If you couldn’t guess from the title, The Octopus Game, Nicky Beer’s second poetry collection contains a lot of octopuses. So when I sat down to talk with Nicky, the first question I had to ask her was, “Why the octopus?”

Well, it started with the first poems when I went to the Tennessee Aquarium back in something like 2005, ’03 or ’07 (whatever it was it was way back then), and there was a really terrific octopus habitat in there. With octopuses it can be kind of hit or miss in their habitats, you know, they’re always hiding, they’re rather shy—but this particular octopus habitat was really set up so the octopus was out and about, splayed up against the glass. There was a Mr. Potato-Head doll in the water that the octopus was playing with, and it was just so (for lack of a better term) charismatic. It really caught my attention, and so even after quite a bit of time since we’d gone to the exhibit I found myself thinking about the octopus. I’ve written poems about animals before, so I thought I should write something about the octopus. The really neat thing was that even after I wrote the first poem—which ended up being the first poem of the book (“Octopus Vulgaris”)—I still didn’t feel like I was done, I still had more things that I wanted to say. It wasn’t that the poem needed to be longer, it was just that there were other approaches or other techniques that I wanted to take. And I said, “Oh what the heck—I’ll just write a sequence of octopus poems!” I had the good fortune to have the poet Carol Phillips around who was doing a short residency at the University of Missouri Columbia, which is where I got my PhD. When poets are doing short residencies at programs, you get to sit down and talk about your work with them. And I remember saying, “Oh, I’ll probably turn this into a sequence of eight, you know, eight legs on an octopus, eight poems.” And he just said, “Why stop at eight poems?” It was such a simple thing to say but it really never occurred to me that I could go longer and I just immediately agreed with him. So that was really how the idea of writing a book of poetry about the octopus came about.

You have a lot of other themes (like the erotic and film media) that the octopus works very well with. Could you tell me more about how you see the octopus working with the other themes in this book?

I think for a lot of those it has to do with the octopus’ capability for physical malleability (it can bend its body into different shapes, it can squeeze into very small areas) as well as its ability to camouflage (changing the color of its skin, the texture of the skin—there are certain species of cephalopods that can emit light from their skin). And so in terms of being able to alter one’s appearance and take on different forms, for me, that had a strong relationship with the film media and film actors in particular. I really see actors as analogous to the octopus because so much of what they do is about changing shape or altering themselves.

Another reason the two work so well together is because the film media is all about really manipulating reality and presenting this one vision of the truth that requires just so much to accomplish, like jump cuts and voice-overs and mise en scene. On one hand we notice them, but we are ultimately not supposed to see them. So it’s just another interesting form of aesthetic manipulation that I see in relationship to the octopus.

And as far as sexuality goes, I’m really interested in meditating on representations of sexuality that don’t necessarily fall into clear categories of behavior or desire. I’m interested in looking at sexuality and sexual expression as a kind of continuum. So the idea about the octopus’ body being very changeable fits in with how I would like to view sexuality in my work—as something very flexible and changeable, and not necessarily in these rigid categories but something that is open to change.

What was your writing process like? I know you were inspired by the octopus, but when you sit down to write anything (not just something for the collection), what is your process like?

I think I have maybe a collection of processes, but one thing that is pretty essential is that I’m always trying to take in information—you know, I must have data! So when I’m reading I’m not necessarily just reading fiction and poetry but I’m also trying to read nonfiction texts as well. So for The Octopus Game I was reading nonfiction texts about octopuses. I’m really interested in reading about food. I also go to museums, zoos, aquariums, places where I’m going to take in new information that’s going to surprise me. And I never know what’s going to stick, and that’s the thing: that something could interest me and I won’t know how to write about it for maybe a couple of years. And I have sort of learned (more or less) to trust the process and that eventually it’s going to show up. For example, the poem “Phlogiston Footage” took years to show up and to take shape. So I have to just not panic, that if I’m taken by something I’m not just going to immediately produce something. The gap between when I first went to that exhibit and when I wound up writing about it was a good year, at least. So I have to just be constantly reading all kinds of different things and trust that what I learn will turn up in my writing. You know, it’s like an iceberg, where the poem is just the tiny little bit sticking up over the surface but there’s this whole world underneath of things that had to happen in order to get to the poem.

Another part of the process that is important is reading poets who I find aesthetically interesting or pleasing. A lot of my poems will start out when I’m reading someone’s book and I get an idea for my own poem, so I start scribbling on the blank margins and just going along and engaging in this sort of back and forth thing. I’ll write something down and then read more and then go back and add to my notes and so on. And eventually I look at everything I’ve written and say, “Okay, I think it’s time to move over to the computer.”

Sometimes I’ll even come up with a few good lines but I don’t know what to do with them, so I just put it on a Post-It note and stick it above my desk (so now I have a lot of colorful sticky notes floating around above my head).

What was it about “Phlogiston Footage” that took so long to form?

It took so long because I was trying to force the poem to be something that it wasn’t, Originally it was going to be about Jacques Cousteau, and now he isn’t in the poem at all. I read one of his books about octopuses and I really enjoyed it, so there are a lot of things in that poem from his work. But I think when I first started writing it, I was trying to take this really direct route: “Okay, now to write the Jacques Cousteau poem!” Because of course he is the expert, this is about underwater animals, of course there will be a poem about Jacques Cousteau in here! But I think I was putting an unnecessary amount of pressure on myself to write that poem when it just wasn’t happening. At the same time as the book was developing, I was realizing that because I’m writing so many poems that are informed by actual scientific facts about octopuses, I wanted to try to write a poem about a species that didn’t exist. So I knew I wanted to write that poem and I wanted to write about this fake species in this straight-faced way. What better way to legitimize this completely made-up species than to take on the most legitimate voice there is!

We’ve gone through your scientific influences. Can you tell me about some of your artistic influences?

Oh gosh, where do I start? Elizabeth Bishop, definitely, Mark Doty, a fiction writer named Jim Crace, David Mitchell, Kevin Brockmier, Linda Bierds—and then there are also artists like Tom Banks, too. I like them specifically because they are trying new things, taking on new forms, writing in new genres, taking on different voices, different perspectives, personas and so on. So the fact that they are always trying new things aesthetically is something that I really admire.

It’s interesting that you pull from so many different mediums to inspire you and help shape your work. Are you involved in any way in some of those mediums like visual arts, theatre, music, ect?

