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Image courtesy of interviewee. February 22, 2024

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The speaker discusses their motivation for writing poetry, highlighting a quest for discovery and articulation of human experience. Writing poems often begins with specific images or memories, including inspiration from their children, and is closely intertwined with reading. The speaker emphasizes the importance of themes and voice when creating a cohesive poetry collection, noting that their work often reflects the complexities of parenthood and the balance between joy and anxiety in raising children in a challenging world.

The themes of life, death, love, and protection are central to the poems, particularly influenced by the speaker's experiences as a parent. The process of observing their children growing and learning encourages the speaker to see the world anew, contributing to their poetic perspective.

Through specific examples of poems from their collection, the speaker illustrates the intricate interplay of personal experiences and broader societal issues, such as mass shootings and the challenges of human existence. They express a desire for their poetry to resonate with readers, allowing them to find connection and understanding, while acknowledging that readers bring their unique interpretations to the work. Ultimately, the speaker hopes that their poetry fosters a sense of shared humanity and alleviates feelings of isolation.

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Here are some key quotes from the video you :

1. **On Discovery**:
- "What motivates any poem for me is... kind of this search for discovery."
- "I try to write toward discovery... to articulate the world in a new or engaging or interesting way."

2. **On Reading and Writing**:
- "For me, reading and writing are kind of simultaneous activities."
- "I like that interaction between reading and writing."

3. **On Parenthood and Themes**:
- "I realized pretty quickly that it was a book that was... knee deep in parenthood and fatherhood."
- "The stakes are life and death, right? You know, or love and death. The two great themes of literature."

4. **On the Influence of Children**:
- "Being a parent to young children... the world became this infinitely stranger and brighter and scarier place."
- "What's humbling work to haul kids toward thoughtful."

5. **On the Nature of Poetry**:
- "In many cases, that's the stakes of being human... poetry is so good and incisive at getting to those stakes really quickly."
- "We come to poetry, not out of what we know, but out of what we wonder."

6. **On the Process of Writing**:
- "I try not to be too overdetermined about what a reader will take from an individual poem or a collection."
- "The reader completes the poem."

7. **On Connection through Poetry**:
- "Ultimately, I hope that readers find and feel that there's another human being on the end of the page."
- "Someone who's imperfect and searching and trying to connect."

8. **On Life Events**:
- "It was written... after a mass shooting in this country."
- "I want one ruined thing, utterly redeemed... a death toll rescinded."

These quotes encapsulate the themes of discovery, parenthood, the writing process, and the human experience that are central to the video.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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What motivates any poem for me is, kind

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of this search for discovery.

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I, I try to write toward discovery.

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Um, and so for me it's that impulse to kind

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of articulate the world in a new or engaging

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or interesting way, and to kind of describe

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what it means to be alive.

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Um, I think there's a lot of satisfaction in putting words

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to an experience or words to a memory, kind

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of like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

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Um, with this collection, some poems began

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with a specific image

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or a specific memory or with something.

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Uh, my children said, you know, I have a,

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an 11-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old son who,

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they both make their way into the collection

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to their tremendous delight.

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They're still very happy to have themselves in these poems,

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and so sometimes something they'll say will trigger,

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a poem or an idea or something I read.

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Uh, for me, reading and writing are kind

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of simultaneous activities.

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If you were to see me writing it would be me

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with like a stack of books and me reading a lot

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and then responding to it.

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Um, so I really like that interaction

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between reading and writing.

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So all those things sort of motivate the individual poems,

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but then that's very different from kind

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of taking those 50 individual poems

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and bringing them into make a collection, a book.

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Um, that's when I start to think about voice.

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I try to think about theme, you know, different threads

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that will make it not just a collection

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of individual poems, but a coherent book.

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And so with let our Bodies change the subject,

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I realized pretty quickly that it was a book that was,

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knee deep in parenthood and fatherhood.

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Um, and this notion of living for joy,

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but also being sort of haunted by the past

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and terrified for the future

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and how to raise children in that kind of world.

