Hello everyone, this is Mei-Li Yang with Intro to Creative Writing and this week I'm really excited to be in conversation with Michael Torres. Michael Torres was born and brought up in Pomona, California where he spent his adolescence as a graffiti artist. His debut collection of poetry, An Incomplete List of Names, was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series and named one of NPR's books we love. His honors include awards and support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
the McKnight Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Cantamundo, Vona Voices, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation. I think you've gone almost every grant in Minnesota, right? The Camargo Foundation and the Locke Literary Center. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and is a teaching artist with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. You can visit him at michaeltorreswriter.com.
Michael, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Hey, thanks for having me. So I'm going to pop off screen so that you can share some work and then I will come back in afterward. OK, cool.
Yeah. So I'll read a couple of poems from the book, my first book, Incomplete List of Names, which is my only book right now. And then maybe I'll read one or two new things.
Yeah. So this is the first poem in the book. And. It was actually the last poem that I wrote for the book, which is kind of interesting that it ended up being the first one in the order.
It's called Doing Donuts in an 87 Mustang 5.0 after my homie Chris gets broken up with. I want to argue for the stars, but I find them missing through this window splattered with mud. Tonight, I sit shoddy and do not ask Chris if he's okay. This is the kind of loyalty I know, how the Mustang makes eights across a soccer field.
I run my hand over pennies, pepsied to the center console. That photo of his ex still blocks the speedometer, and the next few years of his life have already begun to carve a cave. I pluck pennies into my palm.
It doesn't take long for this story to burn through the field. The safety belt shocks my collar. Chris turns and aims for a gate without easing off the gas.
I yell, fuck it, to whatever I can't hear him say. And isn't that why I'm here? to watch chain links swell in his headlights i disappear the pennies with my fist um and the other poem i'll read from the book is called the pachukos grandson consider skipping school it's from a series of like pachukos grandson poems like persona poems that i was i don't know i i couldn't write like i had the images for these poems, but I couldn't really write them until I ended up in the persona for whatever reason, and it just worked with it. So here's the Pachucco's grandson consider skipping school. I didn't want to be bad, but I wanted to be bad.
Yesterday someone threw a book at the sub's head. All I saw was a bird with paged wings, and today when I walked into class baggy-jeaned, he took roll but didn't call my name. That's how I knew I didn't have to answer no more.
I became absence in my seat. asleep became block letters for the name my homie bestowed i dreamt chain links and angel wings how to escape at some point we were awake yes all the brown boys like me and we carved our new names into desks in the shape of hearts what a beautiful beating we cut the tongues from our old shoes to stuff into new ones later so they'd pop like a bullfrog puffs when it's in danger no one to recognize us We were more mustache than our mothers could manage. Before fifth period, some left. Through a window, my homies clicked chins what's up for me to come through. Don't let the wind between branches fool you, their eyes said.
Every looking out also implies enclosure. Out there, where I could be anything, I placed a silver chain around my neck. And it fit like a slipped halo.
All right, so I'll read a couple poems from new stuff that I've been working on. And the first one I'll read is, it's sort of like, I think I thought at first when I was working on or starting to work on a new book, I was like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, you want to do something different. And then you realize like you're sort of still writing about similar things or in the same world sometimes.
And I think. This is directly from that world that the first book was sort of born out of, so it's called Affiliated. Beyond the chain-link fence of Friday, a rally of streetlights and a single homie with me, when a stranger runs up, twisting his face toward what he yells, where you from?
That sentence, like birds after boom, leaps into the air above my father's yard, where I was a boy, was, and whatever answer I might contain, retreats to where I've often imagined a custodian sweeping scraps of ideas at the back of my brain. I am from nowhere, this man. my waiting stranger knows of which is not what he wants to hear he's invited me to be a kind of shadow to dance or disappear how old am i that day 16 20 and which homie stands in the blur of this moment with me unworthy of his anger the stranger walks away back to the honda waiting for him and everything will clear as the car peels out just as the moon slips behind a crowd of clouds You were scared, huh? Jesse says in a way that could mean it's okay to be, but that he'll probably have to bring it up in front of the homies tomorrow and anytime he recalls, until one of us dies. Nah, I say. I want to tell him I'm looking for the moon, but even now I don't believe me.
