A Virtual Interview with Emily Hockaday

Background

January 19, 2023 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bookwoman-presents-naming-the-ghost-an-evening-of-poetry-tickets-483999233737

Please join BookWoman for a “conversation in poetry” celebrating the publication of Emily Hockaday’s inaugural poetry collection, Naming the Ghost (Cornerstone Press, 2022). Reading with Emily will be Matthew Zapruder and Diana Marie Delgado.

Emily Hockaday is the author of five chapbooks and another full-length forthcoming in 2023. Her work has also been featured in NPR’s RadioLab. In NAMING THE GHOST, a woman who loses her father and becomes a new mother now has to deal with a ghost that haunts her home. As the speaker learns more about the ghost, she realizes that it is something more—it is her grief and chronic illness manifested in another form. Heartfelt and forthright, this collection navigates important questions of health, life, and new parenthood, giving way to “otherworldly, yet grounded” (Jared Harél) poems.

The Interview

CH: What is your first memory of poetry? What drew you to it as a means of expression?

EH: My first memory of writing poetry is a book of poems I created on stapled-together stationery in the second grade. I inflicted these upon my family and a good friend who contributed a poem herself.

Unfortunately I can’t pinpoint my first memory of hearing poetry, but now that I have a kid I recognize that much of the children’s book genre is poetry. Goodnight Moon and A Child’s Good Night Book, both by Margaret Wise Brown, were books that have stuck with me and many others too I’m sure.

I think what drew me to poetry is that it is a deceptively small form while containing huge drama. I’ve always been attracted to the dramatic! The potential for quick catharsis of angst is very compelling.

CH: I understand you earned an MFA from New York University. How did that experience help shape you as a writer?

EH: Getting my MFA helped me take my writing seriously. I realized that while I wouldn’t get rich writing poetry, I could still consider it a career or vocation. It was incredible to be among other writers who were prioritizing and committing to their craft.

I also had the fortune to learn from wonderful teachers—Sharon Olds, Kimiko Hahn, Matthew Rohrer, Phillis Levin, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Matthew Zapruder (who will be reading with me). Studying with them was such a privilege.

CH: Congratulations on the publication of your debut full-length collection, Naming the Ghost. Please tell us a little about how the book came about.

EH: Thank you! This book is very close to me, because it chronicles a really wild time in my life. About a year after my father died of ALS, I started experiencing unsettling symptoms—which would later be diagnosed as fibromyalgia. It was extremely hard to get this diagnosis. I saw specialists who did nerve tests, blood tests, exams, etc, and kept hearing that I was healthy. At this time I was also caring for my toddler. I became obsessed with the symptoms that were plaguing me, and this turned into acute, clinical anxiety. I was basically running on adrenaline 24/7. It really felt like I was haunted! At this time, I was committed to a poem-a-day practice, and at some point the poems became lyrical diaries with this ghost!

CH: The speaker of Naming the Ghost inhabits a complicated landscape of life: new parenthood suffused with the grief of a parent’s death. How was it to work with this material in the context of our culture’s tendency to minimize or dismiss grief?

EH: I think a big part of Naming the Ghost is this fight for speaking about what is taboo. There is the taboo aspect of grief—the feeling that after a point it should be over, or at least should no longer be talked about—and then the taboo aspect of mental health. I was essentially having a nervous breakdown while I wrote these poems, but I felt I had to hide it. Go to work as normal, socialize as normal, except at those times when the fatigue, pain, and anxiety literally took me down.

CH: There’s a pivotal moment late in the collection when the speaker is at last able to name the ghost. Tell us about that place from your standpoint as a writer.

EH: Because Naming the Ghost is a narrative, I wanted it to have resolution. Not as neat a resolution as we might like, but I did want the story of the poems to have a beginning, middle, and end. It was important to me that the poems not only showcase the illness and grief in the speaker’s life, but also the healing. That’s what this moment is for me: the speaker sees the ghost and really recognizes it, sees what its purpose has been, and this kind of allows her to get better.

CH: Over the last decade you’ve had a rich publishing life, with the publication of your five chapbooks Starting a Life (Finishing Line Press, 2012), What We Love and Will Not Give Up (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), Ophelia: A Botanist’s Guide (Zoo Cake Press, 2015), Space on Earth (Grey Book Press, 2019), and Beach Vocabulary (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2020). Looking back over the last decade, how would you say your writing has evolved? What’s remained consistent?