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And that, you know,

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the poems all go in different directions,

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but that, that core thread,

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I think was there the whole way through.

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Um, and then it's just a matter of trying

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to organize the collection to make it,

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the best book it can be.

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Um, so I guess kind of what motivated the book is

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being a parent, being someone who's paying attention

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to the world, who's constantly looking for a way

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to put language, to experience and,

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and just kind of being a, a human being.

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Well, the stakes are, are life and death, right?

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You know, you know, or love and death.

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The two great themes of, of literature.

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Um, and I think for me, those themes,

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really expanded.

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The stakes really were raised by becoming a parent.

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Uh, for me, becoming a parent to young children,

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the world became this infinitely stranger and brighter

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and scarier place.

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Um, and so I think themes of fear

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and protection kind of work their way through my mind

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and my life, and also through my poems.

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Uh, being a parent to young kids, it sort

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of feels like dealing with life

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and death is kind of an everyday occurrence.

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Whether your kid's learning to, you know, ride a scooter

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or bath time or cutting up the pieces

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of food so they're small.

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And so, you know, so that nobody chokes

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or, you know, baby proofing, you know, a lot of parents know

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that idea of baby proofing a house.

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So it's, it suddenly becomes a much more, you know, real

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and present danger for me.

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Um, so like, that's one thing.

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Another thing is that with children,

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like they're learning the world right before your eyes.

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And that I find really helpful,

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because they constantly see the world anew.

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Um, and I get like language

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and I think as a writer, I'm always

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trying to see the world anew.

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So like, for example, the poem

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that you referenced is the opening poem in the

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collection, sad rollercoaster.

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Uh, that poem was kind of the culmination

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of a summer in which my daughter questioned

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by incisive question came to understand in her own way

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what it was like, what death was.

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You know, she was asking these questions

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and getting closer and closer.

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And then we were at, Coney Island,

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and she saw these big old rollercoasters,

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in the distance, and suddenly it clicked for her.

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And she called it a sad rollercoaster.

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And in her own way, she kind of, I think, came

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to understand, you know, death

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and wanted to go home and got very upset.

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And I think, so the stakes, yeah, can be very much life

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and death, love and death.

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And, you know, I also think that in many cases,

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that's the stakes of, of being human.

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And I, I love that poetry is so good

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and incisive at getting to those stakes really quickly.

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Um, you know, not just the stakes of what it means

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to be human, but doing so in action.

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Um, Elizabeth Bishop says that, you know,

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her poems are not a thought,

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but the mind's thinking, you know, this, that it's, you try

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to, in a poem, actually show your thought.

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It's not like I have this thing I wanna say

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and then I say it, but

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that the poem is actually part of that process.

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Um, Lucille Clifton, another wonderful writer, said,

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you know, we come to poetry, not out of

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what we know, but out of what we wonder.

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And so I think both of those kind of speak to the stakes of

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of being a person, a, a poet, a parent.

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All the above picked three.

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So I'll start with the one we were just talking about,

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the opening poem in my collection,

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my collection's called Let Our Bodies Change the Subject.

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It came out, this September from

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University of Nebraska Press.

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Uh, and the opening poem is that poem, sad rollercoaster,

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which I was just telling, talking to you about.

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My daughter is in the kitchen working out death.

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She wants to get it how it tastes and feels.

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Her teacher talks like it's some glittery gold sticker.

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Her classmates hear rumors launch it as a curse.

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When toys aren't shared between bites of cantaloupe,

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she considers what she knows,

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her friend's grandpa lives only in her iPad.

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Dr. Seuss passed, but keeps speaking and rhyme.

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We go to Queen Zoo

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and spot the bakish skull

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of a white-tailed deer tucked between rocks

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And the pumas enclosure.

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It's just for show, I explain explaining nothing that night.

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And the one after my daughter, dreams of bones

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have a lift out of her skin and try on her dresses so silly.

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She laughs when I ask if she's okay.

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Then toward the back end of summer, we head to Coney Island

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to catch a cyclones game.