Nah, I say again. His laughter, heavy, a cloud-swallowed hole. All right, um...
The last poem I'll read is from a bunch of poems I've been writing about my dad, like our, my, like a father-son relationship where me and my dad, he's obviously older than he was when I was writing this first book, which he sort of appears in a little bit, but the first book is mostly about friends and friendship. And I think now, cause I live in Minnesota and not California, I see my parents. a lot less of course and so I when I do see them you like if you've ever moved away from like home and then you go back it changes and it's sort of weird like in that how how people change and how they get older and look different but um so this is sort of um reflecting on my relationship with him when I was younger it's called a song of the red jack handle I never used it but I would have Me and the homies always had beef with someone, but no more, I thought, than the average 16-year-old.
Back then, I never asked, but every few days I would, upon entering my hatchback, lean forward in the driver's seat and feel for the red metal handle I hid there, a reassurance, only to find it gone back in the garage when I checked. It was attached again to the car jack. This was the conversation my father and I had. our quiet back and forth and when he took the handle back the first time i imagine that was him saying mijo and when i noticed it missing i answered you don't know me you can tell me anything his gesture said i won't let your mother know handle in my hand i rolled it back to where it belonged and alone in the car said i'm not that boy keeping up behind you at the swap meet i love you He'd say to the handle, maybe placing it back in the garage. I love you too.
I called out those nights when I dropped the handle beneath the seat and backed out into the street. Great. Thank you so much for sharing these lovely poems.
You know, and as you were reading, I was just thinking about, so I'm still making my way through your book. But I was just reading this note from like the Ford by, you know, Raquel Salas Rivera. And where they write that of your work, this is where two lives meet as men shake hands, yearning for a passion that is not violence. And that just struck me about the poems that you share today, as well as the other ones I've read online, just how you write a lot about male relationships with family members, you know, like.
um brotherly relationships um relationship with your father um relationships with friends and so um which i find uh i feel like i don't i don't think we i don't read enough of those you know yeah yeah i feel like i saw very sort of very few when i found them in in like contemporary poetry when i was coming up it was like really i was like very much like like sort of like attracted to those poems and really wanted to see how other you know men in that traditional sort of sense like how they navigated it because it was like of interest to me and I don't think I realized that when I first started out until I found the poems Mm hmm. Can you talk a little bit about your journey to becoming a writer? Yeah.
I feel like it's it's like happened in different parts. Like really early on when I was, you know, like a like eight or ten, my my sister who ended up becoming a teacher, she would she would have me like check out books at the library in the summer and then like write books report reports for her. And she and she's like. 18 years older than I am just to that context is sort of needed and she would also when I was a kid take me to her like community college classes and I would sit in with her for like her Shakespeare class and then like her other literature classes and we came home and like she would have me she would make me try to read like Beowulf like old English and like so like that I just like literature was so important to her and it sort of like that was something that was like foundational for me because I knew it was like an important thing to someone at least.
And, and, and that sort of resurfaced when I myself was in community college and there was like every year they would have a writing contest followed by like a writer's weekend, like conference that where the winners were awarded. And, and I would like I would, I would submit a poem and think like, this is when I first started out and I thought like I'm so dope like I'm gonna win something and then like and then I wouldn't win anything I wouldn't place nothing I was so at first really like upset like oh I thought this was such a dope poem like what happened like who are all these other people that won and then I would sign up for the the conference to to go because you would hear them read and they would make this little booklet of the winning poems and I think more than like the competitiveness I wanted to I wanted to be in those conversations with those people who were talking about poems and writing poems and I just wanted to be I just want to stand in those circles because I think at that point I was like let's see like 21 years old and a lot of my life had been what am I what are my friends like what are my homies like and they like particular things that I would end up writing about that I that were not of interest to me in the way that it was to them so when I found poetry and I was like like early, you know, introduction to poetry classes. And then I found out about the writing conferences and things like that. I was really like, oh, these are like the kind of people I want to have conversations with. And that was kind of a way.
And through those avenues, I found like the Creative Writing Club. And then I took more creative writing classes. And then like with the Creative Writing Club, we went to like local open mic readings.
And like it just really took off from there. And then. Then I started looking to like, where do I want to go school?