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by “involved.” I am definitely a very active audience member for those different areas, but I don’t really practice any of those arts myself. I used to sing in choir when I was a kid and when I was in high school, so in terms of my relationship to poetry, I write and read poems that are very sonically driven. The language is very ornate and I think it definitely comes from having that kind of relationship with language very early on. You know, when you’re singing, you are really feeling it in the body and having this very pronounced sonic presence. But of course, I stopped singing after high school, and as I get older and grumpier I go to live music shows less and less.

Since you started this book in 2007, what else have you done to put the book together? Has writing some poems informed others? Did you find it challenging to order the poems within the book?

Putting together a book of poems is very challenging. Because with, say, something like a novel, there is a clear narrative trajectory that you have to follow. And of course, fiction writers are always carefully arranging the plot and their events and things like that, but there is still this unified narrative that’s being followed. Poetry books don’t usually have that explicit, unified narrative. So to try and arrange the poems in a way where they still make some kind of sense for the reader, even though there’s not a plot, but the reader still feels that the poems are developing and informing one another, that one poem is contextualized by what came before it and the poem after is being contextualized by it and so on—is very complicated and can be very tricky to do.

I think I had a somewhat easier time putting together the order of the second book (The Octopus Game) than the first book (The Diminishing House). Because with the first book, even though I was done with it, it took about four years to hit upon the right order of poems and get it sent off to my publisher.

So then how do you see the narrative and thematic arc of The Octopus Game? For example, the first section has much more to do directly with the octopus than the second section, and in the third, there’s even some violence against the octopus.

The first section, I think, does a lot of establishing the rules of the book. It says, “Hey, this book is going to be largely about octopuses, and here are the ways that I’m going to talk about them.” So that’s why I think the first section is so octopus heavy. It says, “Okay, reader, this is where you are.” But it also introduces some of the non-octopus poems, such as “Please indicate the total number of sexual partners male and/or female” as well as “Annotations” that give the reader a taste of the sexual elements and playful forms.

And then I think, after establishing all that, I push into riskier, stranger territory in the next section, where I have a bunch of film poems together. It does something different from the first section, but it also establishes its own theme and introduces the very strong film element and develops that more.

And then because I have these really strong octopus elements in the first two sections that in the third section, I can move away from that a little, give the reader kind of a break from it. And a break really was needed before the final section, when I dive back into the octopus. That final section also kind of serves as a counterweight to the first, bookending the collection with two octopus poems. Overall, there’s an ebb and flow to the themes being presented and used throughout the book.

Once you have the book finished, how do you get a book of poems published?

Well, it’s much different from getting a novel published. The Octopus Game came out of my last book deal with Carnegie Mellon University Press. And that first deal came from a more traditional route. Not a contest like many do but just an open reading period where the press says that they are looking for any book of poetry (first, second, posthumously published, whatever) for this period of time. So I sent The Diminishing House in and landed a deal with them that had what’s called a “right of first refusal.” A right of first refusal says that if the author should come out with a second book, their publisher gets to read the book first and decide if they want to publish it. Now, if you want to publish with a different house you can still refuse their offer, but you do have to send it to them to be looked at first. And they can also refuse you, but luckily that didn’t happen, and Carnegie Mellon was delighted to publish this book.

How do you market a book of poems? Is it up to the publisher or the author to do the advocacy work for the book?

It depends on the publisher. There are certain publishers that are very small and don’t necessarily have the resources to do a lot of publicity and marketing for the book. Carnegie Mellon was in the middle. They had a list of dedicated reviewers that they sent copies to and got some of the word out about the book. But regardless, I think it does often fall to the poet to promote him or herself too. Something that Carnegie Mellon did for me is they asked if there was any publisher or person that would be really interested in seeing my work—maybe journals that have published my work before this, or a reviewer who has always been into my style.

What I think has been a really, really big boon for poets who want to promote themselves is actually Facebook. It allows you to maintain relationships with writers in other cities, and if, say, you happen to be going to some city for any reason you could contact other people in the area and see if you can set up some casual readings. You can also easily spread the word if there’s an interview or a review going up online or a link to the publication.

Why do you write poetry? What drew you to this form?

Well, I was about five or six, and PBS was the only thing my parents would let me watch. One day there was this little commercial for a National Geographic special on the tiger, and they used an excerpt of William Blake’s “The Tyger” as the voice over. So I’m sitting in front of the television listening to this voice read, “Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” When I was five or six I didn’t really understand what poetry was, but I had this moment where I understood that this is language being used in a different way, this heightened way that really got my attention. That was the first time I remember poetry appearing to me as poetry in my life, that there’s this other way of using language. And it wasn’t just rhyming, it was this intensified expression of language.

Please note that this review was originally published on our old website in 2015, before our parent nonprofit—then called Tethered by Letters (TBL)—had rebranded as Brink Literacy Project. In the interests of accuracy we have retained the original wording of the interview.

Nicky Beer, the author of The Diminishing House and professor at the University of Colorado Denver, has recently published her second book of poetry, The Octopus Game. Beer commands clear control of language and form, careful weaving of concrete images and abstract ideas, and has a way of making even the most philosophical ideas in the book clear and accessible to anyone who picks it up—which we strongly encourage you to do.

The Octopus Game includes, you guessed it, a lot of octopuses. And while Beer’s impressive vocabulary, scientific terms, and use of form may seem at first like she is leading us into a heady, philosophical space, what’s unique about this book is that she uses the image of the octopus to guide us through all of that. The octopus in this book is used as a fulcrum from which to do the poetic work; to be a guide through Beer’s world of deception and unmasking that is both paradoxical and essential.

In the beginning of the book, particularly the first three poems, Beer employs a delightful style of writing that’s very contrary to popular contemporary styles: she doesn’t infer situations, or use abstractions, or end inconclusively. Rather, she begins by presenting an octopus as an octopus, establishing its beauty in the literal before the metaphorical. She conveys a sense of bare truth about the world of the book and the octopus by simply talking about it. Though her descriptions may be meandering and beautiful, they still have the effect of unmasking our assumptions about what poetry is by making beauty directly applicable to a very concrete subject. In “Octopus Vulgaris” she describes the beauty of the octopus without complications:

“…Trebled, as if by volition,
Now spread against almost the entirety
Of the glass, she obscures her habitat and commands

You to the entirety of herself, her self-
Tossed parachute of cream and coral.”

