Articles

We all have that friend. The one who tells wild stories beginning on a farm in Iowa and ending inside of the penthouse suite at The Bellagio. Those stories that shock, that titillate, that excite us, and for a reason we cannot fathom, those from which we take a great deal of pleasure. Jean Lorrain’s 1897 French novel Monsieur de Bougrelon—recently translated into English in 2016 by Eva Richter—is the story of that friend, though perhaps a darker and more perverse version of him.

I kept returning to my meditations on poison, turning them like compost, adding another here and there, adding new bits to the mix. Over time, the meditations grew more personal and more contemporary, gaining new and different resonances.

I heard a writer say she periodically forced herself to write about what she was avoiding writing about. Then, I wrote a poem about being a bikini contestant at age 16.

I confess: I’m a sucker for those “Ten Incredible Facts About A Thing” articles ubiquitous in the online world. I’m especially susceptible to articles full of fascinating facts about the body, largely because they always fail at fully describing how fascinatingly strange our own bodies—and the lives we live in them—can be.

In “The Box,” I wanted to explore different approaches to adulthood in that strange period post-college, and how a relationship formed in one stage of your life can adapt (or not) to another. Of course, Lori and Nita have other problems, but that was where the story began.

For me, the hard work of poetry—the medium that never lets me get away with anything false or facile—is the slow way I do come to know my own mind and the way I am, at least for a while, transfigured in my own shimmerings.

I once heard Michael Cunningham say that fear is the biggest hindrance to writing well. He said that the best writers are those who aren’t afraid to write poorly. They do not worry about how their work will be received or whether and where they will publish it. They write because the act of writing is fun. This is a great reminder when motivation starts to wane. Sure, writing is hard work but it’s also about invention and play. The very act is its own reward.

I once heard Michael Cunningham say that fear is the biggest hindrance to writing well. He said that the best writers are those who aren’t afraid to write poorly. They do not worry about how their work will be received or whether and where they will publish it. They write because the act of writing is fun. This is a great reminder when motivation starts to wane. Sure, writing is hard work but it’s also about invention and play. The very act is its own reward.

Our decision to share stories and the way we tell them is a political one…Few native-born Americans can understand the emotional upheaval of leaving your home country and becoming a citizen of another, whatever the reasons.

One thing that keeps me writing is having a network of poets to share work and ideas with. “Self-Portrait” came about from reading Maya’s work and responding to some of her images and ideas through my own lens. Her poetry is, generally speaking, more personal than mine, and I admire it for that, and with this poem I let her striking honesty guide me into a more personal territory of my own.