Wandering Through Various Territories

An Interview with Issam Zineh

In his 50s, and with only one novel to his name written 30 years prior, the late Portuguese novelist José Saramago underwent a prolific output that redefined and rejuvenated both Portuguese and world literature. Saramago reminds us that sometimes a writer’s best work arrives later in life, and while Issam Zineh’s career as a poet is still flourishing, there is no doubt that when we look back upon it we will see his debut collection, Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022), as the beginning of an important oeuvre. 

In addition to Unceded Land, Zineh is the author of the chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel Press, 2021). His poems appear in AGNI, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Tahoma Literary Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He was gracious enough to sit down and discuss the creative process, poetic craft, and the role of the poet in both trying and celebratory times. 

Read more about Issam’s book, Unceded Land, here.

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Issam, thank you so much. I had the privilege of doing a manuscript exchange last year and I remember being quite enthralled with your now debut collection, Unceded Land. How has the journey been thus far, from assembling the poems in that earlier rendition to having the manuscript out in the world? 

It’s great reconnecting with you, Esteban. What was that? A little over a year ago? And congratulations to you. I’ve enjoyed coming across your Limbolandia poems in the wild. It’s overwhelming thinking about how to fully describe this journey. I guess I’d say there were a couple of major phases in putting together what ultimately became Unceded Land. The first was actually getting back into writing poems after a 20-year hiatus. Many of these poems were born that long ago, and it wasn’t until late 2020, early 2021 that I dusted them off to see what was there. There was an intense period of time when I was doing radical revision on those. I was trying to generate new work at the same time, which I was able to do more of during quarantine. And after a while it seemed to me like these poems were in conversation. The last bit of getting it all together to submit to presses was really the result of input from some smart people with keen eyes who saw some things I didn’t see. This book is basically a community effort.

What tools has your community given you over the years to keep you writing? 

It’s almost embarrassing to admit, but when I say a “20-year hiatus” from poetry, it was a self-imposed exile. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened. I was doing other things. I wasn’t writing. When I read, which wasn’t often, I read what I already had on my shelves. Remember this was around 2000. There was no online poetry presence. There weren’t many poetry books being published every year. 

When I came back, it was a very different scene. There was so much more access to poetry. So much more access to poetry from around the world. More diversity in the American poetic imagination being represented, too. It was very exciting. I think the biggest thing the community gave me was community itself. Because everything had gone virtual, I was able to learn from exceptional practitioners. Poets welcomed me into the fold. There were more virtual community gatherings, readings. I honestly feel like I was initiated into a greater humanity—poetry just happened to give us a shared vocabulary.

On a practical level, for better or worse, publishing had also changed. So my people helped me navigate the terrain. They helped me figure out what I was saying, how to best say it, and how to put it out here.

Sometimes we need to live life in order for it to reflect in our poetry. I think your poetry does exactly this, and your book is diverse in terms of content, themes, and poetic styles. Readers move between short poems, prose poems, multi-page poems, to poems with lines so precise they prompt readers to ponder the impact and meaning behind each word. One I couldn’t stop returning to was “In”: 

the 
next 
lifetime
God

sends down
pills
for his 
people

wafers of 
biochemistry 
to keep us
equal

whip-its 
for the 
kids
and

for us
for the obsessed 

God 
rages
with the 
orderlies

kingdom
phylum 
class 
order

and
so on 
in-
finity…

Can you speak more about this poem and how you saw the content of your poems affecting the style, and vice versa? 

“In” was actually originally a pretty “strict” sonnet, formally–octave, sestet, volta, end rhyme, the whole nine yards. It was one of the rare poems I wrote around 2000 or 2001. I remember writing the first draft. I’m a pharmacist by training and trade. I was in the hospital drafting the poem on my break. The original version was informed by my clinical work. If I’m imparting some intention to the early version after the fact, it was also some search for ordering and equanimity. But this is all in hindsight and may not be exactly right. Sound and lyricism very much drove my poems then. There was rarely an intention that superseded rhythm, and meaning, usually, was secondary.

