KARAN

Asa, thank you for these captivating poems. Your work is so rich with images and thoughtful observations. I’m particularly struck by how you blend the personal with broader societal and environmental themes. In “Value Theory,” you write, “Maybe the body I prefer sits between two singing birds, like the song / itself.” This line beautifully sets up the poem’s exploration of value and labor. Let’s begin with the process question. How do you begin, write, and finish a poem? Do you start with an image, a line, or an idea? Do you have a writing routine? And most importantly, why do you write poetry?

ASA

I don’t know if I have a routine but maybe I have superstitions? Like I’m more likely to write a poem if I go on a run in the morning. Fulfilling a tiny desire is helpful, eating cake, harvesting fruit, buying a hairclip. But really I’m just waiting for the first two lines. Or I sit with a question someone has asked me that I never answered.  (For example, my partner’s abuelo once asked, “What have you done lately that was bad.” I didn’t answer him then. But now, I answer him all the time.) 

I write poems because I like how they feel, even if there’s a little guilt later. Poems don’t have to be true but they aren’t inherently fiction. Readers so often trust a poem and I think that’s a great basis for a relationship.

KARAN

Your poems often touch on political themes, but in a deeply personal way. For instance, in “After Florida’s Six Week Abortion Ban Takes Effect,” you weave together images of peaches, the forest, and the U.S. Navy bombing exercises. How do you approach writing about political issues without falling into didacticism? Do you consciously try to bridge the personal and the political in your work? Are all poems political? 

ASA

Is the didactic bad? I love Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters, and certainly there’s instruction there. The personal is political so how is that different in a poem than in life? Sometimes when I’m writing I’ll realize that it’s easier to flatten a poem by making it about one thing (a poem about peaches followed by a poem about driving to the airport followed by a poem about the U.S. Navy bombing exercises in the forest). And I’ll often allow that attempt (through multiple poems) if I can’t find another way in. That’s something that happened with “After Florida’s Six Week Abortion Ban Takes Effect.” At first, I’d composed two different poems out of one set of notes (I have a goldfish memory, so I take a lot of notes). But then I felt a moral obligation to bring them together rather than allowing myself to simplify them into separate subjects. Poems don’t have to be honest or factual, but I try to be honest about intentionality. Are all poems political? I think all poems are intentional, and living intentionally means engaging with the political nature of our lives.

KARAN

I’m fascinated by your titles. “Maybe the Body is a Loved One” and “I’m Interested in How Animals Teach Us Pleasure” are doing a great job of setting up the poem. How do you approach titling your poems? Do the titles come to you before, during, or after the writing process? What do you hope to achieve with your titles?

ASA

I feel a little embarrassed because I think of both of those titles as failed first lines! They were false starts in the sense that there was no second line that came after. I know couplets get a lot of hate, but I think in couplets. If I don’t have two lines to start a poem it’s a dead end and I have to start over or wait for the second line like some sort of existential call and response. I think, when I’m writing, the best titles guide a poem — they can be something I pin to the top of my document to help me return to a loose thesis when I get lost in the writing process. (This is something I learned from Aimee Nezhukumatathil.) And then other times, titles are how I try to keep my “darlings,” the lines that don’t fit (in terms of tone or sound or image)  with the rest of a poem. 

KARAN

In “After Florida’s Six Week Abortion Ban Takes Effect,” you incorporate specific details like “The U.S. Navy is engaged in live and inert bombing / in the Ocala National Forest.” How do you approach research in your poetry? Does the research precede the poem, or do you find yourself looking things up as you write? How does this factual information interact with the more lyrical aspects of your work?

ASA

I have to acknowledge that the world imposes on me. That’s a daily experience where I find myself defined by others, and I try to experiment. For a couple years, I only wore saddle shoes to work because patrons who seemed put off by my racial hybridity would suddenly find themselves comparing me to their mothers. Perhaps that’s a kind of field study on the uses of nostalgia? I don’t really think of myself as a poet who does a lot of research (for poems), but I read the local paper, I talk to my neighbors, I pay attention to legislative sessions here in Florida. That’s not really for poems. That’s out of self preservation.

KARAN

Your poem “At the Ecologically Engineered Stormwater Retention Basin” touches on environmental concerns and personal decisions. You write, “I set an appointment for the first of May, / which is the earliest I can schedule / a subdermal birth control implant.” I sense that you’re deeply engaged with the environmental crises and nature in general. Would you speak to us about your relationship with nature? 

