Honestly, like a proud parent. I’ve spent so much time with these poems, watching them grow and slowly reveal themselves both to me and the world, and it feels really surreal and a little bewildering to think that now other people are hearing them and connecting with their stories on this kind of scale.
I like to give the poems little dream worlds of their own. They are various creatures: I read something by Susan Sontag when I was a teenager, something like ‘a writer is someone who is interested in everything,’ and I think it’s true. It’s also interesting to see how your preoccupations come out in your writing – mine seem to be science fiction, people’s interior worlds, how the small things we do everyday are impacted by wider systemic forces. Who knows. I heard someone say you shouldn’t know your own themes too well, or the magic will disappear.
This pamphlet is the result of trying for years to find a way of saying things that feels true. I try to be rigorous in my feeling and thinking, try to consider what it all means, as a way of making things clearer or easier for the reader. I am always thinking of who might be reading, who might be listening, what they might get from it – did you get the joke? Did you like it? Did you feel seen? Did your anger, your grief get the space it deserves? Can you still feel awe at the mysteries of the world? I try to write towards the clarity of James Baldwin – the clarity of the lover, to make you conscious of the things you can’t see. I like to think of imagination as radical work, the first step toward making things different to how they are now.
I’m really passionate about what independent presses do, and it was always my dream to work with Bad Betty: being part of the Little Betty family has been an absolute joy. I submitted as part of the open call, was unsuccessful the first time, and then applied again the next year. The whole team, Anja Konig, Vanessa Kisuule, Jake Wild Hall and Amy Acre, have made me feel really supported. I really align with the values that I see in Bad Betty, and I really admire all of the poets they publish. I feel very grateful.
Yes! Ursula Le Guin, Forough Farrokhzad, Solmaz Sharif, Sally Wen Mao, Rebecca Elson, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Nisha Ramayya, Layli Long Soldier, Will Harris, lisa luxx, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Sabeen Chaudrey, Esther Kondo Heller, Golnoosh Nour, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Nat Raha, Olivia Douglass, Eve Esfandiari-Denney, Jahan Khajavi, Bernadette Mayer, and writers too – So Mayer, Octavia Butler, Ferdowsi. So many people, to be honest, they would be impossible to list.
If you just keep doing it, eventually something will happen. Focus on the work first, then let the rest come when it wants. Take your time. Always ask yourself who you’re writing towards. Your real life and relationships are the most important thing. You can lie in your poems too.
