The Body Is a Spell, the Poem Its Incantation

KARAN

Anastasia, thank you for these haunting and mythic poems that navigate the boundaries between life and death with such artful precision. In “Afterlife,” you write “I have come to know the dead / come back through the arbor, make an / afterlife in the trees” – a vision that feels both ancient and urgently contemporary. I usually begin with a process question but let’s begin with death. Go.

ANASTASIA

It was death that first brought me to write poetry. Death can humble us and haunt us. I think it’s important to scrutinize our fears, death for instance. Because fear cannot exist without ignorance. With my poems, I look directly into death. It’s easy to turn away from certain things, but within my poems, I turn towards it. And as I examine it, my intention is to reconsider it and rebuild my relationship.

Death can be more than grief and dying, more than darkness. Death can be an opening toward a new beginning, a path home to ourselves. Death can be personified as a teacher, friend, healer, or a debonair date dressed in a dapper suit. Death can represent transformation and metamorphosis — the people we once were, the lives we once lived, the people we will become, and the lives that beckon us. Like life, death is what we make of it. All is at the mercy of the individual to interpret. With my poems, I reimagine death and ponder the multitudes in which it can take shape as an exercise to think more expansively. Often, I communicate with and, in a sense, resurrect the dead in my poems. And poetry, too, can be a rebirth. An afterlife.

In “Afterlife,” I wanted to make the poem direct rather than speculative, in which I reach into the sublime and even surreal. I set my own imagination as the reality of the poem’s world. The poem asserts that the apple tree becomes an afterlife for the spirit of the stag. For both tree and stag, there is unity and longing — the apple for the orchard and the stag for his body. The poem communicates my grief for the way in which humans view, and consequently treat, the natural world, and furthermore seeks to atone the impact we have as a species.

For a bit of backstory, sometimes trees take on the shape of other things, like clouds. If you look closely at the texture of the bark and shape of the branches, you might see, for instance, a stag, a wolf, or a medieval maiden. The apple tree outside my window often looks like a stag with long antlers in the branches. And so, I imagine the life of the stag and the refuge, and afterlife, it might have in the tree. I consider the trees and wildlife my family — to me, they are beloved and extremely sacred. They are teachers, caretakers, and provide profound medicine. I think it’s important as humans to reciprocate that and learn from nature. To protect and respect our natural resources and be a part of the healing. With my poems, as well as beyond them, I want to honor the dead and the living. I want to listen. I want to give back.

KARAN

It’s strange I never ask this but how did you come to poetry, Anastasia? And before we get too lost, let’s also talk about process. How do you start a poem? Do you begin with an image, a line, or an idea? Do you have a writing routine? And finally, and most importantly, why poetry?

ANASTASIA

Poetry came to me long before I began writing poems — through song, story, and nature. Poetry lives in me and, as a matter of perspective, pulses in everything. Poetry has always been a way in which I perceive and experience the world.

More formally, I began writing poems the year my maternal grandmother died, and poetry became an immediate outlet to process my grief. I was twelve. It was a particularly difficult year and there was poetry. I like to think that poetry was a gift my grandmother gave to me and through poetry, she continues to be present with me.

I had always written in prose, and since I was six years old, I was devoted to my writing practice. Even then, there was poetry to my prose, and thus my poetry evolved from there. I didn’t return to writing poetry until I worked for many years abroad and more prolifically when I came home to the states. Like the year my grandmother died, those years were exceptionally heartbreaking and life altering. Poetry was my refuge. Poetry will always be my sanctuary.

I do have a writing routine and I practice it religiously. I always have, though it’s matured significantly since I was a child. I meditate every morning and from there, I write for many hours. My poems are largely born from solitude. I need my own space of quietude in which to work and be. Sometimes it’s a new poem in its entirety from beginning to end, a rewrite or a few new lines for an older poem, or a series of poems, where the words and imagery all come flowing out of me. As a working artist, I have to be mindful and rather strict with myself regarding time off. It’s crucial to create a healthy work / life balance that works for you and be unapologetic about it. Often, I wind up working a little too much. Then there is my life outside of poetry from which my writing comes, from which all of my poems are inspired.