As far as the version you see in Unceded Land, this was pure experimentation with the line. I was motivated to try a shorter line, and it energized the poem in a very different way for me. The clinical lexicon no longer felt right in certain parts, so I removed or reworked some of that. So to answer your question more directly, I would say the original form and content co-arrived, but the revised form informed the tone and content of the version you see here. 

I think what you’re seeing in terms of diversity of form and content in Unceded Land is the result of that wandering through various territories over all those years. I consider myself a formalist, and with that I think comes curiosity about form—how do things look on the page from a purely visual-aesthetic point of view, how does working within a constraint have this magical, paradoxical effect of opening things up, how can form be “broken” and to what end? That kind of thing.

I was struck by something I read recently in Robert Hass’s “What Light Can Do.” It’s in his author’s note. He’s writing about the photography of Robert Adams and Ansel Adams. He writes that both have a “technical authority” whose source is “mysterious to [him].” He writes about it in terms of “formal imagination”:

 “I don’t know whether photographers find it in the world, or when they look through the viewfinder, or when they work in the darkroom, but the effect is a calling together of all the elements of an image so that the photograph feels like it is both prior to the act of seeing and the act of seeing.” 

He goes on to write, “form in art is the way attention comes to life.” I love this, and I try to be intentional about it in my own poems.

That’s quite fascinating. I think that contemporary poets can at times be a bit reluctant with form, seeing it as perhaps outdated, but indeed there are times when it can open up something greater than expected. 

Switching gears slightly, as I reread your collection, I couldn’t help but think of the more tragic moments in it, the moments where the speaker looks outward and reflects, even subtly, on their place in the world. “Plastic Bag” is a heart-wrenching poem, and the only way to experience its impact is reading it in its entirety: 

I will tonight, god willing, sleep like a 
baby. I will dream, the recurring one in 
which you wrap me in your arms
and drag me to the bottom of the 
lake, hold me underwater until I 
either drown or wake. In the 
morning, news of a child in a plastic 
bag floats across a bloated river, 
even now as I see it, without allegory, 
unaccompanied, minor. 

While the allegorical element here might initially find its roots in biblical or mythological stories, what I immediately thought of was the plight of refugees, of children, women, and men risking so much in the attempt at making a new and better life in a different country. And this poem is about that, memorializing Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter Valeria who drowned in the Rio Grande in 2019. What moved you to write this poem, and how do you go about writing tragedy? How should poets and writers go about such subjects? 

You’re spot on. This poem was totally motivated by the tragic and utterly horrific story of Mr. Ramírez and his young daughter Valeria. Their story gained attention because of Julia Le Duc’s heart-breaking photo. I’m resisting the urge to describe the photo, but those who’ve seen it know what I’m talking about. And this is certainly not the first example of a photo that raised our consciousness about the devastating effects of some policy or practice or war—in this case not just the humanitarian crisis at the southern border, but for me the largely unimaginable realities that a human being must be trying to escape to risk their life and the life of their child. 

I think what moved me to write this particular poem was rage. Our consciousness is raised about these issues only temporarily, and that’s endlessly frustrating. I also grew up in a predominantly Latino neighborhood and am the son of immigrants. So the particular issue of immigration and asylum are important to me. I think it was rage and profound sadness at the whole situation that worked on me for some time. I ended up dreaming this poem.

How to write about tragedy? Wow. This is a really important question. If I’m being honest, I think I had a chip on my shoulder during those years in which the poems of Unceded Land were written, revised, and put together in this collection. I was very much of the Lucille Clifton mindset—let’s see what we could do to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. I was going to call it like I saw it in these poems, and it wasn’t my responsibility to assuage the reader.