EH: One thing that I can see having remained consistent (except for Ophelia, which is an outlier) is that most of my poems are inspired by my own life. They are fictionalized and sensationalized for the sake of drama (of course!), but most, at their core, are my own experiences and musings. Even the surreal or fantastical poems.

I’d like to imagine that my writing has evolved for the better—the craft stronger and the voice wiser—but I can’t honestly say that. The voice has gotten … more experienced, but there are poems in What We Love and Space on Earth that are very angsty and youthful that I still love. I’m not that speaker anymore, but I have tenderness for her, and I think her voice can still speak to readers.

As the years progress, I’ve turned more and more to ecopoetry. When I started out, I wrestled with internalized misogyny keeping me from writing poems about nature. Even though I loved Mary Oliver and other poets who wrote nature, I felt that if I myself wrote poems about the natural world I’d be pigeonholed or sidelined as so many women have been. My next book (In a Body, Small Harbor Publishing 2023) is ecopoetry, and the two manuscripts I’m working on assembling now have strong themes of nature and ecology as well.

CH: I understand you work for Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and Asimov’s Science Fiction, and co-edited the horror anthology Terror at the Crossroads with Jackie Sherbow. Do you see an influence of these experiences on your own writing?

EH: Yes, I’m senior managing editor for the two science fiction magazines, and Jackie and I coedited Terror at the Crossroads, which pulls horror stories from the two SF magazines I work for and the two mystery/crime magazines they work for (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine). It was really fun working on that collection with them. I don’t write horror usually, but I love horror fiction—as does Jackie—so that project was a labor of love for both of us.

Even though I work in science fiction and am a huge SF fan, I still typically write mundane poetry (to the extant that any poetry can be considered mundane). I have done a little speculative writing, though, which is probably influenced by the magazines. I consider Naming the Ghost speculative in its own way. Even though the ghost is a metaphor, it’s also there—and doing some serious haunting!

CH: I understand you have a second full-length collection forthcoming from Small Harbor Publishing in 2023. Please tell us a little about it.

EH: In a Body is in some ways a thematic companion to Naming the Ghost, in that it still deals with chronic illness, parenting, and grief. But in subject and style it is completely different. In a Body tackles these themes with an ecological bent. The book looks to plant, animal, fungal, and geological bodies—and how they fit into the Earth’s ecosystems—as a way of understanding the human body both as its own little ecosystem and as a part of nature. There is a sense of acceptance of the chronic illness in this collection. And each poem is basically standalone—there’s no obvious narrative like in Naming the Ghost.

CH: What words of advice or encouragement would you share with a writer who’s starting out?

EH: The best advice I can give is to find a community! Without my writing group and workshop (who both meet over Zoom these days), I would be lost. It is invaluable to have folks to hold you accountable, support your writing, and offer honest feedback. I’m also part of a peer circle where we share goals and support. It’s easy to see yourself as one person writing into the void—but that is not the case. People are out there doing the same grind, and having peers to cheer you on is so helpful.

CH: What do you read for pleasure?

EH: I mostly read fiction and poetry for pleasure. I’d love to read more nonfiction, though! Some books that I read this year that I loved are Night Bitch by Rachel Yoder, The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, the third Finder book (all three are great) by Suzanne Palmer, Banana by Paul Hlava, The Girls in Queens by Christine Kandic Torres, Life on Mars by Tracy K Smith (I was late to this one!) & Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse. I also gleefully keep up with the Gamache series by Louise Penny and the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. As I have a five-year-old, I also have a pretty constant stream of kiddo chapter books that we read together. (If you’re looking for middle grade, the Haunted Library series is tops. Also Megabat!)

A Virtual Interview with Susan Niz

Background

Susan Niz will be the featured reader Thursday, July 11, 2019 from 7:15 – 9:00 p.m. at BookWoman (5501 N. Lamar #A-105, Austin, TX),

Susan Niz’s first poetry chapbook is Beyond this Amniotic Dream (Beard Poetry, Minneapolis, 2016). She has a second chapbook, Left-Handed Like a Lightning Whelk, forthcoming with Finishing Line Press (November 2019). Her short work has appeared in Wanderlust Journal, The Write Launch, Chaleur Magazine, Typishly, Tipton Poetry Journal, Carnival Literary Magazine, Crack the Spine, Blue Bonnet Review, Two Words For, Belleville Park Pages, Ginosko, Cezanne’s Carrot, Flashquake, Opium Magazine, and Summerset Review. She has been featured in live poetry shows in Minneapolis. Susan writes across genres. Her novel Kara, Lost (North Star Press, 2011) was a finalist for a Midwest Book Award (MIPA) for Literary Fiction. She has a Master’s Degree in Education, raises kids, has been a grassroots community organizer, and conserves Monarchs. She recently relocated from Minnesota (having survived the Polar Vortex last winter) to the Austin area where she will delve into new creative and literary projects and enjoy the sun and warmth.

