Iām exactly sure how I can summarize this interview as he spoke so much about so many different things I wasnāt able to write everything down but I took down the things that I heard that caught most of my attention.
He believes that poetry came to him in the womb because his mother would sing while she was pregnant.
Poetry and Speech are things that go side by side. Ā Reading and Writing came late but poetry was always there.
Memory operates through image. Ā Moving out of home was like immigrating
First 5 years of America, in a small Vietnamese village, thrown into English environment in kindergarten, did not understand what he was doing wrong bc did not understand the language.
Not understanding the pledge of allegiance, faking it because of inability to understand English.
Learned that he has many learning disabilities that run in his family, family stemmed from rice farmers, did not need to read, most exchanged via words and visual rather than text. Ā Learned to read at 11-12. Has dyslexia.
Sees different words within words, sees each letter as its own thing. Ā Brother has heavier dyslexia, more anxiety when it comes to text.
Put out book with title across his motherās face, told her it was āartsyā āI canāt talk about the abstract so much because our language starts to fail between my mother and I. The more words I know in English the further away I move from my family. Ā Itās a dichotomy I struggle with as a writer.ā
I heard youāre a writer, Iāll tell you a real story.
Every time he thinks deep into the question, imagination, text, etc. Ā āThis is important to me, and I can only hope it is important to someone else.ā
Wrote with a lot of freedom as he was not concerned with what was going to happen.
āThis does not contain me, but I can make a world that does contain me as an author.ā A Realm of Control.
āLove is best when it is dependable, mundane, and just there. Ā Embodied in the sense that it is in everything we doā
Believes that love is something that you create and work at and build.
Somewhere in language there is a dna of how you write.
Takes his influences of other writers with him, also his grandmother and mother, no distinction between his influences and it is the sum total of those people.
Proud of him as his parents called him a scholar and proud that he was reading and writing. āThis is wonderful, but when will you open your nail salonā
Mother went to first reading, and mother was crying after the reading. āI never thought Iād see these old white people clapping for my sonā
Never really has a routine, writes at night. Makes most of his living doing lectures and such.
Experiences are his life, everything is work and not work at the same time.
Does not write every night but writes AT night.
āwhen you listen to music, what does it mean?ā
Poetry is sort of the reverse, the poem is a feeling, is there a note to this feeling? How is it described, etc.
How does jazz become funk to hiphop etc. evolution of music. Saw that there was a rhythm to how people spoke, how does it relate to the people and the ambience.
Turning towards prose rather than poetry lately. Came from oral tradition, āIām going to tell you a poemā like āIām going to tell you a storyā, the lines are different and the rhythm is different because it was oral. Wants to see if he can recapture the themes in Nightsky into prose.
Not sure if wanting to try something different or maybe a desire to create a novel.
Excited about this chameleon form of whatās poetry and prose.
Does not experience āwriterās blockā as he is suspicious of the term and how it is valued with production. he believes it is a real thing but more of the feeling of shame. He redefines work for himself where itās not about how many pages or words. The question is ādid my day help contribute to my work and if it did it was successfulā
