KARAN

Merilyn, thank you for these powerful poems that traverse continents and identities with such fierce precision. In “I pay the price of three,” you write, “I write because sadness looks prettier on paper” – a line that captures both the beauty and burden of transforming grief into art. Let’s begin with the process question. How do you start writing a poem? Does it begin with an image, a line, or an idea? Do you have a writing routine? And most importantly, what drives you to write poetry?

MERILYN

I often mediate between several different forms of writing. Fiction, poetry, and then more standard journalistic work and essays. My approach is quite different depending on what type of writing I’m doing. With poetry, I generally need some type of kickstart inspiration—could be anything from a character’s name in a movie to something I read in an ad on the subway. Something has to spur a connection between a word and a specific feeling, usually sentimentality. I have a running notes document on my phone that I’ve been using for the past six years to jot down any words, images, and ideas, and I’ll usually refer back to these notes and pull moments from them. I wish I had more of a routine—I do try and write a little every day, but I can’t say I like everything I write. But when I do write something I really like, the feeling is similar to how it feels when you’re on the precipice of falling in love. I’m in love with that feeling and want to recreate it all the time. 

KARAN

Your poems often navigate between multiple geographies and cultural contexts. In “Bethlehem,” you write about “A cross breed city, / Drunk off the blood of their savior,” while “I promise I don’t want your passport, German Texas” explores a complex transnational desire. How does moving between New York and Berlin influence your writing? What possibilities open up when writing across borders?

MERILYN

I didn’t realize how much of an influence these locations have had on my writing until recently. I used to be much more diary-centric in my poetry. I was obsessed with incorporating specific locations and times, almost as a way to process or make the writing feel more real. Now, I’d say my writing is a little more imagination-driven—still very realistic and believable scenarios, but not all drawn from my life. But of course, it’s impossible not to have your lived experience influence your writing, so I often build alternate worlds or weave greater stories out of what could be considered mundane experiences. “Bethlehem” is actually a story my friend Fox told me about his travels to the city. I found his story to be so beautiful that I had to write the poem as soon as I got home. Otherwise, I think a lot of people today juggle dual-identities and cross-national ties, and this shared sense of displacement can be a very universal feeling—it’s a great backdrop and structure to build my poems around, but at the center of it, I hope there’s a relatability that transcends locale.

KARAN

I’m in awe of how you use multiple endings in “I pay the price of three.” Each version offers a different relationship with love, regret, and creative fulfillment. Could you tell us about working with these parallel possibilities? What drew you to this particular structure? Are fiction, poetry, art making in general, a way to rewrite life? 

MERILYN

I love what-if scenarios because there’s always a bittersweetness to them. “What” and “if” are two extremely non-consequential words in our language, but when you pair them together, they can be world-shattering. I’m lucky enough that I don’t have any major regrets in life (I’m also only in my 20s so let’s hope this stays true) but there are certain situations that I finally possess hindsight on, and I often do wonder how they would have played out otherwise. Every decision we make has an alternative choice that we didn’t select, and as we get older, these aggregated unexplored paths can add up to feel substantial—quite literally life changing. I think it’s really beautiful to wonder about where these paths might have led, had we chosen to take them. And it’s even more charming to imagine that, maybe in another life, we would have chosen differently. I’m not trying to re-write life, per say, I actually like the inevitability of facing our decisions, but it’s also soothing to be able to lean into this sentimentality, or nostalgia, which is always tinged with a little sadness, and imagine other realities for a moment. 

KARAN

Religious imagery threads through many of these poems, particularly in the “Bethlehem” sequence where faith and violence intertwine. How do you think about spirituality in your work? What role does religious symbolism play in your exploration of identity and belonging?

MERILYN

I’m actually very non-religious. I struggled with the concept of religion for a while because of all the conflict in Western history that used religion as an excuse for violence, not to mention the age-old notion of worship being used by the ruling class to placate people into subservience. That being said, on a small scale, I can see how religion brings people together and gives them something to hold on to. In some ways, I’m envious of people who can give themselves so unquestioningly to worship. One of the first poems I wrote when I was 15 was centered around walking the tightrope of being agnostic, and more than a decade later, nothing has changed. Only that now, I want to learn more and be open-minded toward religious rhetoric and its impact. There are so many stories, traditions, iconographies, and figures in religious text that I find fascinating. I find the concept of ‘worship’, in general, to be a point of extreme fixation in my work because of how it transcends rationality and logic, kind of like love, and has the power to cause both absolute chaos and harmony. It carries a lot of power that I don’t fully understand—but I like that I don’t.

KARAN

Your poem “I promise I don't want your passport, German Texas” (LOVE that title!) explores desire across cultural boundaries with both humor and rawness. You write, “All the white men want a Yoko for their ego.” How do you navigate writing about intercultural desire while addressing the stereotypes and power dynamics involved?

