Contributor Interviews

Today on the blog we have a contributor interview with Kristin George Bagdanov, whose poem “Purge Body” appears in MAR 35.1. Kristin is an MFA candidate in poetry at Colorado State University, where she is a Lilly Graduate Fellow. Her poems have recently appeared in or are forthcoming from Cincinnati Review, Juked, The Laurel Review, The Los Angeles Review, 32 Poems, and others. She is the poetry editor of Ruminate Magazine. You can find more of her work at kristingeorgebagdanov.com.

What can you share about your poem, “Purge Body,” prior to its MAR publication?

I’ve always been really good at sleeping. I took it for granted, drinking coffee right before bed and falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Then I got older. Or maybe it was grad school. And I started to notice how even at night I couldn’t escape distraction, lights and flashes and worry that kept calling me away from that deepest solitude of sleep—that time when we are lost inside ourselves with no guarantee of waking. And this poem grew out of the craving for darkness, for emptying out the exhausting brightness of daily life. While writing this poem, I also started doing a lot of research on light pollution, and there’s this really great, and I think important, book out now by Paul Bograd called The End of Night that I suggest you all read. He says that “in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans’ eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness.” And I have to wonder, how is that lack of darkness harming us, inside and out?

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

Happy dance. There may have been a squeal as well.

What was the best feedback you received on this piece?

Well, this wasn’t in reference to this piece, but I think it’s a useful story about feedback in general. Several years ago, after an editor had accepted a poem, I sent him a revised version to print instead. He told me he liked the previous version better and asked why I cut so much out of the original. I told him I had workshopped it and got some additional feedback, the consensus of which was to cut it down quite a bit. He replied:

“Yet another reason why workshops are dangerous to a poet’s health! In my experience, the product is rarely an improvement on the original—you can cut out the gripes from the peanut gallery, but then you lose the magical spark of the original creation.”

I was much younger then, and hadn’t learned to fully trust myself or my poems (and I suppose I’m still working on that). I’ve carried this advice with me ever since, through countless workshops and critique sessions. In the end, you have to trust your own sense of the poem, and take everything else with a grain of salt.

You’re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?

I usually start by saying “I hate this question” (in response to “what kind of poetry do you write”).

Once a relative told me he liked my chapbook, but suggested I should try rhyming more. So, there’s that.

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

Well I’ll define “success” as that which has helped me most with my writing, rather than some sort of prize or publication. And so to that end, I’d say it’s my time in the MFA program at Colorado State University, which I am finishing up now. I can’t believe how much I’ve grown not only as a writer, but as a reader. My experience there is what informs and will continue to inform all other writing-related successes I might be fortunate enough to have.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

Any poems printed in my undergraduate literary journal.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

My cat is my muse.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does involve writing.

My cat is my muse.

Thanks, Kristin!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

Our latest contributor interview focuses on obsessions, compulsions, and fabrications of the mind — not to mention deep secrets, hulking angels, and the small choices poetry is built upon. Who could ask for more?

Cynthia Marie Hoffman‘s poem “Open Window,” appears in MAR 35.1. Shes the author of Sightseer and Paper Doll Fetus, as well as the chapbook Her Human Costume. Hoffman is a former Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Director’s Guest at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Wisconsin Arts Board. Her poems have appeared in Pleiades, Fence, Blackbird, diode, and elsewhere. She is also co-editor of the project book interview site The Cloudy House. Visit her online at cynthiamariehoffman.com.

Quick! Summarize your poem in 10 words or fewer.

A child sleeps peacefully despite her mother’s fears.

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

“Open Window” is the poem that arose from a list I was making of all the terrible things one could possibly be afraid of happening to a child who is otherwise safe in her bedroom at night. Some of these things came from the haunted parts of my own mind, and some of them came from an intentional desire to bring the fears into the realm of the surreal for the sake of the poem. I’m not really afraid that a giant moth is going to fly through the window and smother my child in her sleep, for example, but I think it gets my point across.

