Interviews

The Lightning Room With Alia Hamada

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From the September issue, Alia Hamada’s “Moustache Girl.”

1. In what ways is the razor a rebellion?

The razor is a tool for adolescent rebellion: becoming a woman too soon, at least sooner than a mother wants. All hairy women I know wanted to shave their legs, faces, arms, armpits, chests, as soon as possible, including me, and this character. Not only to be “purified” and “white-like”, but also that shaving is a way to act out against the mother. To shave, in this voice, is freedom.

But, as the poem continues: this freedom (bleaching, shaving) is shown to be a guise for ethnic erasure. The young woman in this poem wants to be grown-up, just as all young people do at some point in their youth. Grown-ups get to eat dessert before dinner, stay up late, shave, be beautiful, wear whatever they want. This can also be a false freedom.

2. This poem tackles a mass of definitional issues: about gender, nationality, sexuality. At what point is identity subsumed by cultural pressure?

At birth. Once a baby is born with dark curly hair, wearing blue or pink, that baby’s guardian is asked about all three of those issues. Throughout life, identity is being built and pulled, pushed in & out- but it is felt (painfully, most of the time) internally during adolescence.

This poem is about a brown girl in a white neighborhood, whose mama is also white. Raise your hand if you’ve been made fun of because of your appearance, especially from 5th-9th grade. Right? How torturous, being a brown girl, being asked where she’s from, where she’s from. I remember writing a poem as a middle-schooler that stated: “they’re trying to shape me / re-arrange me”. I believe the last line to this poem was “fucking popularity.” Ha! This character would write that same poem. Unfortunately for this character, she thought the razor would change something inside her, more than it actually did. She realizes she’s got to take on pressure from all sides- the brown side, the white side, America, gender binary structure, pop culture, music. Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Cari Luna

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Dramatic entrances and exits in Cari Luna’s “Gone to Water,” from our September issue.

1. Wilderness is as much a character in this story as Karen or Nicki or Alex, the dark force that takes us over. Are we really just animals? At what points does the lizard brain kick in?

The lizard brain kicks in when the needs of the body take precedence over the preoccupations of the mind. It keeps us alive. Karen isn’t taken over by the lizard brain; she’s taken over by her grief, her jealousy, her aloneness in the face of her loss. That’s all elevated shit that kicks in after the basic needs of survival are met. Nicki’s, on the other hand- her pain sinks her down into the terrifying lizard-brain present. The lizard doesn’t care about loss because loss is in the past or the future. The lizard just wants the pain to stop. The lizard just wants to not die. Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Dani Sandal

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From our July issue, Dani Sandal’s elaborate, elusive “Maria in Drag.”

1. This story possesses, on the one hand, a magical, fable-like temperament, while at the same time is cut with a harsh grittiness. How did you decide on the tone for this story?

The narrator simply arrived in my brain. And she both loves and feels threatened by Chica. Perhaps she feels threatened, because she loves her. This is an old story, really — as far as young females go. Maybe the “fable-like” you speak of comes from my attempt to capture that?

2. At first, Chica seems to consume that which surrounds her: secrets, pain, innocence. When she becomes Maria, however, it all comes flooding back out. Can you talk about this shift?

Chica carries the burden of secrecy. I think when someone induces candor, especially a young girl with her friends — but remains inaccessible, both closed and open at the same time — she is in danger of reaping the consequence. I am interested in the ways people want to unload, confess, sometimes for narcissistic reasons. And how the power of this exchange resides in the one with knowledge. Who is imparted with this knowledge. I think Chica enjoyed this (manifested) power. I thought of girls telling secrets in this piece. And the rehab – or hospital – where they are most vulnerable, seemed ripe for this exploration. This seems to be a breeding ground for misdirected animosity and vulnerability. And then, there she is. Exposed. Maria.

