Oh hi, Poet Here

An interview with Carolyn Zaikowski

Oh Hi, Poet Here

Carolyn Zaikowski is a fiction writer, poet, essayist, death doula, and the current Poet Laureate of Easthampton, Massachusetts. She will be reading at Looky Here on Friday, June 6th. I interviewed her about her thoughts on navigating the current moment, writing about trauma, and some of her favorite sounds, smells, and artists.

First of all, congratulations on being crowned Poet Laureate! Was there a ceremony? What are the duties and responsibilities of the role, and do you have any specific plans for fulfilling them?

Thanks! There was an official inauguration which you can watch here and it was beautiful and intense for me! I don't entirely mind being the center of attention in blips at performances, but I've never been the center of attention in that particular way. I actually had to stow away in my house for a good week after and not talk to many people. It was strangely hard to have that many people throwing good energy at me all at once. It really drove home the trouble I have with compliments and I’ve had to talk to my therapist about that for like five weeks in a row.

The role is really cool. It involves several public events for the community I'll plan over the next two years. I want to bring in the less centered parts of the community, particularly people who don't have MFAs or who haven't published much or at all, and to bring in the public spaces like orchards and parking lots.

I also feel the need to be political and, as the selection committee said, "to meet the moment” by using community and poetry to address transphobia, patriarchy, capitalism, and the like. To me this also means trying to be fearless (key word: trying) about calling out apartheid, our genocide in Palestine and the grotesque conflation of Zionism and Judaism, because as they say, Palestine is the litmus test. To quote Omar El Akkad: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”

If we have privilege, we need to take risks for each other, and to practice radical friendship and community. To paraphrase Salman Rushdie, writing can't stop bombs, but it can be used to name the oppressors and the liars.

And I also just want to use the poet laureate title for leverage. The last poet laureate, Carolyn Cushing, did this in super crafty ways like calling state reps and being like, “Oh hi, Poet Laureate of Easthampton here. Do you have a moment?” And they took her more seriously because of that. Titles are silly except for when we can use them subversively.

Do you have an origin story? When did you first know you were a poet? Are there any early lines you wrote that stick with you?

I've been a writer since I could hold a crayon/pen/pencil. I have no memories of not being a writer. Language and writing are my oldest friends. They've always been there and they never leave my side. They are incredibly trustworthy; I trust words more than I trust most or all people.

I think if many adult writers look closely, they will see that this is true for them as well. They will deny it to the ends of the earth, but we know how to have creativity just like we know how to have all other instincts that we evolve into in the first few years of our lives. Creativity is life and it guides us—I mean this very literally. We cannot NOT have creativity in us unless we are dead.

There is no child who doesn't engage in creativity, whether drawing pictures, singing wildly, telling completely fantastical and silly stories, from a toddler age. I am sad when people tell me they didn't start to write until they are adults, because I have a feeling that isn't always true, or that at least these folks told stories aloud all the time as kids. We're just taught to un-remember that. Dig deep and you’ll see it’s always been with you.

I'm not recalling early lines, but I remember writing a poem about a rose that was placed on the front page of my second grade's poem booklet that was held together by those plastic binding spines and printed on a 1980s dot matrix printer. I was shy, but secretly felt really cool about it.

How are you navigating this moment in American History? Are there any particular writers or other artists who are helping you stay grounded amidst the onslaught?

The poets of Palestine have always been a quintessential example of how core writing and the arts are to social justice and truth-telling. Let’s all read them right now.

I go to the traditions and writers who have spoken truth to power and who have borne witness to the moment, at times against serious stakes of death, exile, disappearance, psychological trauma, racism, being a social outcast, or similar. Paul Celan, Anna Akhmatova, Gloria Anzaldua, Bhanu Kapil, Ocean Vuong, Natalie Diaz, Claudia Rankine, Ilya Kaminsky. And of course, Audre Lorde, who reminded the world that "poetry is not a luxury."

I go to my friends, who are brilliant artists, writers, and thinkers.

