Danez Smith: She’s bundled in love and Covid and kisses, Franny Choi!

Franny Choi: And they’re a high quality popsicle on a hot summer day, Danez Smith!

Danez Smith: And you’re listening to VS, the podcast where poets confront the ideas that move them. Hey, Frannle. How you doin’?

Franny Choi: I’m okay. You know.

Danez Smith: How is your revolutionary quarantine?

Franny Choi: Oh, it’s um … I would say it’s pretty much in a stasis. (LAUGHS) Yeah. How are you?

Danez Smith: I am … well, currently, actually it’s very hot. I feel the 100 degrees of Minnesota pressing from in the window, so, like most Black people who are hot, that is also the state of my feelings right now.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) But other than that, when it’s like 70 degrees, I think I’m doing okay.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Learning a lot, growing a lot, thinking a lot, stinking a lot. You know.

Franny Choi: Hmm. Well-rounded. Very well-rounded.

Danez Smith: Mhm. Just trying to, you know, be on the path that my ancestors set forth for me, you know. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Mm-hmm. Right. Man. If we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams, then they did not have the best imaginations, I suppose. You know what I mean?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Maybe could’ve read a little more sci-fi.

Danez Smith: Well you know what I am trying to be? I’m trying to be like my ancestors’ wildest brags, you know?

Franny Choi: Yeah!

Danez Smith: I hope that both in heaven and also just like in circles of old people that like, the people that know me are like, hitting people on the shoulder being like, “That one’s mine.”

Franny Choi: Uh-huh.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) You know? Like, “That one’s good.” Franny, who was like the first person you wanted to impress with a poem? Who was that for you? Who was the first person you were like, okay, poetry’s cool, but if that person says I’m good, then I’m straight.

Franny Choi: Unfortunately I was straight. You know what I mean? Like you know…

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: …It was the white communist boy that sat next to me in math class.

Danez Smith: You wanted the little white communist boy?

Franny Choi: Yeah, I did. I wanted—

Danez Smith: To say you had good poems?

Franny Choi: Yeah. I was like, you know, I wanted him to be like, “I’ve read some books and I have a ruthless sense of critique and a devil-may-care attitude, and I like your poem,” you know? But um-

Danez Smith: Aw.

Franny Choi: But you know, he didn’t last. Shout-out to you, nameless boy. I mean, I guess probably the first people that I really wanted to impress that I cared about for more than like, a semester, were the people who gathered in the basement of the Africana Studies department building every Thursday night to read poems to each other when I was in undergrad, in our little spoken word poetry group. And like-like specifically, the older students who had been doing it for a while and were heroes in my mind. They were the ones that I like, I—I really wanted them to love my poems. And kind of go wild for my poems. Those are the people that I really wanted to impress first. What about you? Upon whom were you first trying to stunt?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) Well, see that’s the trick, right? Who I was trying to stunt for, because I don’t think I could stunt on anybody at the time, you know?

Franny Choi: Mm-hmm.

Danez Smith: Well I think the first poet that I also looked up to was like also in school with me. So I was like, 14, 15, and I really wanted Ashley Gilbert, whose stage name was Unique, and she was two years ahead of me. And she was like, the first person that I knew that was like, my age, that like-was like—everybody knew, you know, Ashley’s a poet.

Franny Choi: Mm.

Danez Smith: The rest of us do ours, and it’s like, “Ashley is a poet.” (LAUGHS) You know? And she was so good. And I was like, “Oh, if I could write something that Ashley snapped at, ooo, that’d be so tight.”

Franny Choi: Oh my gosh.

Danez Smith: And then once I started to have—you know, it does become this beautiful …I think we don’t… I’m not gonna say we don’t talk about it enough, but I think I would like to talk more about the local circles that raise poets, you know?

Franny Choi: Yeah. For sure.

Danez Smith: Because you’re not automatically like, writing into a canon, or writing for a book, or writing towards publication. It was-It was IBé Kaba, it was Desdemona, it was Black Pearl, were the first people that I knew that were teaching me poetry. You know?

Franny Choi: Right.

Danez Smith: And who were examples of poets in the city. So local poets, I love those folks. I still love their poems to this day. And it’s weird to know them now, but like when I see IBé Kaba —he’s a great poet in the Twin Cities—and when I see him around, he’s still dope. And I just remember being 15 and low-key trying to write like him. You know?

Franny Choi: Mm-hmm.

Danez Smith: I was so dazzled that he was doing this thing that I was so, at the time, still so newly enamored with, which I think is different than the type of obsession I have over poetry now. But yeah, god bless all those local poets, you know, who I just want them to like, not, you know, look at their phones when I was doing my thing

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I mean, yeah. It’s funny, I think, sometimes when—thank you to the University of Michigan for my degree, you know. But, uhm, that’s not where I learned how to write, you know what I mean? I became a poet and learned how to write poetry from [INSERT NAME] [IB1] and Laura, and Miles, and Phil and Sarah and Fati and Jamila and [INSERT NAME], and all these other folks, some of whom have continued to make poetry in professional ways, and others of whom have gone on to different things. But that’s still who I’m trying to impress. You know? That’s still who I’m trying to get to—who I’m writing my poems for. And we get to talk, in this interview, with the legend John Murillo, who talks about who he’s writing for. Who he’s trying to feed and nourish in his poetry. And also the importance of not losing sight of who you were writing for when you first got started writing poetry. We’re so excited to share this interview with you. It’s the first one that we have done using this strange remote Zoom with the two of us thing, but yeah, we are really excited to get to invite all of y’all into this beautiful conversation that we got to have with John Murillo, whose new book just came out and rocked all of our worlds.

Danez Smith: John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections, Up Jump the Boogie, finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and the most recent Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, which was released this year from Four Way Books. And Up Jump the Boogie was re-released by Four Way Books alongside it this year. His honors include two Larry Neal Writers Awards, a pair of Pushcarts, the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Breadloaf Conference, Fine Arts Work Center in Providence, Cave Canem, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Best American Poetry 2017, ’19, and ’20. He writes the best poems. He is the assistant professor of English and director of the creative writing program at Wesleyan University, and also teaches at the low residency MFA at Sierra Nevada University. He lives in Brooklyn. We are so excited to bring y’all this interview with John. First, let him start us off with a poem.

(SOUND EFFECT)

John Murillo:

(READS POEM)

On Confessionalism

Not sleepwalking, but waking still,

with my hand on a gun, and the gun

in a mouth, and the mouth

on the face of a man on his knees.

Autumn of ’89, and I’m standing

in a section 8 apartment parking lot,

pistol cocked, and staring down

at this man, then up into the mug

of an old woman staring, watering

the single sad flower to the left

of her stoop, the flower also staring,

my engine idling behind me, a slow

moaning bassline and the bark

of a dead rapper nudging me on.

All to say, someone’s brokenhearted.

And this man with the gun in his mouth—

this man who, like me, is really little

more than a boy—may or may not

have something to do with it.