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We buy popcorn and fries,

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a pop fly arcs over checkerboard grass when past the warning

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track the park wall, she sees a giant wooden spine.

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This brownish red maze traced in decay,

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she calls it sad rollercoaster then begs to be taken home.

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And the next poem I'm gonna read has actually

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both of my kids in it.

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Uh, so the whole collection was written in Queens and,

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and queens shows up throughout the,

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throughout the book it's called, all I've Ever Wanted,

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and I apologize in advance.

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There's a tiny little bit of singing in the poem.

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All I've ever wanted, the almond milk has turned flex

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of foul snow slink in slow liquid,

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not the discovery I had angled for this morning,

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but as my dad likes to sing, like some Jewish M**k Jagger,

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you can't always get what you won't, which is just

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what I croon to my two children, driving them up the wall,

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because of course, all they want is to get what they want.

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A fifth scoop of gelato to play Minecraft to their eyeballs,

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pixelate in their skulls.

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What humbling work to haul kids toward thoughtful, the kind

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and humankind like a foreign language on a stubborn tongue.

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It, even as a toddler, my son would refuse a lollipop if his

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sister didn't get one, still pluck an extra sticker

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to gift her after school.

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And hell, my daughter can't ride an elevator without making

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a new friend or some lady's day by praising her earrings,

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her sweater, her purse.

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My point about discovery has escaped me by now,

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though I know the old chorus for thwarted desire,

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my cereal will be dry coffee taken black.

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I will try against hope to be better than myself,

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which is all I've ever wanted and everything I need.

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And the third poem I'll read is actually the title

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poem to the collection.

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Um, and we were talking earlier about themes,

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and one of the themes I noticed was this sort

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of twin impulse that we often have to both look

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and look away to bear witness and pay attention,

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but also to kind of avert our gaze.

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And how as people, we're always kind of

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between these two things.

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You know, the world is a, is a difficult place to,

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to bear witness to, but it's also very important to do that.

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And I think especially as writers, we're constantly

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reminding ourselves to pay attention, you know, to look,

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I think, it's Carrie Fountain who said

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that writing is the act of not giving away your attention,

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but keeping that attention with you where you are.

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Um, and I love that definition

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because it has nothing to do with actually putting words on

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a page, but, just being awake and, and aware.

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Um, so this poem is called Let Our

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Bodies Change the Subject.

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It was written, after a mass shooting in this country.

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I don't remember which one,

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which tells you a little bit about

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how many mass shootings we've had.

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Um, and it owes a lot to my wife, who my conversation

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with her sort of was one of the things that started the poem

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in the kitchen with the kids finally asleep, A news

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of another shooting in the space between us.

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You confess, you think death might feel like giving birth,

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the body insistent having its way you say you'd never been

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so at the mercy of yourself as you were on that bed in

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that cloud thin gown

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and just the knowing it was coming, ruthless transformation.

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I have no good response to ruthless transformation.

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And so it hangs there.

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Above a bowl of tortilla chips

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and black beans, salsa we've decided will be dinner.

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It lingers while a reporter frames chaos as developments.

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Her shoulders rinsed in darkness and revolving red lights.

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I want to kiss you build asylum

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inside you let our bodies change the subject, the channel

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to cartoons before night pulls away down the

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flickering interstate.

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I want one ruined thing, utterly redeemed,

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a death toll rescinded a swastika,

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removed my uncle's melanoma, caught early enough to cut

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a beige bandaid halfway down his calf.

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It had looked, my aunt said like,

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little more than an ink spot.

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I didn't get nervous till it didn't wash out.

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Ultimately, I I, I try not to be too overdetermined about

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what a reader will take from,

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an individual poem or a collection.

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Um, you know, I'm not trying when I write

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to deliver a specific message or elicit a specific emotion.

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Um, just like as writers, we come

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from our own unique circumstances and place.

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I think readers are all unique and specific

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and kind of bring themselves

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to any work, any book, any poem.

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And so that, in a sense, in a very real tangible sense,

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the reader completes the poem.

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So I try not to be overdetermined about

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what they take away from it.