Even in poems like “Annotations” and “God of Translation” that are absent of sea creatures, she utilizes form to pick apart familiar phrases and continue this sense of directness and unmasking. She very directly annotates common phrases and provides alternate meanings to them. In the poem she defines the sexual phrase “all night long” as really meaning “Twenty to forty-five minutes” and redefines the folk tale trope “the boy who was never heard from again” as someone who “hanged himself in full view/ of his mother and his sweetheart.” Creating this blatant understanding about the world of the book, first through language then through form, Beer invites the reader in and ushers them on to more complex and intricate ideas. Though the representations and meanings of the octopus slowly become more and more complex, Beer keeps her poetry grounded and accessible throughout The Octopus Game.

While still being used as a grounding element, the octopus takes on a number of different roles to accommodate for the changing themes throughout the book. While the animal can be beautiful and enchanting, like in “Octopus Vulgaris,” it is revealed that the octopus is also a “skin-changer,” a creature likely to become like a rock, or squeeze themselves into an impossible situation, or become Salvador Dali’s next obsession (from one of my favorite poems, “Pescados De Pesadillas”). Beer uses this characteristic to complicate our ideas of the real, or challenge what we think we know about the world by dressing the octopus (the most real or grounded image in the book) in various forms and situations. What does that mean for us, the readers? It means that we have to learn to expect the unexpected from the octopus. Because the animal’s actual nature is of camouflage and mimicry, it lends itself perfectly to being dressed or masked in themes like sexuality, film media, and mystery itself.

The best example of the octopus’ shapeshifting nature and surprising reassignment of meaning is in the poem “Skin Trade:”

“…The un-
trustworthy would be as consistent
as an octopus’s skin; a lost
cause would be like trying to find
a frightened octopus; the Dalai Lama
could urge us to adopt the empathy
of the octopus in our encounters
with strangers. But I’m content to cross-
reference you with scapegoat, gull, sitting duck, clay
pigeon: in mid-century pulpo pulp fiction
cover art, you obligingly incarnate
whatever terror the age required.”

The idea that the octopus can be attributed to anything—good or bad—forces the reader to question these ideas: the “real” or original meaning of the octopus, and its newly assigned meaning or theme. The surprise of Beer’s poetry comes from reconciling the known with what we are being shown.

The final form of the octopus is a mirror of ourselves. Because it’s written and rewritten into a conversation about what we know versus what we are shown, it follows that the octopus and its many human themes become a reflection of the darker side of humanity—our mysterious, sexually deviant, duplicitous facets. The way that Beer slowly blends the creature with uncomfortable themes like sexuality and duplicity forces us to look to our own tendencies to “mask” and “unmask” ourselves: “To know what you [octopus] are/ now, we must know/ what we fear first.” (26). In “Phlogiston Footage” she writes:

“Which of our own human wonders may be little
more than chemical whiff,
an odd kink in the genetic helix?
The thought’s enough to make us shut
our eyes, pull our ignorance a little closer…
Perhaps the light ruptures the darkness
so that we may better know the darkness
in the palm of our own hand.”

In this passage, the duplicity and sexuality portrayed throughout the book culminates in her descriptions of the Cuttlefish’s mating habits—a flamboyant and extravagant version of our own.

It’s important to note before reaching a conclusion about The Octopus Game that Nicky Beer is without doubt a skilled wordsmith. Reading these poems out loud, one can hear the rhythm and control in each line—even though we may stumble on all the words we’ve never heard of. Reading the poems out loud, I couldn’t tell if her vocabulary was so large that it bordered on hindering the reading or if I just needed to expand my own vocabulary. Regardless, one thing is clear: Beer doesn’t play with words, she dominates them. The language of the poems is so successful not because of her massive and daunting vocabulary but because of its directness—though ornate and beautiful, the language is centered on the subject. Instead of adding to confusion, the beauty in her descriptions clarify the subject in a paradoxical but masterful way. In a sense, her language enacts the heightened beauty and physical malleability of the octopus and all its themes throughout the book.

Nicky Beer’s The Octopus Game is glamourous but complicated. It takes the reader on a journey through masking and unmasking little-thought-of aspects of ourselves through the octopus—from the cinema to the bedroom to the bottom of the ocean, there’s something to find in every poem. It is a book that is even greater and more beautiful than the sum of its parts.

Please note that this interview was originally published on our old website in 2015, before our parent nonprofit—then called Tethered by Letters (TBL)—had rebranded as Brink Literacy Project.

Church of Needles is an astounding collection of poetry that recollects the Civil War, childbirth, the uncertainty of motherhood, and a reimagining of the relationship we have with the world around us. At the heart of this collection is a desire for unity and meaning in the world, despite an inherent lack of connection.

NOTE: This interview was recorded by phone, so any errors should be attributed to a less-than-reliable connection. Enjoy!

What first inspired you to write poetry, and later a book of poetry?

I don’t know originally why I started writing poetry; I know I started fairly young. I read a lot of Emily Dickinson and I loved the power of her voice and the power she achieved through poetry, and I think I always wanted to achieve that power. It’s kind of a quiet power but it was definitely evident.

Now I am inspired by all things history: vintage photos, diaries, letters, and extinction. What inspired me to write the book? I think it’s a culmination for every poet. I had a lot of collected poems but nothing that came together so I went to start my Master’s degree in writing at Bennington College where the goal of the program was to write the book.

You’ll see different subject matters throughout that book because of how long it took to put it together. For example, in 2007 I found an antique diary that I used to inspire an entire section of the book.

Can you describe the process of putting this book together?

Church of Needles was my first collection, so it was different from putting together the second, which is coming out this fall. The experience of putting this first one together was a little bit haphazard. Many of the poems were written during the MFA program at Bennington, though some predated that.

It also did undergo several transformations during the 4 ½ years after I graduated, submitting to contests and different publishers. I tried to tighten it, cut and added parts I never thought I would—it is kind of a challenge to put a book together because you want your strongest poems in there but they have to hang together and create a larger story.