May or may not have said a thing

or two, betrayed a secret, say,

that walked my love away. And why

not say it: She adored me. And I,

her. More than anyone, anything

in life, up to then, and then still,

for two decades after. And, therefore,

went for broke. Blacked out and woke

having gutted my piggy and pawned

all my gold to buy what a homeboy

said was a Beretta. Blacked out

and woke, my hand on a gun, the gun

in a mouth, a man, who was really

a boy, on his knees. And because

I loved the girl, I actually paused

before I pulled the trigger—once,

twice, three times—then panicked

not just because the gun jammed,

but because what if it hadn’t,

because who did I almost become,

there, that afternoon, in a section 8

apartment parking lot, pistol cocked,

with the sad flower staring, because

I knew the girl I loved—no matter

how this all played out—would never

have me back. Day of damaged ammo,

or grime that clogged the chamber.

Day of faulty rods, or springs come

loose in my fist. Day nobody died,

so why not hallelujah? Say amen or

Thank you? My mother sang for years

of God, babes and fools. My father,

lymph node masses fading from

his x-rays, said surviving one thing

means another comes and kills you.

He’s dead, and so, I trust him. Dead,

and so I’d wonder, years, about the work

I left undone—boy on his knees

a man now, risen, and likely plotting

his long way back to me. Fuck it.

I tucked my tool like the movie gangsters

do, and jumped back in my bucket.

Cold enough day to make a young man

weep, afternoon when everything,

or nothing, changed forever. The dead

rapper grunted, the bassline faded,

my spirits whispered something

from the trees. I left then lost the pistol

in a storm drain, somewhere between

that life and this. Left the pistol

in a storm drain, but never got around

to wiping away the prints.

* * *

Franny Choi: Whew.

Danez Smith: The first time I read that, I just laughed, because I was so mad that the poem was so good and so honest, and that that’s how you opened up the motherfucking book.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) And I had read it before, but I was like, “Oh, this how we starting this book.”

John Murillo: (LAUGHS) Thanks.

Danez Smith: This just dippin’ a toe in.

Franny Choi: And that it’s called “On Confessionalism.” It’s just so bold all the way through. Yeah.

John Murillo: Yeah, that’s funny, that’s one of the things I was kinda tackling in this manuscript. One, well I’ll say, this is not the book I wanted to write. After the first book, I thought I was done with the whole, family and growing up in the hood story, right? And I wanted to write something else. Something that showed, you know, a different side. But I wasn’t done with these poems yet, and what I found was, in this collection, I was even digging deeper into that same material. So, this poem, and the book as a whole, has me thinking about Confessionalism as a mode, but also the self we create while writing the poems. Yeah, it took me a while to get to this poem, and I think it opened up the collection the way I wanted it to as well.

Franny Choi: Mm. Yeah. Oof. I wanna stay on that. Do we have to ask our “What’s moving you” question?

Danez Smith: No, we can stay on this for a while. Go ahead Franny.

Franny Choi: Okay. Well I guess I just wanna hear more. (LAUGHS) Can you say more about what you mean about coming back to the self? And how-like, what that has to do with Confessionalism?

John Murillo: I think, in a lot of ways, right. With how social media, with how culture reality shows, our love of celebrities, the ways that poets and other artists tend to kind of create a persona, right? And write through that. I think that..uhm…it’s highlighted by those things I’ve just mentioned, but I think it’s something maybe we’ve all done, right. So you get my teacher, Philip Levine, who is known as the poet of the working class. At some point, I wonder if this becomes something the artist is conscious of and ends up writing through that consciously. Or, if it’s something that they’ve written their way into, and it’s hard to get out. So for me, with the first book, you know, I think about when people say, you know, “streetwise” is something that always comes up, right. “Vulnerable” comes up. And you do what you do to make the poems the best poems you can make, right. So even if that means changing some autobiographical information. So, for instance, in the first book, there’s a poem in which I and some others are jumping somebody. Well the truth of the matter is, in real life, I was the one getting jumped. But that poem—(LAUGHS). I got jumped by some Bloods on Halloween one year. That poem never really flew, you know what I’m sayin’? It was—the victimization that came across in that poem just didn’t really-it didn’t make for a good poem. What made for a good poem was actually putting myself in the shoes of one of the perpetrators of the violence, right?

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

John Murillo: And.. uhm.. kinda talking about how—becoming a speaker who’s complicit in the violence. And that made for a better poem. So, you write a couple of these poems, and you start to build a myth about yourself that, given enough years, you can believe too. You start to maybe think you’re tougher than you actually were, or you know, you had some certain amount of adventures you didn’t really have. And I feel like that happened with me, to an extent. And what I was doing with this book was kind of exploring this curated self, but also kinda, you know, navigating that line between how much of the truth I was willing to give up and how much I wanted to hold back.

Franny Choi: That’s fascinating. The idea that when we say like, there’s a distance between the “I”, the speaker of the poem and the author of the poem, what that does for us as authors, you know, on the tail end of writing a lot of poems where there’s that distance. Yeah, no, that’s such a fascinating thing to think about.

John Murillo: I think, too, maybe about … you know, there was a writer I knew and some of you may have known as well, Hache Carrillo, “H.G.” Carrillo.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

John Murillo: He was the fiction writer who passed recently of Covid.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

John Murillo: And after he passed, some biographical information came out about him that his name wasn’t Hermán Carrillo, but it was, I think, Herman Carroll. And he wasn’t Cuban American, he was from Detroit. And he made up a whole—do you guys know about this?

Franny Choi: Yeah!

Danez Smith: /Whoa, I missed this.

Franny Choi: /This is a wild story.

John Murillo: Yeah, so he made this whole biography. You know, he was apparently a piano prodigy. He traveled the world, and his family was exiled from Castro’s Cuba. And he was married, and even his partner hadn’t met his family and didn’t know any of the details of his life. So he created this persona and wrote through it. Which then made me think of Fernando Pessoa and his heteronyms, right. And all these different selves that he wrote through. So, you know, Fernando Pessoa, he actually would publish poems and books under these different names. And then he’d have these names critiquing and writing reviews of each other’s poems. 

Franny Choi: Oh my gosh.

John Murillo: And it wasn’t until years later that people actually found out all these were him. So this idea of an invented self is fascinating to me—

Danez Smith: Hm.

John Murrillo:—when it’s done purposefully, but also, you know, the ways that we kind of fall into it. That first poem, it was grounded in a-in a bit of a true story, right? But that true story even changed over the years, how I’d tell people what happened. And you know, memory, fantasy, myth, all these things kind of played in to kinda create this event that was actually more interesting than what happened. And that’s actually what gave rise to the poem moreso than actual events.

Danez Smith: You’re returning, right, to sort of the similar, let’s say, neighborhood for these memories that the poems are building on, right? And similar era. Does who the books are signaled, or sort of written towards, have anything to do with how that self shows it differently? That curated self? Like, in Up Jump the Boogie, I feel like who that-the heart of that book is towards is maybe a little bit wider. 

John Murillo: Hmm.

Danez Smith: As, I think, maybe sometimes first books tend to be towards, right? Sort of, this is for the people who like grew up alongside me, to whom I understand the story. So I think we all—that is a common thing, right, that when you start to fold the autobiography of the neighborhood into your own. So it becomes the sort of communal history, this large, big-ass “I” that was all of us, right, like this is sort of the stories that the like, hundred of us that grew up at that time in that place know. Does that change, like sort of, I guess, who is invited into that self for you and then change who you get to be in the book, in the poems?

