Past judge and contributor Daniel Allen Cox talks with the CNF Prize judge about writing that leans into lyricism, translation as the ultimate act of caring, and how uncertainty is an entry point to honest and resonant work.
DAC: writing that leans into lyricism, translation as the ultimate act of caring, and how uncertainty is an entry point to honest and resonant work.
SS:
Lately, I’ve been immersed in short fiction, mainly because I’m finalizing my debut short story collection titled Think of the Sea. I’ve been revisiting old favorites like Ottessa Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies—books that have precision and emotional complexity packed into such small spaces. I’ve also been in awe of Jamel Brinkley’s work; his stories feel both richly textured and infinitely alive.
As for intersections between creative nonfiction and poetry, I often think about Gary Snyder’s definition of poetry because he once referred to it as “very high-quality information.” I guess you could say that great poetry and great works of nonfiction, in one way or another, offer high-quality information. I also believe that both strive toward a certain level of emotional truth-telling. Good memoir, like good poetry, is about the integrity of the gaze you turn back on your own life.
Read the rest of Siavash Saadlou's interview.
Hannah Polinski,
#230 poetry contributor
Volunteer Kyo Lee talks with the issue #230 contributor about the collision between eroticism and consumption, fighting against the limits of bodily experience, and how writing about sex should be no different than writing about food.
KL: Both poems contain Greek and Roman classical allusions. In what ways do you find yourself inspired by the ancient world? Does it contribute to your, or the poem’s, understanding of pleasure?
HP:
In “my year of gadding around” I wanted bodies on bodies and to be fed grapes like a Greek god to channel an abundance of desire. I like to think the ancient world considered pleasure and sexuality at face value rather than ascribing deeper societal and metaphoric meanings, which I find inspiring.
In “FEAR ME!” I reference a marble statue called The Rape of Proserpina by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which I must Google each time before naming and even misspelled in earlier drafts of the poem. The statue is of great interest to me for its incredibly detailed hand tightly gripping Proserpina’s thigh. I wanted to channel this level of intensity in the poem, which is why the narrator grips her own thigh. She’s making moves on her own, not waiting for outside actors. She doesn’t need to wait for the Greek orgy; she’s doing her own thing.
Both “my year of gadding around” and “FEAR ME!” are written in a voice possessed by bodily urgency, which is different from my other work. These are two poems obsessed by agency, by the idea of a self that is not afraid to keep living, by a person who is both creating and consuming their own desires. It’s a voice that is learning to come into its own power, and I like to think that the narrator of “my year of gadding around” grows up to be the narrator of “FEAR ME!”
Read the rest of Hannah Polinski's interview.
