Contributor Spotlight: Sarah Koenig

Sarah Koenig’s hybrid works, “Georgetown,” “Flicker,” and “The Resident Ghosts” are part of Issue 79 of Bellingham Review. Subscribe or purchase a single issue through our Submittable page here. 

What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?

I went through a period of writing prose poems, and these prose poems came out of that. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the feeling of being haunted by something.

Tell us about your writing life.

I’ve been writing more seriously for almost seven years, and starting down that path felt like an event. My daughter was two at the time, and becoming a parent felt like it had reorganized every cell in my body. Rediscovering writing was part of getting back to feeling fully human. That I could give myself permission to devote time to something fully impractical and imaginative was a big revelation.

What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)? 

This question is hard to answer – too many books! So I’ll go with my recent favorites. For poetry, it’s “Receipt” by Carl Adamshick. Also Chen Chen’s poetry collection “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities” – it’s clever and vulnerable and surprising.

I also really enjoyed re-reading Rilke’s “Duino Elegies” translated by Gary Miranda. I don’t agree with all that Rilke says, but he attempts to get at what it means to be human, and on a lot of levels he succeeds. It’s comforting, in many ways.

I also absolutely loved reading “My Struggle, Book 2” by Karl Ove Knausgaard – with his books you basically live his life, moment by moment. Also, “Emma” by Jane Austen (how does she know the people I know?). And “The Idiot” by Elif Batuman.

What project(s) are you working on now, or next?

I recently finished assembling a chapbook titled “Light Years” and am sending it out. The title seems fitting to me now because that’s about how long it took me to put it together.

Since getting back to writing, I’ve been writing poems about the pandemic and working out my more difficult emotions that way. Writing continues to be one of the most healing activities I have at my disposal right now.

I’ve also picked up a project I was working on in the fall, writing based on music. I encourage anyone having one of those stuck-in-quarantine afternoons to listen to Miles Davis’ 1959 album “Kind of Blue.” It’s like opening a window.

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