Interview with Kelli Russell Agodon - Full Version
On the last day of August 2021 I spoke with the poet Kelli Russell Agodon via Zoom. She dialed in from her home in Port Ludlow, Washington, and I was in Aptos, California, housesitting for a friend, which is to say we were both within steps of the Pacific Ocean. We met to discuss her new book, Dialogues With Rising Tides, but our conversation, like water, rippled out from there into the political, the personal, and the practice and teaching of poetry.
Kelli’s thoughts on hope, collaboration, and risk remain with me. In editing our conversation, I realize that her poems are evidence of a hard-won trust with the self despite the anxieties that come with daily living. As artists, that the payoff of attention and deep listening: we develop confidence in our ability to surrender without losing ourselves. Rather, it is through surrender that we approach the essence of human existence—and share what we learn through story. The cover of Kelli’s book is a Rorschach test by which readers can test where they’re at with this relationship between surrender and self; each time I pass it on my shelf, I pause to ponder what I believe in that given moment. ~GDF
This interview has been edited for clarity and flow.
Gabriela Denise Frank: Let’s start by talking about the gathering force of this collection: water.
Kelli Russell Agodon: I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there’s water everywhere. There are floating bridges; you take ferries. I’ve always been interested in oceans and marine life and caring for oceans. Rising tides, for me, was something I think about living near the water, and seeing the erosion. The climate crisis is happening, and I was thinking a lot about the threats around us. Rising tides are a quieter threat; if you live by the water, you see them more.
As I was writing this book, someone said, Rising tides lift all boats, so I also saw hopefulness. That’s how rising tides ended up in the title. I had sent it [the manuscript] out to other places with other titles. Copper Canyon was the only place to get this manuscript with that title.
What were the other titles?
Kelli: It went out under Lightvessel. All the sections are named after light vessels, which are basically floating lighthouses, because I wanted to keep that idea of hope. It also went out under the title Thank You for Saving Me Someday, I’ll Save You.
As you’re writing a manuscript, it begins to change. Perhaps the title you gave it in the beginning isn’t the title that really needs at the end. I’ve changed a lot of titles. My second book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, was alphabetized. To put poems in the order I wanted, I had to change their titles so they could be alphabetized correctly. It was an interesting experiment, having that constraint of this poem needs to start with the letter B—it clicks in different creative aspects of your brain.
Water suggests surrender—giving up, giving in, giving way—an emotional merging. Is surrender where this collection goes for you?
Kelli: I had to surrender a lot to write these poems. I’ve heard from people that this feels like my most vulnerable book. I did have to surrender that self-consciousness of when you’re creating art, [wondering] how the speaker and the author might be perceived. There’s definitely that surrender.
The cover image exhibits a lovely tension around this idea.
Kelli: I love this cover. I chose it because everyone comes to this cover with their own story. Some see it as very dark: this is the person right before they drown. I said to my partner, “I’m very concerned I chose a cover that’s too dark.” They said, “Too dark? That’s the moment right before they’re saved.” Somebody else sees it as humorous. I like that everyone interprets this their own way.
You’re right—it’s a Rorschach. I see a bittersweet struggle of the soul not surrendering though all the land has disappeared. I won’t give up until it’s really over.
Kelli: That’s perfectly said. These poems were written during a very challenging time. I was going for--
hold on and you’re not alone. You’re not alone in your feelings, your fear, your anxiety. There’s one person in the world who also walks—or swims—a similar path.
I incorrectly assumed that some poems were written during lockdown because of one title: “Everyone Is Acting as if We’re Not Temporary, and I Am Falling Apart in the Privacy of My Own Home.”
Kelli: That was written a year before the lockdown in February or March of 2019. My Nana had been put into hospice. She was 107. It sounds crazy, but I couldn’t believe that she was finally dying. She had been on the planet all of my life. It sounds shocking, but when someone’s 107, you just assume they will be there forever. I assumed she would live to 120, honestly. But no, that was written pre-lockdown.
That title encapsulates eerily well what we’ve experienced over the last eighteen months. How did you decide what was coming into the boat—and what wasn’t—when putting the manuscript together? How did “Hunger” come to be the first poem?
Kelli: This is my first poetry book that isn’t a project book. The two earliest poems [that made it] into the collection are “Love Waltz with Fireworks,” which is very hopeful, and “Braided Between the Broken,” which is the opposite. From 2016 to 2019, it continued to get darker. Some of the lighter poems got pulled.
The major themes are hope and I’m falling apart. When I wrote “Hunger,” I knew this was the opening of the book. It was because of this line: If we never have enough love, we have more than most. I wanted that line to be the first line in the collection [because] the poem is about finding gratefulness [in] having enough, even if it’s not a lot. We do have love—but there will be challenging times ahead.
That last line is killer: Sometimes the lost dog doesn’t need to be found. When I read that, I thought, I do want the lost dog to be found!
Kelli: [Laughs] It’s an interesting poem to read to an audience because it’s funny, but it’s also incredibly dark. Hearts are being eaten. I think it represents life.
The pandemic started, then we were in quarantine, and that felt terrible, and things kept getting worse. We had wildfire smoke and then we got locked in our homes; we couldn’t leave because the pollution was so bad. August was basically me stuck in my house and people having to get out of cities to breathe--if they had that privilege to afford to not go to their job or to work from home. And I thought, Oh, you know, I could have been a little happier in July.
In Dialogues we meet people who try to save others. Between the first poem and the last there’s uplift—sparrow as psychopomp, ferrying souls to safety—we’ve been transformed. Talk about poetry as a means of transformation.
Kelli: I’ve always felt that if I can take what is bringing me down, trying to harm me, or upsetting me and turn it into art, I have some sort of control over it. The most frustrating thing is when I’m watching something happen, and I can’t change it, or I don’t know how to change it or make it better. That was how I ended up working at a vaccination clinic when the pandemic started. I felt frustrated with the way the vaccine was being rolled out in Washington state, and I kept seeing We need volunteers, we need volunteers. I could feel myself getting lower and lower, like, we’re never going to get out of this, this is a mess. I thought, This is something I can do to help. It’s finding ways to make things better, or at least take some control over what you can. As a sensitive person, my emotions can be very level fifteen when everyone’s at level five. Writing poetry is a way for me to control something that feels uncontrollable.
