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- Apr 12, 2005
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1. When did you start writing poetry?
Beyond school assignments, I think I first started writing poetry as an outlet my third year in High School. It was terrible, maudlin stuff. I'd write it on the back of my school assignments and hope that my teachers would read them later and be touched by how disturbed I was. >_<. I did a lot of stupid shit like that. Write stuff or make stuff not for the sake of doing it, but for the sake of trying to get somebody to see me. It really started to pick up in university though.
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I try to write short stories, and I did nanowrimo, so I've got a novel about a woman whose husband has a wandering eye in the works. I think my attention span is too short, and also I'm obsessive in some respects. So it's easier for me to work on 50 words than it is to work on 50,000 words. The task seems insurmountable.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
No. I think of myself as a writer, but I suppose if you look at what I've written, you'd call me a poet.
4. Why do you write poetry?
Sort of like I said before. I write because I need someone to know what I mean. Growing up, it always felt like I was an extraterrestrial, living among perfectly normal, perfectly practical Asian parents. So I need people to know what I mean, and I need to say what I mean in a way that it hasn't been said before. Do you know what I mean?
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
Poetry hones my syntax. I can get things more precise through poetry. It shows me which words are unnecessary (the ones I'd cut if I was trying to even out line lengths in a poem), and which ones are imprecise.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
Not much. Some online publications.
7. How often do you write poems?
I year ago I wrote poems every day. Two or three of them. On the toilet, mid-chew, during a commute. Lately, it's been petering out. It's frightening. I don't know if it's the atmosphere here, so little exposure to anything. Also, I'm living in a huge city now, and for a while, the city itself was stimulating, but recently I've been having trouble seeing the beauty in my surroundings. It's also hard to get into that quiet place where the words flow because things are chaotic.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
I hope somebody will read it. Somebody out there, and it won't be because I shoved it under their nose going "look at this! Read this!" And I hope that person will know what I mean.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
I get a weird feeling, kind of like a burp, and it kind of hovers in my chest. When I get that feeling, I know it's time to write a poem, so I open a blank page in Word and just type whatever. Sometimes, though, a line will magically appear in my head, and the rest of the poem coalesces around that line.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
Not so much prefer. The themes just appear. A lot about loneliness, lonely people, suicide, being lost, longing, depressing shit
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
It depends. "Why I have to dry-clean these pants again" came from an image and an idea. "Marbles" came from the line "I spit out the thoughts of you". Most of the time it comes from words: xylophone, lattice. I don't think I've ever written a poem for the sake of form though. The form kind of came alone once I knew what the words were going to be.
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I get the whole thing out first, sometimes in paragraph form. Then I piece it together, and go over it a dozen or so times. Then I post it, and then I edit it three or four more times. Then I wait for comments, and revise it a few more times, maybe.
I really admire some of the other poets who pick up things from years ago and revisit them. I'm not brave enough to do that, I always feel like if I move something, the whole structure will collapse.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
I've always needed a creative outlet. For a while I wanted to become an artist, but I got frustrated b'c I just didn't have that good of a hold on my tools. The images in my head were totally different from the ones that ended up on the canvas. I found that by just writing the images, I could paint a better picture of what i was thinking. With words, I could get closer to my intent.
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
That's really difficult to answer. I don't have some sort of pivotal moment. The poet who attracted me towards writing poetry myself TrumanCoyote. Those words, the emotional depth in them, his looseness with language was amazing. It was like he unraveled English and weaved a new tapestry of never-before-said things. So I thought, I know Zach, he seems goofy, I'm goofy, maybe I can do it too.
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
Poets who've simply amazed me are Ginsberg, Nabakov (not a poet but a poet), Plath, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams.
Movements: Stream of consciousness, imagism, and to some extent Chinese poetry, because Chinese poetry really emphasizes distance, and writing around the meaning. Like if you're in love with someone, you don't say "I love you", you say "look at the birds in the trees, how they've paired up."
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
Maybe Marbles, because that's one of the ones I can memorize.
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
I wish there was more of it, that it didn't have a weird stigma of being airy fairy and new-agey, because there are more people who can write poetry than there are people who actually are writing poetry.
People don't see a point in writing poetry, but it's a reflection of our thoughts and of our selves.
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
The boundary isn't so clear for me. It's hard for me to give absolutes. Extreme care in word choice, focus on a theme, and length. There are lots of exceptions, so don't start trying to pick bones out of egg yolks.
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
I like my images. I like finding the precise turn of phrase. I like making myself laugh. That Origami Mommy poem made me giggle the whole time I was writing it. It was almost like I had friends ...j/k.
There are areas in which I'm hugely lacking though. I want to try more form poetry, want to pay more attention to rhythm. Sometimes I feel like my poetry is really lazy, like I'm taking the easy way out by writing free verse.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Read other poets. Sometimes I'll read a poem and get this thrill in my chest at a phrase, and a moment of admiration, so I try to remember that feeling of awe, and try to write something that's almost that.
Know your theme - at least at first. not meaning you have to only have one theme, or that you can't deviate, but write organically around that thought in your head.
Keep an image in your head
These are just some things that I do. I'm no authority. I look at the people who've had this title before me, and I feel utterly unworthy, and very very flattered at the same time.
