KARAN

Seth, thank you for these powerful and haunting poems. I’m struck by how you navigate between the sacred and mundane, particularly in “Assumptions of Omnipotence” where you write “God is everywhere, they say, so why not / kissing the dice in your hands.” Let’s begin with the process question. How do you approach writing a poem? Do you start with an image, a line, or an idea? Do you have a writing routine? And most importantly, what drives you to write poetry?

SETH

The process part is the easiest to answer. Like most of us, I have a full-time job. I also have two young boys (8 and 5), so the process of writing is basically jotting down inspiration or lines into my notes app until I have time to digest it and process the thing. I could be at a kid’s birthday party or taking a walk, though I also believe that to be a good poet means being present to life as much as possible. I have a few hours in the mornings on Saturday that are usually pretty fruitful. I heard Carolyn Forché detail a similar process once, writing out lines in the grocery store, and felt validated.

I took one of Ellen Bass’ online workshops with Billy Collins, in which he basically said writing poetry was like a game to him. I think of it in much the same way. Yes, it comes from that same sort of yearn to express that Louise Glück described, and I think that’s what originally drew me to writing. I sort of oscillate between those two states: writing poetry as a need and writing poetry as a game. Of course, it is often both. This one in particular came from the idea that, in debates, most people admit that God (if they exist) is likely not completely omnipotent—what could that look like? 

KARAN

Your poems often explore family relationships through the lens of absence or distance. In “Distance,” you capture a moment of regret with your grandfather on Zoom: “How could we have known, when booking / the tickets to Chicago, that one week prior, / Grandma would die in her sleep?” As both a physical therapist and a poet, how do you think about the relationship between physical and emotional distance in your work? Does your medical background influence how you write about the body and its limitations?

SETH

The majority of my patients are retired, some of whom I’ve seen for years as they age, which is a monumental privilege. It also means that I witness humans grappling with aging on a daily basis. We are here for just a short time on this planet. To me, art at its core is about generating emotion in another person. So, as a poet, I am always trying to find fresh ways to do that. In the visual art world, the artist duct tapes a banana to a wall or autographs a urinal not because they think that is such a beautiful art medium, but because it generates a response. I think about how Sharon Olds plays with disgust or taboos in her poetry, which are less frequent emotions in the poetry world, and part of what makes them so powerful. Especially given the digital landscape, it feels like we are increasingly isolated from each other, and I do see my poetry (and poetry at large) as an attempt to remedy that.

KARAN

In “the problem with everything, especially poems,” (love that title!) you create this wonderfully rebellious voice that seems to both reject and embrace poetry’s conventions: “u have to sit through all that gooey bullshit / about the world & love & blah blah blah.” The poem ends up finding beauty in unexpected places, like a crushed aluminum can becoming “a megaphone shouting something / I don’t even know, but it’s loud & dope.” Could you talk about how you developed this voice? What drew you to this particular form of expression? And/or your larger/general thoughts on the capital-V voice — have you found your unique artistic voice? Is that a worthwhile preoccupation, trying to find it?

SETH

As a new poet, I really struggled with the “find your voice” thing. Then, I read a bunch of poets basically say it was all BS. There is not some inner voice that emerges like a butterfly from a cocoon. You develop a style as time goes on, taking a little from everyone you read. I think I have settled on a voice that works for me, but I also like to occasionally wander away from it to make the act of writing a little more entertaining. Sometimes that is a persona poem like this one, but other times, it might just be slowing down my pace or writing a poem in a slightly different style or length than I usually do.

Here, I was reading a book to my 8-year-old son and the protagonist said “blah blah blah.” My train of thought was sort of like: that would be a good way to end a poem! Who would end a poem like that? What if I wrote a poem in the voice of the character from Catcher in the Rye, only modern, as if he’s writing the poem as an assignment for class? Then I played with it. I think I am a naturally optimistic person, so a lot of my poems sort of snatch gratitude out of the jaws of despair, which is how this one ended up. 