I live very passionately. Things that don’t hit other people as hard will sometimes knock me down. Even driving down the street and seeing a dead deer—I have to be very careful with what I see. It can embed itself in my brain, and not necessarily the happy things. It’s more of those horrible images that I can still see in my head. Since I’ve been a kid, it’s been something I’ve been trying to fix. But I realize I’m wired that way; it’s not a fixable thing. But I can create art. I can write a poem. That’s where I’m transforming pain.
All the things I’m frustrated about, the things I want to spotlight—and remind people of hope and joy and good things—writing a poem allows me to transform those emotions and feelings and my perception of the world into something else. I hope that when a reader reads through these poems there is a transformation that makes them want to write a poem.
Are you drawn to the same subjects, or once you’ve transmuted a thing do you move on?
Kelli: That’s a great question. I do think I’m a poet and not a prose writer [because] poetry circles back. Prose is constantly moving forward. It’s like, we’re going on a journey, and you’re coming with me. I return to subjects I’m passionate about. The environment will always be something I’m passionate about—hope, relationships, injustice, things like that. So, yes, I will circle back.
Poems are like tides in that way. They’re always a little different—higher, lower—maybe there’s some rip tides in there. It’s a constant dialogue. The beach is always changing. Tides come in, clear the beach, and go out, or the tides will bring in new images, different shells. That’s what I love about the beach: how much it transforms. You can sit in the same place every day and see different things passing you.
Here’s an example: I live near a beach, and after a winter storm, you can see the cement blocks that hold the stairs—that feeling of, Oh my gosh, these stairs are gonna break. By summer, the sand has filled it back up, and now you can’t see them. You see the erosion, and then you see [the sand] brought back. You see a certain part of a rock one day, then the next it’s covered—or even more revealed.
We take pictures of it, my neighborhood group. Three of us are fascinated by what the beach looks like. If you look at something for long enough, you see the change over time. If you visited the same place, once or twice a year, you’d be like, Oh, those are the stairs. That’s how they always look. If you’re seeing it every day over a year or years, then you notice. It’s similar with where the sun rises. I live in a place that looks directly east, and I can watch the sun move north and south, depending on what season it is. I’m interested in [the] eco-poetics all around us. We are part of nature, and if you’re paying attention to all these little things happening, it’s like the best reality show around.
What has shifted in you over the course of writing and revising these poems?
Kelli: Despite everything, I do feel more hopeful than when I began writing these poems. In 2013, I had gone through a really dark emotional place. Then the 2016 election happened, which brought me even more down.
But—here’s a strange example. I went to a doctor’s appointment [recently], and [they ask patients to] take mental health tests, like to check in to make sure you’re okay. It was the first time I’ve ever passed it. I wasn’t anxious or depressed, even though I still have anxiety. In the fall I’ll usually get a little SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder—but I felt like, wow, this is the first time I’ve actually had answers that were more hopeful. I’m not sure what that’s from. I’m meditating more, and trying to be informed, but not doom-scrolling as much.
I think I’ve come out with a little better emotional health than when I began writing these poems. I wonder if it’s sitting with suicide and loss. [With] some of these poems, you can’t help but wonder. I think it’s [the mindset of], I’m not going to fight it. I am going to sit in here, and I’m going to see what happens. That is some of the reason for the transformation. I’ve also been working with trying not to be shameful. I come from a family that was built around, Don’t say that, don’t do that, or—oh my God—don’t tell anyone that. Very Catholic guilt. So, [I’m] trying to be more open and not be embarrassed about human things, especially mental health things.
I told nobody that I suffered from anxiety. It was a big secret. I’ve learned talking about something makes it less scary, even if [the subject] is suicide. Talking to people who have thought or participated in self harm—you can ask for help. When you’re in the darkest part, when you feel low, it’s hard to reach out. I’m from the generation of where you didn’t take care of yourself when you were feeling bad. I was just told, Press on, keep going, but never learned how to deal with the thing, if that makes sense.
For women, there’s pressure to pretend everything’s fine: smile through pain, set others at ease. Poems like “After Discovering My Husband Bought a Handgun” work curious magic with the feminine.
Kelli: I grew up as a tomboy, and I was into sports. I dressed as a boy. I shopped in the boys’ section. For a long time, I went by Russell instead of Kelli. I had parents who allow[ed] me to be that, but a lot of women have been taught to hide that part. I still am a very physical person—I just came back from a kayaking trip in the San Juan Islands—and I’m very competitive in regards to sports.
When I’m doing something physical, I lose all self-consciousness. I’m very opposite of what feminine might be. But I’m a woman and feminine in other ways. In the poem you speak of, the gun is opposite of how it is normally portrayed. Guns are masculine, they’re phallic, they’re very male. It’s the role switch of the gun being feminine, being a woman.
I think we have both in us, masculine and feminine, but women have been taught to be good and nice and kind. Don’t make a fuss. I think the feminine is extremely strong. We actually create life. I believe in women’s power.
In the poem, the gun is the other woman.
Kelli: Yeah. To stumble upon that—the shock of realizing there’s something going on that is potentially dangerous to the people who think they control it… It’s a gun, but it’s not only a gun. In domestic life, things can explode, things can die, things can be killed, and the trust, up until that moment, the trust is there, and suddenly it’s like, oh, there’s been a secret.
Let’s move over a square to “Getting an IUD on the Day of 45’s Inauguration.” Did you set out to write a political poem?
Kelli: That poem was written because poet Jenn Givhan told me to write it. I literally was getting my IUD at the same time Trump was being inaugurated in the White House. I was so shocked [by] everything Trump represents towards women, you know, Grab her by the pussy.