I guess. Really, I don’t ever think too much about my writing, until it’s “done,” or someone asks me. I’m not a big planner. I just go where the thread/voice takes me, and try to manipulate it if it seems to be driving off a cliff. Into the abyss.  Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Alexandra Tanner

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In our September issue, “Four Poems” from Alexandra Tanner. Read on, for mini-goats, lobster mac n’ cheese, and mergrace.

1. What will you miss most about this world?

It’s a three-way tie between Chips Ahoy! cookies, YouTube videos of miniature goats, and Kimye.

2. “My Nephew Makes His Own Lipstick” is such a wonderful tiny revenge. What are people wearing in your favorite parade?

I live in Florida, and I always cry at Disney World parades– it’s some insane, visceral reaction to the music and the smiles and the unbelievable heat– and Princess Jasmine has the best outfit, hands down. I’d wear teal glitter harem pants every single day if I could.  Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Norman Savage

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Norman Savage (Seven Poems): “Memory contains our desire; and we know our desires by their absence. It allows us to feel”; “Even when I had a dental plan, I was fucked. Genetics and diabetes”; “We are much dumber than what we suspect we are; we are around just long enough to become a nuisance”

1. What’s the point of a memory? What’s the meaning of what’s already gone?

Memory is a tricky thing.  Nothing is lost; nothing is gone. If that should happen, you’re too old, your arteries have hardened, or you have Alzheimer’s or dementia and have little or no recollection of things at all–even eating and finally breathing. But baring those calamities, our past is our constant present, it informs, whether consciously or not, all we do. And if one believes in that–which I certainly do–than our future is informed by it as well, and so our present contains most, if not all, of those seeds as well. Memory does something else as well, perhaps the most important thing: it allows us to make up stories and lie. Lie to both ourselves and to those who are listening and to those who want to bother us. How else, except by memory, do we know which assholes to avoid? to snuggle up to? to tolerate? because we have to? Memory contains our desire; and we know our desires by their absence. It allows us to feel something before we experience it; it supplies texture and smell and sound. It gives us the illusion of hope. It allows us to get through something–because we already have; and it reminds us that the cage we live in is not completely closed.

2. My Dad once traded a tractor for a few root canals. Do you have a dental care plan or are you fucked?

Even when I had a dental plan, I was fucked. Genetics and diabetes played havoc in my mouth from an early age. I have some government coverage, but because I had some good work done before that happened, I’ve not had to use it. All my mouth’s roots are long gone and I’ve been making do, so far, with what has replaced the natural set of choppers I was born with.
Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Alex Mattingly

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Relax and enjoy while Alex Mattingly, author of The Big Nap, serves us up lessons on the profundity of wax bottle candy, the disappointment of raisins, and the mystery of The Sultan’s Virgin Brie.

1. You manage a not-for-profit bookstore called Indy Reads Books. So many businesses in the book industry are for profit but not making any. How is Indy Reads Books different from that?

Still working that out! The truth is, though, bookstores that specialize in used books seem to be doing considerably better than their New-Book-Carrying counterparts, in no small part due to the fact that business models like those of Amazon have done a fair job conditioning people to avoid paying full price for anything. So right there we’ve got a bit of an edge – though we carry a few new books, most of our inventory is donated to us and sells for very low prices.

And that’s the other part that keeps us a little more nimble – the bookstore’s primary purpose is to help raise funds for the adult literacy programs of Indy Reads, our parent organization. Having that as our purpose encourages book donations, which keeps us able to provide a fresh supply of interesting and hard-to-find books without having much overhead on our stock. It’s a neat business model, and a fantastic way for a nonprofit to have a community presence that also serves as a way of raising money for a greater mission.

But I’d hesitate to look at what our bookstore does and apply those lessons to the book industry as a whole – it makes me nervous that people are getting used to paying at least 40% less than the cover price of a book. As a used bookseller, it’s great, but as a writer, it probably means coming up with radically different models for convincing people that things such as books (and music, and movies, etc.) are worth the money they cost.