And why poetry? Why not poetry? I don’t think I could sever the poetry from me if I tried and I have no desire to attempt it. Poetry will always be at the heart of my life, in complement with all I hold dear. There is simply too much me and too much magic to poetry, which is why I adore it so. Poetry is malleable, multitudinous. Like any story, you can make it your own and hone it as you will. Since graduating with my MFA, my relationship with poetry has grown ineffably strong and fortified, always a new bloom budding and breaking open, summoning me somewhere new. To commit to poetry is to honor the world and the deepest part of myself. And I hope my most sincere contribution.

KARAN

Your poems create this powerful collision between the natural world and violence. In “The Hanged Man on the Hawthorn Tree,” you write “By the thorn I swore, / scarlet in my heart: I sang to Death and Death sang the world to me.” How do you think about the relationship between nature and trauma in your work? What possibilities do you find in this intersection?

ANASTASIA

Trauma isn’t personal, it’s universal. It is something we all have in common, like death. And likewise, it affects the whole. In my poems, the speaker experiences in her own body what she encounters in the natural world and vice versa. Nothing is separate. When the speaker sings to death, or encounters death, the world floods to her feet. It is coming into the dark as much as it is the light, and through death, a rebirth.

The human body is nature, of the earth. The tree, for instance, is no less sacred than the human, and the stag no less invaluable. They are tethered, instrumental, and responsible for one another. The ways in which humans treat the environment is synonymous with the way we treat one another and ourselves. Violence is everywhere. It’s a global problem, produced and perpetuated by humans. It’s a choice. What might have caused me harm, or the speakers in my poems, isn’t truly personal. There is always something deeper at play and everything impacts everything. My poems are a call to take that seriously. To be accountable for our actions. To learn from mistakes and make wise, informed decisions. To turn towards with tenderness and ferocity. To wake up. To heal.

KARAN

There’s such musical intensity to your lines, especially in poems like “Song of Sanctuary” where “the bats are singing / their song of night, their song of sanctuary.” Tell us about your relationship with sound and rhythm. How do you work with the music of language to create this incantatory effect?

ANASTASIA

My mother tied bells on my shoes the moment I began walking. Since I was a baby, I always danced and made music. Music, like poetry, lives inside of me. Music, like poetry, is in everything. I was trained in dance and voice performance and grew up in the theatre. Though I retired from dancing professionally as an undergraduate, I still, and will always, sing. My years studying dance, voice, and acting I’m sure lent finesse in the art of poetry. They are of the same vein.

However, I think the rhythm and lyrical qualities to my poems are often intuitive. It is rare that I attempt to put my poetry to music. I am more focused on saying what I need to say and saying it how I want to say it. Putting the words onto the page is my priority, and to write them down before they escape me is more important to me than rhythm, but — the rhythm can be sculpted and fine-tuned as I edit and revise. I consider it instinctual when my thought process is naturally musical. I do have several poems that are written in strict meter that are meant to invoke ancient music, but I often feel confined in those. I prefer the music to be natural in order for me to feel that it’s working for the poem. When the rhythm of the poem prohibits creative possibility and expansion of the story is when it doesn’t work for me. The music and rhythm should open the poem and not only give it levity and power but serve as a liberator.

KARAN

I’m intrigued by how your poems often invoke a listener – “Listen: the bats are singing” or “Will you hear me?” – creating this sense of urgent testimony. Could you talk about the role of witness and testimony in your poetry? What does this direct address allow you to explore?

ANASTASIA

I believe that listening is one of the greatest acts of love we can give one another. It is also fundamentally crucial — to be seen and heard, to see and listen intently. It is how we learn and grow. It is how we deepen empathy and create inclusive, equitable systems that protect and respect diversity in all its forms. It is how we develop, discover and progress.