KARAN

I’m fascinated by your treatment of God in these poems. In “Assumptions of Omnipotence,” you imagine God with “a thumb in his arch, / maybe even swears when the angels can’t hear Him.” This very human divine figure still can’t catch every bullet. How do you navigate faith and doubt in your poetry? Does writing about God help you understand your own relationship with faith?

SETH

I do think one of the values of poetry is the ability to sit with complex questions and come to peace with the fact that not all questions can be answered. My favorite poems present a view of life that sort of makes you tilt your head like a dog. What is that? What is all of this? We live in a time of staggeringly high levels of anxiety and loneliness, in which people seem to trust each other less. What sort of vision of God would you want: someone who strikes every person down to eternal damnation, despite creating them in the first place, or someone who is flawed, like you, who comes down and has the ability to empathize with how hard this life is, and maybe the world was like a clay bowl that spun off the potter’s wheel while they were making it? For me, there also seems to be a sort of therapeutic value in reading and writing whimsical poems when the world feels like it’s getting too heavy.

KARAN

The form of “Janus Finally Contemplates the Act of Being Present” is striking, with its repeated use of “&/or” creating this sense of simultaneous possibilities. The poem seems to embody its title character’s dual-faced nature, looking both forward and backward at once. What drew you to this particular form? How do you think about form’s relationship to content in your work?

SETH

I’m glad you noticed that. I wanted to play with the idea of a poem that could be read in multiple ways. I ended up researching the history of the “and/or” construction—how it started as a legal phrase, then became more widely used, and style guides hated how ugly it was. Someone, I can’t remember who, called it “Janus-faced.” That phrase prompted the poem. I liked the image of Janus (or us) looking backward and forward, creating entire realities there, but struggling to be present. 

I think form is at its best when it echoes the poem, adding another dimension that is capable of being understood by the reader. For example, there is an Ocean Vuong poem “Seventh Circle of Earth,” where the text of the poem is entirely in footnotes and the numbers float on the white of the page, which is a really striking way to present the subject matter of that particular poem (the murder of a gay couple in Dallas, TX). I love any poem that can create that sort of vibration or resonance within itself.

KARAN

Dreams and their dissolution appear throughout these poems, particularly in “On the Disassembly of Dreams” where the world literally comes apart: “the shingles unhinge / & fling toward the horizon, the sheet rock / turns to snow & the studs tip over like a train / of dominoes.” How do you approach writing about dreams and memory? Do dreams inspire you, or are part of your routine in a regular way?

SETH

I think dreams can be a way of shining a light on the subconscious, or combining things in ways that are interesting, but I don’t think we need a lot more “listen to my dream” poems.  That’s annoying enough in normal conversation. I think of this poem as being more about the frame of that discussion, the visit with the therapist and the fear of loss that settles in when you reach a semi-comfortable place in life. Really, I wanted to play with the turn at the end. My caveat to the dream comment would be that sometimes really great ideas hit me in a dream and I’ll rush to write them down. Sting claims the lyrics for “Every Breath You Take” (which is now the most-played radio song ever) came to him in a dream, and there is something to the idea that our brains might be more creative while we’re sleeping. Listening to children’s dreams is also fascinating. My 5-year-old loves to talk about his dreams, which so far include a snowman eating a lightbulb and a goat making lettuce in a hot dog maker for breakfast, both of which could be poems.

KARAN

There’s a school of poetry that believes a poem or a poet can categorize their work in one of these four ways: poetry of the body, poetry of the mind, poetry of the heart, poetry of the soul. Where would you place your work within this framework, if at all? And do you see your poetry moving in a different direction?

SETH

I want to resist the urge to separate those things. Maybe this is where my background in healthcare comes into play since we’ve struggled with the persistence of mind-body dualism, which is not a helpful concept for wellbeing. I’m interested in creating poetry that provokes some sort of emotional response in the reader, whatever form that takes. I am fine with my poetry being in any of those buckets as long as it can be accessible and have meaning. I guess the poems that I love the most are smart, creative, and make you look at life from a fresh perspective. I have particular reverence for poems that are able to do all that while also hitting the exact right moment in time, like Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” and Luisa Muradyan’s “Quoting the Bible.” That’s something I’m always chasing.

