In Conversation: Lo Kwa Mei-en

Daniel Cyran: Greetings Lo, thank you for agreeing to do this written interview with me. I appreciate your willingness to explore these questions. While I have not read your award-winning collection, THE BEE’S MAKE MONEY IN THE LION, I want to focus a bit on the book I have read, and utterly adore, YEARLING (Alice James Books, 2015). This is such a timeless / monumental collection to me, a spiritual monument. From the opening epigraph of (my first love, ah) Emily Dickinson, to the concluding piece, CANON WITH WOLVES IN THE WATER—it feels like a long & exciting journey from first page to last page. I’m hoping this interview will inspire folks who may have missed out on the initial run of YEARLING, hopefully they’ll be inspired to pick this collection up. As for folks who have it on their shelf, hopefully they’ll be able to re-trace their steps a bit to re-visit this brilliant collection.

Lo Kwa Mei-en: Hi, Daniel! Thank you very much for inviting me to do this interview, and for your kind, uplifting words about YEARLING. Both mean very much to me, and I am grateful to be in poetry community with you here.

DC: If it can even be qualified, what role does the spiritual have in your work? I know that the title, THE BEE’S MAKE MONEY IN THE LION, is a eluding to a Biblical passage. And your poems feel deeply spiritual. What do you think of the relationship between the spiritual and the act of writing a poem? How are these related/unrelated? What do your spiritual leanings look like, in the physical world? What I mean by spiritual, I suppose, is that as human beings, we do have some kind of relationship with the unknown & the unseen. So I’m wondering about your relationship with, and how you interact with the unknown & the unseen in your poetry practice.

Lo: My relationship to the unknown is basic: I fear it, and learn to live with the fear. As for the unseen, which I would like to reframe here as the unperceived, the word that comes to mind is privilege. So much of the comfort I have experienced in life–comfort which has become a spiritual priority to question–has been derived at the expense of my complicity in the suffering of other people. And my complicity is resourced by a system in which I have had the luxury of not-perceiving specific, ongoing, material harms. Thus, it’s of spiritual importance to me to continuously challenge my relationship to the unknown and unperceived, and to develop practices with which I can do so. Poetry is absolutely one of these practices.

My spirituality is informed by folk religious practices that my familial and spiritual ancestors shared with their communities. I am a practicing animist. My practice requires the belief that I have real, material relationships with all beings, whether I like it or not, whether I perceive it or not. I believe I am responsible for my roles and actions within those relationships, and I am responsible for how my choices impact those I am in relationship with.

These beliefs brought me into a way of living that blurred some relational categories I’d taken for granted. For example, I have a more impactful understanding as myself (as supposed “consumer”) in relationship with water (as supposed “resource”). Water is not a thing I am entitled to own or control, but an entity whose past, present, and future are simultaneously connected to my past, present and future and the past, present, and future of all beings, too. How will I honor these relationships? That question reminds me that all liberations and all injustices are connected. Every time I feel thirst, I may immediately reach for a glass of water. But the people of Palestine in Gaza have been denied access to clean drinking water for over four months. I am in relationship with the water only some of us have access to, and with the people of Palestine, and with the government representatives I will write to tomorrow again to remind them that the people of Palestine have been denied access to clean water for over 4 months now, and that I as their constituent demand that they use their privilege to act against genocide. I am in relationship with the corporations and institutions I have the power to boycott in support of justice. I think the spiritual can be found in the connections of all relationships.

Related to the above, I made a major change in my relationship to poetry. After years of experiencing intense panic, shame, and anxiety about writing and publishing poetry, I realized that I was living in relationship to poetry with myself as consumer and poetry as resource. As if poems were things to productively consume, and publications were things that would prove I was a person of productivity, which I equated with worthiness. Every time I tried to write, I brought those relational values to the page. After seven years of this hell, I no longer loved poetry–not because I stopped believing in the magic and power of poetry, but because I was not giving poetry appropriate respect, love, and care. I decided to stop writing and publishing poetry, and to focus on working to repair my relationship to poetry by reading and remaining in community with poets, and to make amends to poetry.