I think it’s equally important within poetry. Writing a direct address within a poem invites the reader and speaker onto the same plane. It creates more intimacy. And I prefer when poetry is intimate because it’s ultimately more impactful. It creates a relationship. As writers, we’re intent to be heard, and as readers, we’re intent to listen, but there is also a mutual desire to be seen.

As a poet, I like to acknowledge the reader and hold space for their attention and presence. It welcomes our listening and reading of a poem to be more active, to reignite and ground our attention, and thus gives greater power and potency for the world of the poem to unfold. Sometimes we need that as readers, as it’s easy to lose focus and interest. I think it enables a stronger connection between the writer and reader and consequently, creates a more meaningful experience.

I think it also diminishes the false hierarchy of the speaker being above or more dominant than the reader. The reader is not passive, but equal to the writer. Both are equally important and interdependent upon one another. A direct address from the speaker to the reader lets the reader know they are needed and welcome. They deserve to be here. There’s empowerment and purpose in that. And also immense healing. A direct address like “listen” can prepare and alert the reader before something particularly important is shared. Something that may be overlooked. It prepares for unveiling. And can serve as a bridge of consent before going forward.

KARAN

Many of these poems navigate gendered violence with mythic imagery. In “Adeamus,” you write “I was visited by five ghosts. No – it was one man.” (Fucking hell, wow!) Uhm, the question I was about to ask just escaped me…but how do you think about using mythic frameworks to approach difficult personal material? What freedom or protection might this offer?

ANASTASIA

Though all of my poems are earnestly true, the mythic elements of my poems enable me to claim my power over my own narrative and communicate deeper truths through metaphoric imagery and contemplation. Through myth, I galvanize as well as honor the intellectual triumph of the imagination that implores I consider beyond the modus operandi. As a poet, I get to write and rewrite, remember as well as reimagine my own story synchronously. Myth encourages me to be unforgiving with my own voice and vision while respecting my privacy. Finally, it allows me to have a little fun with it.

Myth is powerful because of its universality. Within every myth, there is something we can all relate to. We all have our own experiences in the underworld, for instance, all of which are enmeshed with one another. With myth, it’s imperative to continue to widen the story, your story, to complicate the characters and the narrative, broadening our understanding. Rewriting and retelling myth is revolutionary, radical, in that it speaks where it’s been silenced and expands what’s been reduced. While true to myself, weaving myth into my poems allows my stories to go beyond me and into the larger tapestry — my hand held in your hand, my heart wrapped in your heart. It allows me to be generous with my stories and enables my stories the freedom to be the best they can be.

KARAN

This is a staple question for us and I’m always surprised by the range in everyone’s responses: There’s a school of poetry that believes a poem or a poet can categorize their work in one of these four ways: poetry of the body, poetry of the mind, poetry of the heart, poetry of the soul. Where would you place your work within this framework, if at all? And do you see your poetry moving in a different direction?

ANASTASIA

I argue that these four schools of poetry might attempt to separate what simply cannot. Body, mind, heart, and soul are inextricable of the whole. Also, just what is the soul? Like the heart, there is nuance and infinitudes of meaning, making their frameworks feel arbitrary and redundant. If the mind, body, heart, and soul were birds, categorization would be a cage. Poems should be birds, not cages.

For me, my goal as a poet is to communicate my whole being, to pull from and express all aspects of myself. I would not classify myself or my poetry into any one school, but rather question how my work might coalesce at their intersection, and most importantly, transcend beyond it. Perhaps poetry can be like a tree that grounds into, and is nourished by, all schools, but then grows beyond. What lies beyond those particular schools, and furthermore, beyond classification, definition, and limitation more broadly? Perhaps my poetry investigates the infinitudes and exercises unknowing and mystery with curiosity, where nothing is too certain. There is simply more that we don’t know than we do, and reductive classifications of flourishing, transformative bodies of work, represented by the perpetually evolving nature of the poet, seems regressive. Division can be dangerous. What happens when we remove the barrier? That’s the ground I’m interested in exploring and expressing from. The collision. The unification. The wild summation. Poetry should and can exist holistically with sovereignty.

