Do you use a pseudonym? Why or why not? 
I don’t! I’ve considered it in the past, but I don’t think I would feel right about putting my work—at least not my poetry—under any other name.

What is the most confusing thing anyone has said to you about your work?
Upon reading a poem of mine that was about, in short, being surprised by a first kiss & essentially not being able to consent to it, someone in the room remarked with sincerity that it was a “cute, romantic” moment to write a poem about. It was one of many “were we even reading the same poem” moments that I’ve had.

What works do you feel have been left out of the western literary canon - works from other countries, in other languages, or by marginalized people? 
It’s gaining some renown these days, but my mind instantly goes to Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions (cue everyone who has met me rolling their eyes in unison). That book totally changed my life in ways that I can scarcely even describe. I move through the world differently, & eventually found my way to being a poet, because of it.

A text—or more accurately, a writer—from a different country than my own that I feel like should have vastly more recognition by the thing we call the canon & its disciples is Iranian poet & filmmaker Forugh Farrokhzad. I think of her selected poems, Sin, often. There’s richness of intention & attention that feels dutifully paid by Sholeh Wolpé’s translation, & that my copy of this book was lent out & never returned to me is a deep upset in this, every, season. Each day, I reach for Farrokhzad, & each day she is still in her period of absence from my shelf.

What writers/artists/filmmakers/musicians have influenced your work - either the work itself, or the way in which you work? 
These days, I’m always returning to David Lynch. The way he makes around, through, toward trauma is astonishing. New faces of despair & love reveal themselves every time you revisit one of his works, & I find the depths that his often twisting worlds subtly (or not-so subtly) reach are vital.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately with a lot of the art I lived in when I was a musician: Clifford Brown, Thelonious Monk, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Chet Baker, my personal holy trinity of vocalists: Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald. Somewhere within me, these artist & uncounted more are always present.

Writers I’ve come to understand the world & myself by, which I’m almost hesitant to touch because there are so many I’m bound to forget, include the late & luminescent June Jordan, alongside Essex Hemphill, torrin a. greathouse, Donika Kelly, Frank O’Hara, Laura Hershey, Ai, Paul Tran, Lorna Dee Cervantes, & so many others I feel as though I’ve run out of room to list. Poetry is how I make sense of the world, & as such my poetic lineage is vast & ever-growing. I’m really lucky.

Is there one part of your creation process that’s harder for you? 
It’s gotta be titles. None of it is necessarily easy, but I love drafting & I am in love with revision, but something about titles always trips me up. If I get the title before the language of the poem itself, then I’m set for a while. But if I get the poem out without it having a title? Woof, help me, because I’m going to be sitting there staring at that poem for an eternity trying to name it. Names, as it were, have power.

How do you handle rejection? Do you have any advice for other creators about handling rejection? 
For the most part, I handle rejection well. Of course, the third high-stakes rejection in a week will sting, or that of something that my soul is drawn toward with an almost cosmic feeling of “rightness.” But those rejections are always going to be part of this. I submit & publish my work largely because it’s necessitated by the life I’m trying to build. Having poems in the world is cool, but it isn’t—& can’t be, in my opinion—the reason to make.

Generally speaking, the worst a publication can do is pass on your work that time around. Editing is more than arbitrary acceptances & rejections: if your work doesn’t fit this time, it might fit elsewhere, or other work might have a better shot next time. I have a couple “white whale” journals, one of whom I’ve got seven rejections from. It’s just how it works when these publications have a limited number of poems they can or will run in any given issue. If you’re worried about rejection or are otherwise learning to navigate it in a healthy way for your creative practice, my biggest piece of advice is only submit to places that don’t have a reading fee until you can solidly maneuver your relationship to rejections. It’s the worst feeling to pay for a submission & then either know it wasn’t your best showing or get a wholly unexpected rejection. Maybe that’s part of it, too: if you’re expecting the odds to be against your work, regardless of your pride in it or its quality by whatever metrics you use to dictate the quality of poetry, then every acceptance is cause for cheering & every rejection is proof that you’re out here doing the thing, living the life.

Do you have a piece that you created early in your career that makes you cringe? Will you ever go back and fix it so it can be submitted somewhere?
Oh, constantly. I was writing poems without any kind of personal framework for doing so, & so many of those poems are bad. Most poems have parts that can be repurposed or otherwise transmuted into something better. As a revision lover, I’m always willing to crack open an old notebook. I’m definitely someone who believes that to be cringe is to be free, though, so even something like my fist two publications having typos in them doesn’t keep my up at night.  

What is your biggest creative doubt?  
That my poems are bad & nobody’s being straight up about it. Sure, some (read: many) of them are bad, but I even mean the stuff that was in my MFA thesis, the stuff that gets good reactions at readings, etc. I came to poems from a high-anxiety field where until you reach the highest level possible you’re generally expected to feel as though you aren’t enough & that your work is sub-par. I’m still trying to shake that, & sometimes I’m worried that I’ll never be able to.  

What piece of creative advice have you received that sounded good, but was ultimately not useful to you?
Who could even say! Most advice doesn’t work out, but is fun to try. I’m thinking a lot lately about advice I got when I was not yet a poet, but that helped lead me to it. “If there’s anything else you could do [other than, at the time, music] & be remotely happy with, then do that instead.” I’m only barely paraphrasing, & it was important to me as a 19, 20, 21-year-old who was going through a massive shift away from music as a profession due to a muscle injury. It made me feel less like a failure for not being able to continue down the path I’d been chasing. I don’t know that I necessarily agree with it now, & it certainly isn’t useful for me as I chase poems, but it was a good piece of transitional advice when I was trying to conceptualize what I wanted life to look like.

Is there a deep, dark secret you’re carrying? If so, why are you keeping it? (No, we don’t want to know what it is. We love a mystery.)
Depending on who you ask if they were to learn “secrets,” sure. Anything that was once a deep, dark secret seems to wind up in a poem—so at some point, if things go according to plan, a lot of “secrets” are going to come out when eventually I have a debut. I love a mystery, but don’t find too many secrets to be productive. The deeper the shame, the more it’ll erode.