One part of this amends, as an animist, means saying “thank you” out loud whenever I read a poem. I thank the spirits of the poet, the poem, and poetry, too. Sometimes, now that I have more days where I feel close to poetry and not estranged, I wonder if one of poetry’s forms is like fungus, or lichen–multiple, liminal, actively strange, impossible to separate into selves/others without compromising our truthful understanding of its nature.

 

DC: In a 2013 interview with Gulf Coast Magazine, you mentioned being terrified of making magic from bare speech and written-down language. And since then, you’ve built an incredible oeuvre of magic & music within your poetry. I’m curious if you remain terrified of this process or of this possibility of the magical emanating from bare speech. What is it about this possibility of magic & bare-speech that is fear inducing? Additionally, I wonder what role fear presently holds in your work, and how you relate to fear as a poet & human being.

 

Lo: My first reaction to this question was, “Crap, I’m afraid of re-reading that Gulf Coast interview!” I did re-read, and what I meant when I wrote that was: Speaking out makes me feel afraid.

To finally feel the truth of something and to feel like I must express this or else betray what it means to be human–that, to me, is speaking out, and is also my personal experience of poetry. Speaking out is uncomfortable because it renders me and others accountable, and accountability can change everything. Often this change involves criticism, rejection, abandonment, and material loss. I think this process is magical not despite but because of those risks. However, today I would say that speaking out is to be embraced not because it is magical but because it is ethical. I try to remember that every time I go to write something and feel discomfort at the thought that somebody might read it or hear me say it, that this is an appropriate, correct way to feel. Discomfort surrounding accountability is no longer an acceptable reason for me to turn away from a project. Instead, the fear response is an important sign that I should continue working with whatever it was that made me feel afraid of accountability.

A crucial piece that helped me shape my thoughts above is “On Speaking Out” by Daniel José Older.

 

DC: With the “POET IS WORKING” story in mind, do you think a poet is every able to “stop” working—even when we are not physically writing, we seem to be at work. Even resting is a part of the process. The process never ends, ha! Is there any distinction in your mind between your craft on the page, and your life away from the page? Is there a felt duality here, or is there more of a unification between your life & your poems? How do these interact with each other, for you?

Lo: Are poets ever disengaged from the process of poetry? I believe that everything, absolutely everything is or can be poetry. I do not believe that anyone is ever really separated from poetry!

Here are some questions this topic inspires:

●        What value does work hold for you in your life?

●        What is the relationship between what you identify as “your work” and your writing?

●        What value does rest hold for you in your life?

●        What is the relationship between your rest life and your writing?

●        How do you know when you are writing?

The sole distinction I used to think was the difference between “writing on the page” and “life away from the page” was having enough time to write. Ten years ago, I had embarrassing amounts of free time and minimal responsibilities. I had multiple days a week where I had 3-4 hours straight to write. I was in very bad spiritual condition and no matter how much I wrote, I felt terrible about it. These days I feel lucky when I have a full hour during which I can descend into the work, and despite feeling that my time is no longer my own, I’ve never felt happier or more connected to art. Some of my best writing last year was done in the pick-up line at school, in the parking lot of KFC, in the kitchen waiting for water to boil. I used to fill journals and apps and to-do lists with rigid plans to better “manage” my time in order to “maximize” it. It turns out I was better served by surrendering to the spirit of poetry, who does not abide by capitalist time. Learning to care for a child was an added gift of a depth charge in this area. Realizing that not everybody receives more time in life to continue the work of writing was crucial, too.

Last year, I attended a workshop by novelist Suyi Davies Okungbowa. The workshop helped me grow my perspective and skills around caring for my life, art, and time. The workshop was designed from his newsletter, which is one of the best-written and most generous writing newsletters. I highly recommend his non-fiction as well as fiction work.

DC: The animal world seems to be omnipotent in your YEARLING poems. Which I deeply admire, because it feels almost unnatural in many ways, with the state of technological “advancement” – that we as a species have virtually removed ourselves from the natural world, from the food chain. The presence of the speaker(s) & the evoked presence of the animal “other” becomes apparently singular, or unified. Your speaker(s) don’t ever really seem to be separated from the animal world, from the natural world. What is it about animals (human or otherwise) that fascinates you? The human connection to the animal world feels vital in your poetry. What is it about this human connection to these “other” creatures which is so vital? Why is it so seemingly difficult for us human beings to feel our animalness?