John Murillo: Yeah, I think so. I like this idea of a self writ large, right, in the first book. And I think you’re right on point that, you know, you write a first book, you don’t know if there’s gonna be a second. So you’re getting everything you have out of you. You know, you wanna make the statement as best you can while you have the mic in your hand, or the lights on you. I’ve always said, you know, that I write for the people around me who didn’t have the opportunity. Either who didn’t have the breaks, the educational opportunities, or who really… uhm.. didn’t make it, literally. You know, they either—it’s cliché, but a lot of people did die or end up in jail. So, the “I” there is the community. With the second book, I felt a little more comfortable in my craft and it’s a little more exploratory, in a sense. So, the “I” narrows down. It becomes more personal. But I think that—as it’s getting into more personal territory—that it opens up for others, in a way. If that makes any sense. Right, so, we always hear things like the way to the universal is through the personal. Right? And specific. Insofar as I was looking for or thinking about audience at all, I might’ve been considering it in that sense, right. The more honest I can be with these poems, the more able I am to touch somebody. Also, a difference would be, the first book, maybe I was thinking, audience, and the second book I was thinking, listener.

Franny Choi: What do you mean by that? How are those different?

John Murillo: Yeah. So, audience, you know, I think of a mass. I think of many people. Listener is much more intimate. I think of maybe even just one. If one person’s listening. And I think the way one would project, right, is different. I think the way one holds their body is different. You know, it depends on how they’re trying to communicate. So I think with this second book, I was trying to—you know, it was more of a whisper than a howl, if that makes any sense.

Franny Choi: Oh, totally, totally. Yeah. John, how are you feeling about the book being in the world?

John Murillo: Oh, mixed. You know, on the one hand, I’m glad that it is in the world. There are 10 years between books.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

John Murillo: And so much happens in 10 years.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

John Murillo: You get a sense that people might have forgotten that you even write or that you put something out in the world to begin with. And I had to kind of fight temptation to put these poems out before they were ready. Just to be out there, and you know, join my friends and be in the conversation. So, I took the time and wrote the book that I felt good about. And I stand behind these poems. So that they’re out in the world and people are responding to them positively feels good. The other side of that, though, is that the book came out lock step with the virus and the pandemic.

Franny Choi: Right!

John Murillo: Right. Literally, the book’s release date was March 2. And you remember AWP was March 5. And that got pretty much canceled, right? And that was when everything was supposed to happen for the book. I had a reading there … I think I got off like two readings before everything went online. It was weird because on the one hand, I know that there are larger things going on in the world, right. Clearly. And this little book of poetry is whatever. So, whenever I would start to feel bad about the book not getting a proper introduction, I would chastise myself. Right? You know, and say, people are dying, literally. Cry me a river. And it took a while before I could actually give myself permission to own my feelings and say, “No, this, too. I can feel bad about this as well,” right? And also back to this idea of listener versus audience, people are at home, they’re alone, they’re reading, and it’s a different way of interacting with poems. I don’t wanna say there’s a positive in this at all, but, in terms of the book and the way that it’s received, maybe this is the way it was meant to be received, right?

Franny Choi: Mm. I think that, for me, it seems like what will happen is that this book will just have a longer moment. A longer, slower moment, rather than like, one big, you know, burst of fire at the beginning, you know?

John Murillo: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Because I think that this book is—it feels like a book that took 10 years to write, you know what I mean? It’s a book that has staying power and that has heft. I don’t think that it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

John Murillo: Thank you. Thank you.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

John Murillo: And ultimately that’s what I was hoping for, too.

Danez Smith: And I think it’s a book—especially, you know, I’m think about that middle poem like. That’s a poem that I think folks are reaching for even with their questions and intentions right now, a little bit all over the place. Really thinking about how as Black folks, how we’re talking about defunding, abolishing, reforming whatever conversation’s happening in the city you’re at right now with the police, thinking about our safety. Thinking about who we are. And this is a poem that I know I’ve been passing out to folks who I’ve been having conversations with. And just sort of sliding it. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: Right, right.

Danez Smith: Just saying like hey, we had that talk today, and I think you might wanna sit with this, because I think it sits in with a lot of the same feelings as you. It is weird, you know, how books are reaching people. They’re not even in the bookstores and stuff like that, but this one is gonna reach folks. And I think Up Jump the Boogie was like that. That was a 10-year book, you know? That book had the staying power of 10 years. I still see it in stores. You know, folks still talk about that joint, right? And that’s kinda like—I was saying this with Franny before we hopped on, I was like, some poets go like that. You know, some of us go every two, three, four years, and sort of, here what I got, and some folks are like, I come once every 10 years, dunk on you all. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: And I don’t need to come back for a while! (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Yeah, and I don’t need to come back! You still talking about my last joint! Remember when I was here 10 years ago, I fucked it up! (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Right, right. Just to be clear, nobody got even close to forgetting about John Murillo in those 10 years.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: That was never a question. (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Let’s fo’ real be clear. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: It’s good to hear. It’s funny, I think about that, and I liken myself to Sade. That’s what I aim for, you know?

Franny Choi: Wow.

John Murillo: Sade’ll come out every eight to 10 years and when an album comes out, you want it. You gotta have it.

Franny Choi: Yeah. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: Right?

Franny Choi: Right.

John Murillo: Some people take a long time, and the albums aren’t really worth it, you know what I mean? And I don’t wanna be that person./

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

John Murillo: /And I’ll just leave it there, so. But I wanna be Sade. That’s what I wanna do.

Franny Choi: Wow, that’s an incredible goal.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: May we all—

Danez Smith: That’s an incredible sneak diss. Whoever—

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Yeah. (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: They just got a real sharp pain somewhere in their body now...

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: Oh man.

Franny Choi: Okay this is kind of a basic question. So many of these poems are formatted—their titles are formatted like that first poem that you read, “On Confessionalism,” or “On Prosody,” or “On Metaphor.” Can you talk a little bit about what led you into that part of this project?

John Murillo: Yeah. So the first poem in that series was actually the penultimate poem, “On Prosody.” The catalytic event behind that poem was, we were living in an apartment, and our next-door neighbors were fighting. Actually, someone was abusing a child. And … uhm…we heard through the wall. We knocked on the door. We called the police. That led me to think about a memory from childhood when we heard neighbors fighting through the walls. And then I came across a letter from Robert Frost. He was talking about the sound that the sentence makes, and the sound of sense as well, right? This idea that you can hear through a wall and without hearing the actual words you can tell from the cadences and the intonation what’s being said or what’s happening, right?

Franny Choi: Wow.