Sometimes, we’re living the poem, and we might not see it. [You need] someone to say, You need to write that. I didn’t know if anything would come of it, but that’s definitely an autobiographical poem. My doctor, the nurse, and I were all in this room knowing what was going on at the same time, and none of us being happy about this new president.
I had been bleeding for three months nonstop, and we couldn’t stop it. I had no idea a healthy person could bleed for three months—all crazy peri-menopause stuff—and there’s so much women are taught not to make a fuss about. But it was also a metaphor. I felt like I had been bleeding from the election. Getting this done was [intended] to help me, but the timing of it was absolutely metaphoric. Jenn said, “You need to write that poem.”
With a poem like that, taut yet passionate, what is your process of revision? How do you push yourself to take risks?
Kelli: I will sometimes over-revise a poem, trying to get what I want, then hav[e] to go back to the very first draft and start over. The first draft has spark and energy and, as poets, we revise it out. We’re so focused on getting it right, that we lose something.
Some of these poems [are] more raw than my younger self might have [allowed]. That was a risk for me. Normally, I go full-on Elizabeth Bishop in the craft department, but these poems are vulnerable. They deal with a lot of emotional stuff, and that is messy. I allowed more of what I consider messiness in there, because I felt it carried the energy I needed. I needed to not be self-conscious and revise that out. Oh, what will someone think when they read this? What if someone confuses me for the speaker? What if this poem is actually autobiographical, and someone asks me about it? How will I respond? I had to get rid of all of my self-consciousness if I wanted to write the best poems I could write. That was my challenge and my risk.
I will also completely start over and write the poem from a different angle. So, if I was going to rewrite the poem about getting an IUD [where] I have an image of the body as a flag—what if I chose the body as a vote, and just restart it from a different place? Actually a vote is too similar, but finding ways to begin again, and keep writing that same poem.
When you’re doing it, [you] allow yourself the belief that no one will read it. Write the poem and say, I’m writing this poem for myself. Sometimes those are the stronger poems because you’re not feeling intruded on by the reader. I never think about the reader when I’m writing the poem. I think about the reader when I’m revising the poem, and when I’m putting it into a collection. I don’t think about them in a negative way. I think about [if] I’ve left something out that only I know, that might be background information. Is this poem not going to make sense to them? Or, are they being entertained? Are they being transformed by it? Is this poem doing its job?
I’m someone who writes a lot of poems. I only want the best ones included, the ones that share a story or journey. This book has an emotional arc. You start from one place, one feeling, and you end up in another.
What is the role of time in writing and revision for you?
Kelli: Two answers: one poem in here, “Braided Between the Broken,” I was really struggling with that. I wrote it really fast, fixed the form, and then I sent it out in—which is unusual for me—a period of two weeks. It was accepted right after I sent it out, and I was like, Oh, no, too personal, what have I done?
What I’ve started doing more of is writing the poems, then revising them, but not really editing them too much. Just kind of cleaning them up, then going back to them and reading them almost like a new reader. I do something called The Grind where I will write a poem a day for a month. Ross White created it, and you have to commit to writing a poem a day. You can sign up for what months you want. When you’re doing that process, you’re focused on writing the poem—that is the only goal. At the end of the month, I might not even remember writing a poem because I was lost in the grind of it all.
You end up with a lot of poems. Some are good. Some are like, I wrote this poem because I needed to write a poem that day, but then you go back and you’re surprised by what it says. Those are the ones I will revise. I will open, say, ten to fifteen documents and start reading through drafts of poems. I’m a very particular reader. If I like a poem, you know it’s a good poem because I’m so picky about what I like. If I like something I’ve written, that’s even better, because usually I’m bored with my stuff. If I see a draft of a poem that interests me, that’s the one I work on. I [figure] if I’m interested, maybe someone else will be.
Is this how you guide the poets you teach?
Kelli: I went to the University of Washington, and I had two main professors in poetry. One was Linda Bierds, and one was David Wagoner. Linda was very encouraging, and I wrote my best poems; David was not, and I wrote my worst poems. I come at helping students and other poets by finding what they’re good at and having them—this isn’t the right word, but—exploit what [they’re] good at. Just do it to the best of your ability.
There’s a quote that’s my teaching philosophy. It’s from Theodore Roethke. He said it to Carolyn Kizer. She had written something as a student, and another student criticized it. Roethke said, “You want to be very careful when you criticize something like that, because it may be the hallmark of an emerging style.”
He knew that our eccentricities are our true voices. When I work with students, I look for that thing I’m not seeing someone else do—their original style. I’m not interested in voice because we all have voices. I’m interested [in] that thing you're doing that no one else is doing. Find what you’re good at, and then do it even better. That’s something I think about a lot.
I insist that students take risks in their work. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying, I would rather see people attempt to do something big and fail than to write the poem they know they can write, or write something smaller. I like to see a lot of risk. Innovation, challenging themselves, however, that is—risk can be different for different people. For me in this book, the risk was being more vulnerable than I had [been] in other books, but a risk can be writing a villanelle, which is the hardest form for me to write in.
I’m always looking for students to find what they feel they need to risk in their own work, because risk is personal. Some people can write the most personal poems and have no issues with it, but they can’t write in a long line. Or maybe somebody is very into crafting, and I might have them write a little rawer just to see what that’s like. As a student, poetry is a big buffet. Your job is to try it all. See what you like and what works, but keep the playfulness.
I am [a] much more supportive mentor faculty poet because criticism shuts me down. It doesn’t make me be my best self. If you tell me what you think I’m good at, I can go with that. If you tell me what you think I’m bad at, you’ve taught me nothing. I know I can’t do this, but now what? I think all poets should look in their work [for] the one thing that surprises them. I’m interested in surprises and uniqueness in poems and people stretching themselves, whatever that means—taking risks, whatever that means for them. Read other poets to know how you’re different, and if you’re different.
How would you counsel a poet to navigate the canon and find their own style? What are your thoughts on workshop methodology?