And who has a major in creative writing? Where can I get a graduate degree? And I just kind of took off and I just kept following it in similar ways where like, I might submit to something and I would, I might not win the thing, but it would sort of lead me to, to finding ways to, to stay in those conversations.
And, and, you know, on the other side of that, I'm growing as a writer and that was always really nourishing for me, the community aspect as much as like. growing as a writer yeah i mean one of the things i really appreciate about what you just said is just that even if you didn't win something i mean it pushed you to think about well just it seemed like you were just curious to learn more yeah and i was like and a part of me was like going to that conference to to be like all those writers that won they suck and i'm gonna prove it by like reading their crappy poems but then their poems were good and i just wanted to like talk to them about like, what, how did you do this in this poem? Like, how did you, why do you think to start this way or end here? Like, like I was just like, really, my, my curiosity took over much more than like my ego about it.
But yeah. So my next question is just that, so I feel like out of like the genre, you know, a lot of the genres that we're studying this semester, we were studying creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry. I feel like consistently poetry feels intimidating to a lot of people and so I'm curious about how one can make poetry feel accessible like do you have any advice on how people can either approach reading or writing poetry in a way that is you know leans more into like curiosity versus like an excitement versus like being afraid yeah um I mean I definitely feel that like In poetry, there's such a wide range of styles that like, even I encounter poems that like I don't get or like that don't move me, I would say. So like, I think, knowing that, that you don't have to get or feel something for every poem is okay, but I think what I what I try to sort of tell my students is that like you you don't want to try to look like for a meaning I think maybe we learned this in high school that like we're taught to sort of analyze and look for like a hidden message or a meaning or a moral when a poem as it's read should sort of like if you if you feel something like a gut punch or if you if it's something like if there's like something that resonates and you really can't explain it but you you find yourself wanting to return to the poem and like the sort of questions or curiosity it brings up in you I think that's that's like that's good enough and it's doing the job a poem should do um and I think I think some writers do that and aren't maybe as accessible I try to be an accessible writer by which I mean writing with like clarity and like with concrete images like things you can see or or a scene that you find yourself in as a way to like sort of be inviting to to a curious potential reader uh but i think yeah not looking for like a hidden meaning but trying to in some ways in a poem you're you're you're retracing the speaker's thought process of the experience they had so like there might not be like here's the the the moral at the end of it it's just like here's what it felt like to be heartbroken kind of like that i mean like in the first poem I read with the doing donuts, it's like, there's no meaning. But the question that it was bringing up to me is like, what do you do as a friend when someone you care deeply about is broken hearted, like you want to support them, and they're not doing something safe.
It's just like all these, like, what do we like? That's the question that kept bringing up for me, there's nothing really to, to get it, it might be meaningful to you. But I think they're just like, feelings that are brought up like yeah maybe I have maybe you use maybe another person has also felt my hope is that a reader sees reads it and thinks like yeah I remember a tough time trying to figure out like what to do in this situation like the complicatedness that is real life is I think sort of a thing that I try to bring up yeah I think you you brought up a couple of really good points I mean which is that there's so many different types of poems and you don't have to get every poem there's not some secret language though I feel like some writers some poets are like there's some secret messages here I want you to get it yeah I mean just that there are so many ways to access poetry and if you don't get something it means I mean I just love your advice which is that if you feel something even if you don't know why yeah it's good that's a good that's good and it's a start and you'll want to return to it I mean that's also why I like bringing many different like examples from different authors because you there's always like a student and it's a different student each time who comes up to me at the end of class who's like man I don't really know what happened in this poem or what it's about but it felt like I liked what was happening and it's always like because that poet and that poem spoke to them and so I think looking looking for that and and not you know for the meaning or whatever is kind of key for poetry yeah um can you talk about what your process looks like yeah um so um Right now, so my process has changed over the last couple of years because I have two kids, a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And so right now it's like I have like bursts where I write a lot of drafts, where I write many first drafts of poems, like many drafts of many poems.
So I might have like 10 different poems that are in early draft form. And then I might slow down for a period. and do other things that still feed my artistic self, right?
