Why This Poem Matters: Listen to Tresha Faye Haefner discuss Rita Mookerjee's poem, "The Silor Moon Transformation Sequence." Hear her explain why it matters to her personally, and what it teaches her about the craft of writing poems. 

Inspiration, mental health struggles and what to make with a giant bag of tapioca starch, this conversation has it all. Rita tells me about her new book, False Offering, and a bit about her upcoming book, Banana Heart. She discusses the way her partner, Dorothy K. Chan helped her get back into writing poetry after taking a haitus and how important it is for her to see people with her background represented in the art. False Offering navigates much of what it means to be the daughter of Indian immigrants growing up in Pennsylvania, exploring a hunger for culture, and interogating religion. We also discuss the possibilities of finding and creating beauty and strangeness in poetry. As Rita says, poets can write about their trauma if they want to, but they don’t owe it to anyone if they don’t want to write about it. While she is interested in “burning it all down” she is also interested in growing something new with her writing. We also had a lot to say to one another about how to find that newness through food. So, poets and epicureans both should have a lot of fun listening to this interview and trying out some of the writing practices and recipes Rita recommends here.

“If we can’t face it, we can’t change it.” In our interview, Sarah Browning discusses her latest book, Killing Summer (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). It tackles subjects such as racism and gun violence, but also memories of being a nerdy girl in high school and the year she was lucky enough to live in Italy. What comes through is Sarah’s attention to both the personal and the political realms. Early in her career, one of Sarah’s mentors told her not to write political poems because they were propaganda. Over the years Sarah has written to change this dynamic, witnessing how the cannon has changed, co-founding Split This Rock poetry festival and writing poems of witness and self-exploration. Whereas some poems tend to point the finger at others, Sarah writes to explore and understand her own complicity. We end by discussing a funny poem called “Hot Priests,” because, when Sarah does a reading, she wants to include a balance of poems that focus on sex, love, politics, and something uplifting.

Please enjoy our interview with Kelli and Susan on their new book! Here are the key take aways I got from our discussion.

Jose calls his book, Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024) “two books in one.” The first section is deeply autobiographical, but the second half is truly surreal. Jose and I talked about honoring his writing and life.

In the first section the speaker subverts stereotypes around growing up in economic hardship. Jose notes that though his family was poor they were, “Fucking happy, because his parents showed us so much love.” He felt that if he had only collected his surreal poems, people would ask, “Where are your Chicano poems? Where are your poems about social justice?” 

Then his book shifts to an impersonal, third person narrator. Many of the poems begin with “A Man Wearing a Rage Against the Machine Shirt…”, creating worlds symbolic of what the poet is going through, but in some instances Jose says, they are him playing with his imagination and world-building. Though the language in all of the sections feels approachable, the surrealism draws out images that are otherworldly, archetypal and surprising. They have in common their use of imagery from Mexican Culture and modern-day pop culture. The “Man wearing the Rage Against the Machine T-Shirt” might encounter a jaguar, an eagle, a pyramid a magician, or he might turn into the same.

Audre Lorde

Pleasure Activism adrienne maree brown

Octavia Butler

Chen Chen, “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities”

Khadija Queen’s “I’m so Fine” 

Take-Away Quotes

“I thought about (the book) like a jewel setting. The Gettysburg poems were the center ring. The first and last sections would be the side settings. There are memoriam poems, and then there are love poems and happier poems about children.

“You don’t have to try so hard to just be yourself. . . There’s plenty to write about each day. Just look at the news.”

“We’re all being trained to be fierce in our writing, but are we doing it safely? Are we taking care of ourselves as we write?” 

“As much as I want to be a witness to the difficulty of the world, I also want to be a place of comfort. I think about that when (organizing a book or doing a reading).”

“It’s about the battles, but it’s also about the love. We can’t keep going without the love. . . From what I remember about learning of the French Revolution, it started with mothers who couldn’t get bread for their children. I realized that revolutions are fought for love, not for ideals, but for love.” 

Can you write love poems during a time of war? What about sex poems or erotic poems about your current “situationship?” In this interview, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo discusses her latest book, Incantation, Love Poems for Battle Sites. She tells us that the book started with an artists grant which allowed her to visit Gettysburg to write about national monuments during a time when many were fighting over the meaning of those monuments and whether or not they should be kept or torn down. These poems became a centerpiece for the book, but around those central poems she also wrote poems about children growing up during this time, about her own love life, about daily life with its anxiety, hope and especially its acts of love. As she points out, the French Revolution kicked off because parents couldn’t get enough bread to feed their children. They fought not because of ideals, but because they wanted to protect those they loved. She continues this tradition in her work by providing not only poems of witness, but also poems of pleasure and comfort for all those who read her work.

References

Audre Lorde

Pleasure Activism adrienne maree brown

Octavia Butler

Chen Chen, “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities”

Khadija Queen’s “I’m so Fine” 

Take-Away Quotes

“I thought about (the book) like a jewel setting. The Gettysburg poems were the center ring. The first and last sections would be the side settings. There are memoriam poems, and then there are love poems and happier poems about children.

“You don’t have to try so hard to just be yourself. . . There’s plenty to write about each day. Just look at the news.”

“We’re all being trained to be fierce in our writing, but are we doing it safely? Are we taking care of ourselves as we write?” 

“As much as I want to be a witness to the difficulty of the world, I also want to be a place of comfort. I think about that when (organizing a book or doing a reading).”

“It’s about the battles, but it’s also about the love. We can’t keep going without the love. . . From what I remember about learning of the French Revolution, it started with mothers who couldn’t get bread for their children. I realized that revolutions are fought for love, not for ideals, but for love.” 

In this interview Nadia discusses her second book of poems, I Say the Sky from published by University Press of Kentucky. You can take Nadia’s 7-Day New Year Writing and Meditation Program, starting January 17th, for free when you buy a copy of her book.

How do you process the passing of someone you love? In this interview, Lindsey Royce discusses her latest collection, The Book of John. Already an established poet, when her late husband, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Royce wrote consistently about what she experienced during his last year of life. Her book documents the tender beauty, despair, anger and resilience of that last year and her journey into the next chapter. As the title suggests, The Book of John takes on a magnitude of biblical proportions, though it is not God who cares for John as he passes, but Lindsey. In this interview she discusses her influences, story, and what motivated the title poem of the book. 

Tresha talks with Angela Penaredondo about her third collection, nature felt but never apprehended (Noemi Press, 2022). Angela discusses how personal and world history inspired her book. She relies on reading and research to generate writing, but sometimes allows another voice, less conscious and more magical. She utilizes different parts of her voice, voices of others, and multiple themes to create a collection that is intricately layered and rewards a second reading.