Stacy Szymaszek lives in Milwaukee where she works at Woodland Pattern Book Center, a non-profit literary center that was founded in 1980 while she was fighting off Catholics in grade-school. She is the editor of Gam: A Survey of Great Lakes Writing and coeditor of Traverse. Her chapbook -Some Mariners- was just released on EtherDome Press and her full length manuscript -Emptied of All Ships- is forthcoming from Litmus Press. Also forthcoming are the chapbooks -Pasolini Poems- from Cy Press and -Mutual Aid- from gong press. Buy her chapbook here. See some work here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. See some editorial projects here and here. 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why? This question really surprised me. It snapped me right back to the moment. It’s this Emily Dickinson poem: This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me— The simple News that Nature told— With tender Majesty Her Message is committed To Hands I cannot see— For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen— Judge tenderly—of Me I was a senior in high school, living with all the anguish of not being able to express who I was (sexuality, gender, spiritual beliefs). I loved it because it presented me with an option I didn’t know existed, for how I could experience life and what could be done with language. It was ultimate for me. My English teacher had lent me the anthology I found it in and I didn’t want to give it back. It seems fitting, or telling, that this poem, or any poetry, wasn’t part of the curriculum. It was teaching and learning that was happening in the fringe. 2. What is something/someone non-“literary” you read which may surprise your peers/colleagues? Why do you read it/them? My reading is always focused on my project. The books might not be literary, but my use of gleaned information is literary. I’m reading a book about Egyptian mummies/burial customs right now to form a knowledge base for my latest sequence. For Some Mariners I read some Rachel Carson and a book on natural disasters called Countdown to Apocalypse. I collect pocket paperbacks of sailor smut, but I just look at the pictures – nooo! there aren’t pictures. I have a love/hate relationship with biographies of poets. None of this is really surprising though. 3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why? Not sure how to interpret this question… but, my work is idea driven. Reading French theory/philosophy - Kristeva, Bataille, Cixous - has been informative. Lacan has been most salient, his ideas about language and lack. The idea that a word does not represent a thing but is a stand-in for a thing that is missing. I’m very conscious of this. All of my work is about the itch of desire that can never be scratched. The characters I create know this and find ways to be graceful in their dissatisfaction. 4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why? Most of my favorite writers are non-Anglo-American. James Baldwin. He wrote about cooking a pork chop in Another Country and it will never leave my mind, but that speaks more to my quirks. I admire that he was able to write profound and humane social criticism as well as fiction, a true public intellectual. One of my other favorite writers is Etel Adnan, but this feels like an understatement. I think she is visionary. Also civic. Political. Experimental. Lyrical. The way she brings it all together, the ethos of her work is stunning to me. She should be much better known in this country. She was born in Lebanon and now lives in Sausalito and Paris. French poetry has been super important to me: Rimbaud, Mallarme, Eluard, Desnos. I’m presently reading and loving Lorenzo Thomas, and also Vine Deloria’s Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. 5. Do you read a lot of poetry? If so, how important is it to your writing? I read a lot of present-day poetry. I work as literary program manager and book buyer at Woodland Pattern Book Center so I’m kept on the ball by a sense of responsibility. I am genuinely interested in and moved by what so many of my peers are writing. It’s a fun and vital process to find my comrades on the bookshelves, to contact them, befriend them. I feel very lucky to be in this seat, with this view, from the middle of the country. This process is important to my writing (and editorial work) in that it keeps some of my latent idleness latent! I feel very motivated to participate in our moment. I have more to say about reading poetry in the following answer. 6. What is something which your peers/colleagues may assume you’ve read but haven’t? Why haven’t you? I haven’t read the Maximus Poems or much of Olson at all. Yet I feel he is very important to me! Why I haven’t is an interesting question. I’ve identified who I’m in the field with and it seems to come down to how I want to be influenced. I tend to want to know about their lives, their ideas, to be in communion with their poetics, what we know of their being. I feel this somewhat pleasing possibility that I could be subsumed by admiration so I tend to avoid immersion in the work. I consider Susan Howe to be an influence, not that I’ve read more than 3 of her many books; however, reading one page of Singularities profoundly shaped my poetics. Looking at one page of Non-Conformist’s Memorial, same thing - “ah, there it is, I get it, I was waiting for this.” I have a very intense internal relationship to my influences and an intuitive sense of timing – when to bring them into play. Maximus is literally on my desk waiting for me. I have a feeling Olson and Metcalf, and always, always Melville, will be important for a future work of mine. 7. How would you explain what a poem is to my seven year old? I don’t know that I would explain it any different to my poetry befuddled family. I think a poem is one way to share how you see the world. Eva Hess said that she viewed her art as “psychic models” which I would agree with. It’s using words as a medium to portray a tension. There’s always a tension. Is it clear from this answer that I don’t have any children in my life!? 8. Do you believe in a Role for the Poet? If so, how does it differ from the Role of the Citizen? Most certainly. The poet, the word worker, is there, for those who choose to notice, to show us how to use language in service of Life. It is especially important these days when we have people in power who have no facility with language. They aren’t articulate, often not humanitarian, and they use it in ugly ways, for propaganda and falsification. Speech, the way we speak to each other is so often preordained. We have to go to the poets and writers to discover or remind ourselves of the treasure of language, and I would argue that we have to go to the more cutting edge poets and writers. I want to be challenged by a person’s expression of their vision. I’d rather watch TV than read a boring book of poetry. Obviously the non-poet citizen isn’t a word worker but the poet is also a citizen. How to be a good poet and a good citizen is something I’m only starting to figure out in my 30’s. I lived my 20’s under the radar, I participated in society in minimal, practical ways - like buying toothpaste and soap. I vote now, I participate in community building in several significant ways, I made myself fight a parking ticket! – I used to feel like the living dead, so whatever I can do to give myself a sense of social agency by engaging in civic life. Being gay, being a poet, and sensing my “difference” early on in an unsupportive environment shot me light-years out of the middle. I think our government counts on people like me being too depressed and fatigued to do anything of consequence. This makes me angry enough to challenge myself to learn how to be what I like to think of as a civic poet. Kenneth Rexroth, Muriel Rukeyser and Pasolini come to mind as people who did this quite exceptionally. 9. Word associations (the first word which comes to mind; be honest): Lemon**island Chiseled**features I**was Of**being numerous Form**gate 10. What is the relationship between the text and the body in your writing? I’m reading this as between my text and my body. Much of my work, probably all of it in the past 5 years, deals with my perception of my gender. I manifest myself in my work as a male being. James in Some Mariners, Pasolini in Pasolini Poems. There is tension there for me that I can manipulate. Also it feels like a process of integration – I am female, and am regarded as such, it is the obvious - but I project myself into my work through male personas. It’s hard for me to abide by dichotomous thinking on this in particular. My masculinity needs some assertion, if I want people to respond to it, because it’s less obvious. I’m also a tattooed individual and my image choices very much relate to the worlds I am creating. I have a sailor and the Chinese character for ocean. It’s another way of concretizing memory.