All right, questions?
And I always say to my classes, no question
is too big, too small.
Who wants to be the first?
Oh, yes.
Yes?
I'd just like to ask what the focus of your craft talk
next week will be.
Sure.
It will be--
I think the official title of it is
The World is Full of Paper, the Epistolary Poem.
But what that is is for--
it's for people who write fictions,
it's for people who write essays.
I'm going to be focusing a little bit more
of an emphasis on poetry.
But where there's a direct address-- writing letters,
cards, that kind of thing, and what effects
can happen by having a direct address as letter poems
to an individual, real or imagined, dead or alive.
So, yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Or misspelled.
Yeah, exactly.
There's other questions?
Yeah?
Hi there.
Hi.
Thank you so much for that awesome reading.
Thank you.
I'm doing a small project on poets and their identities.
I was wondering-- I know this is big,
but if you could maybe take away a few things that you think
your identity--
the things you take away from your identity
that most influence the way you manipulate language.
Oh my goodness, that's such a good question.
See what I'm telling you, the students
here are just so, so smart.
And I'm listening to this cacophony of like, beep, beep,
beep.
So I'm thinking, like, sound plays a big part.
The different sounds of--
what different parts of my identity help shape my writing?
Boy, that's a good one.
I would say--
I so appreciate the question, it's so great.
But that's almost a question where
I'd have to almost ask you, or I would
have to ask my close friends who know me, or my family.
You know, what parts of me do you see in my work?
Because I will say that even though my poems try to start
with a kernel of truth--
and all the scientific and natural information in there is
absolutely quadruple fact-checked--
stuff about me, or the I, personally, or any
relationships whatsoever is--
just assume it's made up, or massaged very thoroughly.
You know, that kind of thing.
So I will say that I grew up in the suburbs of rural places
across America.
But also I had parents who were very
adamant about making sure I knew their favorite foods, their--
I heard the language when we'd have relatives over
and stuff like that.
Parties and stuff like that.
And it was never quiet unless I went outside to get away
from my loud family.
And I treasured that time as well.
I lament-- I also teach environmental literature
and nature writing at the University of Mississippi.
And we lament all the time how little time there
is to daydream and how little time there
is to be bored nowadays, because you can always be like,
oh, let me check on my friend on Instagram
and see what food she's been eating lately or something,
you know?
But in that space and time, you don't
get to think about, oh, that time in fifth grade
when I was not listening to my dad point out Saturn
and now I'm so appreciative that he did.
You don't get to think about that because you're always
filling your mind with something on a screen or something.
And I'm not anti-screen at all.
I love what social media has done.
But I will say, I think it's those moments--
parts of my identity where I had as idyllic
of a childhood as could be--
but being the only Asian-American
almost everywhere I went was lonely on some terms.
And yet I never felt lonely because I
knew the plants and animals and the constellations above me.
So maybe that could be combined into my own writing.
I always had to make friends super fast, and kind of smile
with a really saccharine smile when people would
be like, oh, what are you?
You know?
So I'm used to being cheerful automatically.
But I'm also used to having quiet and reflective time
as well.
So it's kind of a big answer, but yeah.
Yeah, thank you.
What else?
Oh, yeah, yeah-- Yeah.
Yes?
You mentioned Anne Sexton during the reading.
Who are other poets that were either--
have been important to over time or who are important to you
right now.
Yeah, you know-- oh my goodness, it feels like just one giant--
kind of the best dinner party conversation
you can ever be a part of.
When I walked into the Poetry Center here,
people had to almost quite literally pull me out
because I didn't want to leave.
And I'll have time to explore later,
but it's just such a stunning array of voices here.
Now more than ever, voices that were not maybe
heard as often before, in the '80s and '90s,
are being published more than ever.
So it's the absolute most exciting time to read poetry,
I believe.
Whereas, for example, I never saw the word lumpia--
which, anybody who loves Filipino food
knows that's a-- yeah, yeah.
It's an egg roll.
I never saw-- yeah, but better.
That's right.
I was trying to be nice here, but yes.