The Interview

CH: What first interested you in writing? What is your first memory of writing?

SN: In second grade, I got very excited to write a story about a girl who took a car trip with her family.  I loved the way ideas became words that tumbled sloppily across the line, down the page, that a story could go somewhere, that it could be read and re-read aloud. I had a teacher who gave us these spiral notebooks with blue covers. Writing time was a special event and that white space between lines became a place of focus where I could put some of myself, which was better than keeping the pain of my isolated home life inside. Later, when I was thirteen, I had another spiral notebook with a blue cover. It became a secret place to feed lines of hot ink in unraveling scrolls of angst and wonder and loneliness. I called it poetry. I had a lot of questions! I then copied some of my angst in Sharpie inside the entire back of a denim jacket (along with song lyrics from The Cure). This writing thing was mine. It was uncontrolled, it was limitless, and the page always listened. I was hooked on this outlet.

 

CH: When did you begin to think of yourself as a writer? As a poet?

SN: I studied writing and poetry in college as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. I was able to take classes from some outstanding writers, but I wasn’t ready for the work of revision and I wasn’t yet able to access my voice because I carried a lot of shame from a very turbulent teenage experience. I gravitated to language study, learned Spanish, and became a teacher. I even abandoned journaling and part of me was missing. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I finally found the focus to undertake a big project: a semi-autobiographical novel about a sixteen-year-old runaway. I dove into this in a time that I was waiting for a family and worked on it for several years, finally publishing it after my first daughter was born. I also wrote short fiction and published a few pieces. I published one poem that was written based on an image from a dream that I had. About a year later, the journal asked to reprint my poem in an anthology and I got motivated to try more poetry. It felt mysterious to me and for a while I thought my poems had to be conceived in my dreams! Eventually, I gained more of a flow to writing effective poems. I really developed my poetic voice through a series held in Minneapolis called the New Shit Show. I read at the open mic several times, was asked to feature, then submitted my first chapbook, Beyond This Amniotic Dream, to Beard Poetry. My first chapbook is about the two events of my father dying and my second daughter being born, which happened two weeks apart. I experienced delayed grief in order to be a present mother, and writing the poems finally processed the loss.

CH: I know that you write fiction as well as poetry. How would you describe yourself as a writer? Do you have a primary identity as a writer?

SN: I like to write across genres. In addition to poetry, I write short nonfiction essays, which are autobiographical. I wrote a second novel that did not get published because the revisions required would have taken too much time from my second and final baby. One thing that works with poetry for me is that it can be written in bits and pieces, unlike fiction which for me requires long stretches of focus. I think a big thing that defines me as a writer is that my writing is largely autobiographical. Even the idea of a persona poem is something I have not yet tackled. I plan to continue to keep writing across genres.

CH: How has your life as a community organizer and parent shaped your writing?

SN: As a parent, I learned to write sleep-deprived and all hours of the day, which made me a more adaptable writer. It made my writing time much less frequent when my kids were little, but luckily I stuck with it slow and steady and was able to create work and publish occasionally which added up over time. As a community organizer, for a long time I struggled with the idea of writing creatively about Resisting, instead of only more personal topics. I felt that as a white, straight, cis-gendered ally, I had to consider perspective carefully and not try to write a story/poem that wasn’t mine to tell.  I think I finally bridged this when I wrote poems about school shootings, a topic that touches me personally because I am a parent. I also use nature imagery to bridge topics. For example, a poem about stitching the wound of a snowy owl (What passes through flesh/ Is forever) is about sexual abuse. Having found a way to enter writing of Resistance, I feel more freed to continue to write about topics such as immigration issues, as my husband is from Guatemala. Writing poetry also made my campaign and advocacy writing more effective and emotionally connected.

CH: What is your writing life like?

SN: Usually slow and steady, but I feel like my move to Texas has helped it pick up momentum. I carve out bits of time to jot notes or record poem ideas using voice to text if I’m running around, then write them out late at night. When I can keep an observant view of the world around me, I get more ideas for poems. When I can read more and hear other poets read live, I write more poems. When I have time and want to produce more, I read a favorite book of poetry and engage in a read-write-read-write cycle, drawing inspiration from the poems. I’ll generally write new poems for a few months, then revise, then submit, and repeat.