That was my mindset then. It’s changed. I think that mindset can be problematic. First of all, it’s not very generous to the reader. I’ve read some poets lately, like Hayan Charara and Carolina Ebeid, who have shown how one can still write on very difficult subjects that interest me personally, including tragic ones, but in a way that makes room for tenderness. Not that all poems about tragedy necessarily have to be accomodating, but it’s important for me to consider that when I’m writing about tragedy. Second, this attitude doesn’t really contemplate the ethics of the telling. Am I passing on suffering through this poem? Is it necessary to? That sort of thing. Finally, I think when I was writing about the things I consider tragic, I might have had a specific gaze in mind. That’s limiting. So now I try to consider questions like am I trying to convince the reader of something, some moral position, some indictment they should agree with? And if so, why, and who is that reader I’m imagining?

As far as how poets and writers should go about such subjects, another great question. I think there are a few dimensions in that question. The first, again, is a question of ethics. Are we unnecessarily putting out more suffering by putting the piece out into the world? Is the writer on solid footing experientially to write about this; or if they have no direct experience or aren’t part of the community with a stake in the subject matter, have they done their research at least? Are we appropriating someone else’s pain for our own agenda? I’m not a fan of limiting what people say in speech or art. But these are the kinds of questions that I think about at least. One other thing, in my experience it’s hard to come out of the darkness when you’re writing about suffering. I think it’s really important to make sure you have support as a writer—whether it’s a self-care ritual before or after the writing or letting someone know “hey I’m about to go there, so please check on me” or “I’m going to need you later.” It’s a huge responsibility and a huge weight to write about these unkind things, so we should be kind to ourselves as we take them on.  

I wanted to also speak about the epigraphs in each of the sections, which include Mahmoud Darwish, James Baldwin, and Wanda Coleman. What inspiration have you found in their work? What can they still teach us about writing? Humanity? 

Some of my heroes. It’s really hard to distill down what each of these geniuses means to me and do that justice. I’ll try to say something unifying here, but it won’t be satisfying.

I’ve tried to think about what the works I’m drawn to have in common and how I might draw a direct line from them to my own work or sensibilities. I mentioned I’m the son of immigrants. I’ve lived up and down both U.S. coasts in places with histories of colonial and racial violence. I’m sensitive to traumas traceable to geographical, political, and cultural displacement. I am attuned to the politics of place. I’ve said on occasion the poems in Unceded Land are interested in territory as demarcated physical and psychological spaces and explore associated concepts: identity, power, subjugation, resistance, reconciliation. I guess you could say in the geopolitical sense, but also in the context of intimate human relationships. In fact, I’d say I’m more interested in the latter.

While Unceded Land doesn’t really work through “reconciliation” per se, it’s the aspect I realize now I’m most interested in. Darwish, Coleman, and Baldwin’s work share powerful expressions of intimacy that are born from all varieties of alienation. Love becomes an act of resistance. An advocacy emerges from bearing witness. They explore how the marks of the past come to be expressed in intimate relationships. They seek ways of looking for the self in the midst of coming to understand the two main aspects of relationships—both the ways of and states of connection. They are all beautiful in their making, singular in their voices, and challenged me in some way to think about literature as writing (representation, structure, discourse, narrative), about intention and interpretation, about culture and politics, about ethics, about desire.

What can they teach us? Baldwin is very important to me. Two things he said stay with me: the purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers, and love has never been a popular movement.

As you mentioned, you’re a pharmacist by training and trade. What has pharmacy taught you about poetry? Is there inspiration that crosses over in a way that might not meet the eye? 

That’s a question I’m only beginning to think about, and I’m not sure I have a well thought out idea. There is one thing I think about a lot that might be related. I’ve been told in the past my poems can sometimes have an almost clinical detachment. I used to take offense to that. It’s as if I was being told these poems were hyper-dispassionate. But what I think people meant was there might be an untapped vulnerability there. I think they’re often right. There’s probably a heart-mind struggle in these poems; a self-centered intellect in the speaker that resists, maybe even denies themself, opportunities for vulnerability. That might be an artifact of clinical practice where there’s a psychic numbing that emerges after seeing so much trauma. I don’t think the speaker is numb by any means; but there may be some attempt to keep openness at bay as a kind of protective mechanism.