And then I might return to those poems and, like, start revising. And then I might have another burst from, like, filling myself creatively, whether that's, like, reading poetry or reading fiction or, you know, I like watching interviews of artists talking about. their own process and i often like watching videos that of artists who are not writers so i really like watching visual artists talk about their work um there's a youtube channel called louisiana channel it's not like louisiana like united states louisiana it's like louisiana like germany or something it's like some some foreign countries like that's like the name of their gallery or something and they have a youtube channel and and they are they have a bunch of different artists mostly visual artists sculptors even architects so creatives not just those like traditional artists and I love hearing them talk about process because then what happens is they're talking about their process and I it translates I translate it into my head what that means for my poems and then that gets me excited for for my own work um sometimes I just take a walk if I can or or things like that to sort of not just clear my head but like stuff is happening I think poetic stuff is happening in the back of my head when I'm going for a walk you know um all those sorts of things and so it's it's sort of like off and on with these bursts all happening I don't I I used to try to write every day and sometimes I like even if writing every day means looking at a poem for like five minutes before my kids wake up i try to do that but i don't i can't often so i think um it's important to have it's important to build a habit which i thought i did in the mfa but it's also good to know like to like sort of like forgive yourself or let yourself off the hook from you just don't want yourself to you don't want to make yourself feel bad about like not writing every day i guess but you But I do think it's important to sort of live with a sort of sense of awareness in the world, because then you notice things that could end up in a poem or that just make, I guess, life in the world that much more rich.
Yeah. And I think that, you know, as you said, you had a process and then you had kids. And so your process can change.
And I'd like to ask this question of all the writers who come. do these craft talks because I feel like there's you know sometimes people might think that writers just I don't know go you sit in an attic by yourself and you generate work and you come out and I think it's good to just hear about how people work through yeah their work yeah yeah yeah I mean there is that there's definitely that alone time but I mean I love the literary community and so there are a couple poet friends with whom I share work and we and sometimes we just you talk about writing it's again going back to like I really love being in those conversations and like that's stimulating for me and yeah it's not it's not just the writing in the attic yeah uh uh yeah and I I one of the my other questions later was you know like how do you feel your artistic well but it seems like um you read works you engage with other disciplines you you take walks um recently someone just told me that um was just talking about how walks are actually um there is actually a scientific reason why we get clarity when we walk because uh it has to do with the way our right brain and left brains open up i i suck at biology so oh it's all good by anyways so but this person was just like their wife is a neural science scientist so they said they've known this for years that taking walks can actually open up creativity and other things and in the writing world we're always like take a walk but there's a science behind that too you Okay, yeah, no, I think it's totally, it's, it's totally true. And I've done it where I've like, walked and started writing and revising at the same time. And so I, yeah, I think, I think that's really true. And I think I have to do one of those things if I'm not writing, because there, there is after a few days, if I haven't done any of that, like a weird, like itch that I get that, like, I'm not, like, I'm not functioning as I, as I should, I'm not being in the present in the world that I should.
So I need to like, take a walk or read something or watch an interview or write something like that does feel very real to me. And that might be after having been writing seriously for like 10 years, I guess. But yeah, it feels good to do any one of those things that like fill me creatively. Yeah.
So the title of this craft talk is imagery and wandering. Can you talk more about what you mean by wandering? Yeah.
I think when I say wandering, I think because a lot of my poems tend to be narrative driven and usually coming from a real life experience. So often I start a poem with an image, right? And so I usually stick to the image. But often that doesn't, in the drafting and revising process, I get to a point where I get sort of... bored with the with like sort of the strict narrative of the truth and facts of the thing and so like I like to wander and maybe bring in a sort of different image or even wandering by being uncertain like I think another if another phrase like like I guess like the craft a craft term for that would be like negative capability when you're sort of in the poem you're okay with being uncertain and I think that's important and it's an important part of wandering because If you think you know exactly where the poem's gonna go, then it's sort of like, if I think I know where the poem's gonna go and then I execute, then I'm like, okay done it's more like a report and then then like a poem a poem should be surprising and so I think part of the process of finding that surprise or discovering that surprise is wandering and moving around like um like there's a whole series of poems that I've been writing that have wolves in them for no reason other other than the first of those poems was like another poem about me and my dad from uh from a memory and i was like okay i know how this ends because i this is a narrative poem like i usually do and so i was like what do i do if i just wander and move into a different direction and so like instead of the poem just ending with like my father and i at night you know finishing up um changing the transmission fluid in my truck like it's more about like it has like the wolves coming in and he's like like and it's like just a weird sort of image to bring in and what and like but it does something interesting that in like layering and adding maybe potential metaphor that you know poetry takes advantage of you know by using metaphor and you can do those things in a poem and so to me just to wander and be unsure and even like literally saying like i was just telling a student earlier um we gave i gave um right uh we had a writing prompt and then she said when we were discussing she said um i didn't like where i went in the writing prompt she's like I wrote these cliche things and I just thought, oh, this is trash.