It was in this process of editing that some of the themes of motherhood, mortality, and spirituality/religion emerged. I’m not a religious person, but I do address God and that…issue. Also, the book became very tied to landscape. I was living in Maine when I wrote most of the poems and was in Maine most of my adult life, though I grew up in Massachusetts. But I was always on a New England landscape. When I was living in Maine, I had farm animals, and lived in a small cabin (without electricity at one point), so it was very costal land, very hard-scrabble and sort of like it was for most of its history.

The historic poems about the diarist and other poems about figures from the 1800s also deal with the hardships of the land, and those ended up kind of meshing with more contemporary poems in the book.

What do you try to achieve with your poetry? What makes good poetry?

You know when you’re writing it what you feel is right. Some poets call it the heat in writing and you go towards that. You figure out when you’re writing what’s working. So I think for me identifying truth, some nugget of truth in things—you know when something is ringing true, and that you’re getting deeper than just surface descriptions of something, of an event, or a feeling. You’re hitting the truth-nerve, if there is such a thing. And a lot of that comes out without your cooperation, sometimes. You just sit down and get into it and things will kind of pop out at you. I think that’s what I go for.

That also goes for when I’m reading. I enjoy playing with language, I enjoy leaps in poetry, and when you’re not quite sure what’s coming next—when it’s not following a straight line. It’s hard to put your finger on, but you know when you can see it.

What are some of these “truth nuggets” that you find yourself uncovering in this collection?

I think “The Art of Flying” would be the best example. The last lines in that poem: “that earth is a myth created by birds that would kill for a rest”. I didn’t work for that. I was working on a poem and then that kind of popped in and I knew it was perfect for the end. It has a sort of torque, you know? It’s like, birds creating the death of these humans who want to fly but needing the earth to land on because they don’t want to keep flying all the time. There are deeper things there, but there was just something that I knew was truthful in that.

Another example: there’s a newer poem that I’ve been working on for the next collection about women stitching. And on the surface it’s them stitching quilts and exchanging certain stitch techniques like the fan-wheel stitch, or the lover’s knot—but there’s kind of an undercurrent in it of women stitching each other from injury (actual physical injury or metaphysical). And in the last line I say “they make beautiful scars.” I had been thinking and reading about genital mutilation, which happens a lot in other countries, and learned that other women performed it. I felt really conflicted because I was working on this poem at the time and I was trying to get across this idea that women are healers but they can also be destroyers and injurers at the same time. And so how truthful would I be if I don’t acknowledge both sides? And so I left it alone and ignored it for a little while and then that last line just came to me and it was perfect because it gets at that idea that the act of stitching something creates a scar—it both heals and mutilates at the same time.

Is this poem going to be in the next book? Will we get to read it soon?

No, that won’t be in the next book. That was kind of a one-off, but I did include it in a chapbook manuscript that I sent out a few times. They’re very women- and girl-centric poems.

Right now it is floating around in the prize circuit. I’ve sent it out to a few publishers but so far, nothing. I have a problem with chapbooks because I always want to make more out of them! And I may go on to make it something bigger.

Back to your current book: it has been described as being “absent of god,” even though there is a tone that calls for unity and meaning. And you even described one of your major themes being spirituality, even though you aren’t religious. Could you speak more about that?

I didn’t really grow up religiously. I mean I was a Sunday school teacher for a little while but… I think the reason why God is absent in a lot of the poems is that that’s how I experienced God. You know, a yearning for someone to be on the other side to offer a little help, yet no one seems to be there. In prayer I always felt like I was being thrown back on myself—like it was kind of a cruel joke. So that’s something that I definitely felt and came out in the poems, this sense of reaching and trying to find that connection and not really finding it.

And yet, I feel like I’m kind of a mystical type of “believer.” I definitely believe in mysteries but I don’t think I want them all solved. I think I like that there’s a mystery in there and I like to poke at it.

I think of Emily Dickinson when I think of my own “belief” because she was taught at a religious school and was surrounded by people who were accepting faith and she couldn’t. She made some comment about how she would like to believe, but she just can’t. And I think that I am the same way—I can’t just accept something and go with it, I always have to question and question.

So poetry is very spiritual for me because I can poke and question but it’s not something that I have to accept and understand. But it feels spiritual because I can just write and write and things come to my mind and I just don’t know where they came from, and so I feel like it’s a kind of connection.

Sometimes I feel that we’re all talking the same language—religion, spirituality, artists and our process.

I think many people would agree that the act of writing or creating art is a kind of reaching for connection.

Definitely! And it’s really all artists I think. It’s all just finding that truth and making connections. And you know I think it’s connecting with your viewer or your reader that’s hard about writing.

To speak more technically about your writing, how do you find yourself structuring and pacing your poems? Many novice writers set out to write about a certain thing or an idea and get stuck on surface level or not fleshing out their thoughts enough. So what would you be your advice to new writers on how to create good poetry?

I totally know that feeling. New writers (all writers, really) have something to say and they want to get that across but a good writer is willing to be open to the process and allow things to change as you write. So while you’re writing and re-writing and editing, you find new meaning and end up going deeper than your first thought.

So my advice to aspiring poets would be: keep writing, keep experimenting with your voice and your style. Find out what your strengths are. Sometimes what people might tell you is a weakness you find is something that is peculiar to you and you can capitalize on that. You should read a lot of poetry—both classics and contemporary. And also, just be creative when you write! People in other mediums still play with their work and I think that especially because poetry has such a reputation for being stiff that you need to be playful with your work. Writers, especially new writers, get intimidated thinking that poetry is very serious business, and that can kill the whole creative process.

People also tend to hate revision—think it’s an evil, creatively destructive monster—but really it is important and can be just as creative a process as the first draft. I myself have come to really love revision. At a certain point, everyone knows their strong and weak spots and you just have to accept those in order to revise and improve.

I had to learn that during my undergraduate years. I got a poem back with red ink all over it, saying, “fix this” or “make this better,” and I honestly didn’t know what that meant or what to do. So be willing to both accept advice but also not accept advice. Once you reach a certain level of writing it becomes someone else’s opinion about your work that may not be necessary. You have to learn what you think is relevant advice about the poem and not take what you don’t think is relevant. When you’re in a workshop class with ten different people who all want to change one little thing you can’t take all their advice because then it wouldn’t be your poem anymore.

In TBL’s last quarterly issue, we republished three of your poems from this collection, “The Art of Flying,” “Scrying,” and “Lullaby.” Since they all seem to have such a personal feel, could you tell us more about them?