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Um, of course, once in a while I'm writing a poem that is,

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a direct address to somebody, you know, either my kids

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or my my mom or, you know, another author.

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And in that sense, you know, I am in the back

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of my mind thinking about that idea of, of,

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of them hearing those words eventually one day.

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Um, but even then, I'm still writing

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Toward discovery. I'm

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trying not to deliver a message,

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but think through the poem, think through these ideas,

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you know, the famous Em Forster quote.

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We, you know, how do I know

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what I think until I see what I've written?

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Of course. Um, but, you know, I think one good example of

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that actually from Let our Bodies Change the subject

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was this poem called Starfish of Mine.

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Um, I wrote it

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after a family trip to the aquarium, our local aquarium.

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And there there was this, starfish

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and some, one of the people at the

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aquarium was talking about them.

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And I found myself really fascinated by how like resilient

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and resourceful these starfish were.

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And I wound up writing a poem about them.

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So fast forward, someone read the book, liked the poem,

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posted the poem on social media,

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and one of the people responded to it,

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that they were disabled

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and how meaningful the poem was to them, you know,

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and how much it spoke to their experiences.

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And now this was nothing I ever intended, you know,

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but the poem, kind of hit upon something for them.

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And I think the idea of the starfish is that,

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if you lop off one of the spokes,

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not only will it sprout one back,

12:59.065 --> 13:02.125
but the very piece that's severed can grow a whole new self.

13:02.825 --> 13:05.525
And, and this spoke to them being a disabled person.

13:05.745 --> 13:07.525
And I love that, you know,

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that wasn't my determined outcome or impulse.

13:10.585 --> 13:13.045
Um, and I think if I'd tried to make it that way,

13:13.145 --> 13:14.205
it would've fallen flat.

13:14.825 --> 13:17.685
And so I think really the readers,

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bring their own experiences to their, to the poem and,

13:20.605 --> 13:21.925
and kind of complete it in that sense.

13:22.345 --> 13:26.045
Um, ultimately, I guess I hope that readers

13:27.435 --> 13:28.925
find and feel that there's a,

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another human being on the end of the page.

13:31.145 --> 13:34.445
Um, someone who's imperfect and searching

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and trying to connect.

13:37.145 --> 13:39.645
Um, and that ultimately, you know, I guess when you,

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when they read the book, they feel less alone.

13:41.525 --> 13:41.645
I.

Discovery Through Parenthood and Poetry

00:00:00 - What motivates any poem for me is, kind of this search for discovery. I, I try to write toward discovery. and so for me it's that impulse to kind of articulate the world in a new or engaging or interesting way, and to kind of describe what it means to be alive. I think there's a lot of satisfaction in putting words to an experience or words to a memory, kind of like a puzzle piece clicking into place. with this collection, some poems began with a specific image or a specific memory or with something. my children said, you know, I have a,
00:00:40 - they both make their way into the collection to their tremendous delight. They're still very happy to have themselves in these poems, and so sometimes something they'll say will trigger, a poem or an idea or something I read. for me, reading and writing are kind of simultaneous activities. If you were to see me writing it would be me with like a stack of books and me reading a lot and then responding to it. so I really like that interaction between reading and writing. So all those things sort of motivate the individual poems,
00:01:11 - of taking those 50 individual poems and bringing them into make a collection, a book. that's when I start to think about voice. I try to think about theme, you know, different threads that will make it not just a collection of individual poems, but a coherent book. And so with let our Bodies change the subject, I realized pretty quickly that it was a book that was, knee deep in parenthood and fatherhood. and this notion of living for joy,
00:01:43 - and terrified for the future and how to raise children in that kind of world. And that, you know, the poems all go in different directions, but that, that core thread, I think was there the whole way through. and then it's just a matter of trying to organize the collection to make it, the best book it can be. so I guess kind of what motivated the book is being a parent, being someone who's paying attention to the world, who's constantly looking for a way
00:02:13 - and just kind of being a, a human being. Well, the stakes are, are life and death, right? You know, you know, or love and death. The two great themes of, of literature. and I think for me, those themes, really expanded. The stakes really were raised by becoming a parent. for me, becoming a parent to young children, the world became this infinitely stranger and brighter and scarier place. and so I think themes of fear
00:02:46 - and my life, and also through my poems. being a parent to young kids, it sort of feels like dealing with life and death is kind of an everyday occurrence. Whether your kid's learning to, you know, ride a scooter or bath time or cutting up the pieces of food so they're small. And so, you know, so that nobody chokes or, you know, baby proofing, you know, a lot of parents know that idea of baby proofing a house. So it's, it suddenly becomes a much more, you know, real