Lumpia is the best kind of egg roll, yes.
Let's be honest here.
But I never saw that growing up.
I never saw the foods that my parents loved in any poem.
When I also read books about nature and the outdoors,
I never saw any-- so I was a total nerd.
I would read books on shells, or minerals of Arizona,
or something like that.
But when I look at the scientists,
I never saw anybody brown.
I never saw any women.
So for the longest time, I thought,
do brown girls not go outside?
Are we not supposed to go outside?
Are we not supposed to say that we love whales, or squid,
or something like that?
So it's a roundabout way of answering the question, that--
the voices I'm drawn to now are the ones
that I didn't see growing up.
But I will say some of the classics.
I was steeped in the classics of Whitman, and Dickinson,
and Frost, and all of that.
But I loved turning to voices like Lucille Clifton, Rita
Dove, James Wright.
Anybody who kind of utilized the land, and food, and family
in such interesting ways.
Naomi Shihab Nye though is probably
my patron saint of poetry.
It was quite literally her poem, when
I was a struggling chemistry major,
procrastinating in the Honors dorm study lounge--
someone left one of her poems on the table.
I didn't-- this is how bad my humanities education was.
I didn't know that was a poem.
It was a prose poem.
I picked it up.
And it was like that Emily Dickinson quote.
The top of my head felt like it had been blown off.
It just dazzled me.
And the poem is called "Mint Snowball,"
and it's about a dessert that her grandfather made.
And I just didn't know that you could even write like that.
So years later, when I finally got to be in a position
where I could invite a visiting writer at my first job,
it was no doubt-- it was actually Naomi Shihab Nye.
And I'm happy to say we're now--
we write letters to each other, and send Christmas cards,
and she always wants to see pictures of my kids.
So yeah.
So I like the voices that I didn't
see-- that I wasn't introduced to when I was growing up.
Yeah.
What else?
Other questions?
Yes?
Hi.
Thank you.
Oh my-- hi.
Thank you for such a beautiful reading tonight.
Thank you.
My question today is about your passion, actually,
and whether it lies in writing and poetry
or if it's a topic that you use poetry
as a means of expressing, or questioning,
or something along those lines.
Gosh, that's a really good question.
Well, thank you, I guess.
I don't know how exactly to interpret the word
"passion" in some ways.
I think that's a compliment.
Some of my close friends would just call that absolute--
Aimee is just one giant cornball and super cheesy
about everything, you know?
Like, oh gosh, Aimee found a new flower.
Or, here we go, there's something about a new mineral
was discovered.
That kind of thing.
So I love that you call it a passion.
My friends would be like, oh my gosh,
Aimee is a nerd, a big nerd.
That kind of thing.
I mentioned I always kind of was that girl.
In Glendale, they had this wonderful program
called Project Potential.
And I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, actually.
But the leader of Project Potential--
it was a gifted program.
But the leader of it is still actually there in Glendale,
and she was actually almost going to come to the reading
and she couldn't make it.
But because I was such a voracious reader
and because I just--
they quite literally didn't know what to do with me.
They sent me into this Project Potential gifted program
where I made dioramas all day long, and I was in heaven.
So I made dioramas.
Do you guys-- some of the students maybe don't know,
but it's shoe boxes, and you can create whole worlds in them.
Again, it sounds so quaint, but we didn't have the internet.
But I was doing things like studying Henry VIII wives,
and I made like a diorama of Anne Boleyn.
And the Underground Railroad with Harriet Tubman.
So that's-- that should have been a warning to my parents
that I was never going to be a doctor.
But I think they just thought, well, at least Aimee
is keeping herself occupied.
That kind of thing.
But I always joke with my folks now
and I say that my greatest gift to humanity
was all the lives I saved by not becoming a doctor.
And they agree, very much so.
I also will say, those of you who are struggling with majors,
here's a tip.
I came through being a junior of chemistry, honors major.
I never lit a Bunsen burner in my life.
I was always terrified of a Bunsen burner.
I always got somebody else to do it for me.
