Tell us about your poem “Mother” in Volume 22. How did it come to be?

I came across Warsan Shire’s epigraph from her poem “The House” that I used in my poem “Mother” via an AFREADA x Africa Writes Competition in which we were asked to use her line “Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women” as a writing prompt. 

What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

The last two short pieces by Leo Tolstoy I recently finished via audiobook, i.e., “The Candle” and “The Three Questions” really excited me as a writer. There was so much truth in those stories that serve as teaching tools for the betterment of humanity. What turns me off is pretentious erudition. Writing that throws esoteric words left and right on the page just to sound learned. Mostafa Nissabouri is the latest example of a poet I’ve read whose erudition comes off as natural when putting pen to paper. 

What was an early experience that led to you becoming a writer?

Rap / Hip-Hop music. When I was in the 7th/8th grade, I started writing raps on a regular basis. This was crucial to me (I learned to write in the English language in the 6th grade) because I was using metaphors, similes, and various rhyming schemes, internal rhymes, end-rhymes, consonance, assonance, etc. I didn’t know the terms at the time, but for over a decade, I would write raps on a regular basis, and then I transitioned to children’s poetry, and by 2007, when I started writing poetry, I had been writing constantly for almost two decades.  

Photo credit: Eduardo C. Corral

What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?

The Old and New Testaments in The Holy Scriptures are my major influences as a poet and creative thinker. It is incredibly rare for me to read a book more than once, even if I love the book. For example, I absolutely loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Richard Wright’s Native Son (1939) and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible (1998), but I’ve only read them once. There are so many books that I’ve read that I adored when I first read them, but I move on to the next one without looking back. Perhaps, I learned this from Lot’s wife. The Bible is an exception to this rule. It’s the only book that I constantly read and have done so from a very early age.

My poetry is at times very dark, and so is The Bible, e.g., “They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. They then put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.” 2 Kings 25:7 (NIV)

My poetry is at times surreal, and so is The Bible, “Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.” Ezekiel 1:10 (NIV).

My poetry focuses heavily on the speculative, e.g., magical realism, and the miracles of Jesus in the four Gospels, e.g., walking on water, fit into that category. My poetry, as in “Mother” is also heavy on documentary poetry, as is The Bible, e.g., “The descendants of Judah: Perez, Hezron, Karmi, Hur and Shobal.” 1 Chronicles 4:1 (NIV).

Not to mention the aphorisms found in The Bible, e.g., Proverbs & Ecclesiastes. I also use aphorisms in my poetry. Of course, poetry itself can be found in The Bible, i.e., The Song of Solomon and the Psalms.

My poetry mentors are my thesis advisors in graduate school, Kyle Dargan and David Keplinger, and in undergraduate school at Indiana University-Bloomington, Christopher Citro, Maurice Manning and Maura Stanton. All of the five poets, aforementioned above, have always been incredibly supportive of my poetry from the very beginning

Do you practice any other art forms? If so, how do these influence your writing and/or creative process?

During my sixth month stay in Kibbutz Evron in Israel, I came across a t-shirt that in the front read “Same, Same” and the back it read “But different.” Baseball, softball and wiffle ball are the same in that they all use a ball and a stick to get on base. I write poetry, including prose poetry, but also flash-fiction (rarely nowadays) and children’s poetry (also poetry, but usually best told with the help of visual aids, e.g., illustrations), which in a way all three are the same, same but different. Wiffle ball would be poetry, since it makes the least amount of money. Baseball is fiction, which also makes a killing financially. 

What craft element challenges you the most in your writing? How do you approach it? What is your quirk as a writer?

Formal poetry challenges me the most. Many years ago, I took an 8-week online poetry course with the formalist poet Moira Egan, and we workshopped some of my formal poetry, e.g., sonnets, villanelles, even a sestina I wrote. I’ve also written pantoums, haikus, limericks, etc. I believe it’s important for a poet to try writing in form because it restricts your writing style and helps you to think differently. Writing in meter, pentameter, is something that I avoid. I prefer writing my sonnets using strict syllabic line counts. But, perhaps, in the distant future, I will dedicate some serious time to that strenuous endeavor.

As to my quirk as a writer, I will just quote a small part of Kyle Dargan’s jacket note that he wrote for my debut poetry collection: “Blue Whale Phenomena introduces Steve Castro as a relentless storyteller and story interrupter—inventing narrative moments or instead etching his brilliant quirks into the narratives with which we were born into the world.”

How does the current political climate influence your art or creative process?