This is trash. And then after class, I told her, did you, did you write? This is trash.
This is trash. She's like, no, I just stopped writing. I was like, you should just let yourself like wander and then think about like, why do I think this is trash? Because it's cliche.
Why do I not want to be cliche? Because I want to be original. Why do I want to be original? And you get in, you wander and start thinking like actually really deep thoughts that sometimes we're not, we're surprised that we confront like, why do I want to be original?
because they want to stand out. Like you can go down that rabbit hole, right? But I think that happens from wandering and straying from the narrative of like the story that you think you want to tell and then, and letting yourself sort of discover and be surprised.
I think that's the fun that, that poetry can have in it. Yeah. And I think, you know, you mentioned that some of your poems come from like things that have happened in real life, but also it feels like In poetry, you can also give yourself permission to, you can start from a place of a real experience, but you can play because it's not about you anymore. It's whoever the speaker of the poem is. And sometimes you mentioned the persona poem earlier.
I'm like, yeah, maybe sometimes it's not you anymore. It is a completely different character. Yeah, I think using persona or using like something that's a lie or not real or if you want to like use surrealism in your poem.
I think what happens is it doesn't make the poem any less true. It makes it less factual, but that does not matter in a poem. What matters is if it still feels like, if there's emotionally, if there's emotional truth, then that will resonate with the reader.
As weird as a poem might be with like wolves or whatever, if it's like emotionally true, then a reader will be like, yeah, they'll still get that like gut punch. They'll still feel something. They'll still.
ask questions of them that they didn't realize was going to happen when they started reading the poem. And, and I think that's way more possible. The possibility of that grows when you, I think when you wander. How do you, you know, you've already kind of mentioned images before, but how do you approach writing poems that are rich with images or imagery?
Yeah. I think, I think I think that comes from wanting to be accessible and thinking that accessible meant like clarity and that clarity also meant like images that people can, descriptions that people could see and using like trying to use more than just like trying to use all five senses, right? Trying to sort of paint the picture or have the reader feel like they can be in there.
And so I usually start up. poem with with the image um and then I like I mean the the first poem I read is always a sort of go-to example for me but the doing donuts one is like when I first started writing that poem I just the image was just like this car spinning and then I started thinking like okay well well where are we spinning we're in this field and where's the speaker and for many early drafts the speaker was in the driver's seat and then I thought like No, I didn't feel correct. And then I described what it would look like to sit in the passenger seat, because in the passenger seat, you see all these things that like he notices the stars and the mud on the windshield because the driver is not noticing anything because he's so upset and heartbroken but the speaker is noticing these things that are helping like put us there and with all through all those images and and the sounds of the car or what at least I was thinking of when I was writing it and so to me that puts the reader right there like sort of next to me or behind me in that see in that car and um and I just I just think like you I think it's just like you have better chances of like holding someone's attention if you like describing great detail where they're at as opposed to just purely using like abstract emotion like like if I would just say like yeah my my friend was heartbroken and he was really sad and he didn't know what to do like showing all these things in images kind of like contextual like shades that in but the images is something that someone can hold on to be like yeah that car is just like spinning around So that's how I sort of think about it whenever I approach any sort of poem.
Yeah. My next question is, you know, what are some poetic devices that you like to use in your writing and what kind of effects do they create? Yeah. I feel like this isn't.
Okay, so this is like a, this isn't like a, it's not like a sexy answer. but I but it's like a one that everyone can do it's like is literally like sentence and line length like variation like I might have a line that says um I'm busy today wait I'm tired no like like those little pauses like I what I love about that is that especially if you like have like let's just say regular length sentences that are like complete sentences and then you all of a sudden have like one or two word phrases that you you say are you put as sentences in the poem what it does um on that sort of like auditory level it it um stops the reader and it makes them break the pattern of what is otherwise a sort of regular flow of a sentence so if you're just you know regularly having a you like if you're having a regular sentence and you just stop, I think there's something interesting. And like, like it calls the attention of the piece when you have like those moments. And I love breaking, breaking rhythms, I suppose, creating rhythms and breaking rhythms that in its own way is a surprise. So I think that's one thing like that.