KARAN

Addiction and substance abuse appear in several poems, often viewed through the lens of family relationships. In “Secondhand,” you write about experiences that “didn’t really happen / if no one hears you say it.” Is it sometimes difficult or weird writing about difficult family histories? What role does poetry play in making the unspeakable speakable?

SETH

Yes, I think it’s difficult to write about family histories, period. For me, part of that difficulty comes from the worry that family members will see one poem that is completely based on a real event next to another that is completely made-up, and not understand the difference. This poem and “Distance” are both based on true events, but take some liberties. We’re a species of storytellers, and poetry from its beginning has helped us explain difficult themes in life, to give meaning to them. The act of writing a poem involves a discovery that can change you, even just a microscopically small amount. You can see a painful event as part of a larger theme in life, revisit motives, or find meaning where you may not have found it otherwise.

KARAN

As an emerging writer, what is some of the best advice you’ve received/come across that you’d like to share with our readers?

SETH

I think my journey into poetry might be worth sharing. I have always identified as a writer, but I’d been buried in scientific writing for years. I realized one day that it had been years since I had read a book, but when I tried, I couldn’t finish more than a few pages before my kids interrupted me. I realized that poetry books provided a sense of accomplishment. I could read 1-2 poems during the day and then move on. 

I am a big believer in the idea of deliberate practice. According to the researchers on expertise, you can learn almost any skill given appropriate time and appropriate feedback. I figured I would try my hand at poetry, and have really taken it seriously over the past 1-2 years. I have a stack of poetry books next to me right now that’s a foot taller than my head. I try to write at least one poem a week, but I can write two or three in a good week. The component of deliberate practice that is too often missing in the poetry world is feedback. I have paid for feedback on poems, read them to others, solicited feedback in workshops, and I’m often disappointed by the feedback I receive. I’ve also had poems accepted by higher-tier lit mags after they were unceremoniously rejected by ones that are probably easier to get into. So, judging whether a poem is good or bad based on whether it was accepted or rejected is also an imperfect strategy. So much luck is involved. At the end of the day, I think you just have to be happy with the poems yourself. It does help to let them sit. It helps to be patient and not take rejection personally. To the emerging writers, I would suggest reading and trying to challenge yourself. Read. Take a hard, critical look at your own poems. Read. Workshops have the potential to be hugely valuable, but history has made me skeptical that the multiple-thousand-dollar workshop will actually be worth the investment. I can’t help but think of Cormac McCarthy’s quote “Teaching writing is a hustle.” Though, let the record show I have learned a lot from Ellen Bass’ courses and Dorianne Laux’s craft books.

KARAN

We always ask our poets for a poetry prompt at the end. Would you kindly provide a prompt for our readers, to help them kickstart a poem?

SETH

You are inside a room, which is inside another room, which is inside another room. By the end of the poem, the reader should know what all the rooms represent without you ever having to name them. 

Consider using the words “stolid,” “glassine” and “ambivalent.”

KARAN

We’d also love for you to recommend a piece of art (anything other than a poem) — perhaps a song, a film, or a visual artwork — that you find particularly inspiring or that you think everyone should experience.

SETH

Follow the Instagram account for Tatsuya Tanaka, a miniatures artist. I have a few poems now that are sort of ekphrastic poems prompted by some of his artwork. I’m looking at it now and there is a woman holding teeth like grocery bags while a kid on the ground is throwing a fit. These are pure gold.

KARAN

Finally, because we believe in studying the master’s masters, we would love to know which poets have influenced you most throughout your career.

SETH

There are so many. I think Ada Limón writes some of the most consistently beautiful poems. Sharon Olds, Pattiann Rogers, Louise Glück, Ted Kooser, and Thomas Lux are also poets I love and can read cover to cover. I also have to mention Matthew Olzmann, Luisa Muradyan, and Jeffrey McDaniel, who inspire me with their ability to write really creatively in a way that can also gut you, which is something I am always trying to emulate.