Childhood Discoveries and Poetic Reflections

00:03:15 - so like, that's one thing. Another thing is that with children, like they're learning the world right before your eyes. And that I find really helpful, because they constantly see the world anew. and I get like language and I think as a writer, I'm always trying to see the world anew. So like, for example, the poem that you referenced is the opening poem in the collection, sad rollercoaster. that poem was kind of the culmination of a summer in which my daughter questioned
00:03:48 - what it was like, what death was. You know, she was asking these questions and getting closer and closer. And then we were at, Coney Island, and she saw these big old rollercoasters, in the distance, and suddenly it clicked for her. And she called it a sad rollercoaster. And in her own way, she kind of, I think, came to understand, you know, death and wanted to go home and got very upset. And I think, so the stakes, yeah, can be very much life
00:04:17 - And, you know, I also think that in many cases, that's the stakes of, of being human. And I, I love that poetry is so good and incisive at getting to those stakes really quickly. you know, not just the stakes of what it means to be human, but doing so in action. Elizabeth Bishop says that, you know, her poems are not a thought, but the mind's thinking, you know, this, that it's, you try to, in a poem, actually show your thought. It's not like I have this thing I wanna say
00:04:47 - that the poem is actually part of that process. Lucille Clifton, another wonderful writer, said, you know, we come to poetry, not out of what we know, but out of what we wonder. And so I think both of those kind of speak to the stakes of of being a person, a, a poet, a parent. All the above picked three. So I'll start with the one we were just talking about, the opening poem in my collection, my collection's called Let Our Bodies Change the Subject. It came out, this September from University of Nebraska Press.
00:05:21 - which I was just telling, talking to you about. My daughter is in the kitchen working out death. She wants to get it how it tastes and feels. Her teacher talks like it's some glittery gold sticker. Her classmates hear rumors launch it as a curse. When toys aren't shared between bites of cantaloupe, she considers what she knows, her friend's grandpa lives only in her iPad. Dr. Seuss passed, but keeps speaking and rhyme.
00:05:52 - and spot the bakish skull of a white-tailed deer tucked between rocks And the pumas enclosure. It's just for show, I explain explaining nothing that night. And the one after my daughter, dreams of bones have a lift out of her skin and try on her dresses so silly. She laughs when I ask if she's okay. Then toward the back end of summer, we head to Coney Island to catch a cyclones game. We buy popcorn and fries,