I like doing a lot and playing with, because again, it gets me out of like the, what I might not realize that was like the habit of the poem. And I, and I think that's a good. that's a good exercise I give myself.
Like, let me just break apart the poem and that sort of auditory level. And I tell students to try that too, because it just, it'll give them a different way to view and understand the poem too. But that's so, it's like an easy, fun way to try revising a poem. Yeah.
Yeah, no, I mean, what I like about the answer is, again, it feels very accessible. Anyone can play with sentence lengths or line lengths. Also, what you just said about creating rhythm and then breaking them to keep us on our toes as readers.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. That's that's part of the surprise, along with the images that might be surprising.
It's like a formal surprise. Yeah. You started talking slightly about like revising poems.
Do you do you have any advice on how to approach revising poetry? Yeah, well, I'll say it's different for every. poem but uh for me i i will usually have to step away from the poem for a couple days like there'll probably be like the first several days where i'm like really into looking at the poem and i'm just tweaking it on small levels and then i'll just take a couple days off from it so that i return to it without it sort of memorized in my head like i've sort of been away from it and then i i might just sort of ask myself like like what what lines are doing really strong work could i move them to the to the front or to the end or like what happens if i cut the first and i save every single version of a poem that i change and i number them like one through however many i do so like if i change if i do that if i move like a middle line to the top and cut and cut the first half then i'll save that as version five and then if i want to go back to version four the whole thing will be there um and i just like just start start playing with it because again i'm trying to get away from like The facts or what I think the poem is trying to be and I'm trying to turn it or what I think the poem should be. I'm trying to get closer to like maybe what the poem is trying to say or trying to do by playing around with it.
Sometimes when I'm stuck at the end of the process, like when I feel the poem is really close. What I've done in the past is I pretend that the poem is already done and someone is interviewing me about the poem and they're telling me like. also like let's say i'm having a trouble with the end of the poem in the interview someone is asking me like how did you come up with the end and i start talking about the process of coming up with the end and that doesn't give me the end of the poem but it helps clarify what is happening in the poem and and it's like a way to sort of have me step away from myself as the writer and like pretend i'm like the person who already finished this poem and it like it makes it feel easy like i can approach the poem because I'm suddenly I'm done already instead of like, oh, my goodness, I've been working on this for two weeks or two years. You know, like just pretending like that sort of is a fun way to do it.
It doesn't always work, but it's fun to pretend and try and see what's on the other side. If I imagine I'm already done. Yeah, I'm going to try that next time for myself.
Like, how'd you come up with the ending for this? This story, this book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
um so uh i i asked if you could come up with some writing exercises for students and so you you have some things you'd like to throw out right yeah yeah um one that i tried and i did it in groups so it was like my students did in groups of three or four um it has to do with like messing around with form and like taking advantage of the fact that poems can take different forms but i asked the students to create a poem in the form of a quiz um Yeah, so that was a lot of fun. And, and then as for individual prompts. I don't know if this. So what I do almost all the time is give two or three prompts, like consecutively. So like, I'll give the students the first prompt.
And then I'll say you got 10 minutes to write. And then when they finish, I say, Okay, here's the next prompt. And then I give them 10 so that they're kind of hit boom, boom, boom.
So one of the prompts that I like is um it's what came looking for me that's the that's the first one so I'd have them right and then finish it up and then the other one is um the prompt is just the four equal parts of a fire and then kind of and I and I like to tell students um write write whatever it makes you think of not what you think the answer should be but like whatever pops in your head and go with it and um and try to think of it as like automatic writing just try to write the whole 10 minutes or however much time you give them yeah um and not to and if you get stuck be like oh man this prompt sucks and like i would write that too i think that's fascinating to look back on that too yeah and um i think what i like about this um these prompts is that um i was gonna do a follow-up questions and i'm like i'm glad i didn't Because I feel like sometimes when I offer prompts as an instructor, I feel like students want to know, well, what are the parameters? Is this the title? Is this the first line? Or what am I doing? They want to know what the rules are before they start.