I think it’s more important not to classify my work, as it would diminish it and thus me. It might ignore what else is there. My wish is to be happy and satisfied with my poems, that they bring me fulfillment. And also, that I am creating meaningful, honest work that excites me. I want to write the poems I’d most want to read.

KARAN

Your work engages deeply with literary tradition, with poems “after Brigit Pegeen Kelly” and “after Lucie Brock-Broido,” and allusions to Louise Glück. How do you see your poetry in conversation with these lineages? What draws you to these particular poets?

ANASTASIA

Most of the poems I’ve sent to you communicate with, and respond to, the work of my favorite poets. “Song” by Brigit Pegeen Kelly inspired me to write “Afterlife,” a line from “Landscape” by Louise Glück ensorcelled a new ending to unfold for “The Amber Room,” and “A Letter from Another Age” was written after (re)reading “Posthumous Seduction” by Lucie Brock-Broido. Lucie gave me courage to write that poem, as her landscape was uncanny to my own experience and triggered that particular memory. Though it was hard for me to write, it was excruciating to silence it. And although it houses one of my darkest and most difficult memories, it is one of my favorite poems I’ve written. As poets, our work can empower one another to be brave and heal. To expose and free.

And as writers, it’s crucial to read. You never know where a poem will take you and the poets who will become beloved friends and teachers. What draws me to them and their distinct genius is a fiercely shared sagacity, a brilliant and ruthless earnestness in intellect and imagination. Though all widely different in style and voice, I am enchanted by their work and consider myself a devout and lifelong student. When I first read their work, I felt a kindred and immediate intimacy, as if I was destined to read their work, and from which many of my poems were born and nurtured. To say their work has been instrumental to my craft is to understate their impact. To me, they are like angels — immortal, luminous, omnipresent through their poetry. When I read their work, they take me on as their own. They take me somewhere new and bring me home. They touch into me and awaken what I need to write. And my writing is a gift back to them.

KARAN

Animals appear throughout these poems – stags, bats, coyotes, horses – often as witnesses or mediators between worlds. In “The Amber Room,” you write of coyotes “as if I conjured / them.” How do you think about the animal presence in your work? What do these wonderful creatures allow you to express?

ANASTASIA

Animals exist within my poems as they do in nature. Often, humans attempt to remove the animal from the human as they do the animal from the earth. Humans are animals. And I consider animals my equal. They are healers, teachers, and kin.

“The Amber Room” chronicles my first trip to Colorado. I was walking with my partner through an empty field of snow and we came upon the two coyotes. For me, it felt magical. I could sense them and then, there they were. It was the first time I saw coyotes in the wild — large, ethereal, regal, and with tremendous courtesy towards us. As we watched the coyotes and gave them space, I was overcome with grief. I saw how starving they were and yet they carried themselves with such grace and reverence. The poem strives to reconcile and atone for how humans are responsible and complicit in their struggle. The speaker imagines beyond their vantage point and likens the coyotes to witches — both wrongfully feared and pushed into the outskirts,  both beautiful and powerful. Both ancient and alive.

The poem meditates on the destructive impact humans have on nature, wildlife in particular. Coyotes are demonized by humans, meanwhile we deforest their habitats, forcing them to hunt in more developed areas. Humans kill coyotes for being present on the earth near their homes, searching for food. And yet humans overlook how they are to blame for it. The irony is that the ways in which humans readily demonize coyotes, and animals at large, is caused by humans. It’s absurd, victim blaming. Humans do this to one another, too, and my poem calls attention to that. It holds accountability for our actions and their wider consequences. All the while bringing a tender awareness of the speaker’s own similitude — human and hunter, coyote and witch.