One of the things I love about writing poetry is that it allows us to use imagery and tone without always having to say outright the exact idea that lies at its core. I don’t ever believe in obscuring meaning (in fact, the opposite!), but I do enjoy, and have even come to rely on, this sort of imagistic proxy when writing something deeply personal. In fact, I’ve found that when I’ve been too literal, the poems have fallen flat.

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

I was thrilled that this poem had been taken for Mid-American Review, but I was especially honored that it was included in the 35th Anniversary Special Section for Prose Poetry, Short Shorts, and Flash Creative Nonfiction. The prose poem is a very commanding form for me, especially in terms of this series I’m working on now, in how well the form can simultaneously embrace the wide-open leaps and the crushing compression that are symptomatic of irrational fear. I felt the poem had found a good home.

What was the best feedback you received on this piece?

“Open Window” is part of a larger memoir of sorts about obsessions, compulsions, and fabrications of the mind. Making clear (or intentionally blurring) the difference between reality and imagination is a challenge I’ve had to work through in every poem in this series.

The poem contains the line “the street glimmers in the lamplight, a black river heaving a galaxy of stars.” Initially, I used the name of the street I live on, Milky Way, but when I shared the draft with my poetry group, I learned that the exact name of the street was distracting (not to mention confusing).

They noted that my descriptions of fears, which lie at the core of the series I’m working on, were always non-specific. Although they are identified clearly enough to be seen (a child walks into a knife, an airplane crashes into a house), none of them included qualifiers or proper nouns. It wasn’t a Wüsthof knife. It wasn’t an American Airlines plane. And this, my group argued, helps signal to the reader that they are fears and not reality—they seem to exist in a separate, more dreamlike world. In the poem, it is the mother who looks upon the street and envisions it as a sort of creeping galaxy that eventually invades the child’s bedroom. It might be the mother’s internal reality, but it’s not real reality.

So I deleted “Milky Way” and replaced it with “the street.” It seemed like a picky change, but these trusted, long-time readers were able to help me see the larger patterns in my work. Before that night, I hadn’t really thought about how I could control this quality of vagueness in order to signal a reader, but I’ve applied the formula to many of my poems since. Poetry is built on these small choices.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

Since I was a child, I had always believed there was an angel who stood in my bedroom at night. The figure was a hulking sort of glow with heavy white wings and a white robe. I never really saw it, but the angel was a constant presence in my room in the dark, just silently standing against the closet door. He was going to lean over the bed and whisper a secret into my ear, I was sure of it. And I was terrified. Whatever the angel was going to tell me, I didn’t want to hear it. So I have always slept with the covers pulled up over my ear.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does involve writing.

I never told anyone about the angel. But just a couple years ago, as I was writing this series of poems, I started to write about it. And the darnedest thing happened—the angel left. It was as if I had forgotten about it, after all these years as easily as can be, and I suddenly realized it just wasn’t there anymore.

Poetry—or any form of writing—can be remarkably cathartic, liberating. We write things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to say, and sometimes poetry can bring forth change.

But there is sort of an emptiness left behind. I suppose I miss the angel always being there as a figment of my childhood. I find myself writing about the fact that I miss him. I kind of want to know what his secret was.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.

There are many I enjoyed reading, but Alan Elyshevitz’ “Deep” is one that has stayed with me the longest. It sucks me into its world, especially the “plague of rain” and the ending, “something barely alive. Alive but terrified.” I also really enjoyed Claire Wahmanholm’s “Theory of Primogeniture: Barn,” especially “You watch/ the field take you apart.” I try to resist putting too much pressure on endings in my own work, but I guess I’m a sucker for that really perfect final line. And for really weird, haunting imagery, like the cocoons in Becky Hagenston’s “Owls.” Those cocoons! And the “Bat Belly” in Ryan Teitman’s “One Hundred Names for the Moon.”

Can you show us a photo of you holding your MAR contributor’s copy?

Thanks for the interview, Cynthia!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

If you’re afraid of outer space, then today’s contributor interview with Rachel Morgan is for you.

Rachel Morgan lives, teaches, and writes in Iowa. She is co-editor of Fire Under the Moon: An Anthology of Contemporary Slovene Poetry (Black Dirt Press). Her work recently appears or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Fence, Denver Quarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, DIAGRAM, Barrow Street, and Poet Lore. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Currently she teaches at the University of Northern Iowa and is the Poetry Editor for the North American Review.