Even though my forte as a poet is the speculative and the documentary, I recently wrote a political poem, i.e., “Xenophobia” published in [PANK] – Latinx : Latinidad 1.0 issue. I wrote “Xenophobia” because I was really bothered with how Trump’s rhetoric emboldened people to be openly racist. About two years ago, I was speaking Spanish with my mother at a gas station on the west side of Evansville, Indiana, when an older white male, yelled our way, “speak fucking English.” The racism that was internalized and whispered are now shouted from the housetops, as the saying in Luke 12:3 goes.

As an editor, I also try to shed a light to issues regarding social justice. When I was the poetry editor at Folio, I came across a very powerful poem written by Cortney Lamar Charleston titled “Six Shot on Fergusson, Missouri” dedicated to the memory of Mike Brown. There are political/social justice elements embedded into my documentary poems at times, such as in my poem “Ancient Brown Skin,” which can be found in my collection Blue Whale Phenomena. 

What are some themes/topics that are important to your writing?

As mentioned above: documentary poetry, and the speculative, e.g., magical realism, surrealism, fantasy, fabulism, absurdism, etc. Plus, ekphrastic poetry and writing prompts, are mostly how I construct my poems.

What does your creative process look like? How does the environment you are in shape your work or where do you like to write?

My creative process varies. It sometimes (not often) comes from a prompt like the origin for my poem “Mother.” It sometimes comes from a line or an idea that I put down on my voice recorder. Sometimes, I just sit down or lie down, and start writing from scratch or I may sit in silence and think until the opening comes to me. There are times when I listen to my ideas in my voice recorder and then I write the poem in my head, and when it is finished or sufficiently finished, I start writing it down. As for how the environment shapes my work, I at times write apocalyptic pieces about our environment in total chaos, e.g., “The One.” 

What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

I recently finished a children’s poetry book called Poems for genius children with dictionaries who like to read and ponder, and also poems for brave children who aren’t afraid of the dark. Once I edit it/revise it, the hard part will come, meaning, I will start looking for illustrators that are interested in collaborating. 

Steve Castro’s book Blue Whale Phenomena was published in May, 2019. You can find more of Steve’s work on his website www.thepoetryengineer.com, and follow him on Twitter: @PoetryEngineer. 

Tell us about your poem “Run the Jewels” in Volume 22. How did it come to be?

I had read, several times, of the horrific lynching of Chinese in Los Angeles in 1871, but was surprised that there was so little awareness of it in the American consciousness. In a way, poetry and writing is a type of history, a type of memory, and I felt like it was an incident I should write about. To do my part in the intervention, you know, as the history of Asian Americans is often intentionally erased and dismissed.  

What was an early experience that led to you becoming a writer?

I was a refugee in a large, poor family who turned to books as an escape and solace. When I was very young, I discovered the joy of creating worlds, and my own stories. There was never just one thing – it was many things. Dungeons and Dragons, books of all genres, theater, comics, and so on.

What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?

(photo credit: Anna Min)

Yes, too many to name here. But special shout outs go to David Mura, Diane Glancy, and Diego Vazquez. 

How does the current political climate influence your art or creative process?

I’ve been a writer across more than two decades of upheaval, struggle, and growth, and I’ve tried to be engaged throughout those years in the world around me. So I can’t say that the current political climate has changed me that much. I don’t mean to say that things aren’t terrible—but to a degree, things have always been terrible. But there has also always been change, and growth, and I try to hang on to that.

What are some themes/topics that are important to your writing?

Resistance against the constant erasure of Asian American people. At heart, that’s what drives my work.

 What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

I’ve been tinkering with a Vietnamese American zombie apocalypse novel for years. Also trying to write a weird book full of poetic and not so poetic essays, as well as more children’s books.

Bao Phi is the author of two poetry collections, Sông I Sing and Thousand Star Hotel, both published by Coffee House Press, as well as two picture books for children, the 2017 Caldecott Honor and Charlotte Zolotow award winner A Different Pond, and My Footprints, both published by Capstone. He works at the Loft Literary Center and lives in Minneapolis with his daughter. You can find more about Bao at his website. 

In The Field is a blog series devoted to highlighting the writing life and artistic process of our contributors. This week we continue with our series now featuring contributors from our most recent issue, Vo. 22 “Tending to Fires”. Vol. 22 is now available for sale in our online shop.