CH: What inspired the title of your forthcoming chapbook, Left-Handed Like a Lightning Whelk? How did you arrive at this sequence of poems?  

SN: The title speaks to the potential absurdity of the connections I attempt to make with nature. I went to Mustang Island last year with my family. A naturalist had set up a tent and table to show beach-goers some of the sea creatures. I get extremely excited about this stuff. The moments of learning the names of animals, of witnessing them in the wild, are thrilling to me and make me feel very alive. I just moved to Texas from Minnesota, and I’ve raised Monarchs the last several years and I miss them a lot, but I’m planting milkweed and hope to see them in September. The winters there were very hard for me, and warmth and wildlife and time outdoors means I am not in hibernation, which became increasingly brutal to endure. An earlier draft of this chapbook was called “Measure My Wingspan in Words,” which is a line from a poem that is in the book. Maybe that title worked would have worked as well. I write poems about motherhood, which I think sounds saccharine, but I write about the harsh and dark corners of motherhood after a difficult childhood, and with nature often as a refuge and a vehicle for emotions and metaphor.

CH: By the end of this year, you will have published two poetry chapbooks since your novel, Kara, Lost, came out. What are you working on now? Where would you like to be five years from now?

SN: I have been writing a few poems and also short non-fiction pieces. Maybe next I would like to publish a full-length book of poetry or of the essays. Maybe I feel like I can be a little more patient about that now. I’m also working on planning for a poetry workshop that I’ll be leading at several local libraries this year called “You are a poet.” It’s for beginners and all levels. I want to feel prepared with a whole bunch of writing exercises that I probably won’t have time to squeeze in. If I do it well, the participants will do a lot of writing and I’ll do not too much talking. (Please like “Susan Niz Writer” on Facebook to find out where to join a workshop.) In five years, I hope to feel part of the poetry community in Austin. My writing goals have shifted from lofty aspirations to more finding what is fulfilling, challenging, rewarding—without boundaries. I will regather my strength to use my writing abilities to continue to Resist. I think we each need to focus on developing whatever our individual superpower for protest may be—whether it’s organizing, speaking, writing, leveraging and sacrificing privilege, gathering resources—and hone that power, or we’ll get tired of screaming.

CH: What do you do to nurture yourself as a writer?

SN: Making time to go be a part of live poetry is so important. Nature experiences are a given in my life, but following them up with writing is necessary. Establishing boundaries with my kids for them to be more independent and allow me time to read, write, get out. That is the hardest, but easier with time. I think, too, setting goals and having some ambition and also self-love and patience when it comes to setbacks. I’m looking on the bright side of life in between writing poems. Poetry writing can be emotionally painful, but finding joy and ease in other areas of life is important for self-renewal.

CH: What poetry do you find yourself turning to for inspiration? Who are some of your favorite writers?

SN: Jim Moore, Larry Levis, Adrienne Moore, Louise Erdrich, Laura Kasischke, ee cummings, Ocean Vuong, Federico García Lorca, W.H. Auden, Danez Smith, Kendrick Lamar

CH: What is the most recent book of poetry you’ve read?

SN: Blue Horses by Mary Oliver, Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith, and also Poetry Will Save Your Life: A Memoir, Jill Bialosky

Cindy, thank you for this opportunity to reflect!

CH: You are more than welcome.

 

 

A Virtual Interview with Jonathan Moody

Background

Jonathan Moody will be the featured reader Thursday, July 13, 2017 from 7:15 – 9:00 p.m. at BookWoman (5501 N. Lamar #A-105, Austin, TX),

Jonathan Moody holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh.  He’s also a Cave Canem graduate fellow whose poetry has appeared in various publications such as African American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Borderlands, Boston Review, The Common, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, and Harvard Review Online.  Moody is the author of The Doomy Poems (Six Gallery Press, 2012).  Olympic Butter Gold, his second collection, won the 2014 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize.  He lives in Fresno, Texas, with his wife and son and teaches English at Pearland High School.

The Interview

CH: What first interested you in writing? What is your first memory of writing?

JM: What interested me in writing was my mother’s advice. When I was a sophomore in
college, I suffered from bouts of insomnia. My mother felt that I had too many
thoughts racing through my head, which was accurate. She encouraged me to buy a
composition book & empty my thoughts onto the page. I didn’t set out to write poems;
it just happened organically. Writing became just as addictive as playing
PlayStation. So, it didn’t alleviate my sleeping difficulty. In fact, I slept less
after the writing bug latched onto my skin.

