one constant is that I try to read something every day, and I try to write every day even if it’s just my 5-10 minute journaling session in the morning. I’ve found over the years that the more that I read, the more that I write. So if I can keep myself reading, I trust that the writing will find a way.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I read and I walk and I travel. Those three things seem to feed my ability to produce writing. One of the bellwethers telling me I’m about to write is that I’ll start reading voraciously for a week or two. When I get into that headspace where I’m reading a few books a week and pulling books from my shelf with abandon, I know that my own writing is on its way.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

As I mentioned, in January my partner and I moved back to Los Angeles from Istanbul. The move has been a challenging one, as we were happy in Istanbul and building a home together there. It was a decision we felt forced to make; not one that we wanted to make. I’ve dreamed of the city and our home, which had a balcony overlooking the Bosporus, every night since we’ve moved back. While I didn’t grow up in Istanbul, this is the home that I’m thinking about most now, and missing the most. Just in front of our balcony was a fig tree that stretched up to our third-floor apartment. Our two summers and falls, I loved sitting on the balcony through the weeks and months and watching the fruits bud, grow, ripen, and finally be devoured by the birds. When I smell fig or a dark saltiness that reminds me of the Bosporus, I’m transported back.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

The first art form that I practiced was the piano, so musicality has always been important to me. But the form that I seek out the most now is visual art, though as a viewer more than a practicer. In particular, I love art that defies my ability to render it into language—paintings that force me to just stand, stare, and experience. Artworks that I don’t even want or care to explain, that make me feel like I just want to be totally enveloped by them.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I’m going to list 10 writers, somewhat off the top of my head, that have been important to me both as a reader and a writer, both over a long span of time and more recently: W.G. Sebald, Ece Ayhan, Susan Howe, Bilge Karasu, Jena Osman, Nazim Hikmet, Rosmarie Waldrop, Solmaz Sharif, Juan Goytisolo, and Craig Santos Perez.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

As a writer, my primary goal right now is to complete and publish collections of translations of Nurduran Duman. As a person, one thing my partner and I have talked about a lot is spending a long stretch of time together in Spain and learning Spanish cooking.

17 - If you could 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?

The natural or easy answer is to say that I’d be an editor, because it’s something I’m already doing. But to think beyond books and literature entirely—I’m really not sure. A lot of my work as a writer involves historical research, and I find myself constantly doing this kind of research even when I’m watching a movie. I always want to know the historical context that something exists within. So I’ll say I’d be a historian.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

As that last answer probably implies, I can’t think of doing much of anything else. The act of writing is a way of moving toward understanding. I often have difficulties verbalizing my exact thoughts and feelings. A spoken sentence seems to demand a more linear, conclusive statement than I can usually create about something. The written word, and more than that the open field of the blank page, allows for a complex and interconnected space where meanings can by multiplied.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I recently finished a pair of translations of Turkish novels—Hasan Ali Toptas’s Reckless and Yusuf Atilgan’s Motherland Hotel—that were both beautiful and devastating. I’m never as good at picking movies, but a few weeks ago I watched Werner Herzog’s Into the Inferno, which was a strange but striking approach to volcanoes both scientifically and anthropologically, and the film made me return to his Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I’m enamored of that movie, if only because of a brief line of narration a few minutes into the film that Herzog gives as the crew approaches the cave for the first time: “From the first day of its discovery, the importance of the cave was immediately recognized, and access was shut off categorically.” I can’t get over that idea that the cave is so important that everyone must be prevented from ever seeing it.

20 - What are you currently working on?

Right now, I’m primarily focused on translating Nurduran’s poems. She has a series called Neynur, which is a complex and challenging response to Rumi’s “Song of the Flute.” For English-language readers, I think it’s going to be a great opportunity to re-discover the depths and complexities of Rumi’s work that are often lost in many current translations. I’m also working with Nurduran on a separate collection of her poems in English.

I have two manuscripts of my own I’m working on as well, though they’ve been mainly put on hold during my move and while A Turkish Dictionary is being released. One is a writing-through of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and the other is a book-length work thinking about philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and the self. I’m planning to return to both of these over the summer to see what they can become.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;