Kelli: It’s always good to know what’s been written so you can be part of the larger conversation historically, but we also have to acknowledge that what was mostly shared then was male and white. We’re only getting—it’s not even a snapshot—we’re getting [a sample] the size of a coin. But it’s good to know what’s come before us, and to be allowed to change the workshop model we have. Back then, the professor commented on the poem while the students stayed quiet—the Iowa model, I believe—but I don’t use that model in my workshops anymore.
In the model I use, I allow the poet to have a voice. Before we go into workshopping the poem, I want to know what they’re looking for. I don’t necessarily think a group of people throwing out ideas to a poet on their poem makes a lot of sense. They might not be looking for that. Maybe they need to hear what they’re doing well. Maybe they need to hear the images that are staying with the [reader]. I want to hear from the poet before we do this, and for the poet to feel allowed to speak up during the workshop if we’re going off-base. There is a really great book that just came out…
Is it “The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop” by Felicia Rose Chavez?
Kelli: Yes. I love it. It offers this reminder of how we ended up doing something a certain way, then not allowing that space to change. I heard Rachel Zucker on the Commonplace podcast say about workshop [that] you bring in a poem and it’s like, you brought in a tricycle and someone’s like, Maybe that would be really good bicycle. Or, Maybe we should add a fourth wheel. Then somebody’s like, Maybe that’s a wrench. And you’re like, I just brought in this poem, and I really needed help with punctuation.
I am much more interested in what we’re looking for. And, if we are looking for something, maybe we just need to share our poem, and read it out loud, and maybe we need to read it five times to hear the cadence. That is the way I do workshops.
That’s the perfect segue to Poets on the Coast. For eleven years, you and Susan Rich have created a space for women poets to gather and write poems each fall. How did POTC come about?
Kelli: Susan Rich and I were at a writing residency having a glass of wine together. She had had a very bad experience at a writers’ conference where she was teaching, and the people in the conference didn’t have a good time. We wanted to create a space for women—a safe, supportive space, a nurturing space where women could come and write and not feel self-conscious, not feel afraid to share things.
We started at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, which is in Newport, Oregon, where each room is an author’s room. We started with eighteen people, and [when] we drove down there, there were wildfires. We showed up a half an hour before, and it was wild. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we knew we loved it, and we had fun. From there, we’ve progressed. It was such a long drive to get to Nye Beach, and every time we went, there was a lightning storm or one time people were driving late at night, and we needed to move it closer to home. That was when we found La Conner, Washington. The last two years, we’ve been on Zoom due to the pandemic. This will be my last year as a co-director. Susan is going to take it over with another wonderful woman poet, and they are going to run it.
Now that I’m teaching at PLU, and I have my book, I’m in a different space. Susan isn’t in that space, but we want to keep it going, so we’ve been working this out so she will be taking it over with someone else. It will be back in person—fingers crossed—next year. It will be the same model, and I’m coming back as a guest, so I will still be in the orbit of Poets on the Coast.
When I think about you, the word collaboration comes to mind. Has collaboration always been a part of your practice?
Kelli: That’s a great question. I will say it evolved. I used to do a lot more on my own. I am not great at asking for help because I never want to be a burden, but I have surrounded myself with friends who I love, and who are very passionate, and it’s much more fun to do something with someone.
I did The Artist’s Way—the twelve-step program for creatives— in my twenties when I was leaving a corporate job. I learned that success occurs in clusters early on, and so I’ve never felt competitive with my friends. If you see someone in your group succeeding, you know success is working its way to you.
Collaboration has a lot of benefits. For one, is it’s easier to let yourself down and not finish something, but if you have Martha Silano on the other end of The Daily Poet, and you need to finish your prompts, you do. If you have Susan Rich at Poets on the Coast, and you need to make sure you’ve done your part, you do. If you have Annette Spalding-Convy at Two Sylvias Press, you show up and finish your work because you don’t want to let the other person down. I’m very much an obliger. Even though I do have, as Gretchen Rubin calls it, “upholderness” where I do finish my own stuff, part of me [feels] it’s always good to have a friend to do it with because it’s much more fun.
Also, I get very inspired by talking to other people, as much as I’m an introvert. Talking to other people creatively or bouncing ideas back and forth with people makes my work stronger and better. I don’t have that back-and-forth with myself in my brain. I kind of think what I think. When I talk to a creative friend, they might say something, which makes me think of something else, and you have different perspectives coming at it. That’s why collaboration is fun and beneficial for everyone: you’re doing half the work.
That circles us back to rising tides raise all boats.
Kelli: It’s true. If you’re all working together, all boats are rising with you. In your creative communities you want to see everyone being lifted. I do think that happens when you get the right people around you. I always say [to] keep the best people around you. That doesn’t mean the smartest, the richest, the most creative; it means the most kind and supportive people, and have them be your universe and your orbit.
If you’re all orbiting around together in a positive way, you’ll keep those creative good vibes with you, which is so important when I’m creating. So yeah, collaboration has become a lot more in my life, especially during the pandemic. We were all so alone, and I realized how much I miss my friends. It surprise[d] me as an introvert. I mean, I loved it for the first three months when my calendar cleared off, and then…
There’s nothing like receiving a hug from someone whose arms you truly want around you.
Kelli: Yeah. I think I took that for granted. I took a lot of things for granted. I call it The Big Reset.
Kelli’s thoughts on hope, collaboration, and risk remain with me. In editing our conversation, I realize that her poems are evidence of a hard-won trust with the self despite the anxieties that come with daily living. As artists, that the payoff of attention and deep listening: we develop confidence in our ability to surrender without losing ourselves. Rather, it is through surrender that we approach the essence of human existence—and share what we learn through story. The cover of Kelli’s book is a Rorschach test by which readers can test where they’re at with this relationship between surrender and self; each time I pass it on my shelf, I pause to ponder what I believe in that given moment. ~GDF
This interview has been edited for clarity and flow.
Gabriela Denise Frank: Let’s start by talking about the gathering force of this collection: water.