John Murillo: So, in this letter I think he was arguing for a kind of prosody that didn’t follow these strict meters necessarily, but followed the natural rhythms of conversation. And he’s saying that in conversation there’s a music. So this gave rise to the poem “On Prosody,” or at least gave rise to a draft of it. That draft – uh— took me eight years to complete. And it wasn’t because necessarily I was trying to really craft the poem, it just, it stalled on me, because I knew too early on what the poem was about, so there was no place for me to go. I couldn’t surprise myself. And I was stuck. But while I had that poem in the drawer, the other poems were cropping up. Sometimes I’d have a poem—it was a poem with either a working title or it was untitled, and when I attached a title to it like “On Metaphor,” it brought it into new relief. Right? And it kinda made the poem sing. So, after I had a couple of those, then I started to kind of think of this as a series. And what were some craft elements, and what would this series be saying, in terms of life and my writing. The poems in that series are somewhat autobiographical, so quasi-autobiographical. But also, you know, the book as a whole, the title poem, “Contemporary American Poetry,” is a critique, you know in my eyes at least, of what I consider the state of contemporary American poetry. And how vapid a lot of it has become, right?

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: Hm.

John Murillo: So, what I wanted to do was to bleed and sweat in this book, and really cut to the core, and to kind of give these poems these really superficial titles, right. So it’s almost a book on craft, but from the inside, if that makes any sense?

Franny Choi: Hm.

Danez Smith: No, that makes sense to me. Yeah, it’s both a critique and a love of the craft. Because like, I see, especially in the “On Prosody,” “On Magical Realism” poems, to me it felt like you were also sort of crowning those corners of poetry or what they do. But I think you also like, take time to bow to your master teachers, too. To really say like, hey, Philip Levine, hey, Yusef, you know, you tip your hat in a good way. You know, in a major way. And it felt like, in that way, both with the integrity and the fierceness of the poems, and then with titling them, you’re also kind of tipping your hat to poetry, in a way. Like I have learned through this because people have troubled Confessionalism and prosody before me, and so, now here I am arriving with my story and the stories I know. And this is what I can offer you.

John Murillo: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, in one way, connecting to the tradition and people who came before me. But also, this is what it is now. So, contemporary American poetry. You know, for the most part, if you were to take a survey course on American poetry, you might get your Robert Hayden, your Gwendolyn Brooks, right. But for the most part, you get your white American writers. There’s a whole substrata of poetry and people for whom the poems are written that don’t get acknowledged. So in this book, you know, again, I was trying to mine that underbelly and mine those personal stories that don’t really get a lot of shine, you know, in the larger context.

Franny Choi: Yeah. I love that idea of the craft book but from the inside. A craft book from the inside. That’s the kinda like relationship between commentary and confession, you know? Or testimony. Are those things really—are they necessarily different, you know? Because the titles are like an essay or, you know, an argumentative essay. Like a commentary on the state of, or the nature of metaphor. And then the thing that happens is like, deep within metaphor, not like outside of it, but yeah. It’s happening on that terrain of storytelling as well. I think that collapsing is just so interesting.

John Murillo: Thank you. And a lot of it, like I say, is accidental. When I’m writing, I can’t know too much ahead of time what the poem is going to be about or what it’s trying to do. I kinda have to discover that. And then a lot of times a title will come after the fact. And then I’ll look at what I’ve done, and then I’m able to learn from it. So a lot of that, what you’re talking about, I wish I could really take credit for, and say that-those were my intentions, but I’m not that cerebral a writer. And there were a lot that didn’t work. You know, I had poems that didn’t make the manuscript. “On Rhyme” is one of them I can think of off hand. What you get here, between these pages, are the series of really fortunate accidents, if I-if I may.

Franny Choi: Yeah, well is that why that poem—was that a thing that kept it from like working in the way that you wanted it to? That you had already—you knew what it was already?

John Murillo: Absolutely. Yeah, you know, so, that happened. The incident with the neighbors. And I got a draft down in one sitting. And it was a prose poem at first, right. And as long as I was kind of focusing on that incident, it just wasn’t moving at all. So I had to give it time, give it years, and then other information and other stories kind of weaved its way into the poem, and that actually gave me a little bit of uhm flexibility. It gave me the room to kind of go one direction, digress, come back to that, kind of weave in other stories. It’s the poem that took the longest to write in the book, but I don’t think that it’s the best poem in the book, and I don’t know that there’s a relationship necessarily between how long it takes to write a poem and how good the poem is. It just be that way sometimes, right, you know? You will struggle for a weeks at a time, you sit down, and you’ll just be gifted a poem. And that poem might be better than anything you’ve worked years, and you’ve been trying to craft these lines and-and you know, rearrange stanzas and things. There’s no rules to it, right. If there was a formula, you’d be turning out books every year and they’d all be fire.

Franny Choi: Right.

Danez Smith: Man, if there’s a formula, I want it. Because every time, it’s the first time, right?

John Murillo: Exactly.

Danez Smith: You know, you’re right.

John Murillo: Exactly.

Franny Choi: I know. Hate that.

Danez Smith: I hate the poems that I wrote in 20 minutes. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I know, it’s like, goddamn—

Danez Smith: How dare you?

Franny Choi: Where have you been? (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Yeah.

John Murillo: And you know what, I talked to my elder poets, and the elders say the same thing. It doesn’t get easier. I know some poets in their 70s and 80s, and it’s always the first time, like you said, Danez. Every time you sit down.

Franny Choi: Ugh.

John Murillo: Yeah, so. And in some ways, I think it gets harder, because you become a harder critic of yourself. A harder reader. Right?

Franny Choi: Wow.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Franny Choi: Wow. Message to the youth: it does not get better.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS) It does not get better.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: I know we just talked about the happy accidents, but I wanna talk about one of the like, you know, on purpose things.

John Murillo: Okay.

Danez Smith: Which is the title of the book. And I could look back to the title poem, which you were just talking about, right, this critique of sort of the vapid nature of poetry. And you can kinda feel it in the poem, too. We were talking about this poem beforehand, and I was saying it was interesting because it felt, in a book that feels so close to the skin, it feels like the time when the speaker is the most distant. The poem is also kinda interrupted by the news, which feels like the real—what I would mark as, like, if I was teaching this— the real concerns of the book are kinda like interrupting it, right. Like, the book is really concerned with family, with people, with violence, and all these other things. And so, we have a book called Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, which, we get this clear critique, and sort of like, you know, it has a freakin’ selfie stick in it, for God’s sake.

Franny Choi and John Murillo: (LAUGH)

Danez Smith: You know, we can kinda feel what it’s trying to say. And yet, that is, I would not say to read that poem is to read the book.

John Murillo: Right, right, right.

Danez Smith: And you also—it’s not really a direct title poem, too, right. You know, we got the Ks that become translated too on the title, right. I guess, what are you trying to say with the title of that book, especially pointing to that poem, I guess? What do you see as their relationship and maybe non-relationship too, because they aren’t really a direct translation of each other.