That should also have been a red flag that I was not
suited to chemistry.
But if someone had asked little Aimee--
or high school Aimee, even--
what do you truly get excited about, it was reading,
reading, reading.
Not just not necessarily literature, but just
about the world and the natural world.
Going out there, trying to identify plants and stuff
like that.
Little did I know that that gave me the biggest
vocabulary for poems.
So I never sit down to say, I'm going
to write about chalcopyrite today, the mineral,
but it's just part of my vocabulary.
So if I need it for a metaphor, I
can plop it in there with not too much effort, I guess.
But it also makes for strange dinner conversations.
Or the first time I showed my best friend
this cockroach video, it was over the phone.
And she said, would you please warn me?
I was about to have lunch, and now I don't want lunch anymore.
That kind of thing.
So I'm not quite sure if that answered your question,
but just to give you kind of a little bit of background.
That I always loved-- and it goes
back to what my dad said, is please promise me
you'll always feel like a student on this Earth.
And I never understand students who
say they have nothing to write about.
From Lucky Fish there was a rabbit
I was studying called the pygmy rabbit-- because that's
just what I do in my spare time, is read about various animals.
And before I could get a poem finished out of it,
the last pygmy rabbit on Earth died, actually.
It was extinct.
And so that was, I think, probably the single most
trigger moment for me to realize that it is a race--
for me anyway--
to write down all the amazing things that are on this planet
that maybe people overlook or whatever.
Certainly that I get certainly excited or passionate about
before they disappear.
And when I go in and teach poetry
to high schools or elementary schools, I will tell you this--
I mentioned it earlier this morning.
The sheer number of students who ever even seen a firefly
or held a ladybug, let them crawl over themselves,
is dwindling.
Like on average, probably, maybe two or three
sixth graders out of a class of 25
will have ever even touched a bug.
Touched a bug.
Or seen a firefly.
I've done talks where I actually had
to bring up a firefly field on YouTube
to prove that fireflies exist because that many students
thought I was just making this bug up.
Like, oh, yeah right, professor, there's a bug that lights up.
And I was, like, no, I promise you, that was my childhood.
Like, what are you-- and can anybody
guess why they've never seen a firefly?
What are they doing in the summer?
[INAUDIBLE]
All of the above.
Screens.
That's their video game competitions, their movie
extravaganza nights.
They're inside in the air conditioning.
And I just remember--
maybe now I see-- maybe now as a parent I could see.
But we were basically not allowed to be inside.
We were outside from right after breakfast, in Glendale.
We would swim, swim, swim.
We'd have to be almost dragged out of the pool.
And then wait the requisite 30 minutes.
And then out, swim, swim, swim.
We'd do night swimming.
I mean, we were just outside.
And if we were not swimming, I was
like investigating what happens if I put my hand in a cactus,
or what will I find.
I mean, that's the kind of stuff--
I tell my students all the time in my nature writing class,
you guys are among the last group
of students who know what it's like to just be bored outside.
Because the boredom that is happening now is bored inside,
and let me see what I can fill the time with online.
And that breaks my heart for writing,
in terms of what is going to be--
what is going to be used for metaphors now.
I think the vocabulary is going to be different in some ways.
So anyway, it's this kind of a sobering, depressing thought.
But, yeah.
So, unsolicited advice, if you have--
it's not too late, college students too.
You could be outside.
You could be outside, even in Arizona.
I'm living proof of it.
And we didn't use sunscreen, although I
wouldn't recommend that now.
Sunscreen wasn't even a thing in the '80s, I think.
And we were just outside, and it was the best foundation
for being a poet, I think, actually.
Yeah.
Good.
A couple more.
Or is there-- is that it, or--
any more?
Well, we could continue more informally
in the book reception line.
Sure.
Good, good.
It was sobering, but also a great advertisement
for the Insect Festival on Sunday.
Yes.
Oh my goodness, yes.
And I think I have it on good word
that you might be able to pet and see a Madagascar cockroach
live, in person.
So you know where I'm going to be on Saturday, so yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much everybody.
Thank you.