Kelli Russell Agodon: I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there’s water everywhere. There are floating bridges; you take ferries. I’ve always been interested in oceans and marine life and caring for oceans. Rising tides, for me, was something I think about living near the water, and seeing the erosion. The climate crisis is happening, and I was thinking a lot about the threats around us. Rising tides are a quieter threat; if you live by the water, you see them more.
As I was writing this book, someone said, Rising tides lift all boats, so I also saw hopefulness. That’s how rising tides ended up in the title. I had sent it [the manuscript] out to other places with other titles. Copper Canyon was the only place to get this manuscript with that title.
What were the other titles?
Kelli: It went out under Lightvessel. All the sections are named after light vessels, which are basically floating lighthouses, because I wanted to keep that idea of hope. It also went out under the title Thank You for Saving Me Someday, I’ll Save You.
As you’re writing a manuscript, it begins to change. Perhaps the title you gave it in the beginning isn’t the title that really needs at the end. I’ve changed a lot of titles. My second book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, was alphabetized. To put poems in the order I wanted, I had to change their titles so they could be alphabetized correctly. It was an interesting experiment, having that constraint of this poem needs to start with the letter B—it clicks in different creative aspects of your brain.
Water suggests surrender—giving up, giving in, giving way—an emotional merging. Is surrender where this collection goes for you?
Kelli: I had to surrender a lot to write these poems. I’ve heard from people that this feels like my most vulnerable book. I did have to surrender that self-consciousness of when you’re creating art, [wondering] how the speaker and the author might be perceived. There’s definitely that surrender.
The cover image exhibits a lovely tension around this idea.
Kelli: I love this cover. I chose it because everyone comes to this cover with their own story. Some see it as very dark: this is the person right before they drown. I said to my partner, “I’m very concerned I chose a cover that’s too dark.” They said, “Too dark? That’s the moment right before they’re saved.” Somebody else sees it as humorous. I like that everyone interprets this their own way.
You’re right—it’s a Rorschach. I see a bittersweet struggle of the soul not surrendering though all the land has disappeared. I won’t give up until it’s really over.
Kelli: That’s perfectly said. These poems were written during a very challenging time. I was going for--
hold on and you’re not alone. You’re not alone in your feelings, your fear, your anxiety. There’s one person in the world who also walks—or swims—a similar path.
I incorrectly assumed that some poems were written during lockdown because of one title: “Everyone Is Acting as if We’re Not Temporary, and I Am Falling Apart in the Privacy of My Own Home.”
Kelli: That was written a year before the lockdown in February or March of 2019. My Nana had been put into hospice. She was 107. It sounds crazy, but I couldn’t believe that she was finally dying. She had been on the planet all of my life. It sounds shocking, but when someone’s 107, you just assume they will be there forever. I assumed she would live to 120, honestly. But no, that was written pre-lockdown.
That title encapsulates eerily well what we’ve experienced over the last eighteen months. How did you decide what was coming into the boat—and what wasn’t—when putting the manuscript together? How did “Hunger” come to be the first poem?
Kelli: This is my first poetry book that isn’t a project book. The two earliest poems [that made it] into the collection are “Love Waltz with Fireworks,” which is very hopeful, and “Braided Between the Broken,” which is the opposite. From 2016 to 2019, it continued to get darker. Some of the lighter poems got pulled.
The major themes are hope and I’m falling apart. When I wrote “Hunger,” I knew this was the opening of the book. It was because of this line: If we never have enough love, we have more than most. I wanted that line to be the first line in the collection [because] the poem is about finding gratefulness [in] having enough, even if it’s not a lot. We do have love—but there will be challenging times ahead.
That last line is killer: Sometimes the lost dog doesn’t need to be found. When I read that, I thought, I do want the lost dog to be found!
Kelli: [Laughs] It’s an interesting poem to read to an audience because it’s funny, but it’s also incredibly dark. Hearts are being eaten. I think it represents life.
The pandemic started, then we were in quarantine, and that felt terrible, and things kept getting worse. We had wildfire smoke and then we got locked in our homes; we couldn’t leave because the pollution was so bad. August was basically me stuck in my house and people having to get out of cities to breathe--if they had that privilege to afford to not go to their job or to work from home. And I thought, Oh, you know, I could have been a little happier in July.
In Dialogues we meet people who try to save others. Between the first poem and the last there’s uplift—sparrow as psychopomp, ferrying souls to safety—we’ve been transformed. Talk about poetry as a means of transformation.
Kelli: I’ve always felt that if I can take what is bringing me down, trying to harm me, or upsetting me and turn it into art, I have some sort of control over it. The most frustrating thing is when I’m watching something happen, and I can’t change it, or I don’t know how to change it or make it better. That was how I ended up working at a vaccination clinic when the pandemic started. I felt frustrated with the way the vaccine was being rolled out in Washington state, and I kept seeing We need volunteers, we need volunteers. I could feel myself getting lower and lower, like, we’re never going to get out of this, this is a mess. I thought, This is something I can do to help. It’s finding ways to make things better, or at least take some control over what you can. As a sensitive person, my emotions can be very level fifteen when everyone’s at level five. Writing poetry is a way for me to control something that feels uncontrollable.
I live very passionately. Things that don’t hit other people as hard will sometimes knock me down. Even driving down the street and seeing a dead deer—I have to be very careful with what I see. It can embed itself in my brain, and not necessarily the happy things. It’s more of those horrible images that I can still see in my head. Since I’ve been a kid, it’s been something I’ve been trying to fix. But I realize I’m wired that way; it’s not a fixable thing. But I can create art. I can write a poem. That’s where I’m transforming pain.
All the things I’m frustrated about, the things I want to spotlight—and remind people of hope and joy and good things—writing a poem allows me to transform those emotions and feelings and my perception of the world into something else. I hope that when a reader reads through these poems there is a transformation that makes them want to write a poem.
Are you drawn to the same subjects, or once you’ve transmuted a thing do you move on?