ASA

Aren’t we all engaged with the environment? I mean we have to live somewhere. My family is mostly split between the Philippines and the American southeast, all coastal areas so it’s not hard to notice change. Every city I’ve lived in has experienced a hundred year flood. Isn’t that a little wild? But on a more personal level, for me, there’s something important about how, where I live now, I feel a strong sense of belonging visiting state parks and nature preserves. I see so much that’s familiar to me, plants (and even animals) that I know from growing up in South Carolina and from visiting family in the Philippines. And I know that this specific mix is caused by guest species (lately I prefer the term guest over invasive species because I think that the way we discuss plants is shaped by the way we discuss people), but I also feel some excitement and comfort in the recognition.

KARAN

There’s a school of poetry that believes a poem or a poet can categorize their work in one of these four ways: poetry of the body, poetry of the mind, poetry of the heart, poetry of the soul. Where would you place your work within this framework, if at all? And do you see yourself moving elsewhere in your poetic journey?

ASA

I only believe in the body. Maybe because I can’t imagine a self not shaped by the body I’ve inherited. I read an article recently in Scientific American about how it’s not useful to ask if the universe is a computer simulation. The question that’s useful to ask is if we can produce a computer simulation of the universe. And I think that resonated with me because I’m not interested in thought exercises, I’m interested in the experience of making, which has a certain degree of tangibility to it.

KARAN

As a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida, how does your cultural background and geographical location inform your poetry? Do you find that these aspects of your identity influence your themes or imagery?

ASA

More than theme or imagery, I think being mixed race has shaped my sense of audience. I’m tired of interrogations by strangers. I’m not interested in making myself legible or accessible to others. I try to write my poems as clearly as possible for myself. I’m the only person that I have to make comfortable.

KARAN

Congratulations on winning the Noemi Press Book Award for your now upcoming book, Beauty Talk! Would you talk to us about this book? Also, how was the process of putting together a book?

ASA

I started Beauty Talk in February as a response to a Valentine’s capsule sale that advertised vintage pan-Asian clothing from a white-owned business — one that’s known for its curation. But what does it mean to curate in this fashion? Over a couple months Beauty Talk started to operate as a kind of “b track,” incorporating both prose and poems that addressed a different audience (or perhaps allowed for a different tone) than my work in progress, Maybe the Body.  I almost never write about my dad, but I love telling stories about him, especially when it comes to clothes and beauty advice. He was a model in the 70s and Beauty Talk lets me engage with a tiny bit of nostalgia and “dad swag” while also addressing how talking about beauty in America necessarily means talking about whiteness. 

KARAN

What is some of the best writing or writing-adjacent advice you’ve received, whether during your formal education or through your experiences as a poet? And what advice would you like to offer to young poets?

ASA

To write the next poem. I used to think this advice was dismissive, but now I find it really generative. By writing the next poem I often find new possibilities for older drafts and notes that haven’t quite taken shape.

KARAN

Recently, we decided to ask our poets for a poetry prompt at the end. Would you provide a prompt for our readers, to help kickstart a poem?

ASA

When I was a librarian, I really enjoyed storytimes with “fractured fairy tales,” stories that are familiar but slightly altered (sometimes because of perspective, sometimes because of setting).  This prompt applies the same technique to a poem.

Allow yourself to enter a story you love or one you can’t shake. Even a story where your presence feels invasive. (If an idea, a story, an obsession holds your interest, it likely holds room for a poem.) What are the details that resonate most with you, especially in terms of place? How much of the original story’s landscape can you replace with your own before the metaphor is unrecognizable? Who do you tell your version to? 

KARAN

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

ASA

I think pineapple buns are genius! I’ve never gotten to eat one from a bakery, but I love Kristina Cho’s recipe from Mooncakes and Milk Bread. I love how bread, this one especially, carries so much history and so much pleasure.

I find it helpful to pay attention to the processes other artists conceive to make their work more ethical, like Ghesal, who is a designer who hand sews her work out of vintage and deadstock fabric. I’m interested in her efforts to limit the exploitative nature of clothing production, to make that relationship between craftsman and consumer more human.

KARAN

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

ASA

So many poets have helped me keep writing: Catherine Barnett, Natalie Diaz, Victoria Chang, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paisley Rekdal. And then there are the poets I only know through their work: Kimiko Hahn, Donika Kelly, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ai, Bob Kaufman, Carlos Bulosan. And most importantly, poet friends who make writing so much less lonely. I don’t think I can overstate the influence friends have on me. I think Jimin Seo, Annie Wenstrup, E. Hughes,  and C. E. Janecek each makes an appearance in these poems with a text or a phone call or a bit of spoon fed theory.