13 Questions with Marcus Wicker
Interview by Aricka Foreman, Poetry Editor
Q: How did you come to poetry? Speak a little bit about your journey, and how it’s coming along?
A: In high school, I think 10th grade, I had a really amazing English teacher. She took us to the National Youth Poetry Slam, which was in Ann Arbor that year and is now known as Brave New Voices. I was inspired. I saw so many kids who were saying some of the same things I had been scribbling in my notebooks, and met so many likeminded students. I needed to be a part of this. After that, I sort of mimicked what I was hearing, started shaping my poems to look and sound like slam poems. My teacher put me in touch with Jeff Kass; he’s like the Moses of youth poetry when it comes to Ann Arbor. I started working with him in the Volume summer workshops at the Neutral Zone, and after that I was hooked.
Q: After that experience, whom did you start reading? Who’s work do you return to again, and again?
A: In college I took an elective creative writing class with Brad Land and he suggested that I read Dennis Johnson. I started reading his work, and another teacher suggested I read Major Jackson, another Terrance Hayes.
Without a doubt, Larry Levis and Yusef Komunyakaa. Elegy is probably my favorite collection from Levis. I’ve always loved his speakers’ exacting details about their honest wants and needs. I dig Komunyakaa for his musicality, his control of the line, and the sheer magic of his poems. I could read Neon Vernacular in one sitting; it’s his longest book, but I could push through and be happy by the end.
This month I’m reading Jeffrey McDaniel’s The Endarkenment, Richard Jackson’s Resonance, which, is a gorgeous book, and I’m revisiting [Walt] Whitman’s collected works.
Q: In poems like “Love Letter to Pam Grier”, and “Self-Dialogue Reading Etheridge Knight” it seems you draw from contemporary figures. What are some of your obsessions; have you gotten done to the bone of them, or is that something you’re still working out?
A: My obsessions are ever-changing. When I started writing those poems, I was doing my MFA at Indiana University. I was taking a full course load, teaching, doing research assistance, and trying to read everything everyone put in front of me. Sometimes it was just too much; and when I needed a break, I would immerse myself in pop-culture. I’d watch, for instance, Flavor of Love after I’d read Foucault for 3 hours. I asked myself why do I always come back to these figures? Why Pam Grier? Why Justin Timberlake? With the self-dialogues, I was really obsessed with the thought that when you write poetry, the people who will buy your book or read your poems most likely are writers themselves. I thought, “How do I speak to those readers but also those outside of that group?” I decided to start talking to myself; the writer in me and the me that exists outside of poetry.
In my in-progress collection, Cul-de-sac Pastoral, I’m thinking a lot about success. As Americans, we’re trained to attend college for four or five years, get a degree, and then hopefully, a job. If not, you go to grad school. But then what? The logical “then what?” is some kind of career. But then how do you live? Where do you live? When you’re expected to live amongst a similar class of people, what do those neighborhoods look like demographically? I’m interested in the various ways in which we buy into suburbia, the hermetically sealed lawns, the Uzi sprinkler heads—you know… those sort of lovely extras. Because they’re lovely, they’re praiseworthy, and because they’re praiseworthy they have the potential to be detrimental. These are obsessions I’m still mining.
Q: You’ve received the MFA at Indiana, have gotten fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center and Cave Canem, and you’ve recently received the Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Congratulations, again, on that.
A: Thank you very much.
Q: How have these experiences contributed to your writing practice, and what were and/or are some of the things you struggle with?
A: At Indiana…well, I owe a lot to Indiana. Of course, I learned bare-boned craft techniques, like how to write a ghazal or a sonnet, how to write a good narrative, as opposed to one chocked full of rhetoric; but more than anything, I was fortunate enough to work with an incredibly supportive faculty and gifted cohort. Both have been indispensable in my development as a writer.
My experience at the Fine Arts Center was a little different. You’re in Provincetown (MA) for seven months and your job is to work. The fellowship provides a small stipend and a place to live and write. So, whereas, I had to sneak in, you know, two or three hours in grad school, there I might wake up, go to the market, work out, and send some emails. I might not even write until midnight. Another day, I might write for six hours, come back from a gallery opening and write for two more. Now I’m training myself to work within a schedule again.
Cave Canem has been a great savior in terms of breathing life into my work; those times when I thought, “I’m sort of spent with poetry,” I’d go to Cave Canem, break bread with my fam for a week and return home full.
Q: Tell me more about the Ruth Lilly…what opportunities has the scholarship provided you in order for you to deepen your approach toward craft?
A: Well, the monetary support has certainly freed up some time to compose this new project nice and slow. And the recognition has been reinvigorating. Sharing the prize with such talented writers gave me the confidence to nod, take a breath, and keep pushing.