And you're like, just go. Don't talk to me. Don't talk to me. Your time is counting down. Yeah.
Yeah. In every other class, that is part of what we like. That is part of the class is those parameters. And it's actually really sometimes difficult to give, be given that much freedom in a prompt.
But, you know, in a class like creative writing, you can also write and say things that that you don't write and share. And maybe you don't share it in class, but that you don't do for any other class. And I think that's to me as a teacher, that's a real privilege and an honor to honor to do that.
And I love when students go for it. Right. Yeah. And I think that these two problems kind of lean into, well, actually all of them, but particularly these last two, kind of leans into that, your theme of like wandering, like, go see what happens, see what you discover. Yeah, it's just weird.
I like the weirdness of it. Yeah. And I know in your bio, I talked, you know, you mentioned that you work for the Minnesota Prison Writing Project. And last year I had a chance to shadow Diego Vasquez, who...
taught poetry in the jail systems around the Twin Cities. And one of the things that struck me was that on the first day of writing, he gave people paper, he gave them pencils, and he gave them a line. And he's like, go.
write and they're like i don't write he's like just write and see what happens and they created beautiful things and i was just thinking i i was also teaching at the use i was like oh that's it we don't i don't need to break down anything just write a poem and they did and after 10 days they compiled an anthology of all the stuff they had generated that's so cool yeah yeah i i love that just like just the the bare minimum of what you need and go for it yeah i mean you know there's important like that's the importance of like craft and lessons and sometimes but sometimes I just want them to write because they for the experience of just doing that yeah um I think maybe I just have two more questions um yeah you had already alluded to this a little bit but um what are things you do to fill your artistic well and I think for students in case you're wondering what what do I mean by that term it's just what do you do so you stay like inspired and I mean that's my interpretation of it anyway right Yeah, it's a it's a mix. I think like in going back to that sort of when I was talking about that Louisiana channel, what I appreciate is that they always put out interviews by different artists like like it's it's never like they're never looking at the same artist over again. And I and I think it's it's like good for me and my creative creative self to like just.
find what other artists are doing what different artists are doing and because i have like my i have like my favorite writers i have like painters that i admire their work but i'm also i also know that like the the well of that inspiration either could dry up or if i'm just on it only and you know if i'm only looking at like salvador dali or something which i like his work but then that that only goes so far for me so it's like i think finding sort of I think newness and new experiences helps me. It reminds me, it gives me that feeling of being totally aware. It's like if you've ever gone to like a new, like if you're passing through a new town, like a town you've never been in and you stop, it's like everything feels so like immediate and urgent and like sort of like right there because it's new and your mind is like trying to make connections and because it feels so new. And I think that makes us really.
aware of ourselves and where we are and how we're moving in the world and I think that is an important part of a creative self to to to notice to just be noticing constantly things happening around you yeah um and so this last question I mean I have two options you can answer one or both okay which is just um what kind of advice would you like to give to beginning writers and what kind of advice you wish you had known when you were when you started writing I think I feel like publishing my work was really like a big deal in the early on. And I don't know if I'm saying that now. I don't know if I'm saying that it's not now that I've already published a book. I don't know if it's fair for me to say that.
But I think I put a lot of pressure on myself early on to make sure I was sending stuff to get it published. And I think, and I guess to go with that, my advice for anyone who wants to write, maybe at the early stages is like, don't let early sort of rejections stop you from writing. I think I would have liked to have thought of writing as like every poem was sort of an experiment and like seeing if something will work rather than every poem has to be good.
Right. I think I wish I would have known that then it would have made me feel less like pissed off about the winners in that writers conference, you know, or that writing award. If I would have, I would approach it differently.
I mean, nonetheless, I found my way to the conversations I wanted to be in. But I think thinking, trying to think about a poem as an experiment that you're just testing out all these things when you're revising and. thinking about it like that keeps it sort of fun and um and you could be fun and and a serious thing for you at the same time yeah thank you so much that was um um no sorry i i now i'm thinking a lot about the connections between what you said and how people approach like experiments in the scientific world and how could we apply that to creative writing so anyway That's my own assignment for myself.
But thank you so much for joining us today. It was so great to be in conversation with you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. Yeah.
Bye, everyone. Thank