Kelli: That’s a great question. I do think I’m a poet and not a prose writer [because] poetry circles back. Prose is constantly moving forward. It’s like, we’re going on a journey, and you’re coming with me. I return to subjects I’m passionate about. The environment will always be something I’m passionate about—hope, relationships, injustice, things like that. So, yes, I will circle back.
Poems are like tides in that way. They’re always a little different—higher, lower—maybe there’s some rip tides in there. It’s a constant dialogue. The beach is always changing. Tides come in, clear the beach, and go out, or the tides will bring in new images, different shells. That’s what I love about the beach: how much it transforms. You can sit in the same place every day and see different things passing you.
Here’s an example: I live near a beach, and after a winter storm, you can see the cement blocks that hold the stairs—that feeling of, Oh my gosh, these stairs are gonna break. By summer, the sand has filled it back up, and now you can’t see them. You see the erosion, and then you see [the sand] brought back. You see a certain part of a rock one day, then the next it’s covered—or even more revealed.
We take pictures of it, my neighborhood group. Three of us are fascinated by what the beach looks like. If you look at something for long enough, you see the change over time. If you visited the same place, once or twice a year, you’d be like, Oh, those are the stairs. That’s how they always look. If you’re seeing it every day over a year or years, then you notice. It’s similar with where the sun rises. I live in a place that looks directly east, and I can watch the sun move north and south, depending on what season it is. I’m interested in [the] eco-poetics all around us. We are part of nature, and if you’re paying attention to all these little things happening, it’s like the best reality show around.
What has shifted in you over the course of writing and revising these poems?
Kelli: Despite everything, I do feel more hopeful than when I began writing these poems. In 2013, I had gone through a really dark emotional place. Then the 2016 election happened, which brought me even more down.
But—here’s a strange example. I went to a doctor’s appointment [recently], and [they ask patients to] take mental health tests, like to check in to make sure you’re okay. It was the first time I’ve ever passed it. I wasn’t anxious or depressed, even though I still have anxiety. In the fall I’ll usually get a little SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder—but I felt like, wow, this is the first time I’ve actually had answers that were more hopeful. I’m not sure what that’s from. I’m meditating more, and trying to be informed, but not doom-scrolling as much.
I think I’ve come out with a little better emotional health than when I began writing these poems. I wonder if it’s sitting with suicide and loss. [With] some of these poems, you can’t help but wonder. I think it’s [the mindset of], I’m not going to fight it. I am going to sit in here, and I’m going to see what happens. That is some of the reason for the transformation. I’ve also been working with trying not to be shameful. I come from a family that was built around, Don’t say that, don’t do that, or—oh my God—don’t tell anyone that. Very Catholic guilt. So, [I’m] trying to be more open and not be embarrassed about human things, especially mental health things.
I told nobody that I suffered from anxiety. It was a big secret. I’ve learned talking about something makes it less scary, even if [the subject] is suicide. Talking to people who have thought or participated in self harm—you can ask for help. When you’re in the darkest part, when you feel low, it’s hard to reach out. I’m from the generation of where you didn’t take care of yourself when you were feeling bad. I was just told, Press on, keep going, but never learned how to deal with the thing, if that makes sense.
For women, there’s pressure to pretend everything’s fine: smile through pain, set others at ease. Poems like “After Discovering My Husband Bought a Handgun” work curious magic with the feminine.
Kelli: I grew up as a tomboy, and I was into sports. I dressed as a boy. I shopped in the boys’ section. For a long time, I went by Russell instead of Kelli. I had parents who allow[ed] me to be that, but a lot of women have been taught to hide that part. I still am a very physical person—I just came back from a kayaking trip in the San Juan Islands—and I’m very competitive in regards to sports.
When I’m doing something physical, I lose all self-consciousness. I’m very opposite of what feminine might be. But I’m a woman and feminine in other ways. In the poem you speak of, the gun is opposite of how it is normally portrayed. Guns are masculine, they’re phallic, they’re very male. It’s the role switch of the gun being feminine, being a woman.
I think we have both in us, masculine and feminine, but women have been taught to be good and nice and kind. Don’t make a fuss. I think the feminine is extremely strong. We actually create life. I believe in women’s power.
In the poem, the gun is the other woman.
Kelli: Yeah. To stumble upon that—the shock of realizing there’s something going on that is potentially dangerous to the people who think they control it… It’s a gun, but it’s not only a gun. In domestic life, things can explode, things can die, things can be killed, and the trust, up until that moment, the trust is there, and suddenly it’s like, oh, there’s been a secret.
Let’s move over a square to “Getting an IUD on the Day of 45’s Inauguration.” Did you set out to write a political poem?
Kelli: That poem was written because poet Jenn Givhan told me to write it. I literally was getting my IUD at the same time Trump was being inaugurated in the White House. I was so shocked [by] everything Trump represents towards women, you know, Grab her by the pussy.
Sometimes, we’re living the poem, and we might not see it. [You need] someone to say, You need to write that. I didn’t know if anything would come of it, but that’s definitely an autobiographical poem. My doctor, the nurse, and I were all in this room knowing what was going on at the same time, and none of us being happy about this new president.
I had been bleeding for three months nonstop, and we couldn’t stop it. I had no idea a healthy person could bleed for three months—all crazy peri-menopause stuff—and there’s so much women are taught not to make a fuss about. But it was also a metaphor. I felt like I had been bleeding from the election. Getting this done was [intended] to help me, but the timing of it was absolutely metaphoric. Jenn said, “You need to write that poem.”
With a poem like that, taut yet passionate, what is your process of revision? How do you push yourself to take risks?
Kelli: I will sometimes over-revise a poem, trying to get what I want, then hav[e] to go back to the very first draft and start over. The first draft has spark and energy and, as poets, we revise it out. We’re so focused on getting it right, that we lose something.