Q: You’re currently teaching poetry to high school kids in Detroit through InsideOut Literary Arts Project. Do you think that teaching is important to nurture a writer’s approach to their work? What are some of the things you’re learning from your students?
A: Yeah, it’s absolutely important. In a practical sense, I read poems more critically for the purpose of teaching, as opposed to sitting down with Jean Valentine on the couch on a Saturday morning.
My students remind me not to take myself too seriously. That it’s important to have fun no matter how much you know or don’t know. They also teach, just through reading their poems, how difficult it is to be fearless in your work. I think that they’re particularly good at that, and they don’t even know it yet. Emotionally, they can go places that I can’t—at least not as easily.
Q: What are some things off the page that contribute to your writing practice? What do you do in your off time? You can’t be a machine and just write write write write.
A: That’s what I do.
Whatever.
That’s all I do, is write poems.
Liar.
A: [Laughs] Because what I’m working on now has to do with Midwestern suburbia—the mini-mansions, the identical homes—I’ve been thinking a lot about sub-prime mortgages, doing nerdy research on banks and unsavory lending practices. Yesterday, I had the idea that I was going to write a poem about string theory and the way that all the people in the Cul-de-sac are connected by their disconnectedness. And then I looked up string theory, and realized I was in over my head.
[Laughter]
Q: In what way?
A: In the way that I got a C in high school Earth Science probably…[laughs] in that way!
Q: Do you think that moving to Detroit has shifted your approach in some way, and how?
A: Probably in ways that I haven’t explored yet. By the time I reach the end of the school year I will. I’m starting to gain some ideas now.
Q: Favorite poem of yours to date...the first one that comes to mind. Go.
A: “Plea To My Jealous Heart.” The poem begins with an epigraph from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he says “pray without ceasing” … so the first line begins: “What’s funny is that you think I can stop praying.” It argues that everything I do or write these days is a kind of prayer. I’m sure you’ll see it somewhere eventually.
Q: Name an artist or musician you consider a poet.
A: John Coltrane is the illest lyric poet, I think. There’s something about his sound that’s very ethereal; when you think about Love Supreme, it sounds like he’s channeling God, like he’s doing what we try to do as poets. It’s gorgeous.
Q: If you didn’t become a writer, what career would you have pursued?
A: Let’s see…maybe a lawyer. But then also, I would’ve been a professional roller skater.
[Laughter]
A: That’s so random! Why?
Cause I jam!
Q: How did you come to poetry? Speak a little bit about your journey, and how it’s coming along?
A: In high school, I think 10th grade, I had a really amazing English teacher. She took us to the National Youth Poetry Slam, which was in Ann Arbor that year and is now known as Brave New Voices. I was inspired. I saw so many kids who were saying some of the same things I had been scribbling in my notebooks, and met so many likeminded students. I needed to be a part of this. After that, I sort of mimicked what I was hearing, started shaping my poems to look and sound like slam poems. My teacher put me in touch with Jeff Kass; he’s like the Moses of youth poetry when it comes to Ann Arbor. I started working with him in the Volume summer workshops at the Neutral Zone, and after that I was hooked.
Q: After that experience, whom did you start reading? Who’s work do you return to again, and again?
A: In college I took an elective creative writing class with Brad Land and he suggested that I read Dennis Johnson. I started reading his work, and another teacher suggested I read Major Jackson, another Terrance Hayes.
Without a doubt, Larry Levis and Yusef Komunyakaa. Elegy is probably my favorite collection from Levis. I’ve always loved his speakers’ exacting details about their honest wants and needs. I dig Komunyakaa for his musicality, his control of the line, and the sheer magic of his poems. I could read Neon Vernacular in one sitting; it’s his longest book, but I could push through and be happy by the end.
This month I’m reading Jeffrey McDaniel’s The Endarkenment, Richard Jackson’s Resonance, which, is a gorgeous book, and I’m revisiting [Walt] Whitman’s collected works.
Q: In poems like “Love Letter to Pam Grier”, and “Self-Dialogue Reading Etheridge Knight” it seems you draw from contemporary figures. What are some of your obsessions; have you gotten done to the bone of them, or is that something you’re still working out?
A: My obsessions are ever-changing. When I started writing those poems, I was doing my MFA at Indiana University. I was taking a full course load, teaching, doing research assistance, and trying to read everything everyone put in front of me. Sometimes it was just too much; and when I needed a break, I would immerse myself in pop-culture. I’d watch, for instance, Flavor of Love after I’d read Foucault for 3 hours. I asked myself why do I always come back to these figures? Why Pam Grier? Why Justin Timberlake? With the self-dialogues, I was really obsessed with the thought that when you write poetry, the people who will buy your book or read your poems most likely are writers themselves. I thought, “How do I speak to those readers but also those outside of that group?” I decided to start talking to myself; the writer in me and the me that exists outside of poetry.