2. Have you thought about turning The Big Nap into a series? How would that play out? Do you think the main character and Emily will ever get together?

There actually is a prequel, published previously by Punchnel’s, titled ‘Marbles.’ There’s an oblique reference to it in ‘The Big Nap,’ though I wanted both pieces to be able to stand alone. At this point I think there would have to be a third act, though I don’t think it’s going to end well for the narrator. I don’t think I’ve left him any room to get out of Part Three in one piece, as he keeps bringing down more trouble by trying to be left alone.

As for Emily, I think she’d have a very different opinion of their relationship. I think if the narrator called her ‘his girl’ to her face it would probably get him stabbed in the neck with a compass.
Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Aaron Crippen

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Aaron Crippen (translator of Mu Cao’s Sexual Abuse) beds his roots in the soft dirt of original voices.

1. First, I really want to know how to pronounce Mu Cao. I’m from the south and I read it as “Moo Cow” which I adore and am surely wrong about.

Lol how about Moo Tsow? “Moo” should be said with a falling tone, as in “Moo!” And “Cao” should be said with a dipping tone, so your voice almost drops out in the middle. It means “Grave Grass.”  Your Cow sensed it.

2. Do you write more when you’re translating another’s work? How does it affect your own writing?

Translating Chinese is very fruitful for me. Chinese writing has its roots in pictographs, so it’s very concrete. Concrete words are sensory and they signify nothing other than themselves: perfect for poetry. And Chinese has scale. One word can picture the horizon and the sun or a range of mountains. You can have multiple landscapes in a few syllables. Making a line of Chinese poetry is like laying a row of bricks, bricks of colored glass depicting scenes from Earth. Translating Chinese makes me want to write compact English poems, using words like bricks that can bear the weight of a whole poem, that signify nothing other than themselves. To this extent, translating Chinese energizes me and returns me to my Imagist roots.
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The Lightning Room With Christopher Cokinos

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Christopher Cokinos explains Why I Want To Fuck Rupert Murdoch to me (spoiler alert: it combines scruffy and scrotum).

1. What do you imagine Rupert Murdoch smells like?

I think he smells like a lot many of us- Gillette and Old Spice but he probably likes cinnamon gum. He thinks it covers up the lobster bisque he had at lunch. You decide.

2. What do you think of Rupert’s twitter feed, do you follow?

I’m not on Twitter because he is.
Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Keisha Lynne Ellis

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Keisha Lynne Ellis talks the loudest about The Little Death in a land of no alarm clocks where everyone has a chance to die.

1. Why do people follow one person over another?

On an individual level I think that many of us would admit to not having this “life” thing completely figured out, but we all probably have some idea about what we want it to look like. I guess we choose to follow the people (or theories, or gods) whose views are more in line with what we already know we want. On a grander scale, when we talk about groups or nations, it boils down to whoever talks the loudest.

2. Is anyone in life equal? Can they be?

We are all born equal and we die equal, but we all seem to forget this while we’re alive.
Continue reading →

The Lightning Room With Jenn Marie Nunes

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Wherein Jenn discusses the never narratives ofThe Enchanted Historical Realm and the first street in America; all while the girl-y-est, most mythic, &objectified, bad-ass-est, hero thing-y thing around talks to God.

1. What’s the queerest thing about these poems and how could they be queerer?

Nature is probably the queerest thing. We- that’s “people”- are always trying to fuck nature or vs. nature, and really- we’re the same thing!

I guess the people relationships are only mildly queer. That’s because the narrator doesn’t have much language herself for liking girls, but she totally does duh. So her actions are mostly either just sweet or typical girl-on-girl vicious, but just like her body is erupting with signs of its queer naturalness- spores, bulbs- her narrative is splitting along the norm seam.

2. How do you determine what to put in italics? (if you don’t know, you have to come up with a reason)

Oh, that’s God talking. Continue reading →