Lo: I have an easier time interacting/existing with non-human animals than with other humans! I think this is why my poems often express in the language of non-human images. When I wrote in that language, I did not feel any pressure to explain myself.

I think one reason humans treat our connection to non-human animals as attractive and vital to explore in art is because sharing our lives and imagination with non-human animals forces us to confront the realities of relationship. And despite any wishes we might have to the contrary, to survive the future we have been creating, we will need to live relationally.

That said, the way I used animal imagery throughout YEARLING was intentionally symbolic and therefore depersonalizing. When I wrote a title that contains “Wolves in the Water” I was working towards creating an image, not writing about a specific collective of individual wolves, or even about actual wolves as a species. I seek and admire the work of writers whose art about animals is relational. One of the best pieces of writing I read in the last six months is Jia Tolentino’s tribute to her dog, Luna, who passed in 2023. I’m also still excited about the publication of The Familiar Wild: On Dogs & Poetry, edited by Ruth Awad and Rachel Mennies, which was released by Sundress Publications in 2020 and “interrogates our lives as they’ve intertwined with humanity’s most beloved house companion.”

 

DC: I notice hints of the surreal woven throughout YEARLING. And I’m curious, who are the poets, writers, artists who have the biggest impact on your writing, both historically & presently? Who and/or what inspires you?

 

Lo: I have been privileged to be changed by the work of many more poets, writers, and artists than I name here. To focus on the scope of YEARLING, the poems of Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Rita Dove and Lucie Brock-Broido were so important to my understanding of what poetry could be. The book would not have come to life without the work and writing of Patrice Malidoma Somé. The poet who had the biggest impact on my work is Kathy Fagan, who was my teacher before and during the time I wrote YEARLING. Having a relational connection to a poet whose art I admired changed my writing life.

Another inspiration I’d like to mention is horror. I am bowled over by how horror writers embrace structures of genre to create hyper-real, surreal spaces in which compassion can deeply and meaningfully take root. This capacity, in conjunction with the horror genre’s embrace of the viscerally felt experience for the reader, has convinced me that horror and poetry are close kin. Justin Phillip Reed recently released With Bloom Upon Them and Also With Blood: A Horror Miscellany, which I am beyond excited exists. Writers whose writing has changed my life through horror are Nathan Ballingrud, Victor Lavalle, Catriona Ward, Shirley Jackson, Stephen Graham Jones, and Octavia Butler.

 

DC: I consider you a poetic trailblazer. You do something that no one else can do. I guess this can be true of all poets & artists, but I don’t think it’s always true, all the time. If that makes sense. So, I’m wondering, what’s next for you? What is the next trail you plan to traverse? What are you excited about as far as your future & present endeavors?

Lo: Thank you for your kind words. I am humbled to be perceived that way and thankful for YEARLING to receive that consideration from you.

After several years working hard at caring for my relationship to writing, I am happy to say I’m currently living in right relationship with writing. I feel clearly and simply that I live to honor writing and other writers, and that when I do the work of my heart, I am one among many writers in the world. This, more than the below projects, feels like the most important exciting trail to name. I will never take for granted what it feels like to know that to survive, I must write, and not be certain if that outcome will be possible. I hope I’ll always hold compassion for others who have similar experiences.

I’ve been working the most in genre fiction. I write short stories and novellas in the storytelling languages of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. I also keep a (dormant) genre-crossing tarot blog called Little Nightporch, where I wrote short stories on a ten-day cycle based on the astrological decans and their corresponding tarot cards. I’ve been working on a book of poetry, a narrative about the life and death of Pinocchia. I have been given the chance to write poetry again! Wow.

 

DC: Thank you for being so generous with your time, Lo. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to momentarily factor my curiosity into your world. I wish you all the best with your current & future endeavors.

 

Lo: Thank you so much for your time, care, and writing. I really appreciate getting to share this space with you, and I wish you all the best, too.

Lo Kwa Mei-en is the author of The Bees Make Money in the Lion (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2016) and Yearling (Alice James Books, 2015). She lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio.