Volume XLV
“I would recommend that someone who wants to get published read as many issues of an many journals as possible & submit, submit, submit their work. I set a goal of submitting my poetry to one hundred journals every year, breaking it down into sending out so many every month & every week to keep on track.”
“I would recommend that someone who wants to get published read as many issues of an many journals as possible & submit, submit, submit their work. I set a goal of submitting my poetry to one hundred journals every year, breaking it down into sending out so many every month & every week to keep on track.”
Read More“My advice for young writers and I guess young people, in general, would be to persist. I just left a job that made me unhappy and moved across the country to pursue this writing thing—again. I think it’s okay to fail, and it’s also okay to pursue what will make you happy.”
Read More“They’re memoir, but they’re subject driven, and the whole thing is just that when I start these books, I’m as ignorant as most of the audience, or maybe a lot of them more knowledgeable than I am. But the whole thing is a journey into a subject and the transformation that takes place is the knowledge that’s acquired as you go, and all literature is based on transformation.”
Read More“In this collection I wanted to accept that those things just are and that those things do not have to define me and that those things, while unfortunate, helped me become who I am today. And that's why this concept of “accepting things you cannot change” it so important. It gives you peace at night, it gives you grace, and most importantly the will to move forward.”
Read More“The earliest influences on me were probably in many ways the strongest for a long time. There was a brief period as when I was an undergraduate when I thought that James Dickey’s way of writing poems was the only way that was worthwhile. And he was very kind about that and tried to explain to me that I probably had my own voice somewhere, and that I ought to be bearing down on finding it.”
Read More“I’m drawn to forms, constraints, patterning, and rules—including the secret, strange rules I make up, like a pattern of assonance nobody may see but me. I love the way these constraints elicit the most unexpected language and content.”
Read More“We [science fiction writers] are the court jesters of literature. We can say very truthful, very scathing commentaries on our society and no one really takes us seriously.”
Read More“The way I am finding balance is by accepting that I am not able to write as much as I would like to at the moment, and forgiving myself for that. I have to remind myself that being a poet is a permanent part of who I am, not a membership that will disappear if I don’t meet some imaginary quota of poems per month.”
Read More“The images I most associate with my uncle are, of course, his tattoos, so I used them as a jumping off point to begin writing about his life, his illness, and his death.”
Read More“Writing ‘Limbo’ required copious amounts of research and numerous drafts. Early drafts were written in third-person narration until I realized that only through first-person would the story convey the urgency and intimacy this confessional narrative deserved.”
Read More“[W]hen it comes to writing, I think amusing yourself is incredibly important. I'm very much for self-indulgence. Often when you do the thing that you really want to do the most, it’s the thing that you think no one will like, right? Because it's so weird that only you like it. But in my experience, that will often have the most reach and touch the most people.”
Read More“When I am a guest author at colleges, most of the students I meet with are Latinx and often represent the first generation in their families to go to college. I often say to them that our stories are important. I then ask them: What would happen if we did not write our stories? And they always get it right: If we don’t write our stories, someone else will, and they will get them wrong.”
Read More“For me, form matters a lot and the value of "how to say" is not less than "what to say." We Iranians share an expression saying "fit a sea in a cup" and to me, writing short poems corresponds to this expression.”
Read More“These are certain people even from early childhood who clearly, or murkily—eventually somehow expressed to you they had vision fairly independent of others. Often they have all the thoughts and fine-tune of the artist or the writer, but not the inclination, or time. You became sure of their imaginative and understanding powers; your awareness grew over time. It was even in their gaze.”
Read More“Keep, keep, keep editing and toying with your work, knowing you are comfortable and believe in what’s on the page. You’re not a poet because it pays six figures starting out—you’re a poet because you feel like you need to be.”
Read More"The book tries to understand revolution, but what drives the novel is a filtering of revolutionary actions through the context of myth and the role played by storytelling in the creation of those myths. I became fascinated by the myriad depictions of Villa in the historical record, how he was and remains a remarkably contested figure, and how the outlines of that figure have been determined by stories that seem to channel the desires of a culture and a society through a singular man. Pancho Villa is a mythic character, and I try in the book to convey the manner by which that boy became that myth. "
Read More“While much of my work has a serious tone, I employ humor in my daily life as a way to cope with many things, including stress and illness. If you cannot laugh about your situation, even in some small way, then things are very dark indeed.”
Read More"Poetry has the ability to enact the change that politics promise, sometimes even more powerfully because it disrupts your biases, charges up your emotions, and integrates into the chemistry of your thoughts."
Read More" I cannot always tell which lines are mine in the poems that appear in our books (after some time has passed). I think this shows we have built a collective voice that is different than either one of ours separately."
Read More"The content dictates the form; I do not have a preference. I am simply providing it with the best container; both are mutually mysterious and satisfying."
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