John Murillo: Yeah. So I’ll start with the poem. Without going too much into detail, I underwent an initiation a few years ago in my religion. And the initiation required me to wear white for a whole year and seven days. There were ways I was to restrict my behavior. One of the things was to step off social media. For the first three months, you’re not supposed to watch TV or read newspapers or anything like that as well. Let me backtrack, and go even before that. I had a really strong run from like, about 2007 to 2012 just winning shit. And it got to the point where I actually felt entitled to the shit I was winning. And when I didn’t win, I felt something was wrong. You know, these are things I deserved. I forgot why I came to this poetry thing in the beginning. When I first started writing, I didn’t know what an NEA was, I didn’t know what an MFA was. I didn’t write for accolades. There was a group of poets in DC who I really respected, and all I wanted was for them to say, “Damn, that’s a poem.” I wrote to feed those people nearest me that I loved. So for a few years, I got away from that. When I went into this initiation process, I was able to step away from that, and to, you know, kind of cleanse myself of a certain mindset. And what I would do, though, because I was still working, I would still get readings and things, and a lot of times I would book those through Facebook. That’s how people got in touch with me. So I would sneak on and I’d peek and see how people were behaving. And a lot of it really turned me off.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: You know? I mean, a lot of self-celebration and things that had nothing to do with the work. I also noticed that when I came out of my initiation, when I would hang around poets, the conversations had very little to do with poetry. Had very little to do with a line that really fucked somebody up, right? Or you know, a book, like, “You gotta read this book.” The conversations again, were very surface, you know. “Did you hear who won this?” “Yeah, but did you hear why he won it?” You know? I was in the UK once, and I remember sitting at a table full of poets in Liverpool. And we’re just talking about poems. Talking about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, and lines that stuck with people. And I don’t wanna romanticize the poetry scene over there. Maybe we didn’t talk about prizes because we had no common prizes, right, to apply to. But I do remember coming back, and I was in a car here with poets here in the US, we were on our way to a reading. I remember looking out the window and there was the most beautiful sunset I’d ever seen. And I remember saying, “Yo, look at this, y’all.” And it was like a half-second pause, and someone was like, “Yeah, but the application deadline is da-da-da-da-da.” You know, it got back to the biz, right. So, I had grown really disillusioned.

Franny Choi: That’s so sad.

Danez Smith: Yeah.

John Murillo: Yeah, yeah, the whole pobiz thing. So that poem came out of that spirit, you know, of putting myself back in touch with why I was writing, what I wanted to do. Things that were important to me. And my teacher had died around the time that I had written that poem. And I overheard somebody, I don’t know if it was in a conversation—it was a conversation that wasn’t at my table, but I heard somebody say something about how accessible his work was, and I don’t know, it just rubbed me the wrong way. And made me think, if we’re not trying to write poems that people can access, what are we doing? So, the poem itself is a critique of what I consider, at least at that point, the state of poetry. And the book is as well, writ large. I changed the Cs to Ks in the title, one, because we were worried about publishing, right, that people might see it and think it was a critical text. Or very small anthology.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: It would be a very short anthology.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS) A short anthology. So you know, again, it was one of these happy accidents. So I changed the Cs to Ks, but then I started thinking about, you see the two Ks, and then it automatically invokes a third. Right?

Danez Smith: Yeah.

John Murillo: Which is then also a critique of the country and the culture here, right.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: I love the keeping everybody on their toes about where the third K is.

John Murillo: Yeah.

Danez Smith: You know how long I looked for that third K …

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) I know, me too.

Danez Smith: I was like, I see it.

John Murillo: But that’s the thing, right?

Danez Smith: I know it’s there. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: It’s there without even being there. It’s always there, even when it’s not. Even when it—it doesn’t have to announce itself. That third K is always there.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm. There was a bar at college, where I went to school in Madison called the Kitty Klub. Girl, you know I went to Kitty Klub all of one time after somebody told me the chicken tenders were good because I was sure they was racist up in there the entire time.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: You’re called the Kitty Klub, with two Ks. No. I’m not—

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: No.

Danez Smith: No.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Coming back to this idea of like, contemporary American poetry, or contemporary American pobiz, what’s like on your mind as far as the conversations that are happening, you know, vis à vis all of that right now.

John Murillo: I really, really try to stay down here in this basement and just be about the work, right.

Franny Choi: Mm-hmm.

John Murillo: Because that, ultimately, is what feeds me. Again, I was talking to someone—I think it was José, actually. Olivarez. He mentioned something about the book, and I was like, “No, that’s why I write. I write for you.” You know what I mean? I really liken it to cooking. When you’re cooking, you put all your heart into a recipe, into paying attention to how long the noodles are boiling before you take them out. Into, you kow, how you’re measuring out the seasoning for a dry rub or whatever. Not that you dry rub noodles, I’m mixing metaphors, but. (LAUGHS) You pay attention because you love the person you’re feeding. And you want to nourish them, you want it to be delicious for them. And that’s why I pay so much attention to craft. When you tell me that you love this book, that’s what I need. I mean, obviously I write for a reason, but that’s all I need, I should say. Right?

Danez Smith: Hm.

John Murillo: Uhm. Because the truth of the matter is, I could win something and not deserve it. People who deserve accolades don’t get them all the time. And people who get them don’t always deserve them. There’s no correlation between the two, right? So I try as best I can to remember that first impulse, that first thing that drove me to the page. And again, it had nothing to do with those things, right. It had to do with creating something beautiful and useful that the people I love can take nourishment from. So I try not to pay attention. And I’ve seen it turn beautiful people ugly. We have people posting and cats talking about they gotta go through this person, get their glory and blah, blah, blah. You know, I just—it’s just corny to me, man. So…

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Preach! (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: I don’t like that, you know? And that’s not who I wanna be in this game at all.

Danez Smith: Because it’s not why any of us got into it. The greatest promise of poetry is not fame and capital, you know. Especially coming from the places we come from, I feel like, as poets of color, as Black poets.

John Murillo: Yeah.

Danez Smith: You know, the dreams that get you out of, you know, the hood and towards something clean and rich and where you actually have to fight like that were not poems. That was the other stuff. That was the rapping, that was the ball, that was whatever. Like, you became a poet for no other reason than you started writing poems and it did something to you. You know? And you started reading poems and it did something. Like that-

John Murillo: Right.

Danez Smith: I don’t know. Yeah, I’m really—I’m sorry, I’m just like very much in the church of what you’re talking about right now. And it’s hard. I think it’s hard, you’re right. Cuz, I too have won a thing or two and then like, eventually was not like shocked when I got something, and was more like, confirmed, you know?

John Murillo: Right, right.

John Murillo and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Danez Smith: It sucks, and you know, you really have to check yourself. I remember, it was scary the first time I wasn’t like, “Oh my god,” I was like, “Yup.” I was like, oh … whoa, whoa.

John Murillo: Right.

Danez Smith: You really gotta take a step back. And I think it is a sort of continual shedding I think we gotta go through as poets for a long time, you know. No matter—whether you’ve been blessed or whether you’ve been sort of bittered by what the pobiz does to you.

John Murillo: Absolutely.

Danez Smith: I think we all gotta sorta ask how we can, you know, sort of take ourselves out of that. But also, how can we, from ourselves, sort of sheathe what is keeping us away from the magnitude or the power that this work really has, right.

John Murillo: Yeah. Absolutely.

Franny Choi: Can I ask, on that, like how—you said we have to ask ourselves how we do it. So I guess the question is like, how do we do it?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: How do you stay close to the work and the, you know, the important questions? I mean, while also acknowledging that we live in capitalism and scarcity, and so like, in some way, our survival does kind of still also depend on us thinking about where the checks are coming from.