Reflections on Parenthood and the Fragility of Life

00:06:27 - track the park wall, she sees a giant wooden spine. This brownish red maze traced in decay, she calls it sad rollercoaster then begs to be taken home. And the next poem I'm gonna read has actually both of my kids in it. so the whole collection was written in Queens and, and queens shows up throughout the, throughout the book it's called, all I've Ever Wanted,
00:06:55 - There's a tiny little bit of singing in the poem. All I've ever wanted, the almond milk has turned flex of foul snow slink in slow liquid, not the discovery I had angled for this morning, but as my dad likes to sing, like some Jewish M**k Jagger, you can't always get what you won't, which is just what I croon to my two children, driving them up the wall, because of course, all they want is to get what they want.
00:07:29 - pixelate in their skulls. What humbling work to haul kids toward thoughtful, the kind and humankind like a foreign language on a stubborn tongue. It, even as a toddler, my son would refuse a lollipop if his sister didn't get one, still pluck an extra sticker to gift her after school. And hell, my daughter can't ride an elevator without making a new friend or some lady's day by praising her earrings,
00:08:01 - My point about discovery has escaped me by now, though I know the old chorus for thwarted desire, my cereal will be dry coffee taken black. I will try against hope to be better than myself, which is all I've ever wanted and everything I need. And the third poem I'll read is actually the title poem to the collection. and we were talking earlier about themes,
00:08:32 - of twin impulse that we often have to both look and look away to bear witness and pay attention, but also to kind of avert our gaze. And how as people, we're always kind of between these two things. You know, the world is a, is a difficult place to, to bear witness to, but it's also very important to do that. And I think especially as writers, we're constantly reminding ourselves to pay attention, you know, to look, I think, it's Carrie Fountain who said that writing is the act of not giving away your attention,
00:09:04 - and I love that definition because it has nothing to do with actually putting words on a page, but, just being awake and, and aware. so this poem is called Let Our Bodies Change the Subject. It was written, after a mass shooting in this country. I don't remember which one, which tells you a little bit about how many mass shootings we've had. and it owes a lot to my wife, who my conversation with her sort of was one of the things that started the poem

Exploring Life, Death, and Discovery in Poetry

00:09:35 - of another shooting in the space between us. You confess, you think death might feel like giving birth, the body insistent having its way you say you'd never been so at the mercy of yourself as you were on that bed in that cloud thin gown and just the knowing it was coming, ruthless transformation. I have no good response to ruthless transformation.
00:10:03 - Above a bowl of tortilla chips and black beans, salsa we've decided will be dinner. It lingers while a reporter frames chaos as developments. Her shoulders rinsed in darkness and revolving red lights. I want to kiss you build asylum inside you let our bodies change the subject, the channel to cartoons before night pulls away down the flickering interstate. I want one ruined thing, utterly redeemed,
00:10:36 - removed my uncle's melanoma, caught early enough to cut a beige bandaid halfway down his calf. It had looked, my aunt said like, little more than an ink spot. I didn't get nervous till it didn't wash out. Ultimately, I I, I try not to be too overdetermined about what a reader will take from, an individual poem or a collection. you know, I'm not trying when I write
00:11:10 - just like as writers, we come from our own unique circumstances and place. I think readers are all unique and specific and kind of bring themselves to any work, any book, any poem. And so that, in a sense, in a very real tangible sense, the reader completes the poem. So I try not to be overdetermined about what they take away from it. of course, once in a while I'm writing a poem that is,
00:11:39 - or my my mom or, you know, another author. And in that sense, you know, I am in the back of my mind thinking about that idea of, of, of them hearing those words eventually one day. but even then, I'm still writing Toward discovery. I'm trying not to deliver a message, but think through the poem, think through these ideas, you know, the famous Em Forster quote. We, you know, how do I know what I think until I see what I've written? Of course. but, you know, I think one good example of
00:12:09 - was this poem called Starfish of Mine. I wrote it after a family trip to the aquarium, our local aquarium. And there there was this, starfish and some, one of the people at the aquarium was talking about them. And I found myself really fascinated by how like resilient and resourceful these starfish were. And I wound up writing a poem about them. So fast forward, someone read the book, liked the poem, posted the poem on social media, and one of the people responded to it,

Connecting Through Poetry: The Reader's Impact

00:12:39 - and how meaningful the poem was to them, you know, and how much it spoke to their experiences. And now this was nothing I ever intended, you know, but the poem, kind of hit upon something for them. And I think the idea of the starfish is that, if you lop off one of the spokes, not only will it sprout one back, but the very piece that's severed can grow a whole new self. And, and this spoke to them being a disabled person. And I love that, you know, that wasn't my determined outcome or impulse.
00:13:13 - it would've fallen flat. And so I think really the readers, bring their own experiences to their, to the poem and, and kind of complete it in that sense. ultimately, I guess I hope that readers find and feel that there's a, another human being on the end of the page. someone who's imperfect and searching and trying to connect. and that ultimately, you know, I guess when you, when they read the book, they feel less alone.
00:13:41 -

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