KARAN

The body and its vulnerabilities are central to many of these poems. In “Song of Sanctuary,” you write “females swell the clitoris / with blood.” How do you think about writing the female body in relation to both desire and danger? What challenges or freedoms do you find in this territory?

ANASTASIA

There is exquisite power in the body and desire. And poetry can serve as a reclamation of power, for and through the body, desire, and beyond. Poetry can imbue the deeply political, and pleasure can be radical and revolutionary. I think it’s important to write and rewrite outdated narratives surrounding the body, desire, and pleasure, and liberate what might be silenced, erased, reduced, or altogether buried. I admire poetry that undresses itself, revealing what dwells behind the curtain, so to speak. Like seeing and being seen, listening and being heard, it’s crucial to expose censored subjects and look at what exactly is being ignored and why. In “Song of the Sanctuary”, I wanted to show that bats are similar to humans in their sexual relationships and how vital, and precious, pleasure is for health and wellbeing. And yet something as basic and natural as sexuality and the body is policed. Unfortunately, there are people out there who use their bodies as weapons and attempt to take away the autonomy of others. There is always danger as long as there are humans. And willful ignorance is the most dangerous choice a human can make, from which prejudice is born. I feel it’s important to stand up against that and speak. To speak as resistance. With my poetry, I strive to grow ever braver with my work — to say the things I burn to say, but would perhaps prefer to burn.

KARAN

We always ask our poets for a poetry prompt at the end. Would you provide a prompt for our readers, to help them kickstart a poem?

ANASTASIA

Certainly. Though they can serve as prompts as well as advice, they are also my hope and wish for you. First: Tell me your secrets. There is no shame. You are brave enough. And two: Set free your demons. You are worthy of it.

KARAN

We’d also love for you to recommend a piece of art (anything other than a poem) — perhaps a song, a film, or a visual artwork — that you find particularly inspiring or that you think everyone should experience.

ANASTASIA

It’s my honor. For music, I recommend Enya. My mother always listened to her growing up and her music brings me home to myself. I invite you to allow her music to take you into her world, a world perhaps different than your own, a world inside yourself you haven’t wandered yet. Also, I’m a huge fan of 50’s (and 60’s) pop and vocal jazz. Those decades are so juicy. I grew up with it but it’s also in my blood. For film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, particularly the bonfire scene on the beach where the women sing “La Jeune Fille en Feu.” For podcasts, I suggest SongExploder, which my brother recommended to me and I find it particularly interesting, inspiring, and helpful as a poet. For non-fiction, I highly recommend the unabridged Diary of Anne Frank, definitive and critical editions. And finally for TV, I recommend A Small Light. I could write full-length books on all the art I appreciate.

KARAN

Finally, because we believe in studying the master’s masters, we would love to know which poets have influenced you most throughout your journey as a writer.

ANASTASIA

As mentioned previously, I consider Louise Glück, Lucie Brock-Broido, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly my three main muses. Another is Emily Dickinson, all of whom I regularly read and reread, and often write in conversation. I respect them deathlessly and consider them my teachers, their work instrumental to the evolution and transformation of my craft. Each poem can serve as a lesson to improve your own work, as well as a prompt to inspire new poems. Through reading their work, they have become very dear and beloved friends to me. And the intimacy of those relationships, forged and nourished through poetry, are invaluable. Two new books on my reading list that I’m particularly excited to dive into are Firebird by Zuzanna Ginczanka, translated by Alissa Valles, and Emerald Wounds by Joyce Mansour, translated by Emilie Moorhouse.

I recommend to anyone interested in reading poetry to sign up for the Poem of the Day via the Poetry Foundation. They send a free poem to your inbox daily and it’s an easy way to be exposed to a wide range of new and established writers. Many literary journals have free newsletters from which to read new work. You never know what will inspire a story to be written and the friends you’ll make along the journey. I think it’s wise to be open to unexpected surprises and serendipities, and to embrace poetry as an adventure.

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