The most “from life” piece in that group is “Lullaby.” It was pretty much about the birth of my first son and how a mother can be more than just the nurturer, but also someone who could be dangerous. A lot of power rests in her hands.

“Art of Flying” I’ve already talked a little about. “Scrying” was interesting because it was kind of a mix of real and historic things. Part of it is based on where I live now and the barn that is on our property. The barn has lots of writing inside from the early 1800s, so they have things written about how many bushels were picked one year and of course the kids would write down their names and the dates and such. So I used that, I put character’s names from the antique diary and put their names on the wall for the poem. I think I took a lot of poetic license with that one. But that poem was generally about my obsession with history. It reflects the sad fact that history is more than I’ll ever understand, so I added voices and characters and half-truths that brought me closer to the real truth of all this leftover history.

At TBL we talk a lot about book publishing and story publishing, but what is it like to get poetry published? How does someone go about publishing a book of poetry?

Well, from when I first put the book together (right before I got my master’s degree) it took about four and a half years before Red Mountain Press picked it up. And before they did I sent it to dozens and dozens of contests I didn’t even keep track of. It’s such a heartbreaking process because it takes so long. This book was especially difficult because it went on to become a finalist for a number of pretty prestigious book prizes, but never won. You send it out in September and no one even gets back to you until March. So you end up sending it out everywhere you can think of and when it comes back and you get close…

I remember at least half a dozen times just crying when I get the rejection letter back saying how close I had come and just thinking, this is never going to happen. On top of that, I’m 41 and I’m just now publishing a book. To me that’s really late, because I’ve been writing all my life, since I was really young and writing seriously since I was in my early twenties.

I think what helps me the most (and I’m about to talk about first books on a panel at the Berkshire Women’s Writer’s Festival in March) was moving on to a different project. It was wonderful–it just took all my attention away from the rejection and allowed me to move on from those heartbreaking years of coming close but never making it. It also allowed me to grow, because after those four and a half years of editing and submitting I learned how to put a book together. The project I moved on to while I was submitting Church of Needles actually got picked up really quickly—in fact in about three and a half months of submitting instead of years.

Please note that this interview was originally published on our old website in 2015, before our parent nonprofit—then called Tethered by Letters (TBL)—had rebranded as Brink Literacy Project.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, or so the old adage goes. But what about the far less obvious: don’t judge a book by its genre? Sure, we’ve all stumbled on those intellectual young adult novels, those hilarious horrors, that rare gem of realistic sci-fi. But women’s literature? By its very definition, it’s a genre that alienates half the population. You toss in a colorful cover, a fun loving title—like Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots—and two female protagonists obsessed with food, and we all know what we’re about to read: predictable plots, self-absorbed narratives, and some cheesy romance.

If this is what you think, you’ll be wrong. I certainly was.

Tomorrow There will be Apricots by debut novelist Jessica Soffer is, to say the least, an unexpected treasure. Perusing the book blurb, you’ll learn that this story focuses on two main characters: Locra, a girl obsessed with gaining her chef mother’s love by recreating an obscure middle eastern dish, and Victoria, an elderly Iraqi Jewish immigrant who starts hosting cooking classes in the wake of her husband’s death. You’re already starting to see how the narratives intertwine, right? Now, throw in the fact that Lorca’s mother is adopted and Victoria and her husband still morn the baby they gave up, and surely you see the whole plot forming before you: a story of families reunited, haunting secrets released, laughter and joy rising like loafs of bread in the oven?

Wrong again.

This book is not the powered-sugared treat we expect. Like the best cuisines, Jessica Soffer has concocted a work of intense flavors, some so sour they are almost implantable. However, it’s precisely these thematic zingers that make this novel so brilliant. From Lorca’s dark obsession with her mother’s happiness—and the self-afflicted pain she uses to cope with it—to Victoria’s pull toward death and mortality, each of the characters in Tomorrow There will be Apricots is deeply troubled.

With an utterly stunning mastery of language, Soffer slowly intertwines the narratives of Lorca and Victoria. As the two narrators grow closer, we finally begin to pierce the delusions that dominate their lives. As each new truth is revealed, we watch these two characters—who are connected only by their love of food and fascination with death—bond in thrilling ways, finding both pain and solace in their hours cooking together. Through the lenses of both young and old, Soffer bravely peers at death, mortality, addiction, and, most frightening of all, family.

Tomorrow There will be Apricots is not a light literary snack. It’s not even a rich hearty meal. In fact, after your last bite, you’re going to feel a little sick to your stomach. Because you just consumed something real—no artificial clichés, overdone flavors, or cookie-cutter characters. No, you just read something gritty and brave and utterly substantial.

Ignore the packaging. You’re about to bite into something brilliant.

Soffer on Tomorrow There will be Apricots

When Jessica Soffer and I sat down for this interview, I launched into an ode to Tomorrow There will be Apricots—one much like the review you’ve just read—exalting her ability to transcend the genre of women’s fiction. Immediately, I feared that I’d said something wrong. Soffer’s angular face tightened. “It’s funny that you say women’s literature,” she began, “because I’m very conscious of that label.” Launching into the story, she explained that she’d just received the proofs for the potential paperback, one that marketed the book with a chick-flick angle. “I’ve never thought about myself as a writer geared toward women or someone interested in women’s issues—in the way that we’ve come to understand women’s issues in literature. I definitely have reservations about it being pushed in that direction.”

In fact, although her novel has a primarily female cast, Soffer’s inspiration for the novel had nothing to do with women’s issues. When Tomorrow There will be Apricots was in its inception, Soffer only knew she wanted to write a book about her father’s culture—Jewish Iraqi—and food. “I’m big foodie,” she explained, “though I’m hesitant to say that, because I feel like everyone in New York City is a big foodie, but my obsession with food stems from my father’s mother, who is a healer in Bagdad. I grew up with a particular attunement to food, how it nurtures your body and that sort of thing.”

Both her protagonists being female was simply a result of the creative process. Lorca, our teenage narrator, was inspired by a short story Soffer wrote years before. Like Lorca, that story centered around ideas of pain addiction, and how difficult it is to overcome regardless of age. However, Soffer was sure to add that Apricots is not autobiographical, “I was never a cutter myself,” she explained, “but I find addictions to release pain to be fascinating. I don’t think of it as a way to escape but as a way to feel more.” Laughing, she admitted that pain addiction mirrors her relationship with reading: not escapism but a way “to be more fully inhabited in your own skin.”

Although this connection allowed Soffer to identify with Lorca, she still found writing her character to be very difficult: “That nervous, teenage energy, youthful love, open wide-eyed-ness…that’s never something that I had. I felt like writing her needed a element of translation. I’d have to come up with Lorca’s ideas, translated them into words, and then translate them into the way that a person of her age and mentality would say them.”

In contrast, Victoria’s character—elderly Jewish Iraqi woman—poured out of Soffer. “I definitely identified with Victoria. I’ve always felt like I’ve been in a much older skin.” In addition, Soffer is fascinated by the same themes that plague Victoria: mortality, regret, and nostalgia. “Those are the sort of things I’ve been thinking about since I was a little kid. I mean,” she added with a smile, “I was eighty when I was four.”

Although writing Lorca and Victoria was very different, what Soffer was particularly drawn to were the moment’s when their narratives intertwined. “The bond, the connection, the thread—what made writing about both of them, not necessarily easy, but important—was that they are looking at the same thing, but from two different places.” As Soffer sculpted those moments, she was able to look at death—an issue she’s fascinated by—through the lens of both the young and the old. “In very different ways,” she added, “they are looking into the same abyss.”

Soffer on Writing and Publishing

When I asked Soffer how she got into writing, she explained that she’d always been obsessed with words and rhythm. “I wrote a big creative writing honor’s thesis in college and then applied to MFA programs when I was still there.” While at Hunter for her masters, Soffer focused on writing short stories. Although she was producing good work, she didn’t get noticed in the industry until she published a story in Granta, “It was a really tiny, tiny little story,” she explained, “and for whatever reason, it got some attention—I think because it was so short—and that was really helpful because, when I was ready to start searching for an editor, I already had a lot of contacts.”

Of course, before she could use those contacts, she needed to transition into the world of professional writing. Reflecting on that move, Soffer said, “I wouldn’t have called myself a novel writer—I guess, I didn’t even call myself a writer until I had a publisher—but I was more concerned with short stories. I think this was in part because it felt like a more accessible form…so that was my first real inspiration.” However, her professors all encouraged her to put short fiction behind her—bemoaning the unsellable nature of story collections—and begin work on a novel. Thus, Soffer started Tomorrow There will be Apricots.

The hardest part about transiting into novels for Soffer was the plot structure. “When I started writing the novel, I think I was intimidated by the form, by the quantity of writing I’d have to do, so I didn’t really think about the architecture of the book. Next time around, I think the book will be much more about architecture. You know, seeing things from the outside in instead of the inside out. Tomorrow There will be Apricots is so internal, and I don’t think I had the faith in myself as a writer to take a step back and reimagine the novel in a different way, but now, I know the mistakes that I don’t want to make again.” Laughing, she added, “Though I’m sure I’ll make another ones.”

Despite the issues this lack-of-structure caused, Soffer did find something beneficial about it. Pointing out that writers can become overwhelmed if they try to focus on everything at once—architecture, plot, and character development—Soffer advocates just focusing on one thing. “In the beginning, I set out to write as much as I could about these characters without really knowing where it was going to go. And I believe in that, in the power of the unknowable, following your nose…so much of the whimsy can be lost if we overthink it, especially from the get-go.”

As we began discussing the writing process in depth—lingering on the moment when “your characters grow their own legs and starting moving on their own”—Soffer paused, telling me how easy it is to forget about the actual writing now that her book is published. “I keep finding that I’m at a loss of words for certain things. Like the weirdness of this moment: you know, people having opinions about your work, how strange those opinions can be, and how even the most eloquent, generous opinions cannot penetrate because of the ‘bigness’ of having your work out there. You lose sense of it.”

“Everyone—my agent, editor, and my publisher—have been brilliant,” she explained, “but, regardless of that, the novel is a precious thing to a writer. You can’t forget that.” Juxtaposing a writer’s relationship to his or her work against Soffer’s recent marketing angst, we turned back to the potential paperback cover. “Because it gets branded as women’s lit, I think a lot of readers feel like they are being hoodwinked,” Soffer confessed. “I don’t know if it’s the cover or the marketing, but whatever it is, they got into this book thinking it’s really a redemptive story, a whole positive one, upbeat, cheery, all of that—and yes, there are moments of that—but they’ve been really disappointed and felt like the rug was pulled out under them when they got to the dark bits.” Of course, Soffer doesn’t want this. Like every writer, she wants to find the reader that will love her work for the actual content, darkness included.

In an inspiring display of humility and grace, Soffer simply shrugged her shoulders and smiled at me. “At a certain point,” she said, “I had to make the decision if I was okay with this novel not being read by the masses…and I decided I was. This was the book I wanted to write. I came to the realization that a lot of people weren’t going to like this book. It wasn’t going to be a bestseller, and that was okay…Really, all you can do is feel good about the work you’ve done. And I do.”

Excerpt from Tomorrow There will be Apricots

I was pretending to read the paper. I thought that if I didn’t say anything, my mother might stop glaring at me, burning a hole in my face.

I was home from school. I’d been sent home.

And though I hadn’t gotten myself caught on purpose, as soon as Principal Hidalgo said “suspended,” my first thought was of my mother waking to the smell of homemade croissants. I’d be in an apron, piling the hot pastries high in a breadbasket, just beside the cranberry-sage brown butter I’d whipped up. I was suddenly happy, hopeful, thinking of the time we could spend together.

Then I came home. The fact that she refused to look me in the eye made me feel more like a nuisance than a disappointment.

“Kanetha told your teacher that you looked drugged,” said my mother, biting a nail, then examining it, the picture of calm on the couch, as if we were talking about leftovers. She had a green towel slumped on her head, and her long shiny legs were spotted with freckles I’d never have. I’d never have her perfect eyebrows either. They were like the feathery finds of her famous pan-roasted sea bass.

I went quiet. She did too. I had to remind myself not to say a word. I talked too much when I was upset. I had a habit of asking her if she loved me. She had a habit of not answering.

“Kanetha’s a sneak,” I said. “She writes equations on tissues and pretends to blow her nose during tests.”

More words bristled against my tongue. My mother’s silence baited me. I wanted to tell her that Kanetha didn’t always wear underwear and that she flashed the boys during American History II. Kanetha Jackson, eighteen-grade busybody. She said I’d been standing in the stall and not “making.” So she’d kicked open the door with her neon sneaker. I hadn’t even known she was in the bathroom. The stupid thing didn’t lock. She found me with my skirt up, my tights down, my shoeless foot on the toilet seat, the paring knife to my thigh. Her lips were stained with fruit punch.

I wanted to ask my mother is she knew the paring knife was hers. The Tojiro DP petty knife, her second favorite. I’d taken it off the counter that morning.

“I wasn’t drugged,” I said, “I’ve never done drugs.”

I held my breath and looked down at the obituaries. “Mort Kramish, Celebrated Hematologist and Master Pickler, Dies at 79.” Still, silence. I could feel it without looking: my mother’s low, growly simmer. I gave in.

“I’m fine,” I said, wanting and not wanting her to believe it. “I won’t do it again.” I wanted her to ask me to promise. I waited for it. She swatted the newspaper out of my hands. It cracked as it closed against my knee. She stood up. Her hands were heads of garlic, tight to her sides.

“I could have left you in New Hampshire, you know. You could have grown up with nothing, no one.”

She meant that she could have left me with my father. Sometimes, she called him pudding. “He’s as useful as box pudding,” she would say.

“I’m a good mother,” she said so quietly it was like stirring the air.

“I know,” I said, “You’re a great mother. That’s not the point.”

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop talking.

I was sorry and I wasn’t. I had the urge to hug her and I didn’t. I told myself to be less selfish. She was so busy. She had a “staff of thirty-five and an untarnished culinary reputation to uphold.”

The towel sat like a turtle on her head, its feet pushing and bending her ear. She had perfect ankles. Her eyes were the color of ripe pine trees. She made no sound when she cried. Like women in the movies. I was a blubberer. Full of watery snot. Aunt Lou said that when I cried it looked like I was about to throw up.

I put my hand on my thigh, willing her to forget. The scabs were pomegranate seeds, tiny and engorged.

“You’ve always been like this,” she said.

Please note that this interview was originally published on our old website in 2015, before our parent nonprofit—then called Tethered by Letters (TBL)—had rebranded as Brink Literacy Project.

Fiction and nonfiction books alike have focused on South African apartheid, drawn to the inherent drama of a country brutally divided. Rarely, however, do we glimpse what it was like growing up in this environment, how one develops an identity in a country failing to balance its own. This personal battle is the main focus of Jacques Strauss’ debut novel, The Dubious Salvation of Jack V., a powerful work inspired by his on upbringing in South Africa.

Through the eyes of our eleven-year-old narrator, Strauss transports his reader into the seemingly perfect world of Jack V. He is old enough to know about apartheid, about the violence erupting along the borders, but from his sunny private pool, those issues seem very far away. Economic fluctuations are only reported when they affect the price of his favorite toys, political parties are judged on their color schemes, and his parents’ stereotypes and sly jokes are reported as fact. Yet these things are mere side notes to far more pressing issues, like buying the new He-Man doll and tricking his sister into doing his chores. In fact, the greatest injustice Jack sees is that the world was so cruel as to deny him a brother. If he had a brother, everything would be better. An older brother could help Jack become a man, and if he were the older brother, he could be the one to play mentor. Either way, a brother would have spared him the pain of growing up alone, half English and half Afrikaans, in a country where their long-lasting hatred still rages on.

In this struggle, Jack’s family is no help. His mother and father are gone often, leaving him to be raised by his black maid, Susie. And although Susie loves him fiercely—and violently—she offers no solution to his identity struggle. Without a proper mentor, Jack spends his days imagining situations where he would sustain serious injury, believing that if he were to survive such a trial, that perseverance—and attention—would certainly propel him into adulthood. Yet, when Jack’s trial finally comes, he is unprepared. Caught in a moment of weakness, Jack does not endure that pain; he thrusts it upon another. Betraying one closest to him, he is tragically ejected into the adult world, for the first time understanding the racial hatred overtaking his country.

TBL is honored to recommend The Dubious Salvation of Jack V. By allowing the historical and political environment to simmer in the background, Strauss creates a fascinating lens through which to view 1989 apartheid. Both deeply moving and humorous, we are shown a country and a boy on the brink of revolution. The end of apartheid and Jack’s boyhood are inevitable, but both must first survive the violence and fear of change, praying for salvation when the dust settles.

Strauss on The Dubious Salvation of Jack V.

Given the title character’s name and the book’s setting, it can come as no surprise that Strauss drew from his own experiences when creating his fictional world. However, Strauss told me that he was originally hesitant to write a book about South African apartheid, feeling that “there were just so many books about politics and there were so many influential writers who had discussed that period so well…and [he] just wanted to write about boyhood.” However when he began writing, he realized that to talk about growing up in South Africa in the late 80’s without addressing the political background was absurd: “I began to see the enormous impact it has on your everyday life and the politics kind of seeped in.”

Along with the political background, Strauss also poured his mixed heritage into book. Like Strauss, Jack is half Afrikaner and half English, torn between two cultures that although ethnically-linked, are hugely disparate. As Strauss explains, “the black/white dividers are hugely significant [in South Africa], but something that doesn’t get as much attention is the dividers between the Afrikaans and the English.” The relationship between the two cultures has a long and acrimonious past, including two civil wars, the latter of which decimated the small Afrikaner community. Combining those violent wars with the Great Depression, the Afrikaner community was left “disenfranchised and extremely bitter.”

This history plays an enormous role in Jack’s family dynamic: Jack’s Afrikaner grandmother—based on Strauss’ own—harbors a burning hatred for the English and thus half of her grandson’s bloodline. Torn between these cultural extremes, Jack struggles to discover what sort of man he should become. While this was certainly a difficult way to grow up for both Jack and his creator, Strauss confessed that he was very grateful for his heritage, stating “I’m really glad because I did get to experience both cultures. It certainly helps as a writer to understand both communities.”

