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10 Questions for Merridawn Duckler

August 18, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

while I’m outside at the dull resort, near two women trying to read
and claim to have managed so far ten pages
which is nine more than me
as I google the etymology of pugilist
which one philosopher accused another being.
—from “near the new year, the philosophers fight on a FB page,” Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
One of the first poems I ever wrote was about my friend getting pregnant at a party I threw in a forest. I was only fifteen and didn’t really grasp the consequences but I always remembered the title which was “Last Birthday Party in Forest Park. “Maybe part of me did understand this was the end of certain...

10 Questions for Matthew E. Henry

August 16, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

the pair of gold teeth you found as a child, hidden
at the bottom of your mother’s jewelry box,
were not from your father’s dental school failure,
artificials he filed from ferric molds.
—from "an open letter to the woman sharing her funny story in this writing workshop", Volume 62, Issue 2 (Spring 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I wrote a persona poem wherein the speaker is an old, Black, southern grandmother on trial for murdering a white man. On the witness stand, and through a you-know-she-taught-Sunday-school-to-Adam-and-Eve-in-Eden voice, she explains her justification for the crime. It was one of my first published pieces, but I did not like it. I was discovering my...

10 Questions for Alexandra Teague

August 13, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

Dear M—

It's true that I once took a ferry across the Balearic Sea to Ibiza to dance
all night like an alien that hasn't heard of sleep.
—from "Crossed Letters for a Concerned American", Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
Although, like many teenagers, I’d written poetry in high school, the first poem that really felt like mine was my freshman year of college, in a class with Michael Burns. Before that, I’d only read older poetry and had never realized I could describe the people sunning at the swimming pool of my apartment complex, or my walk home from campus, or other details of my everyday life. Finding out that poetry could contain things of...

10 Questions for John A. Nieves

August 11, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

I had a hole in my pocket I used
to fall through when I was little. There
was never anyone there, just the sound
the dark makes when it's ignoring you
and the smell of coins someone found
—from "Just Below Away," Volume 62, Issue 2 (Summer 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
One of the first pieces I wrote was a lyric exploration of how I constructed my idea of my maternal grandfather. I had never met him and had only been afforded scraps about criminality and aggression and abandoning my grandmother, aunt and mother. In the poem, I tried (and failed) to trace his outline, to figure out how he fit in the story of my very young, teenage life.

What writer(s) or works have...

10 Questions for Taylor Zhang

August 9, 2021 - By Marissa Perez

Rotisserie chickens tied up
pre-chop: my skin melted, stuck,
grease dripping on the floor.
—from "Pure Pleasure", Volume 62, Issue 2 (Spring 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
I started journaling when I was very young. I used to write these little poems and observations in the margins of books, too. I couldn’t tell you about any particular ‘first’ piece, but I have this very clear memory of writing something morose in my mother’s copy of Gone with the Wind.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Janet Malcolm will forever hold my attention as a stylist. Her prose radiates intelligence and authority and understated...