What writers have inspired you? Contemporary poets mostly, many of my friends on Facebook which I have never actually met in person. I tend to go for either the grittier, narrative stuff like Alexis Rhone Fancher, Kevin Ridgeway, Tony Gloeggler, Robbi Nester, Connie Post, Janette Schafer or lyrical sharp stuff like Megan Merchant, Lillian Necakov, and Luke Johnson. Lately I have been getting great inspiration from my friends Lori Howe, Lauren Scharhag (Roberts), Jon Yungkuns, and Christopher Cadra who all are co-editors for a journal called Gleam. Lori and Christopher developed a new poetic form: the cadralor. A cadralor is a 5-stanza beast of an interconnected poem which takes some risk to pull off, and we are always on Facebook posting poems and pushing each other to more expansive vistas.
What projects are you currently engaged in?
Gleam: the Journal of the Cadralor, as mentioned above. Also, I am trying to chisel out a full length from 80 or so poems I have written lately. Now I am still just trying to set aside time to write when the flash hits.
How have you spent the year 2020?
I have an eleven-month-old boy and a nine-year-old girl and I am still working as a RN for the Veterans Hospital in Seattle. It is a wonder I write at all, much less sleep.
How have you maintained your artistic skills during lockdowns?
When something grabs me, I have to write it. If I don’t get it all down and finish the poem, many times it gets watered down. I have learned to write shorter, more potent poems. All of us poet geeks know that is hard as hell to do well.
Do you have any goals for the New Year?
Wait for the sharpest poems to emerge before publishing again. I want to have a fistful of daggers and drop the dull ones in the river.
Has your professional life influenced your writing at all? How did you begin crafting poetry?
Yes, nursing has brought forth many poems. Mostly, the study of humans in pain, in loss, in survival.
Is community important to your writing? Are there any magazines or small presses that you feel a strong attachment to?
I have a new love for Verse-Virtual as a writing community. I feel that once you are in, you are family. I love Clare MacQueen’s MacQueen’s Quinterly, John Patrick Robbins’ Rye Whiskey Review, John Compton’s Voice Lux Journal, Alan Catlin’s Misfit, Robert Nazarene’s American Journal of Poetry, and last but not least, Alexis Rhone Fancher’s Cultural Weekly. My first book The only thing that makes sense is to grow was made possible by Eric Morago at Moon Tide Press, and I can’t say enough about his mentorship and brilliance as an editor. I am really honored to be part of an upcoming anthology: Recasting Masculinity published by Beautiful Cadaver Project under the watch of Janette Schafer. I also love Redshift, Panoply, Spillway, Thimble, Meat for Tea, Live Nude Poems.