KARAN

I love these poems, Amorak. They’re so genuine and heartfelt. I sense no farce here. I articulated this in my recent interview with Mikko Harvey but wish to repeat it: the reason I sometimes feel disenchanted with poetry is its elitism and inaccessible nature. What I most love about your poems is that they’re so accessible they could be read and understood by a child while retaining a complexity of emotions that older people really appreciate. “My mouth is a country that cannot stop / hurting its citizens. My mouth is ghost, / monster, dinosaur.” Is it a conscious decision for you to write in an everyday colloquial way?

AMORAK

Oh, thanks so much for the kind words, Karan. I’m glad the poems come across that way, heartfelt. If you’re not feeling your poems in your own heart, why are you even writing poems? As for the colloquiality of my voice, I would say it’s part conscious decision, part something inherent in my voice that I don’t fully control. It’s, like, just how I sound on the page. I was a newspaper journalist for more than a decade, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and practicing how to use language that is accessible even when the subject matter might be complex. I was a copy editor for many of those years, fine tuning sentences, and I also spent time as a reporter covering county government for a paper in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Writing about, say, a rural-road funding policy in a way that makes the story not only understandable but gets at why it matters to the people reading it, matters in a real way because this is their county, their lives it affects — all that was excellent training for writing poems, where you’re chasing complicated ideas and exploring an emotional landscape that really transcends language. That asks of the poet a particular kind of clarity, I think.  

KARAN

Let’s do a process question before moving further. When constructing your poems, do you begin from a specific element — image, idea, memory, or thought, for example — or do these elements form in tandem with each other? Which is to ask, where do poems come from? And why do you write?

AMORAK

I’m going to answer this differently than I’ve answered similar questions in the past, because I think my understanding of my own process has changed: I think my poems begin with an impulse. An urge. A gnawing. The itch to write something, to make something. to say something. Often that desire is embodied in an image or a fragment of language, or some emotion I’ve been carrying around with me, looking for something in the world to connect it with. For me, it’s essential that that initial starting place be fragmentary, incomplete: an idea that fully forms before the writing begins is generally doomed by the way it shuts down possibility. By this, I don’t mean waiting for that impulse to find me, like waiting for the Muses to sing to me, but more about learning how to tap into it. It’s almost always there. Over the years, I’ve gotten better at accessing it. And the why? I write to communicate. To connect. To feel less lonely in the world. I’ve said this before, but I truly believe that a poem isn’t done until someone reads it.  

KARAN

Exploration of the self seems to be a motif in your poems, a subject you return to often. You begin “With Great Fanfare I Present You the Key to the City and This Is What Happens” with: “apparently my body is a city / like all cities it was once new and small and made sense / like all cities it evolved over the ages” — there’s vulnerability here too, as in “Ode to Infidelity:” “they say people behaving extravagantly want to be caught / all I want is to be held.” I also sense a longing to be understood, the struggle to connect and express oneself without any barriers. I also see a tussle with masculinity, most apparent in “For So Long, I Was Foolishly Proud of The Scar on My Thumb.” Is poetry a way for you to understand better, or make someone see you, understand you?

AMORAK

Is it flippant to say both? I think it’s both. Trying to, like, make sense of my existence in the world. Who I am, why I am the way I am. How my self and sense of self were shaped, including by forces beyond me: pop culture, social ideas about masculinity, etc., etc. Vulnerability is essential to poetry — not in the sense that you have to tell your life story on the page or share all your deepest secrets and trauma plainly, but in the sense that the best poems arrive when you have invested yourself and your sense of self in what you’re writing. Frost’s “no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader” thing, right? And he continues that with “no surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader,” which is that connection you’re asking about, between exploration and expression. The self on the page is exposed, invented, and discovered in roughly equal measure. When I make a claim in a poem, when I present a version of myself on the page, it’s all hypothesis and possibility. It’s not the final answer. It’s an attempt, a guess, a hope. It’s “I don’t know who I am, but maybe this is me, what do you think?”

KARAN

I laughed aloud at the deadpan tone of: “What percentage, do you suppose, of people, / upon the occasion of their 69th birthday, / celebrate with a 69?” And then your poem about climate change, more specifically about the “plastic patches in the oceans” begins with: “disappointing-ass way to kill the planet if you ask me / no music in it at all” — this is typical Amorak Huey weaving together humor & heartbreak. Two of my favorite poets — Bob Hicok and Leigh Chadwick — are always playful and at once tragic. You too are constantly juxtaposing the somber and the playful, the intimate and the humorous, the contemplative and the ridiculous. Do you think about this combination while you write? What are your thoughts on humor in writing, especially poetry? 

AMORAK

Bob Hicok was one of my teachers during my MFA. I blurbed one of Leigh Chadwick’s books. I also studied with David Kirby during my brief first attempt at grad school. I love humor in poetry, and I love poets who give me permission to be ridiculous. But, as you say, always ridiculous paired with sincerity. Juxtaposition is one of my favorite things about poetry: the placing of words near each other in ways that create unexpected resonance. When I’m writing, I don’t know that I think about this in an overly deliberate way — that would risk forcing it, right? And for me, as a reader, I feel like I can often tell when a metaphor or tonal is forced, or disconnected from meaning. Poems have a lot in common with jokes, from structure to how they work in an audience’s mind: invitation, misdirection, callback, surprise — but poems can’t be simply jokes, or only jokes. Poems are always about finding layers of meaning in the language, and humor can be so powerful as one of those layers. 

KARAN

As in the poetry of these poets I mentioned, your flavor of surrealism seems to hint toward an extension of reality (unlike traditional surrealism where reality is distorted in a dream-like way), a kind of “normal” that has been slightly altered: “my body is a city” or “My mouth is not the same age / as the rest of my body.” I love that! Why do the surreal and the absurd speak to you? 

AMORAK

The closer you pay attention to the world, the stranger it appears. A plant looked at under a microscope looks nothing like the same plant growing in a garden. I think this is part of what Breton is talking about in the Manifesto of Surrealism. Surrealism is a way of thinking beyond logic, beyond the ordinary, beyond complacency, and toward possibility. Which is, you know, also what poetry does. For Breton and those early Modernist surrealists, they were looking for a way to trick the brain into this state of possibility, unlimited by the expectations of the realist tradition. How much more interesting is the world if today the roses are blue and trees made of glass? As you point out (I really love the attention you’ve paid to my work), in my own poems and in my own images, I’m not usually straying that far from so-called reality, not full-on surreal. But I hope to be writing away from the expected, the ordinary. So, yeah, an extension of reality. Even a contradiction of it. Along with juxtaposition, contradiction is one of my favorite rhetorical moves. To posit something as certain, and then to believe just as fervently in the exact opposite: what a delight. 

KARAN

You’ve never shied away from pop-culture references — these too make the poems more accessible. They are also where a lot of the humor is introduced in the poems, as in David Kirby’s or Denise Duhamel’s poetry. These pop-cultural references contribute to the richness of your poems by anchoring them in specific times, cultural contexts, and shared experiences. They also serve as bridges between the personal and the collective, inviting readers to relate to the speaker’s reflections through familiar cultural touchpoints. How do you approach incorporating pop-cultural references into your poetic craft? Are these references a deliberate choice to enhance accessibility, create layers of meaning, or establish a specific tone within your work? Could you share insights into your process of selecting and weaving these references into your poems?

AMORAK

I think the pop culture references in my poems, in any poems, work best when they’re organic. Like, they come from my life, my interests, my experiences. So like I resist the urge to set out and write, say, a Taylor Swift poem for the sake of it being a Taylor Swift poem, right? I think the danger of using pop culture in poetry is that it can be a kind of billboarding, an easy way of signaling time and place, as well as a kind of in-club move, like hey, this poem is for the cool kids who got this reference. You could say the same about literary or artistic allusions, certainly. Also, pop culture always risks overwhelming the poem, derailing the poem with its aboutness: oh, look, a poem about Pokemon or Lana Del Rey or whatever, that’s so cool, but then that’s kind of it. For me, that focus on what a poem is about is a shallow way to interact with the poem. A poem should be “about” multiple things, should not be able to be reduced to its topic. I say this as someone who co-wrote a chapbook of poems that are very obviously about Slash, the rock guitarist. But I hope that those poems are more than just about Slash. That’s like, the headline of them, right, the initial way they grab your attention, and when Todd Kaneko and I were writing them, we were obviously intentionally setting out to write about Slash, or an invented version of Slash-as-larger-than-life figure — but they hopefully get beyond that and kind of, I guess, transcend the topic? Maybe they don’t. It’s a tough standard. But it’s what I want from poems. Not just mine, but any poem I read.