1. Tell us about your cnf pieces “Driving” and “My High Horse” in Volume 22. How did they come to be?

“Driving” was written as a draft in a journal in the summer of 2014, when my brother and I were driving back from Provincetown where we had indeed just scattered our mother’s ashes in the Atlantic Ocean. I didn’t recognize it as a “piece” until I began putting together all the poems I have written about my mother’s last year-and-a-half of life and the subsequent recovery from that. As a kind of coda to our time together as brothers, “Driving” is now the last piece of that [forthcoming] book, The Things. 

“My High Horse” was written, I believe, in 2018, when I was beginning to notice that, although most of my friends and I are “progressives” we have become very quick about judging other people’s motives and worthiness. When I was a kid, my mother, whenever she caught herself or one of us saying something mean about someone else’s life, would often say something like, “Of course, being perfect myself…” as a way to puncture any self-inflation going on. It made us laugh, and brought us back to earth. “My High Horse” was written in that spirit, at a time when I could feel myself getting very angry about choices I saw some of my fellow citizens making. One of the principal dangers, I think these days, is the belief that “everybody is awful” or “I hate everyone” or “people suck.” You have to have hope in other people to get real (meaning large-scale), but it’s hard to do that if you’re just stuck in hate and fear and anger. At that point, my mother’s self-puncturing voice appeared, almost as an exercise to recognize what kind of High Horse I was sitting on, what beliefs keep me in that sad saddle.

2. What excites you as a writer? What turns you off, makes you turn away or stop reading a piece of writing?

As a writer: Getting past the boredom and irritation of my own writing and finding some metaphor or swerve of phrase that changes everything. What turns me away from reading: not finding anything new in terms of information or surprising in terms of language or complicated in terms of emotional depth.

3. What was an early experience that led to you becoming a writer?

There were so many [experiences], practical and mystical, that led me to writing, and which easily led to something else—entomology was an early love, as was psychology. I loved looking at the natural world and I was deeply interested in trying to figure people out. I’ve always wondered about the lives of small things—ants, bees, slips of the tongue, whispers in a crowded room. But the central moment was when I was 16 or 17 and went to a poetry and fiction workshop for high school students. I said beforehand that I wanted to work with the fiction writer because I thought maybe writing a bestselling book would be a way to be someone.The fiction writer was, however, very dour. But Judith Kitchen was the poet, and when I heard her read and talk about art and life, the room lit up for me. I’d never seen an adult who so-loved her life. I switched workshops and followed her. Later, she ran workshops at some local libraries, and I went until she recognized something in me was in need of her attention. She invited me to meet with her a couple of times, read early poems, and urged me to follow writing as a way to live in the world. She was the key that unlocked the door.

4. What books, writers, art, or artists inspire you and your work? Do–or have–you had any mentors in your writing life?

I have had many wonderful role models, teachers, and friends over the years: Liz Rosenberg, Milt Kessler, Lynn Emanuel, Ed Ochester, Toi Derricotte; my writing pals Geeta Kothari and Jenny Johnson in Pittsburgh, and Liz Ahl, Noah Stetzer, and Jan Freeman elsewhere. Friends on Facebook and Twitter are a constant source of inspiration and challenge. My literary heroes are Eduardo Galeano, E.B. White, Emily Dickinson, Carl Phillips, Kimiko Hahn, Emerson, among many, many artists.

5. Do you practice any other art forms? If so, how do these influence your writing and/or creative process?

In 2017, I started painting and drawing, after not having really done it since the mid-80s as an undergraduate. I had two books I was, and still am, working on, and painting gave me a chance to do something that had silence in it. Painting is so much of the body; I find it occupies me when nothing else can ease my anxiety. At the moment, writing and painting are in separate worlds, although my new book of poetry, Little What, features a painting of mine as its cover, so maybe there will be occasions for dialogue.

6. What craft element challenges you the most in your writing? How do you approach it? What is your quirk as a writer?

Plotting in a deliberate way is my challenge. Which is probably why I never ended up writing that bestselling novel that would have made me rich. I would say I have a sense of dramatic structure, which I can usually count on rising up as I work.

7. How does the current political climate influence your art or creative process?

I stopped writing in 2017 with Trump’s inauguration. I really couldn’t believe what had happened and was terrified by what was now likely to happen to the country. I had no hope. I was angry and frustrated and full of grief. What finally helped me pull out of it was, as I said, painting, just making shapes of color on a canvas or page. Sometimes just drawing lines and reading people like Lynda Barry or looking at Paul Klee or Milton Avery paintings. And then teaching helped too. I was surrounded by undergraduates who still had hope, who needed to see that hope was still possible. Talking to them, making writing prompts for them, I began to write again in my journal. Writing now usually means putting together a lot of little scraps, sentences, lines, until they start to add up. Before that, I usually wrote a whole first draft fast and then revised down. Now I start with pieces and revise those into bigger pieces.