In my in-progress collection, Cul-de-sac Pastoral, I’m thinking a lot about success. As Americans, we’re trained to attend college for four or five years, get a degree, and then hopefully, a job. If not, you go to grad school. But then what? The logical “then what?” is some kind of career. But then how do you live? Where do you live? When you’re expected to live amongst a similar class of people, what do those neighborhoods look like demographically? I’m interested in the various ways in which we buy into suburbia, the hermetically sealed lawns, the Uzi sprinkler heads—you know… those sort of lovely extras. Because they’re lovely, they’re praiseworthy, and because they’re praiseworthy they have the potential to be detrimental. These are obsessions I’m still mining.
Q: You’ve received the MFA at Indiana, have gotten fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center and Cave Canem, and you’ve recently received the Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Congratulations, again, on that.
A: Thank you very much.
Q: How have these experiences contributed to your writing practice, and what were and/or are some of the things you struggle with?
A: At Indiana…well, I owe a lot to Indiana. Of course, I learned bare-boned craft techniques, like how to write a ghazal or a sonnet, how to write a good narrative, as opposed to one chocked full of rhetoric; but more than anything, I was fortunate enough to work with an incredibly supportive faculty and gifted cohort. Both have been indispensable in my development as a writer.
My experience at the Fine Arts Center was a little different. You’re in Provincetown (MA) for seven months and your job is to work. The fellowship provides a small stipend and a place to live and write. So, whereas, I had to sneak in, you know, two or three hours in grad school, there I might wake up, go to the market, work out, and send some emails. I might not even write until midnight. Another day, I might write for six hours, come back from a gallery opening and write for two more. Now I’m training myself to work within a schedule again.
Cave Canem has been a great savior in terms of breathing life into my work; those times when I thought, “I’m sort of spent with poetry,” I’d go to Cave Canem, break bread with my fam for a week and return home full.
Q: Tell me more about the Ruth Lilly…what opportunities has the scholarship provided you in order for you to deepen your approach toward craft?
A: Well, the monetary support has certainly freed up some time to compose this new project nice and slow. And the recognition has been reinvigorating. Sharing the prize with such talented writers gave me the confidence to nod, take a breath, and keep pushing.
Q: You’re currently teaching poetry to high school kids in Detroit through InsideOut Literary Arts Project. Do you think that teaching is important to nurture a writer’s approach to their work? What are some of the things you’re learning from your students?
A: Yeah, it’s absolutely important. In a practical sense, I read poems more critically for the purpose of teaching, as opposed to sitting down with Jean Valentine on the couch on a Saturday morning.
My students remind me not to take myself too seriously. That it’s important to have fun no matter how much you know or don’t know. They also teach, just through reading their poems, how difficult it is to be fearless in your work. I think that they’re particularly good at that, and they don’t even know it yet. Emotionally, they can go places that I can’t—at least not as easily.
Q: What are some things off the page that contribute to your writing practice? What do you do in your off time? You can’t be a machine and just write write write write.
A: That’s what I do.
Whatever.
That’s all I do, is write poems.
Liar.
A: [Laughs] Because what I’m working on now has to do with Midwestern suburbia—the mini-mansions, the identical homes—I’ve been thinking a lot about sub-prime mortgages, doing nerdy research on banks and unsavory lending practices. Yesterday, I had the idea that I was going to write a poem about string theory and the way that all the people in the Cul-de-sac are connected by their disconnectedness. And then I looked up string theory, and realized I was in over my head.
[Laughter]
Q: In what way?
A: In the way that I got a C in high school Earth Science probably…[laughs] in that way!
Q: Do you think that moving to Detroit has shifted your approach in some way, and how?
A: Probably in ways that I haven’t explored yet. By the time I reach the end of the school year I will. I’m starting to gain some ideas now.
Q: Favorite poem of yours to date...the first one that comes to mind. Go.
A: “Plea To My Jealous Heart.” The poem begins with an epigraph from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he says “pray without ceasing” … so the first line begins: “What’s funny is that you think I can stop praying.” It argues that everything I do or write these days is a kind of prayer. I’m sure you’ll see it somewhere eventually.
Q: Name an artist or musician you consider a poet.
A: John Coltrane is the illest lyric poet, I think. There’s something about his sound that’s very ethereal; when you think about Love Supreme, it sounds like he’s channeling God, like he’s doing what we try to do as poets. It’s gorgeous.
Q: If you didn’t become a writer, what career would you have pursued?
A: Let’s see…maybe a lawyer. But then also, I would’ve been a professional roller skater.
[Laughter]
A: That’s so random! Why?
Cause I jam!
MARCUS WICKER was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A 2011 Ruth Lilly recipient, he has also held fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Cave Canem, and Indiana University, where he received his MFA. His first book, Maybe the Saddest Thing, was selected by DA Powell for the National Poetry Series and is forthcoming from Harper Collins in 2012.