KARAN

In one sense, all poetry is about loss — of innocence, time, places, people, love, beauty, joy — even as it tries to capture these. In “To Empty Myself Upon This Earth Like the Clouds,” you write: “Someone / recently told me not everyone / longs like this.” And finish with: “Always / I wear this raincoat of desire / and ash. You are so far away.” What is it about nostalgia that appeals to you? Is poetry an exercise in dealing with loss? Is it a distraction from grief, an exploration of grief, or a movement through grief? Does poetry bring you joy or ease your pain?

AMORAK

You’re exactly right. Every poem is an elegy. I believe this entirely. I also think it’s inherent to poetry that a poem is aware of its own mortality. A question you can ask of any poem you love is: What does this poem grieve for? A good poem will always have an answer somewhere in its lines. Those things you’re asking about poetry are true of just, like, being alive. Existing on this planet. The human condition is a perpetual state of moving through grief, dealing with loss, distracting ourselves from pain. We know we are going to die. To persist despite that seems impossible, and yet it’s what we do. That contradiction — that’s poetry. 

KARAN

I find myself very interested in love poems. I feel they’re some of the hardest to write in ways that are not trite. You’ve said before “everything I write is some kind of love poem” and I do sense that strongly in your poems. In a way all your poems are love poems — love for people, the Earth, your children, humanity. I also appreciate how unafraid you are when it comes to writing about sex and intimacy. I’m most interested in the intersection of love poems and political poems. Does this intersection interest you in any way?

AMORAK

In addition to believing that every poem is an elegy, I also believe every poem is a love poem. What does this poem love? And relatedly, what does this poem desire? And politics . . . well, look, we’re all walking around this planet with our own needs, ambitions, fears, desires, identities, bodies. We have to figure out how to do that all at the same time. That’s what politics really is: how we organize ourselves as a society and as a planet. How we make room for each other. How we care for each other, how we help those who need help, how we share, how we treat each other, how we treat the planet that provides resources we all need. Love is intertwined with all that. How we love ourselves, each other, this planet — that’s essential to being alive, and it should be the underlying premise of our politics. But obviously that’s not always the case. So any time you’re making art and thinking about love, you’re engaging with politics whether you’re doing it deliberately or not. I think of Hanif Abdurraqib’s series of poems titled “How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This.” Part of his point in those poems as I read them is that all we have is a time like this, and all we have is writing about flowers, and when you write about a daisy or a daylily or a tulip you’re also writing about the whole world. 

KARAN

Anyone who reads these poems (or any of your poems) can tell you have a distinct voice — casual, funny, melancholic, inventive. Bob Hicok once gave me a definition of “voice” I keep close: “Voice is self coming through, is (one’s) nature manifested in words.” So, here’s a question about capital-V “Voice” that all writers want to “find.” Is poetic voice something one “finds?” If so, how did you find/construct yours? Is the work toward having a “unique poetic voice” a worthy occupation? 

AMORAK

Thank you (again). I think it takes a long time to write in your own voice, even to know what your own voice is, and of course it’s going to evolve as you keep writing and keep living. I don’t think one should be in a hurry to find one’s alleged authentic voice. Just write. Push on the edges of your vocabulary, your syntactical habits, your tone, expand it all, find the grooves where you feel comfortable but don’t let yourself be satisfied to stay there. I will say, I’ve read a lot of manuscripts where it seems to me that the poet hasn’t yet figured out their voice, where each poem feels like it’s in a different register and not in a deliberate way. Janet Burroway (with whom I also studied during my brief failed first attempt at grad school) says, and I’m paraphrasing, don’t worry about finding your voice; seek instead to give voice to your perception of the world. Say what you mean as clearly as you can, and your voice will follow. I think she’s got it right. Now, in poetry, that “as clearly as you can” part doesn’t necessarily mean simplistically or straightforwardly. Some things that you mean with your whole chest can be said only obliquely or indirectly or metaphorically. That’s the work poetry does. That’s that particular kind of clarity I was talking about earlier. 

KARAN

I also wanted to mention that I love your titles! I mean “To Empty Myself Upon This Earth Like the Clouds”! What are your thoughts on titles? Do you think about titles a lot? What do you usually try to achieve with titles? Do you have a method? Honestly, I’m just trying to know your secret. I’m hoping you’ll give me a 500-word essay!