8. What are some themes/topics that are important to your writing?

Usually, I start with a question or a scene or an image and work from it until I get to something I didn’t expect to find.  The only time I start with a theme is when a literary journal like Creative Nonfiction has a call for something. I wrote my first long essay for their Animals issue, a topic I am quite interested in, and more recently for their Marriage issue, a theme I had a lot of questions about. Otherwise, my themes are the ones that every writer has—attending to the details of the world, exploring the self, testing the limits of my language where I can.

9. What does your creative process look like? How does the environment you are in shape your work or where do you like to write?

Weekdays, I walk the dog, take him to camp, then go to a cafe to work for a couple hours. Weekends, I walk the dog, give him a peanut butter Kong at home, then go to a cafe and revise or submit. That’s the basic structure of my days. Because I’ve become an administrator and a husband, and so have less free time than I used to, writing now usually means putting together a lot of little scraps, sentences, lines, until they start to add up. I like working in a cafe because I can steal language from other people. Or use their conversations as starting points for my own wandering.

10. What projects or pieces are you working on right now?

I’m currently working on a second book of poetry/short prose, tentatively titled The Things, about my mother’s death, of which “Driving” will be a part of. A book of autobiographical essays is nearly done. And finally, there are some new prose/ pieces that seem to be accumulating into something.    

Jeff Oaks’s first full-length collection Little What was published by Lily Poetry Review Books in September 2019. His prose and poetry have appeared most recently in Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, and the Kenyon Review Online, as well as in the anthologies Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction and My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them. He teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh. You can find more about Jeff at his website jeffoaks.wordpress.com/.

For twenty two years, Water~Stone Review has been a collaborative passion project of students, faculty, and staff. For our next issue, we are bringing a new team member to the process with hope of expanding our chorus of voices in our pages as well as our reach and readership. 

 In this post we meet Vol. 23 Contributing Fiction Editor, Keith Lesmeister.

What is your earliest memory or experience in which you knew you wanted to be a writer? What brought you to the art form?

I can remember with pinpoint accuracy the moment I wanted to write short stories. It was ten years ago. I was taking a creative writing class—fiction & poetry—and we just finished Michael Cunningham’s story White Angel. Up to that point, I was writing because I wanted to record family stories and history. After White Angel, I wanted to create my own (fictional) stories. 

What writers do you admire? What specific pieces of work do you find yourself continually drawn to for inspiration?

Michael Cunningham, as mentioned. Also, as of late, I’ve been reading and rereading some old work by Rebecca Lee, Jane Smiley, Mary Miller, Maile Meloy, Annie Dillard, and Andrew Porter. 

Can you give us any insight into what your creative process looks like?

Coffee. Lots of coffee. And fits and starts. I used to be more diligent about a writing routine. Now I write when I can. Sometimes daily. Ideally, it would be daily. 

What is one thing that you know now as an established writer that you wish you had known as a new writer? What’s one thing you wish all new writers who are learning the craft would know?

Once you finish a draft, put it away for a while. Let it sit in the bottom of your desk drawer for a few weeks, maybe a month, and then come back to it. I think distance is critically important to revision. 

What are some trends in literary fiction that you find exciting to read?

I don’t read a lot of literary news re: trends. I wish I had more time to do so. I do read book reviews, but those are nothing new or trendy. 

How do you see your position as contributing fiction editor leaving an imprint on Vol. 23? What will you look for in fiction submissions for Vol. 23?

I’m very much looking forward to continuing the tradition that Sheila has established. I admire her as a writer and teacher, and I’m honored to be part of such a wonderful literary journal based out of a vibrant literary hub—the Twin Cities. In terms of what I’ll be looking for: In honor of the late Daniel Johnston, I’ll be searching for something as searing and vulnerable as the work he produced over his prolific, tortured life. 

Your short story collection WE COULD’VE BEEN HAPPY HERE came out in 2017. What projects or pieces are you working on now?

I’m still writing stories. I love to read them, I love to write them. 

Keith Lesmeister’s latest novel was WE COULD’VE BEEN HAPPY HERE from Midwest Gothic (2017). His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Water~Stone Review, American Short Fiction, Gettysburg Review, Tin House Open Bar, River Teeth, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and he lives and works in rural Iowa. You can find more about https://keithlesmeister.com/. 

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