Some of these poems [are] more raw than my younger self might have [allowed]. That was a risk for me. Normally, I go full-on Elizabeth Bishop in the craft department, but these poems are vulnerable. They deal with a lot of emotional stuff, and that is messy. I allowed more of what I consider messiness in there, because I felt it carried the energy I needed. I needed to not be self-conscious and revise that out. Oh, what will someone think when they read this? What if someone confuses me for the speaker? What if this poem is actually autobiographical, and someone asks me about it? How will I respond? I had to get rid of all of my self-consciousness if I wanted to write the best poems I could write. That was my challenge and my risk.
I will also completely start over and write the poem from a different angle. So, if I was going to rewrite the poem about getting an IUD [where] I have an image of the body as a flag—what if I chose the body as a vote, and just restart it from a different place? Actually a vote is too similar, but finding ways to begin again, and keep writing that same poem.
When you’re doing it, [you] allow yourself the belief that no one will read it. Write the poem and say, I’m writing this poem for myself. Sometimes those are the stronger poems because you’re not feeling intruded on by the reader. I never think about the reader when I’m writing the poem. I think about the reader when I’m revising the poem, and when I’m putting it into a collection. I don’t think about them in a negative way. I think about [if] I’ve left something out that only I know, that might be background information. Is this poem not going to make sense to them? Or, are they being entertained? Are they being transformed by it? Is this poem doing its job?
I’m someone who writes a lot of poems. I only want the best ones included, the ones that share a story or journey. This book has an emotional arc. You start from one place, one feeling, and you end up in another.
What is the role of time in writing and revision for you?
Kelli: Two answers: one poem in here, “Braided Between the Broken,” I was really struggling with that. I wrote it really fast, fixed the form, and then I sent it out in—which is unusual for me—a period of two weeks. It was accepted right after I sent it out, and I was like, Oh, no, too personal, what have I done?
What I’ve started doing more of is writing the poems, then revising them, but not really editing them too much. Just kind of cleaning them up, then going back to them and reading them almost like a new reader. I do something called The Grind where I will write a poem a day for a month. Ross White created it, and you have to commit to writing a poem a day. You can sign up for what months you want. When you’re doing that process, you’re focused on writing the poem—that is the only goal. At the end of the month, I might not even remember writing a poem because I was lost in the grind of it all.
You end up with a lot of poems. Some are good. Some are like, I wrote this poem because I needed to write a poem that day, but then you go back and you’re surprised by what it says. Those are the ones I will revise. I will open, say, ten to fifteen documents and start reading through drafts of poems. I’m a very particular reader. If I like a poem, you know it’s a good poem because I’m so picky about what I like. If I like something I’ve written, that’s even better, because usually I’m bored with my stuff. If I see a draft of a poem that interests me, that’s the one I work on. I [figure] if I’m interested, maybe someone else will be.
Is this how you guide the poets you teach?
Kelli: I went to the University of Washington, and I had two main professors in poetry. One was Linda Bierds, and one was David Wagoner. Linda was very encouraging, and I wrote my best poems; David was not, and I wrote my worst poems. I come at helping students and other poets by finding what they’re good at and having them—this isn’t the right word, but—exploit what [they’re] good at. Just do it to the best of your ability.
There’s a quote that’s my teaching philosophy. It’s from Theodore Roethke. He said it to Carolyn Kizer. She had written something as a student, and another student criticized it. Roethke said, “You want to be very careful when you criticize something like that, because it may be the hallmark of an emerging style.”
He knew that our eccentricities are our true voices. When I work with students, I look for that thing I’m not seeing someone else do—their original style. I’m not interested in voice because we all have voices. I’m interested [in] that thing you're doing that no one else is doing. Find what you’re good at, and then do it even better. That’s something I think about a lot.
I insist that students take risks in their work. If you’re not failing, you’re not trying, I would rather see people attempt to do something big and fail than to write the poem they know they can write, or write something smaller. I like to see a lot of risk. Innovation, challenging themselves, however, that is—risk can be different for different people. For me in this book, the risk was being more vulnerable than I had [been] in other books, but a risk can be writing a villanelle, which is the hardest form for me to write in.
I’m always looking for students to find what they feel they need to risk in their own work, because risk is personal. Some people can write the most personal poems and have no issues with it, but they can’t write in a long line. Or maybe somebody is very into crafting, and I might have them write a little rawer just to see what that’s like. As a student, poetry is a big buffet. Your job is to try it all. See what you like and what works, but keep the playfulness.
I am [a] much more supportive mentor faculty poet because criticism shuts me down. It doesn’t make me be my best self. If you tell me what you think I’m good at, I can go with that. If you tell me what you think I’m bad at, you’ve taught me nothing. I know I can’t do this, but now what? I think all poets should look in their work [for] the one thing that surprises them. I’m interested in surprises and uniqueness in poems and people stretching themselves, whatever that means—taking risks, whatever that means for them. Read other poets to know how you’re different, and if you’re different.
How would you counsel a poet to navigate the canon and find their own style? What are your thoughts on workshop methodology?
Kelli: It’s always good to know what’s been written so you can be part of the larger conversation historically, but we also have to acknowledge that what was mostly shared then was male and white. We’re only getting—it’s not even a snapshot—we’re getting [a sample] the size of a coin. But it’s good to know what’s come before us, and to be allowed to change the workshop model we have. Back then, the professor commented on the poem while the students stayed quiet—the Iowa model, I believe—but I don’t use that model in my workshops anymore.
In the model I use, I allow the poet to have a voice. Before we go into workshopping the poem, I want to know what they’re looking for. I don’t necessarily think a group of people throwing out ideas to a poet on their poem makes a lot of sense. They might not be looking for that. Maybe they need to hear what they’re doing well. Maybe they need to hear the images that are staying with the [reader]. I want to hear from the poet before we do this, and for the poet to feel allowed to speak up during the workshop if we’re going off-base. There is a really great book that just came out…
Is it “The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop” by Felicia Rose Chavez?
Kelli: Yes. I love it. It offers this reminder of how we ended up doing something a certain way, then not allowing that space to change. I heard Rachel Zucker on the Commonplace podcast say about workshop [that] you bring in a poem and it’s like, you brought in a tricycle and someone’s like, Maybe that would be really good bicycle. Or, Maybe we should add a fourth wheel. Then somebody’s like, Maybe that’s a wrench. And you’re like, I just brought in this poem, and I really needed help with punctuation.