I noticed you often use “you” in your poems even when it seems the speaker is talking about the “I.” I’m curious about that. Do you think that’s a kind of defense mechanism on the part of the speaker (or the poet!)?  

That’s a great question. For me, the use of “you” versus “I” comes down to how the line (and thereby the poem) is sonically expressed and how much distance I want to create, while still retaining the voice I’ve developed over the years. I think back to a poem of mine, “El río” section III, which I hope you don’t mind if I share here: 

In this version   the river turns to concrete   and your father stops flailing   controls his arms again   rises to his feet   Like a creature about to enter extinction   he walks this once-river   until he comes upon a building   gray and windowless   but framed around a door men   just as crosshatched and faceless as him   step into   And for you   son   observer   writer absolved of exodus and responsibility   the symbolism is easy   heavy-handed even   but stark enough to describe   detail   depict with all your synonyms   and to express into a scene where your father falls to his knees   prays   aware the ground he believes in   will not always remain   

To write about my father’s crossing, especially because he has never spoken about it, is always a difficult task, and in this section above, I felt that using “you” allowed me to become a witness to an event I have no experience with. So to extend this topic a bit more, when you begin writing a poem, how much of your life experience is relayed through the speaker’s voice, despite that “clinical detachment”? Additionally, what does the composition and revision process look like for you? 

OK. OK, I see what you’re saying here. This is really interesting. If I’m understanding you, it’s a way to bear witness and honor someone else’s experience without laying claim to it in a way that appropriates it. The other thing I find interesting about your work is the exploration of belonging, and I do think there can be a kind of bardo state for children of immigrants or of the diaspora. So the voice of the poems can be of here and not of here, of there and not of there. The “you” enacts that in a sense.

When I begin writing a poem, it’s always experiential. Now it may not necessarily be autobiographical. There’s this essay by Linda Gregg called “The Art of Finding” that I adore so much. I love Linda Gregg by the way. Anyway, she’s describing the sort of prerequisites for “finding” a poem. She talks about the deep “resonant sources” within us that give rise energetically to our poems and imbue them with our individual essences. She gives some of the examples we’ve talked about: family, political rage, love, sexuality, identity. That idea seems right to me. That’s how I think my life experience is generally translated into that initial creative impulse. 

My composition and revision processes have dramatically changed in the last couple of years. I had two very bad habits for a very long time. First, I wouldn’t make time to actually sit and write. I was waiting for the muses to talk to me. They were a no-show, so that explains the decades-long radio silence in terms of composing new poems. What’s that Picasso quote? Something like inspiration exists but it has to find you working?

It wasn’t until I had a truly life-changing experience at Community of Writers a couple of years ago that I got more regimented in my composition process. I’m not sure how much folks know about how Community of Writers works. Basically, you gather for a week in the Sierra Nevada (in my case virtually) and write a new poem a day—brand new, no previous work, no previous drafts. The next day you share them with other writers and teachers. The teachers are also drafting a poem a day and sharing them. In my year, we’re talking about seeing first drafts from Sharon Olds, Evie Shockley, Forrest Gander, Blas Falconer, Kazim Ali, Brenda Hillman, Robert Hass. We were all on equal footing. The format was Galway Kinnell’s idea. He felt that if you got a bunch of poets together and focused intensely on daily drafting, it might get us out of our habitual patterns and we might create something extraordinary.

I got really close with my housemates at Community of Writers—five wonderful poets and people. We committed to writing and sharing a new poem every week after we left, and we’ve done so ever since. I try to replicate the intensity of that experience, so I tend to write early on Saturday in time for our virtual house meeting later that day. I’ve found that pressure bypasses the self-censorship that tends to occur if I ruminate on a poem idea for too long before getting it down on paper.