Although the political setting and the cultural division are certainly pivotal to the plot, the first-person perspective through which we view them is what makes the Dubious Salvation of Jack V. so remarkable. Curious about how Strauss delves so authentically into that mindset, I inquired if he did some sort of special research, enjoyed long conversations with his nieces or nephews, or spent long afternoons staring at his He-Man dolls. “How did you know about that!?” he declared with a laugh. But in fact, Strauss did very little research save for reading a couple books to remind himself of the time. “I have very vivid memories of myself when I was eleven. It’s such an interesting time, when you can slip from being a child to an adult. When you aren’t one or the other.” Although putting himself in the mindset was easy, Strauss always found books narrated by children very limiting, and thought it implausible that someone so young could construct such a long, coherent narrative. To escape this, Strauss narrated the novel from the perspective of an adult Jack V looking back on his eleven-year-old self. While we spend the majority of the time in this younger mindset, the distance of using an older narrator allowed Strauss to employ the beautiful language that sparkles throughout his prose. Emphasizing this point, Strauss declared: “since I’m kind of pompous and a bit of dick…I wanted to be able to slip out of the eleven-year-old perspective and be back in the adult perspective easily.”

Since Strauss’s own experiences of the period conclude with a happy ending, as our discussion about the Dubious Salvation of Jack V. began to wind down I had to ask why Jack did not deserve the same, confessing that I found Jack’s ejection into adulthood utterly heartbreaking. Prepared for a sympathetic reply, I was rather surprised when a wide smile split Strauss’ face. “I’m glad you felt that way,” he replied, his smile growing even larger, “I’m really pleased.” As a writer, Strauss loves the fact that his characters were evoking such a potent emotional reaction that his readers were able to care about them. But of course, if they have enough life breathed into them to dance, they also had to face the music. “I think Jack needed to be punished for what he did,” he concluded, “He needed an appropriate consequence to his actions.” The same honest writing that led me to bond with Jack had to also create a realist outcome or it would invalidate the book’s authenticity.

Strauss on Writing

When I asked about Strauss’s process as a writer, he answered with one word: “chaotic.” One of the greatest things he learned through writing The Dubious Salvation of Jack V. was the importance of having a process, for when he began he had none: “I’m one of those people who just opens up a document, writes ‘Chapter One,’ and starts typing away…which is a terrible way to write and I will never do that again.” Since his initial “lack of process” was so haphazard, after completing the book, he had to massively restructure it, rewriting the majority of the prose and cutting out huge sections: the latter of which distressed him greatly. “It was horrible. When you’ve written these beautiful pieces and during the rewrites you kind of crowbar in what needs to go in to make it make sense but you try to protect the beautiful things in the drafts…but eventually you have to pluck up the courage to kill them, to kill those bits…”

Determined never to go through those horrible revisions again, Strauss has been working hard to cultivate a process. “It’s all rather cliché, but I try to sit down and write a certain amount of words a day even if I don’t feel like it…it’s similar to going to the gym: You know that you don’t necessarily feel like going, but when you’re there and actually going it, you feel better for it.” In addition to forcing writing time, Strauss also carries a notebook around with him, ready to scribble down any good ideas he has while out and about.

When I asked Strauss what advice he had for our TBL writers, he replied, “I’m such a new writer, I’m not sure I’m in any position to be giving advice. Because what I know is probably dangerous.” He then took in a deep breath, and added, “The thing is, it’s so hard, I know how hard it is. Putting all this effort into writing, and you don’t know if there’s going to be a pay off. Its eleven o’clock at night, on a Friday night, all of your friends are out at the pub, drinking and having a good time, and you just think, ‘Why am I doing this? If I get an agent, there’s still a huge chance it won’t even get published’ and you have all of these really sort of dark moments.” Remembering his own anguish with writing, he concluded that despite it all, he believes that if you are passionate enough to be able to finish a book, there isn’t any disconnect between having enough talent and it not turning out. “Maybe it’s my ‘care bear’ way of thinking, but between genuine passion and talent, there’s no disconnect. It’s just a question of READ, READ, READ, WRITE, WRITE, WRITE. And just go for it.”

Excerpt from The Dubious Salvation of Jack V.

Even in 1989, ten rand didn’t go very far. You could, theoretically, go to the movies four times. But then only if you didn’t buy anything to eat or drink. And the chances were pretty good that you’d buy the grape-flavored Slush Puppie. And that cost nearly as much as your movie ticket. But you’d spend the extra two rand. And seeing as you had already spent four fifty, you might as well buy a chocolate to round the afternoon’s entertainment up to five rand, which meant that even thought in theory you could go to movies four times, I don’t think there was a single month in my childhood that I actually managed it.

Or, you might spend you whole allowance on a He-Man doll, though we never called them dolls—they were just He-Mans—as in, “Ma, can I buy myself a He-Man?” The title character’s name stood in for the complete set of figures, of which there were a sufficient number to bankrupt a family should they give in to a child’s every whim. I don’t recall anyone mentioning the peculiar tautology. Perhaps She-Man was inconceivable, or we just accepted that masculinity redouble was really the only way to express it properly. Whatever the case, a He-Man would set you back for the month because they were at least ten rand and every time the president said something that upset people they would cost even more.

Some kid in our class who went away on holiday to America said that no one played with He-Mans anymore and they weren’t cool but it turned out, he didn’t actually go to America, he went to Canada, and everyone knew that Canada was most assuredly not America because they were almost communist. So it made sense that they didn’t play with He-Mans because everyone knew communists didn’t have toys. They played with pieces of wood and the bones of Christian children. At least this is what we told ourselves because we loved He-Mans very much and America was the great arbiter of coolness because they made everything we cared about and desired. If someone had said to us that E.T. or The Goonies was based on a true story, we would have believed it without question, because America was a place where anything could happen and frequently did. And, importantly, our parents said that America was still friends with us, not best friends, but good friends because they chose President Bush instead of Dukakis. He has a good name, I thought, Dukakis. It sounded like carcass. When I asked my parents who they wanted to win the election they said, “Well, it will be good if Dukakis wins but it might be a little tricky for a while.” This was not a satisfactory answer. People were god or bad and if they wanted Dukakis to win they should have said so and not muddied things by saying, “It might be tricky.” Deep down, maybe they wanted Bush to win because my parents hated anything tricky.

Whatever the Americans really thought about He-Mans, the suggestion that a He-Man wasn’t cool was enough to make us wonder a little. Perhaps there was something a bit off about playing with a man in his underwear with really big muscles, nearly as big as boobs, but definitely no willy. Him being willy-less, well, it was reassuring, there was nothing sexual about it, but then again, he didn’t have a dick, not even a teeny little tottie like the nursery-school kids…