John Murillo: Sure, sure. Yeah. That’s the other part. I understand because it’s very real. For instance, let’s say you wanna go on the job market. You want to apply for a tenure track job. Well, let’s be honest. Poetry is very subjective. Tastes are subjective. Okay. One person’s poet who is too accessible and too easy is right on time for someone else, right. Another poet who some people might find too “difficult”, right, isn’t that right for someone else, or vice versa. So the hiring committees, they have your CVs to go on. And your CVs are a list of hardware. I don’t know how to compare your poems, nor have I see these two candidates in the classroom, but I can look at candidate A and say, “Oh, they’ve published in these 10 prestigious journals and one these three prestigious prizes,” versus candidate B who may not have, but can write their ass off and teach their ass off. Right? So I definitely see how these things are very tangible realities in the marketplace. But what I do, I try to acknowledge that but also keep that separate. Like when I come down here—people who are listening won’t be able to see, but this is the little cave I have. I have my library, I have my desk. I really feel like this is my cave where I can just kinda turn everything else off. I don’t bring my phone down here if I can help it, you know. And I just remind myself, you know, why, why, why. There’s an essay by Donald Hall called “Poetry and Ambition.” And uhm… I love the essay. He’s kind of a curmudgeon, but I agree with most of the things he says. One of the things he says in there is that there’s nothing that we learn once that we don’t have to learn again. So, he talks about the different cycles of ambition. He says, when you’re 12 years old, you have this general ambition: I wanna be famous. I wanna be- it’s either baseball, basketball, I wanna write, I wanna act, whatever, right? And then at some point, let’s say the poetry bug hits you. And you say, I wanna write poems as great as Emily Dickinson or Robert Hayden. At 17 this is your ambition. Then at 25, that same poet who wanted to be immortal wants to be published in the New Yorker. The ambition has kind of narrowed down to something very petty. And then, they grow out of that, and maybe at 40 or so, they have these grand ambitions, and then at 50 again, they wanna win the Pulitzer. You know what I’m saying? So, you’re constantly having to raise yourself out of these habits, right? And who knows, you know, this is me in 2020. This time next year, you might see me at AWP, and I’ll be salty because I didn’t win the, you know, blah blah. You know? I hope not. And then I’ll have to coach myself out of it again.

Franny Choi: Hm.

John Murillo: I’m not thinking about the writers around me, I’m really trying to land among the so-called greats. Right? I wanna write something—you say this book has 10-year staying power—that if, something were to happen to me today, this book could be something that will last well beyond me. And it’s not for ego gratification, but just that I’ve put enough heart and soul into this book that it’ll still be here. You know, resting with the gods, if that makes any sense. So, are the poems touching people, and will they touch people years from now. So, you know, that kinda keeps me grounded.

Franny Choi: Well I think that it’s like extending a kind of compassion to all of us as writers to say the ambition will come and maybe you’ll realize it’s not useful, and you have to coach yourself out of it. And like you’ll have to relearn that again and again. Yeah, it feels very compassionate to all of us.

John Murillo: And I feel like it’s natural. So, I can’t lie. You know, with this book, I wrote it, I feel like I wrote the hell out of it, and it feels good for someone else to say so. If you’re going to the gym all the time, and you put all that work in under the squat rack, which I don’t (LAUGHS), but one might—

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: And uhm, you know, a compliment is like, okay, word. You don’t do it for the compliment, but it’s okay.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

John Murillo: And then, the other part of it is, you know, you get by the waters you swim in. So, you’re gonna have friends around you—I have friends around me who came out the same time I did, who published two or three books by the time I got out the second one. Who came out the gate with me, and maybe their stars had risen higher than mine, blah, blah, blah. I feel like it’s a natural thing to look around and say, hey, wait a minute, what about me. And I think that’s why we need to be very vigilant. Because ultimately, I don’t think it helps at all. Psychically, spiritually. But I’m really, really serious about this business about cooking for loved ones. That analogy came to recently, and it just hit. Do you guys know Yesenia Montilla?

Danez Smith: Mm-mm.

John Murillo: She’s a poet here in New York. Worked with Carlos Garcia. I think of Willie Perdomo, I think of Pat also, I think of you guys, I think of Nicole. I’m really trying to serve you guys something that you’ll love and that you’ll take to bed with you, that you’ll wake up with. And that’s why you learn your craft. That’s why you study and you practice, and that’s why you revise, you come back to it over and over and over again. And that’s everything. And it’s enough.

Danez Smith: So John, we talked for an hour uhm, without asking our opening question.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) So now we’re going to start the interview.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Yeah, so now, now is the start of the episode. (LAUGHS) But we do wanna hear from you: what’s moving you?

John Murillo: The joy that I’m finding in this relative isolation. Something about this time is actually giving me permission to kinda dig into the things I wanted to do for years. So, I’m teaching myself guitar. I’m learning Italian. I’m cooking a lot more. And spending a lot more time with my wife, Nicole. You know, we both live lives that take us out of the house very often. I teach in Connecticut, but I live in New York. So this is probably the most time we’ve had together under one roof since we’ve been married.

Franny Choi: Wow.

John Murillo: And it’s fucking dope, man. She’s hilarious. I don’t know if y’all know her like that, but she’s a clown. And I mean, every day is a blessing. What did you say Danez?

Danez Smith: Oh I was just saying, for real. And kinda like sneakily so, I think. Because when she’s in business mode, she’s so good at what she does. And then I got to know her as a friend and a person, and I was like, whoa! (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Very funny and very dirty, and I love it.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: Yes! Let me tell you, okay, I don’t know if she’ll like me sharing this story, but, you know, when we first got together, I remember taking a bus, like a long, long bus ride to get to New York City to see her. And the one time she told me, she says, “Make sure you call me before you come, don’t just come over, call me before you come.” I’m like, “Yeah, I got you, I got you.” So I got to Port Authority and got on the train, and when I got off the train in Brooklyn, it was raining, and I had my luggage with me. I had my umbrella, so I didn’t call, I just showed up at the house. So I rang the bell, and she’s like “Hey,” and I said, “Hey, I’m downstairs.” She’s like, “Wh-wh-what are you doing downstairs?” “It’s me, I’m here,” you know, “Let me up.” “Okay, hold on.” She was taking forever, right. So, I go upstairs, she opens the door, she’s in a bathrobe. She’s like, “Uhh, it’s not what you think.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” So I look under the bed, and these legs are sticking out under the bed with some boots on. So I’m like, what the fuck?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: So I go, yo, why did she make a dummy? She got some jeans and filled it with—

(ALL LAUGH)

John Murillo: —laundry, and then she attached some boots onto the end of the jeans and then put it under the bed so it looks like there’s a person under there.

(ALL LAUGH)

John Murillo: I was like, who does that?!

(ALL LAUGH)

John Murillo: I was like, “Yo, you’re a clown!”

(ALL LAUGH)

John Murillo: “You ain’t got no sense.” (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: That’s so funny! That is so funny.