Rachel’s poem, “Fever of Unknown Origin,” appears in MAR 35.1. She joins us on the blog today to discuss making family members cry, listening to Sigur Rós on repeat, the terrors of outer space, and, of course, poetry.

Quick! Summarize your poem in 10 words or fewer.

Childhood, motherhood, widowhood, but not in that order.

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

This poem emerged from a writing exercise I often use in creative writing classes. The exercise asks students to consider an artifact they encountered as a child that they later come to understand. In parts of Appalachia, a tight nest of feathers recovered from the feather pillows of the deceased is knows as a “death crown” or “angel crown.” A death crown is considered a good omen—a sign the deceased is in heaven. When I was a young girl, my grandmother showed me two death crowns recovered from her seven year old brother’s pillow. The initial poem emerged quickly, but I tinkered with it for about a year and a half before submitting it.

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

“Fever of Unknown Origin” is part of my manuscript Coal, which includes found text narratives against the landscape of the southeastern Appalachian mountains, and I was visiting family at Grandfather Mountain when I read the kind acceptance email. MAR is a journal I’ve long admired, so I was happy.

What was the worst/best feedback you received on this piece?

A family member (besides my mother) said, “Why does what you write always make me cry?”

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

It sounds saccharine, but honestly each time I write a poem feels like success. I think writing a poem is like spell-making, and I love the brief moment of being enchanted by the process of linking word to word.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

For a few years after getting my MFA I become unmoored from the writing practice. With the expectation to produce work for workshop and the critiques from my peers gone, my concerns turned toward earning a living and writing when I could. I wrote very little and sent out even less, and then I let the inevitable rejections take care of my remaining motivation. I wish I’d taken time to think of myself as a poet and writer in these years.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

I’m terrified of outer space.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does involve writing.

I listen to songs on repeat when I write. Right now I’m listening to a lot of Sigur Rós.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.

I enjoyed Ryan Teitman’s piece from the Special Section, “One Hundred Names for the Moon” for the way it plays with what cannot be translated across language and age. I read Teitman’s book Litany for the City three years ago, and it took my breath away with its still moments in strange cities. Reading this collection as I moved from Los Angeles to the Midwest was both a type of litany and elegy.

Thanks for the interview, Rachel!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

Alyse Bensel serves as the Book Review Editor at The Los Angeles Review and Co-Editor at Beecher’s. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Not of Their Own Making (Dancing Girl Press, 2014) and Shift (Plan B Press, 2012). Her poems have most recently appeared in Heavy Feather Review, Sugar Mule, and Ruminate, among others. She is currently a PhD candidate in creative writing specializing in poetry at the University of Kansas. Her poem, “Glossary for Metamorphosis I,” appears in MAR 35.1. She’s here today on the blog to discuss poetry, cat-themed clothing, exposing family secrets, and more.

Quick! Summarize your poem in 10 words or fewer.

An exploration of 17^th-century German vernacular for metamorphosis.

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

“Glossary for Metamorphosis I” only took several revisions for me to be happy with it, but it was rejected 16 times before it found a home in MAR. I think the rejection count is on the low end for me.

I started working on the poem in January 2013. It was formed from a scattering of notes I had taken about Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), the subject of my manuscript-in-progress. All of the words explored in the poem are terms Merian initially used to describe metamorphosis. She didn’t know Latin, so she worked in the German vernacular for her observations. At that time my friend and I had a weekly Panera Bread workshop, where she suggested opening up the language more. I also got rid of a few sections, eulenfalter (nocturnal moths) and capellen (diurnal moths and butterflies), although they may reappear in other glossaries. This poem is only the first installment.

Coffee was most likely consumed during the writing and revision process.

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

I danced around my house. My cats probably watched me. They do not approve of my dance habits.

What was the worst/best feedback you received on this piece (either in the writing/critiquing process, post-publication, or otherwise)?

I wrote this poem post-MFA, so the worst and best feedback was that I mostly had myself to converse with about the poem. This was a terrifying prospect.

You’re at a family reunion and some long-lost relative asks about your writing. What do you say?