AMORAK

I love this question, because I freaking love titles. So much. I love the way a good title can invite the reader into a poem. Can set up expectations while leaving room for surprise. Can create its own little jolt of surprise even before the poem gets started. I love a title that looks different when you come back to it after finishing the poem. The title is separate from the poem yet at the same time also is the poem, the way a person’s name is the person. It’s this little rhetorical space where you get to play with words. I remember the joy I had when I first fell in love with the long title, those meandering ones that go on and on and do a huge chunk of the narrative or contextual heavy lifting for a poem so that the poem itself is freed to be weird and lyrical or whatever it wants. The title is the first thing the reader sees — and yet, as we read, we often set the title aside entirely and forget about it until revisiting it at the end. And there are so many possibilities! A title can tell an entire story. It can be the first line of the poem. It can emphasize or echo a particular image or idea from the poem. It can be a label, accurate or misleading. 

Often, my poems start with the title — that urge to express manifesting itself first in a poem title which creates the predicament: this is a fun title, now what the heck am I going to do with the poem? I can’t (usually) simply enact the promise of the title, because then so what? Why do you need the poem at all? So you have to go someplace different, someplace surprising for both you and the reader. Which is the pleasure of writing, right? You know that famous McSweeny’s piece “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers?” that goes viral every year when the leaves change and October approaches? To me that’s an example of the title doing everything you need, leaving nothing for the piece itself. There’s an essay attached to that title, and it’s fine, it’s witty, but who cares — the title does all the work a reader needs. Now in humor writing that’s enough. But in a poem? You write a great title, all that means is you have to dig deeper in the poem. 

I think some of my love of titles comes from my years as a copy editor writing headlines. Back when print newspapers were a thing, you’d get the headline specs from the designer: one column, four lines, 36-point font, etc. So you had these non-negotiable constraints, and a ton of work to do: get the reader’s attention, tell the meat of the story (this was before the demands of click bait led to vague, mysterious headlines where you have to open the story to learn the news), be clever, reflect the tenor and importance of the story. So I had lots of practice with that (forgive the brag, but I once won a statewide award for headline writing), and now I put that particular energy into my titles.

How’s that? I think I got you your 500 words. 

KARAN

I have two questions that might seem the same but are different. First is the cliché question we haven’t yet asked anyone but my gut is forcing me to ask it to you: If you could give advice to your younger self when you first started writing poetry, what would it be? And second is one we often ask our seasoned poets. You’ve had books published that are well acclaimed and you’re also an editor for River River Books. So, especially as an editor, what is something you’d like to say to young writers, as way of advice or caveats?

AMORAK

The first advice both to my younger self and to other young writers is probably something along the lines of: keep going, no matter what. If writing poems and having those poems read by other people matters to you, keep doing the work. Write the poems. Read as widely and as much as you can. Eventually, eventually, send your poems out. Learn to ignore the rejections for the most part, and give yourself a break when one stings. Sometimes they do. 

As far as caveats from my perspective as an editor, I’ll first go back to: read. If you want to publish contemporary poetry, read contemporary poetry. Understand what is being written and find your place in it. That doesn’t mean imitate other writers or chase imaginary trends or try to be someone you’re not. It just means spend time getting to know the community you want to be part of. 

Another insight from being an editor, both at River River and as a reader for journals: competent but boring poetry is all over the place. Don’t let anyone tell you to sand off your rough edges. Lean into your weird. 

KARAN

Finally, because we believe in studying the master’s masters, we would also love to know poets who have influenced you most.

AMORAK

So many poets I could list here. David Kirby and Bob Hicok and Larry Levis and Danez Smith. Ada Limon and Tracy K. Smith and Matthew Olzmann. Traci Brimhall and Catie Rosemurgy and Karyna McGlynn and Frannie Choi. T.S. Eliot and Langston Hughes and Mina Loy. Emily Dickinson and Adrienne Rich and Natalie Diaz. Ellen Bass and Carl Phillips and Diane Seuss and Collier Nogues. My colleague and friend Todd Kaneko. I could go on and on. And on.

One poet whose work matters so deeply to me, whose work teaches me so much about the possibilities in language and syntax, whose lines I’ve returned to over and over for years: Jorie Graham. That might be surprising, because I don’t think I write much like her, not in any way that others would notice, but my sense of the line and the poetic sentence comes very much from my time with Graham’s work. 

And of course, I have to mention Layli Long Soldier and her book WHEREAS. I just got to talk about this book with Mike Sakasegawa on his podcast. It’s one of my most cherished books, and again, its influence on me might not be visible to anyone reading my poems, but it’s embedded in how I write and has been ever since I first encountered it.