I am much more interested in what we’re looking for. And, if we are looking for something, maybe we just need to share our poem, and read it out loud, and maybe we need to read it five times to hear the cadence. That is the way I do workshops.
That’s the perfect segue to Poets on the Coast. For eleven years, you and Susan Rich have created a space for women poets to gather and write poems each fall. How did POTC come about?
Kelli: Susan Rich and I were at a writing residency having a glass of wine together. She had had a very bad experience at a writers’ conference where she was teaching, and the people in the conference didn’t have a good time. We wanted to create a space for women—a safe, supportive space, a nurturing space where women could come and write and not feel self-conscious, not feel afraid to share things.
We started at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, which is in Newport, Oregon, where each room is an author’s room. We started with eighteen people, and [when] we drove down there, there were wildfires. We showed up a half an hour before, and it was wild. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we knew we loved it, and we had fun. From there, we’ve progressed. It was such a long drive to get to Nye Beach, and every time we went, there was a lightning storm or one time people were driving late at night, and we needed to move it closer to home. That was when we found La Conner, Washington. The last two years, we’ve been on Zoom due to the pandemic. This will be my last year as a co-director. Susan is going to take it over with another wonderful woman poet, and they are going to run it.
Now that I’m teaching at PLU, and I have my book, I’m in a different space. Susan isn’t in that space, but we want to keep it going, so we’ve been working this out so she will be taking it over with someone else. It will be back in person—fingers crossed—next year. It will be the same model, and I’m coming back as a guest, so I will still be in the orbit of Poets on the Coast.
When I think about you, the word collaboration comes to mind. Has collaboration always been a part of your practice?
Kelli: That’s a great question. I will say it evolved. I used to do a lot more on my own. I am not great at asking for help because I never want to be a burden, but I have surrounded myself with friends who I love, and who are very passionate, and it’s much more fun to do something with someone.
I did The Artist’s Way—the twelve-step program for creatives— in my twenties when I was leaving a corporate job. I learned that success occurs in clusters early on, and so I’ve never felt competitive with my friends. If you see someone in your group succeeding, you know success is working its way to you.
Collaboration has a lot of benefits. For one, is it’s easier to let yourself down and not finish something, but if you have Martha Silano on the other end of The Daily Poet, and you need to finish your prompts, you do. If you have Susan Rich at Poets on the Coast, and you need to make sure you’ve done your part, you do. If you have Annette Spalding-Convy at Two Sylvias Press, you show up and finish your work because you don’t want to let the other person down. I’m very much an obliger. Even though I do have, as Gretchen Rubin calls it, “upholderness” where I do finish my own stuff, part of me [feels] it’s always good to have a friend to do it with because it’s much more fun.
Also, I get very inspired by talking to other people, as much as I’m an introvert. Talking to other people creatively or bouncing ideas back and forth with people makes my work stronger and better. I don’t have that back-and-forth with myself in my brain. I kind of think what I think. When I talk to a creative friend, they might say something, which makes me think of something else, and you have different perspectives coming at it. That’s why collaboration is fun and beneficial for everyone: you’re doing half the work.
That circles us back to rising tides raise all boats.
Kelli: It’s true. If you’re all working together, all boats are rising with you. In your creative communities you want to see everyone being lifted. I do think that happens when you get the right people around you. I always say [to] keep the best people around you. That doesn’t mean the smartest, the richest, the most creative; it means the most kind and supportive people, and have them be your universe and your orbit.
If you’re all orbiting around together in a positive way, you’ll keep those creative good vibes with you, which is so important when I’m creating. So yeah, collaboration has become a lot more in my life, especially during the pandemic. We were all so alone, and I realized how much I miss my friends. It surprise[d] me as an introvert. I mean, I loved it for the first three months when my calendar cleared off, and then…
There’s nothing like receiving a hug from someone whose arms you truly want around you.
Kelli: Yeah. I think I took that for granted. I took a lot of things for granted. I call it The Big Reset.
Kelli Russell Agodon
Kelli Russell Agodon’s newest book is Dialogues with Rising Tides from Copper Canyon Press. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press where she works as an editor and book cover designer. Her other books include Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, Hourglass Museum, The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice (coauthored with Martha Silano), and Fire on Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry. She lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional lands of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people where she is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com
Kelli Russell Agodon’s newest book is Dialogues with Rising Tides from Copper Canyon Press. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press where she works as an editor and book cover designer. Her other books include Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, Hourglass Museum, The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice (coauthored with Martha Silano), and Fire on Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry. She lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional lands of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people where she is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She teaches at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop. www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com
Gabriela Denise Frank
Gabriela Denise Frank is a Pacific Northwest writer, editor, and creative writing instructor. Her work is supported by 4Culture, Artist Trust, Centrum, the Civita Institute, Jack Straw, Mineral School, Vermont Studio Center, and Willapa Bay AIR. Her essays, interviews, and short fiction have appeared in True Story, Hunger Mountain, Poetry Northwest, Pembroke, Bayou, Baltimore Review, The Normal School, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her essay “BAD DATE” was named a Notable Essay of 2020 by Best American Essays. She serves as the creative nonfiction editor of Crab Creek Review. www.gabrieladenisefrank.com
Gabriela Denise Frank is a Pacific Northwest writer, editor, and creative writing instructor. Her work is supported by 4Culture, Artist Trust, Centrum, the Civita Institute, Jack Straw, Mineral School, Vermont Studio Center, and Willapa Bay AIR. Her essays, interviews, and short fiction have appeared in True Story, Hunger Mountain, Poetry Northwest, Pembroke, Bayou, Baltimore Review, The Normal School, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her essay “BAD DATE” was named a Notable Essay of 2020 by Best American Essays. She serves as the creative nonfiction editor of Crab Creek Review. www.gabrieladenisefrank.com