Beyond school assignments, I think I first started writing poetry as an outlet my third year in High School. It was terrible, maudlin stuff. I'd write it on the back of my school assignments and hope that my teachers would read them later and be touched by how disturbed I was. >_<. I did a lot of stupid shit like that. Write stuff or make stuff not for the sake of doing it, but for the sake of trying to get somebody to see me. It really started to pick up in university though.
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I try to write short stories, and I did nanowrimo, so I've got a novel about a woman whose husband has a wandering eye in the works. I think my attention span is too short, and also I'm obsessive in some respects. So it's easier for me to work on 50 words than it is to work on 50,000 words. The task seems insurmountable.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
No. I think of myself as a writer, but I suppose if you look at what I've written, you'd call me a poet.
4. Why do you write poetry?
Sort of like I said before. I write because I need someone to know what I mean. Growing up, it always felt like I was an extraterrestrial, living among perfectly normal, perfectly practical Asian parents. So I need people to know what I mean, and I need to say what I mean in a way that it hasn't been said before. Do you know what I mean?
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
Poetry hones my syntax. I can get things more precise through poetry. It shows me which words are unnecessary (the ones I'd cut if I was trying to even out line lengths in a poem), and which ones are imprecise.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
Not much. Some online publications.
7. How often do you write poems?
I year ago I wrote poems every day. Two or three of them. On the toilet, mid-chew, during a commute. Lately, it's been petering out. It's frightening. I don't know if it's the atmosphere here, so little exposure to anything. Also, I'm living in a huge city now, and for a while, the city itself was stimulating, but recently I've been having trouble seeing the beauty in my surroundings. It's also hard to get into that quiet place where the words flow because things are chaotic.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
I hope somebody will read it. Somebody out there, and it won't be because I shoved it under their nose going "look at this! Read this!" And I hope that person will know what I mean.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
I get a weird feeling, kind of like a burp, and it kind of hovers in my chest. When I get that feeling, I know it's time to write a poem, so I open a blank page in Word and just type whatever. Sometimes, though, a line will magically appear in my head, and the rest of the poem coalesces around that line.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
Not so much prefer. The themes just appear. A lot about loneliness, lonely people, suicide, being lost, longing, depressing shit
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
It depends. "Why I have to dry-clean these pants again" came from an image and an idea. "Marbles" came from the line "I spit out the thoughts of you". Most of the time it comes from words: xylophone, lattice. I don't think I've ever written a poem for the sake of form though. The form kind of came alone once I knew what the words were going to be.
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I get the whole thing out first, sometimes in paragraph form. Then I piece it together, and go over it a dozen or so times. Then I post it, and then I edit it three or four more times. Then I wait for comments, and revise it a few more times, maybe.
I really admire some of the other poets who pick up things from years ago and revisit them. I'm not brave enough to do that, I always feel like if I move something, the whole structure will collapse.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
I've always needed a creative outlet. For a while I wanted to become an artist, but I got frustrated b'c I just didn't have that good of a hold on my tools. The images in my head were totally different from the ones that ended up on the canvas. I found that by just writing the images, I could paint a better picture of what i was thinking. With words, I could get closer to my intent.
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
That's really difficult to answer. I don't have some sort of pivotal moment. The poet who attracted me towards writing poetry myself TrumanCoyote. Those words, the emotional depth in them, his looseness with language was amazing. It was like he unraveled English and weaved a new tapestry of never-before-said things. So I thought, I know Zach, he seems goofy, I'm goofy, maybe I can do it too.
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
Poets who've simply amazed me are Ginsberg, Nabakov (not a poet but a poet), Plath, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams.
Movements: Stream of consciousness, imagism, and to some extent Chinese poetry, because Chinese poetry really emphasizes distance, and writing around the meaning. Like if you're in love with someone, you don't say "I love you", you say "look at the birds in the trees, how they've paired up."
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
Maybe Marbles, because that's one of the ones I can memorize.
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
I wish there was more of it, that it didn't have a weird stigma of being airy fairy and new-agey, because there are more people who can write poetry than there are people who actually are writing poetry.
People don't see a point in writing poetry, but it's a reflection of our thoughts and of our selves.
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
The boundary isn't so clear for me. It's hard for me to give absolutes. Extreme care in word choice, focus on a theme, and length. There are lots of exceptions, so don't start trying to pick bones out of egg yolks.
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
I like my images. I like finding the precise turn of phrase. I like making myself laugh. That Origami Mommy poem made me giggle the whole time I was writing it. It was almost like I had friends ...j/k.
There are areas in which I'm hugely lacking though. I want to try more form poetry, want to pay more attention to rhythm. Sometimes I feel like my poetry is really lazy, like I'm taking the easy way out by writing free verse.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Read other poets. Sometimes I'll read a poem and get this thrill in my chest at a phrase, and a moment of admiration, so I try to remember that feeling of awe, and try to write something that's almost that.
Know your theme - at least at first. not meaning you have to only have one theme, or that you can't deviate, but write organically around that thought in your head.
Keep an image in your head
These are just some things that I do. I'm no authority. I look at the people who've had this title before me, and I feel utterly unworthy, and very very flattered at the same time.