I go to my writing students, who blow me away in terms of their sheer grit, strength of heart, and fierce vulnerability. They remind me of the importance of artists, writers, and poets, and community. Art is terrifying to fascists because fascists know how powerful it is when someone uses their imagination. That’s why we’re among the first to be sent to the killing fields. Creativity, imagination, and solidarity are the opposite of fascism.

But we won't let them do any of this, so long as we stay in community and keep writing toward a critical mass.

What are you listening to?

The wrens and robins outside, at this moment. And I've been digging Arca and golden oldies. My friend sent me a Mogwai album a couple months ago and I listened to it after eating a weed gummy and I think went into a portal and died for a few minutes.

Also, yesterday I was at a gathering in a friend's yard and there was a bold little turtle who walked toward us and into the hostas, and from the hostas we heard her rustling and making the tiniest sounds.

You've studied psychology and written beautifully about how trauma requires new language and syntax to meet its shattering effects. Are there any writing prompts or strategies you recommend for people wanting or needing to explore traumatic material?

I firmly believe there are some keys to writing trauma: One is to go into your body and heart and find the difference between stretching and breaking. It's not going to work for you to go into an alarm state, a clinical fight-flight-freeze trigger, for the sake of art. You are harming yourself just like the perpetrator did, and perhaps even taking huge risks by triggering things like addiction, self-harm, eating disorders—I have experienced this myself. And you're likely not honoring the work of trauma healing or writing by doing this.

Notice the difference between discomfort and harm in your body. For me discomfort is a bit of physically leaning forward, a tiny bit of muscle tension, a little urge to move around, a moment of breath to process. Alarm is racing heart, crying, numbness, pacing around, crying or numbness around memories, not being able to step back, trauma states that last more than a few moments.

Discomfort and alarm are not the same, and there is no virtue in harming yourself in order to self-witness or to give your story to others. A Buddhist teacher once guided me on this by telling me that it’s sometimes wise to sniff smoke or get a little close to fire to observe it, but that there is no wisdom in sitting inside of a burning house.

Another thing to remember is that you don't owe anyone your story. People sometimes think they HAVE to write the darkest stuff, and when probed they aren't totally sure where this assumption came from. Many writers, myself included, actually forget that we are allowed to write stuff that is not dark, and that might be satirical, funny, surreal, etc.

The flip side is that if you want to tell your story, and can do it ethically in terms of not harming yourself or any relatively innocent others who are in it, then do it. There is a very gendered discourse going back to forever around "confessional" writing. I recommend Melissa Febos's essay "The Heart-Work: Writing Trauma as a Subversive Act" for more on this.

Finally, a trick I like is that less is more. I think of this as the horror movie method where the trauma is at times implied off-screen, like a shadow on the wall, an absence, or a sound from off stage. And breaking up the parts of overt trauma with parts of beauty, hope, subversion, etc. to give the reader a breath. These are not inauthentic things to add. If we look closely at trauma stories, these things are all over them. The songs and foods we take solace in, the friendships, the silly hidden moments, the noticing of cute animals. These are parts of our stories and resilience. I read an article a while back about some Palestinians who had a joyful, beautiful wedding with the bombs falling in the background. Honoring trauma means honoring these things, too.

Are you working on any new projects you'd like to talk about?

I'm a big believer in having a number of projects going at the same time, some a bit lower stakes like notebook writing, some medium-stakes like a vision that's being drafted but not yet clear, and some higher-stakes like a very revised project that is ready for publishing. I've got stuff in all these categories at the moment; two finished poetry manuscripts, a very very finished novel, and a novel in the very messy works.

What are your favorite smells?

When I was little, I really loved the smell of gasoline, and also dollar bills because they smelled like gasoline to me. I feel gasoline is a very underrated smell, though I understand as an adult that I shouldn't actively sniff it. Also, the smells of just about any flowering tree and any vegan pizza will immediately get my attention.

Learn more about Carolyn on her website and Substack and come hear her read at Looky Here on Friday June 6th at 7 pm with fellow writers Jenny Abeles, L Scully, and Sarah Wisby.