Danez Smith: Just to live for the gag of it!

John Murillo: Yo, you know what I’m saying?

Franny Choi: I love the idea that she also made you wait while she did it. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: Yes, yes! I was like, “How long you been thinking about this joke?”

Danez Smith: Yo.

John Murillo: Yo, that’s what I’ve been living with every day, man.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: So, that’s what moves me.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: You know, love, humor, togetherness, you know. And man, really the opportunity to just live each day. You know, it’s—I mean, I don’t wanna sound corny, but it’s a blessing you know.

Franny Choi: Amazing.

Danez Smith: Aw.

Franny Choi: Aw, I love that story. And I love that the world will get to hear it. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Love wins.

John Murillo: She might be mad at me.

Danez Smith: Oh my god. This is why we need to let the heterosexuals marry.

Franny Choi: I know, some of them are really doing good. Some of them are doing a great job. (LAUGHS)

John Murillo: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Yeah.

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Franny Choi: Alright, we are now going to play a game that we sometimes call Speedbag, and other times we call Fast Punch. Today I would like to add a third title, which is, It Was the Best of Things, It Was the Worst of Things.

Danez Smith: Ooo!

Franny Choi: So…Yeah! You know. Right? It’s kinda good. So what we’ll do is we’re going to give you 10 things. First of all, you’ll first decide, John Murillo, whether you’re going to tell us the best or the worst of these things, across the board. 10 best things or 10 worst things. And then we’re going to say the things at you, at rapid great pace, and so you’ll have to tell us the best of that category or the worst of that category, depending on what you’ve chosen. And there will be a timer to make it uhm, stressful and exciting.

John Murillo: (LAUGHS) Alright, so I’ll choose the best.

Franny Choi: Okay, great. The best.

Danez Smith: Okay. Optimistic, there we go.

Franny Choi: Love it.

Danez Smith: I’ll go first.

Franny Choi: Okay.

Danez Smith: Alright. Five, six, seven, eight, go.

(TIMER TICKS)

Danez Smith: Best animal in a poem.

John Murillo: Rilke’s panther.

Franny Choi: Ooo! Best salad dressing.

John Murillo: Uhh…Vinaigrette.

Danez Smith: Best place to read.

Franny Choi: Wait like read or read?

John Murillo: Ooo. On a couch.

Danez Smith: On the couch? Okay we got on the couch. Cool.

Franny Choi: Okay—

John Murillo: Oh, I’m sorry did you mean a venue?

Danez Smith: I don’t know, I meant like, read a book. But I kinda like venue too. Sure, bonus question, best place to read a poem.

John Murillo: Uh … the American Poetry Museum in DC.

Franny Choi: Great. Best kind of radio station for your car’s radio to be stuck on, on a long drive.

John Murillo: Oh snap, um … old school R&B. Like WHUR in DC or, what’s the station in Chicago? V103. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Danez Smith: Best thing inside a tortilla.

John Murillo: The meat.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Amazing. Best poetic form.

John Murillo: The sonnet.

Danez Smith: Best song at the end of the night.

Franny Choi: Ooof…

John Murillo: Best song at the end of a night … shoot. Santana’s “Europa.”

Franny Choi: Wow. Best thing to eat in the summertime.

John Murillo: Oh, grapes.

Franny Choi: Ooo.

Danez Smith: Mmm.

Franny Choi: Solid.

Danez Smith: Oo, a cold grape, ooo!

John Murillo: Right? (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Wow, I haven’t thought about grapes in a while for some reason. (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Let them be purple, ooo!

(ALL LAUGH)

Danez Smith: Ooo, I’m gonna fuck me up a grape after we get off this call.

Franny Choi and John Murillo: (LAUGH)

Franny Choi: I think that’s it, right? Are we done?

Danez Smith: I have one more.

Franny Choi: Oh okay.

Danez Smith: On my list.

Franny Choi: Great.

Danez Smith: Alright, best poem title.

John Murillo: Best poem title. Shit. Oh god, I’m blanking out. “What Work Is.”

Franny Choi: Best era of hip hop.

John Murillo: Oh, the golden era-the second golden era. I’d say between 1992 to about 1998.

(TIMER DINGS)

Danez Smith: All the way to ’98, okay, yeah.

John Murillo: Yeah, cuz I gotta include Rawkus Records and all they were doing.

Danez Smith: That’s true. And it does really change at ’99.

John Murillo: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Okay.

Franny Choi: You won the game!

John Murillo: Hey! What did I win?

Danez Smith: That was an example of a win. That was a win.

Franny Choi and John Murillo: (LAUGH)

John Murillo: I love it, I love it.

Danez Smith: Alright. So John, we have one more game for you. This is our oldest game, one we like to call This vs. That. So in it, we’re gonna put two people, places, or things in opposite corners, and you tell us who would win in a fight. Alright? So for today, in one corner, we have prosody, and in the other corner of the book, we have Confessionalism. We’re gonna play two different rounds. So, round one, we’re gonna do the poems themselves. Who wins between the poems “On Prosody” and “On Confessionalism”? And in round two, because we like y’all, and we like you, John, we like you, John, uh…we’re gonna play the concepts of prosody and Confessionalism up against one another. Okay? Alright, so, round one, between your poems “On Prosody” and “On Confessionalism,” who wins?

(BELL RINGS)

John Murillo: I’m gonna give it to “On Confessionalism.”

Franny Choi: Ooo.

John Murillo: Yeah, it’s stronger, it’s stronger.

Franny Choi: Oh, the poem itself is stronger.

John Murillo: The poem itself is stronger. But, in terms of actually a fight, I would say “On Prosody” again, because the gun jams in “On Confessionalism.” And in “On Prosody,” there’s my father in there kicking ass, kicking down doors, and yeah, so. I’ll give it to him.

Danez Smith: Okay.

Franny Choi: Wow, the layers, the layers.

Danez Smith: Hold up, a little end of interview question: How do you know that the poem is stronger?

John Murillo: Oh. The lines are tighter. Uhm…There are more surprises, I think. The music is tighter in that poem as well. Which is strange because “On Prosody,” think prosody, has a more steady beat to it, but I feel like there’s more compression and the lines are more percussive in “On Confessionalism.”

Franny Choi: Wow. Okay, okay.

Danez Smith: Thank you. Alright, yeah. Let’s do round two. Between the concepts of Confessionalism and prosody, who wins in a fight?

John Murillo: Hmm, the concepts. I’d give that to prosody as well. Prosody, we’re talking about rhythm, we’re talking about music. And I think that can serve many poems, whereas Confessionalism is a particular kind of poem. And just because you’re confessing something doesn’t mean that it’ll have the music necessary to sustain itself as a poem.

Franny Choi: Wow.

Danez Smith: Hmmm. Wow. That’s so true. That’s such a hard lesson. I break students hearts at least once a semester with that piece of information. It’s like, I know you said it really earnestly (LAUGHS)—

John Murillo: Right.

Danez Smith: But you didn’t say it fly enough.

John Murillo: Right, exactly. Exactly. You gotta make it art.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Thank you so much, John Murillo. Thank you for playing our games with us, thanks for hanging out with us for this past hour and change. And for sharing your work and your thoughts. Would you do us the honor of closing us out with one more poem? 