My other bad habit was lumping generation and revision together. I wouldn’t leave the desk until I took the draft to final, and because I’m obsessive about completing tasks, that could mean the whole day—and the poem was likely not better off for me having done it this way. Robert Hass said something really eye-opening about revision when we were at Community of Writers. I’m going to butcher it, but it was something along the lines of revision being a negotiation between that deep, often doubtful or unsettled part of you from which the poem emanated (and likely what gives the poem a lot of its magic) and the part of you that is disinterestedly in love with your art, that with its discerning detachment can help to deepen the poem further through craft.

I love this idea of revision as the exercise that amplifies the magic of the poem, and understand now that there’s a liability in combining the processes of drafting and revision. So my processes are totally separate now. I draft once a week. I put the drafts away for days, weeks, months, sometimes years. Then I print them out and post them on my corkboard and look at them every day, read them out loud, see what needs attention. I call the poem done when I can’t see anything left that needs me. It’s a feeling.

I really like that idea of inspiration. I remember hearing an interview once with the Portuguese novelist António Lobo Antunes, and he chided the idea of muses and inspiration, saying that writing was a question of how much work was put into it. Sometimes you end up with a few pages. Other times all you’re left with is one sentence. Regardless, there is always a moment when you must step away and do something else to gain some perspective (I like to walk my dogs or exercise). For you, what beyond poetry helps put poetry into perspective? What creative endeavors do you think you would have favored if you hadn’t persisted with poetry? 

I recently did a reading with the fiction writer Danny Stone, and this issue of inspiration came up. He said “habit is more dependable than inspiration.” I think that comes from Octavia Butler.  It seems about right.

In terms of perspective, I have a tendency to focus on what is pretty dismal around us. So I’ve been trying to remember that struggle has always been part of our experience as hominids, and so has the presence of people who’ve cared enough about each other to carry one another through. I also like the idea of centering joy, and I’m trying to figure out what that looks like at this moment in my life. I have this app where you can snap a picture of a plant or a flower or tree, and it tells you what it is. I find joy in that. It makes me feel embodied and closer to the earth. Creatively, if I had it to do over again, I think it would have been pretty cool to be a ballet dancer!

That’s pretty amazing. I always tell people I would have liked to become an artist. My parents unfortunately discouraged me from studying art in college because they thought I wouldn’t be financially stable once I graduated, but little did they know I was going to become obsessed with something that made even less money: poetry, of course. I say that in jest, but in reality poets aren’t raking in the book deals fiction writers, for example, receive. We do this always first and foremost because the art means something, regardless of where we are in our lives. This may be an unfair question to ask, but what meaning do you hope readers gain from Unceded Land in the future? What do you hope they say about your work when you are no longer around? 

When I was trying to figure out what to major in in college, I debated between pharmacy, English, and nursing. I chatted with my dad about it. We ended up being swayed by a pragmatism that I think influences these kinds of decisions for a lot of first-generation Americans and folks from underprivileged backgrounds. It sounds like we may have had some of that in common.

 OK you are asking me an unfair question! I don’t want to predetermine people’s experiences with Unceded Land. I can tell you that the reception has been really exciting and people have been very warm-hearted. One of the things I find most interesting is that when people reach out to me about their favorite poems from the collection, they’re rarely ever the same poems. That is a gift to me personally because it allows me to re-enter and rediscover the poems. I simply hope people find something resonant in that work. 

When I’m no longer around? I read this Marianne Boruch essay recently called “The End Inside It.” You can find it online. She writes “that success, if not triumph, in a poem is largely in the accumulation of word, syntax, cadence tangled and guided by two seemingly warring elements—a most particular fever and tact, right to the end.” I love this. I hope when people look back on my poems, someone says, “wow, that guy had a most particular fever,” and someone else says, “yeah, and tact.”