“I wrote a poem revealing the family secrets.”

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

My first chapbook Shift, which Plan B Press accepted and published in 2012. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing with my writing, and that first chapbook acceptance opened doors for me. After that initial push for publication, everything became a lot easier. In the months that followed publication, I gave more readings, met more writers, poets, and publishers, and delved into becoming an editor myself.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

Going to graduate school nearly nonstop. The year I took off between my MFA and PhD was the time where I figured my writing out. I finally had time to breathe.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

If there is a piece of clothing that features cats on it, I have to have it. There is no stopping me. I own a cat dress, a cat button-up shirt, a cat pullover sweatshirt, and multiple pairs of cat socks. I just need cat pants.

Do you have another favorite piece of writing in this MAR issue? If so, name it and tell us why.

How can I name only one? I think I’ve reread Luis García Montero’s work in the issue three or more times now. It’s so beautiful and haunting. He approaches the city and space from such a deeply engaged and fraught position I couldn’t help but take notice.

Can you show us a photo of you holding your MAR contributor’s copy?

Thanks for the interview, Alyse!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor

How can you possibly not read a contributor interview in which the writer describes his story as “Little Red Riding Hood kicks all manner of ass?” So please, read on and learn more about George Choundas, whose fiction and nonfiction appear in over twenty-five publications, including The Southern Review, The American Reader, and Subtropics. He is winner of the New Millennium Award for Fiction (Winter 2014-2015), a former FBI agent, and half Cuban and half Greek. His darkly imaginative short story, “The Girl Who Not Once Cried Wolf,” appears in MAR 35.1.

Quick! Summarize your story in 10 words or fewer.

Little Red Riding Hood kicks all manner of ass.

What can you share about this piece prior to its MAR publication?

My daughter is four years old. She likes her bedtime stories. I read them to her sometimes, and sometimes I make them up. In the fall of 2013 I launched into a telling of Little Red Riding Hood. I realized by Sentence Three that Riding Hood had no need of hunters. And that Claire—born in the Year of the Tiger, on Bastille Day, with enormous eyes of mischief green—had no need of stories suggesting she was less than. I told her a different version. The story grew each time I told it. Longer, more detailed. Finally I wrote it down. I spent nine months revising and editing. And engineering progressively more disgusting ways to describe wolf innards.

What was your reaction upon receiving your MAR acceptance?

You read and write short fiction for years—decades. For decades you admire this icon called Mid-American Review and the stories in it because they’re good and, well, it’s iconic. And one day you receive an email that this same institution would love—“love”—to publish your writing. You do not fully comprehend this. You cannot reconcile it with what you know. So you do three things: First, you keep your reply email short for fear of writing something that inadvertently confirms some background suspicion on the editors’ part that this acceptance is not simply implausible but in fact a mistake. Second, you continue thereafter to play along and pretend everything’s cool, everything’s as it should be. Third, you show fate some gratitude the best way writers can: you keep writing.

My reaction? One day I’m daydreaming about space and rocketships, the next I’m in an astronaut suit bearing a NASA insignia going, This is fucked up.

What do you consider your biggest writing-related success?

I recently learned I’d won the New Millennium Award for Fiction for a story that originally appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review. That was kind of incredible. Then I learned that the award’s founding editor, Don Williams, called it among the best stories to ever win the prize. That was kind and incredible.

Your biggest writing-related regret?

That I did not realize at a much earlier age that writing has little to do with knowing what to write about, or with having something to write about, but rather with writing and having written and determining to write some more and thereby finding out, to your surprise and (ideally) delight, what there always was to write about.

Tell us one strange thing about yourself that does not involve writing.

I can’t shoot pool or play a musical instrument without sticking out my tongue. It’s an unconscious tendency over which I have no control. It’s as if my tongue needs to get out and aloft to receive some kind of homing signal. This is a problem because my son five years ago agreed to play the cello if I learned along with him, and now I’m the one whom the instructor gently chides for resembling at our summer recitals an overheated dog, and at our winter recitals a deranged one.

Thanks for an entertaining interview, George!
Laura Maylene Walter, Fiction Editor