John Murillo: Oh yeah. Yes, of course.

(READS POEM)

Variation on a Theme by Elizabeth Bishop

Start with loss. Lose everything. Then lose it all again.

Lose a good woman on a bad day. Find a better woman,

Then lose five friends chasing her. Learn to lose as if

Your life depended on it. Learn that your life depends on it.

Learn it like karate, like riding a bike. Learn it. Master it.

Lose money, lose time, lose your natural mind.

Get left behind, then learn to leave others. Lose and

Lose again. Measure a father’s coffin against a cousin’s

Crashing T-cells. Kiss your sister through prison glass.

Know why your woman’s not answering her phone.

Lose sleep. Lose religion. Lose your wallet in El Segundo.

Open your window. Listen: the last slow notes

Of a Donny Hathaway song. A child crying. Listen:

A drunk man is cussing out the moon. He sounds like

Your dead uncle, who, before he left, lost a leg

To sugar. Shame. Learn what’s given can be taken;

What can be taken, will. This you can bet on without

Losing. Sure as nightfall in an empty bed. Lose

And lose again. Lose until it’s second nature. Losing

Farther, losing faster. Lean out your open window, listen:

The child is laughing now. No, it’s the drunk man again

In the street, losing his voice, suffering each invisible star.

* * *

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Danez Smith: So good at poems, so good at thinking, so good at talking and feeling. So good at having a beer. I wish we had a video component so y’all could just see the majesty that we just got to swim in for an hour and some change. What a being. I aspire. So Franny, I’m wondering, and I apologize because I don’t even wanna be as deep as John’s beautiful analogy. I just wanna ask this question because I’m hungry and hate cooking for myself. So, what would you cook for me if you saw me?

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Wow.

Danez Smith: What is the feeling you would put into it?

Franny Choi: Oh my god, that’s so good! Aw, what do I wanna cook for you?

Danez Smith: Yeah, what do you wanna cook for me?

Franny Choi: Aw, baby. I wanna make you … what I wanna cook for you is like, Korean chicken wings.

Danez Smith: Ohh, you would make me Korean chicken wings?

Franny Choi: Yeah. I would make you Korean chicken wings. Yeah, I would do it. And even though frying stuff sometimes makes me nervous and things, but I would make you Korean chicken wings. And a good summer salad. And maybe some green beans or some sort of vegetable on the side so that you can also get your vitamins.

Danez Smith: Aw.

Franny Choi: Aw, I want to make you food.

Danez Smith: Please do. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) What would you cook for me?

Danez Smith: What would I cook for you. Okay. It would be low brainer of cooking, but the thing that I’ve discovered that I like about myself, or I like doing for people I love in quarantine is giving people baths.

Franny Choi: What?

Danez Smith: Like, preparing the bath for somebody.

Franny Choi: Oh, (LAUGHS) I thought you meant you would be in there like, scrubbing my—

Danez Smith: Kinda. That too.

Franny Choi: Washing my nethers.

Danez Smith: Well eventually I would just like, you know, I would come in and like, gently pour water over your head, and maybe scrub your back a little bit.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) This is completely—

Danez Smith: But otherwise, I’d just let you have at it-

Franny Choi: -This is not the question at all! (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: -And I would prepare- It is! Because I would have a little summer salad, and a little watermelon with lemon on it, and a little cookie, you know, for you to just have a sweet thing. And then of course a hot toddy. Because you’re in the tub.

Franny Choi: Oh …

Danez Smith: You have like an equally warm drink that makes you feel warm on the inside.

Franny Choi: Oh wow, a hot toddy in the bathtub.

Danez Smith: And then I would just like, make a really nice bath for you full of milk and honey and oils and Epsom salts. And I would play your favorite music and light a candle.

Franny Choi: Aw.

Danez Smith: And every-just if you wanted it—you can also have a private experience, but I’d just, you know, take my little golden flower pot thingie—

Franny Choi: Huh?

Danez Smith: What is it called, a—what do you water a flower with? Cansiter!

Franny Choi: Oh, watering can?

Danez Smith: A watering can, yeah.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) You’re gonna water me with a watering can?

Danez Smith: I have a fake gold watering can that I bought for like a dollar someplace.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: And I would just like, you know, pour a little water on your head. Just make you feel loved. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) This is I think, like the weirdest and also sweetest way that I’ve ever been hypothetically loved.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) I love it.

Danez Smith: Yeah. I just wanna give you a little bath brunch, you know. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Aw, bath brunch.

Danez Smith: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Alright, well—

Danez Smith: See, now you’re into it. Now that it has a title. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I am. No, no, now it feels like a fully fleshed out concept. Bath brunch I can get down with. Bath brunch I can really get down with.

Danez Smith: Well, you’re getting it.

Franny Choi: Well, shall we give thanks to some people and then leave? And eat our lunches?

Danez Smith: Yeah. Let’s do it.

Franny Choi: Who are you thanking today, Danez?

Danez Smith: Okay, she came up in the show very briefly, but I’m gonna thank Nicole Sealey, brilliant American poet. Dates the other great American poet—

Franny Choi: Married.

Danez Smith: Or is married to. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Married.

Danez Smith: I was like, dates? (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) They’re going out. They’re like, they go together.

Danez Smith: Yeah. But I’m just gonna thank her because I’m thinking about her, and I love her. And she is as goofy as we talked about. But also, Nicole is a friend that has convinced me to do some shit. She convinced me to go out to the beach for so long one time that I got my first sunburn.

Franny Choi: Whoa!

Danez Smith: And so any time I think about my first sunburn, I think about that one time Nicole Sealey made me have one of the best beach days of my life.

Franny Choi: Wow. I think that I’m just going to thank another random poet that has been on my mind since our conversation in the beginning about who we wanted to impress in our early days. I’m just gonna thank Mahogany Browne. Just because—

Danez Smith: Oh, I definitely (LAUGHS)—

Franny Choi: Oh I wanted Mo Browne to listen to my poem and say, “Mm.” I wanted it so bad. I wanted it so bad, and I still want it. I still really want it. And I’m just really grateful to you, Mo, every day for all of the ways that you hold down people around you. And have held down community after community of poets. So, thanks. Thank you, Mo.

Danez Smith: A true legend, you know, shout-out. Mo Browne.

Franny Choi: Truly. Yeah. Mo Browne.

Danez Smith: Who else we thanking, Franny, before we get on outta here?

(MUSIC PLAYS)

Franny Choi: We want to thank Itzel Blancas and Ydalmi Noriega at the Poetry Foundation. Thank you to our producer, Daniel Kisslinger. And thank you to you, our listeners, for continuing to hang out with us through all the ups and downs and tech weirdness and what have you.

Danez Smith: Make sure you like, rate, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And please make sure you follow us on Twitter @Vsthepodcast. And with that, we’re gonna get on outta your hair. Happy quarantine, happy revolution to all of you. Make smart, brave choices. And we’ll see you next time.

Franny Choi: Yes. Take care. Be well. Bye!

Danez Smith: Bye!