MERILYN

I feel like life is an almost constant play of power dynamics. It makes things interesting but can also be a real drag sometimes. In general, I don’t like to mention too much about my personal identity politics in my writing, but as an Asian person in Germany, it’s impossible not to have identity be involved in everyday pursuits. That line was mainly a humorous jab at the common stereotype of white men who find ego-fulfillment in dating POC women (a lot of times, it will be women from Asia, as there is, sadly, often preferential treatment toward white men in Asia). Observing these social and cultural phenomena is an interesting way of watching power dynamics play out—and unfortunately, the scales are still very unbalanced. 

KARAN

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

MERILYN

I’ve never heard of this, but it’s very interesting to think of these classifications. I’m generally a very practical thinker, but poetry is a nice outlet to throw logic out the window and surrender to emotions. In that way, I think my poetry is more akin to poetry of the heart, or maybe poetry of the soul. 

KARAN

In “the things Bing wanted,” you create this incredibly intimate portrait of desire and loss. I keep coming back to desire, but it’s desire that runs the world, so why not. The poem feels both deeply personal and universal in its catalog of longings. Could you talk about how you approach writing about grief? How does desire intersect with loss?

MERILYN

When you get a certain amount of life experience, you’re just in a constant state of grieving. Or maybe that’s just me? Not consciously all the time, at the forefront of your mind—that would be intense—but like the soft hum of a ceiling fan in the summer. It’s just always there in the background. And you’re grieving multiple things at once. You’re grieving things that never existed (like the ‘what if’ scenarios!). Loss is a word heavily associated with grief—losing loved ones, or relationships, or youth—and in the case of this poem, I am grieving over the death of a close relative. But I am also writing about her grieving a life that was no longer hers to live, and her daughter’s grief as well. The intersection of our grief is that we mourned the potential of a future that would no longer exist. I think this is the most painful type of grief. And yes, we desire its existence, but coming to terms with the death of that possibility is the root of that grief.

KARAN

Many of your poems engage with gendered expectations. In “I pay the price of three,” one version ends with “I will know forgiveness, like an old friend,” (*goosebumps*) while in “the things Bing wanted,” you write about “looking for the exit on the freeway that would lead her to another life.” How do you think about gender and autonomy in your work?

MERILYN

I honestly wish I could give you a better answer to this, but I don’t consider gender much in my work. Of course, there are always the implicit influences of being a female presenting person—how my identity tints all of my experiences—but gender has never been quite the focus of my work. Autonomy is extremely important to me as an individual, and I do find that it bleeds into my work, as I try to grapple with understanding my choices and fixations. Almost all the “I” statements in my poems are from my perspective—there’s no other higher meaning or allegory to it—my poetry is very personal and I try not to dress it up too much with different identities and masks. When I am writing about others, I will use other direct nouns or pronouns. 

KARAN

You mention you’re working on your first novel. How does your approach to poetry differ from your fiction writing? Do you find certain themes or concerns emerge more strongly in one form versus the other?

MERILYN

I love storytelling, in general, whether through poetry or fiction. My fiction work is much more straightforward. I try to use less metaphors and allegories. Although I do have a weakness of over-describing. I love poetics and I do subconsciously add a lot of lyricism into my fiction, but I am learning to be more concise. In terms of themes, there are definitely overlapping areas of focus across all my work. Some topics I’m generally fascinated by are displacement, reconciling with disappointment, watching situations unfold over long, long periods of time, watching the natural erosion of time, and mediocrity as a superpower. As a practice, I am generally able to write fiction even when I am uninspired. As I am very goal-driven, if I know the points I need to hit in the story, I can hit them without any spiritual or emotional inspiration. With poetry, I can only write when I am inspired, and that is the main difference. I would love to be more disciplined with my poetry writing—I’m working on that this year. 

In my fiction, too, I refrain from including myself in any of the work—although my stories do contain elements of my experience. In poetry, practically everything I write is pulled from personal experience or observation.

KARAN

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

MERILYN

Write about your ideal apocalypse. What are your final thoughts before the world ends? What are you doing right before it happens?

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.

MERILYN

There are way too many inspiring things to list. One of my friends, Mei, is working on an experimental film on dreamscapes, surveillance, higher consciousness, and escapism—the project is called Homesick for Another World. I was lucky enough to catch her thesis performance around the film, in Berlin last spring and have been endlessly inspired by it since. 

KARAN

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

MERILYN

The first poet that really pulled my heartstrings was Richard Siken. His book Crush inspires me to this day. I’m, of course, also a huge fan of Ocean Vuong, for his writing, which always feels like music, and Rick Barot for his prose poetry. This might not count as a poet but I find songwriters extremely inspiring too. Adrianne Lenker, of Big Thief, is an incredible lyricist. Her lyrics are poetry. Her latest album, Bright Future, that came out last year, feels like a collection of poetry with music paired to it.