As far as my first memory of writing is concerned, I believe it was back when I was
in the 7th or 8th grade. I wrote a short story by hand about a work of art that got
stolen from the Smithsonian. The day after the story was due my English teacher gave
me high praise after the class returned from lunch.

CH: When did you begin to think of yourself as a writer? As a poet?

JM: My realization that I became a poet had nothing to do with getting published or
receiving acceptance letters from MFA programs. I started becoming a poet the day I
started obsessing over word choice, metaphors, & line breaks.

CH: What motivated you to get your MFA? How did you decide on the University of Pittsburgh?

JM: What motivated me to get my MFA was that I needed to carve out a huge chunk of
time that would enable me to hone my craft.

And the reason why I applied to the University of Pittsburgh was because I’d become
fans of the faculty: specifically Lynn Emanuel and Toi Derricotte. Pitt was also
where Terrance Hayes received his MFA. When I was an undergraduate at Xavier
University of Louisiana, I enrolled in Terrance’s Intro to Poetry course. During
that semester, I went from having a C- at mid-term to having an A+ for the final
grade. Terrance was my only connection with Pitt, and I felt confident that he would
write me a strong letter of recommendation.

CH: How did the MFA program change your approach to writing? What was its biggest gift? Its biggest drawback?

JM: The Pitt MFA Poetry program didn’t change my approach to writing; it’s biggest
gift was the time it afforded me to read, read, read and write. It’s biggest setback
was its inability to procure a third poetry professor. We had a great rotating group
of visiting poets such as Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith (who’s now the U.S. Poet
Laureate), & Tomaz Salamun (R.I.P.), but Pitt didn’t land a third poetry professor
until after I graduated.

CH: When did you decide to become involved in Cave Canem? How has your experience as a Cave Canem fellow influenced your work?

JM: I applied to Cave Canem while I was at Pitt. My experience at Cave Canem taught
me to be more ruthless when it came to my revisions and to be unapologetic when it
came to my insistence on embracing blackness in my poems.

CH: Tell us a little about your first full-length collection, The Doomy Poems. What was your process in putting the manuscript together? How did you find a publisher?

JM: The Doomy Poems explores the lives of three individuals through the use of
persona poems that are structured as revisionist narratives in which the two main
personas share alternative views on the same event/moment that they’ve experienced.

My writing process for the manuscript changed my whole approach to writing. Before
The Doomy Poems, I never started out a poem with the title in mind first. I’d save
the title for the last item. My usual method involves receiving a trippy image or a
series of lines that are so salient that I have to write them down immediately or
the spark is gone.

With my first book, I was always imagining Doomy and Irina, his love interest,
hanging out. These scenarios or rendezvous would play out in my head. I’m one of
those poets who spends as much time tinkering with titles as I do tinkering with
tension.

Creating such a basic title like “Doomy Pontificates…” was so liberating because I
could channel the bulk of my energy into writing solid poems.

CH: Your old school hip-hop inspired collection Olympic Butter Gold is a terrific read—I love its many voices, its sampling. What inspired this project? Over what period of time were these poems written?

JM: Chuck D inspired me to write Olympic Butter Gold when he made a controversial
comment in his seminal essay “Open Letter on Media, Messages & Pimps” in which he
claims that the United States wouldn’t win a medal in a Hip-Hop or Rap Olympics.

I actually came up with the concept for Olympic Butter Gold in 2011: one year before
I wrote The Doomy Poems. However, I abandoned OBG because I grew too frustrated at
my initial poems which were lousy.

In 2013, the impeding birth of my son as well as the deaths of unarmed black men
such as Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant drove me to figure out which
perspective/angle I wanted to take. Once I figured out my angle, my manuscript had
shape which was sorely lacking back in 2011.

CH: How has your work as a high school teacher influenced your writing?

JM: Within the past two years, teaching high school has influenced how often I write.
In the 2015-16 and the 2016-2017 school term, I didn’t write poems until summertime
arrived. I’m not sure if that will happen again for this school term. A few weeks
ago I wrote seven new poems: two of which have already been accepted for publication
in the Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review. I hope I can continue writing quality poems
throughout the year!

CH: What poetry do you find yourself turning to for inspiration? Who are some of your favorite writers?

JM: I often turn to Langston Hughes, Bob Kaufman, Larry Levis, Lucille Clifton, Jane
Kenyon, & Garcia Lorca for inspiration. Other writers who inspire me are Patricia
Engel, Junot Diaz, Ta-nehisi Coates, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, & Haruki Murakami.

CH: What is the most recent book of poetry you’ve read?

JM: The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa