KARAN

Nina, thank you for these stirring poems that move through loss, displacement, and resilience with such delicacy. In “Murmuration,” you ask “how might you move / if you thought you would be safe?”– a question that resonates through all these pieces. Let’s begin with the writing process. How do you begin a poem? With an image, a line, or an idea? Do you have a writing routine? And most importantly, why poetry?

NINA

Karan, thank you so much for these insightful questions. It means so much to have my work read with such care and attention. I am so, so grateful! 

As someone whose life has been shaped by displacement—both as an adoptee and the daughter of a Cuban exile—I’m drawn to poetry’s intrinsic engagement with fragment and fracture. The break of the line, the silences and blank spaces inherent to a poem's form, feel as integral to the poem as the words that are there. For me, poetry has served as a way of making meaning from rupture, a means of holding what’s missing and writing into the gaps in language and memory—an attempt to narrate the untraceable, to grieve what has no name. Poetry exists between absence and presence, and that is, I think, what has both pulled me in and kept me here.

There are many ways a poem comes into being for me. I don’t have a fixed routine and because I work full-time, I don’t usually have time to write every day—though I do read every day. I go through waves when I write a lot, followed by periods of quiet. I think those “less productive” stretches are equally important, though, as I find that it is during those times that I grow the most as a writer. I also do a lot of work through revision, where I can dig deep into craft—something I absolutely love.

But, in terms of how I start—I often find it is the poem that rises to meet me, and it is my job to try and catch it. Sometimes writing feels akin to mediumship—that I am the channel for a language that is mine but also not only mine. The poem “Murmuration” was an example of this. I wrote this poem during a very dark time, when I was barely able to write or do anything at all. Then, one morning, these words came to me suddenly on a walk with my dog. I had to run home to try and get them down. When I can get into flow, letting the words and ideas come through me and get them to the page, that is when I feel I do my best work, when the writing truly surprises me. 

KARAN

Your work often finds resonance between the natural world and human experience. In “Motherland,” you write “History recommends a woman / know how to be a tree” – creating this powerful metaphor of resilience and cicatrization. How does your work with The Merwin Conservancy influence your relationship with the natural world? What ecological perspectives inform your poetic vision?

NINA

I feel very grateful to have the job I have, which allows me to be in constant engagement with both the literary world and the natural world. I am the Associate Director of The Merwin Conservancy, which cares for the former home and 18-acre palm forest that the poet W. S. Merwin and his wife Paula built in the Ahupuaʻa of Peʻahi on Maui’s North Shore, on land that had been destroyed by extractive agricultural practices. A lot of people know William only as a writer, but his deep engagement with place, and his daily practices of writing, studying Zen Buddhism, and tending the land were all intertwined—and, I think, inextricable from one another. It is a reminder to me, all the time, that poetic practice need not be limited to language alone. I feel so lucky to be part of stewarding this legacy alongside an extraordinary team of people. 

I think what centers me most of all is the recognition that humans are part of the natural world. We are not separate from it but we are also not at the center of it. I think there is so much in our culture and society that works to keep us estranged from nature and by extension, to keep us estranged from ourselves. I believe that all art, poetry included, has a role to play in helping call attention to the reality that we are all connected, that we are all kin—to help us see the webs that tie us all together. I’m currently at work on a collection that emerges from these ideas, engaging ecological collapse, environmental resilience, and the consequences of human exceptionalism.

Though I am not Indigenous, I have learned a great deal from the work of Indigenous writers, thinkers, community leaders, and activists advocating for relationships to land rooted in frameworks of stewardship and reciprocity. Living and working in Hawaiʻi in particular, the idea of land—not as resource, but as ʻāina—that which feeds, that which is familial—is so important, and I’m deeply grateful for the essential work of Indigenous poets from Hawaiʻi such as Noʻu Revilla, Brandy Nālani McDougall, and Dana Naone Hall, whose work continues to shape how I think about place and poetics.

KARAN

I’m struck by the various absences and displacements in these poems – the mother’s face in “Glass House,” the you in “On the Amtrak,” the childlessness in “La Llorona.” Could you talk about how you work with absence as a creative force? What possibilities do you find in writing around what isn’t there?

NINA

Absence, for me, is a reality I am always contending with—whether I want to or not. For those of us who have experienced forced displacement, there is often so much that can never be retrieved. The manuscript for my first book (tentatively titled Myth of the Mother) which I am just starting to send out, opens with this epigraph by the Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta: “There is no original past to redeem: there is the void, the orphanhood, the unbaptized earth of the beginning, the time that from within the earth looks upon us. There is above all the search for the origin.” My writing is often about searching, while recognizing that the search will never recover what’s been lost. As in poems like “La Llorona” and “Peacock Flower” I find myself often turning to the mythic and the speculative for this reason.

There are so many extraordinary writers whose work has deeply shaped my thinking about absence. Saidiya Hartman’s methodology of critical fabulation—which acknowledges the silences and omissions in the historical record while imaginatively inhabiting those absences—has been especially formative. Diana Khoi Nguyen’s work—particularly her book Ghost Of— is another touchstone in thinking about the formal possibilities of writing into absence. 

I often think of poetry not just as a craft, but as a kind of ritual technology—one that allows me to commune with what’s been lost, obscured, or erased. For me, poetry is also a way of practicing grief—of tending to it, of refusing to look away. In this spirit, I’m drawn to hybrid and formally experimental modes—found text, visual poetics, polyphony—as ways to hold complexity and give shape to what often resists articulation.

KARAN

In “Glass House,” you write about a “controlled utopia” where plants are “twist-tied to ductwork / keeps them growing toward the light.” This image feels both hopeful and constrained. How do you think about containment and freedom in your work? Does poetry offer a kind of conservatory for difficult experiences? 

NINA

I am grateful for the observation of both hope and constraint in my work and particularly, this poem! I am interested in these tensions and dichotomies—in both surfacing the dark parts of experience but also trying to turn toward the light and find beauty and joy. “Glass House” in particular emerged from thinking about the idea of deracination, of being literally and figuratively uprooted yet expected, even demanded, to thrive. 

I do think that the container of the poem offers me comfort, even safety. There is work I can do in poetry, things I feel able to explore, that I don’t think I would be able to in, for instance, a memoir. At least not in the same ways. I find constraint incredibly generative and yes, even freeing—it has often helped me give voice to what has felt otherwise hard to name. 

KARAN

Nina, you write of “the desert / I was born in and never saw again” — as an adoptee raised far from your birthplace, how does this personal history inform your approach to themes of home, belonging, and displacement in your writing?

NINA

Thank you so much for this question. I think if you had asked me this just a few years ago, I would have answered very differently. It is only in the past few years of my life that I have really come to terms with this aspect of my identity and faced all the ways the experience of adoption has shaped me. Just weeks after getting into Bennington’s MFA program, I decided to search for my birth mother, Lyndi. A quick google search of her name turned up her obituary. I was just a few months away from turning 32, the age she was when she died. In my manuscript, I write about the way this knowledge both was and was not surprising to me—there was a part of me that already knew she was gone. On the form obituary in the Lincoln Journal Star, her occupation was listed as Poet. This revelation about my birth mother shook my whole world and led me to the collection I have been working on since, which interrogates the constructed myths of motherhood shaped by silence, systemic violence, and cultural memory.

I am so thankful to all the people in my life who have supported me on this journey. Ultimately, I feel that being an adoptee informs everything about my life and my work, even work of mine that isn’t explicitly or overtly about my experience as an adoptee. I have also been so grateful to encounter the work of other adoptee writers over these past few years. Growing up, I don’t think I read any writing by adoptees, and that representation is so important. It has been amazing to see the work of poets like m.s. RedCherries and Bo Hee Moon, among many others, out in the world and being celebrated and to connect with the vibrant community of adoptee writers all over the world. 

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?

NINA

Oh what a beautiful and challenging question, and one that has led me down an existential rabbithole! I think my writing up to this point has very much been preoccupied with both the body and its absence—though all of those things feel inextricable to me. As someone who lives with autoimmune disease, I am hyper aware of my body and both its triumphs and failures. I am also someone who believes that our whole bodies are containers for memory—our joys and traumas, our history and ancestry. I think there are ways I could see my work moving more toward a poetry of the mind, though I don’t expect I will be leaving the body behind anytime soon.

KARAN

“Peacock Flower” engages directly with political realities, incorporating text from the Dobbs ruling while also grounding resistance in the natural world. How do you think about the relationship between poetry and politics? What challenges or opportunities do you find in addressing political realities through poetry?

NINA

To be very honest, I have at times felt fearful of publishing some of the work I have made that engages with politics, particularly as our socio-political climate has become more authoritarian. I think the dangers of speaking out are very real for many—and I think it is every individual’s right to assess those risks for themselves and show up in ways that feel safe, especially for those at greater risk of being targeted.

For me, as someone in a position of relative privilege, finding ways to subvert this silencing feels important. “Peacock Flower” for instance, is part of a series of poems written from the perspective of plants historically used as abortifacients. I wanted to invoke the Dobbs ruling but transform the oppressive language of that document into something new—a kind of rallying cry and reclamation spoken from the body of the flower, imagining the body as a flower.

I am inspired by so many writers—particularly writers of color—who have done the work and are doing the work to show us how language can be both a tool of oppression and liberation. I have been turning to Audre Lorde’s “Poetry is Not a Luxury” so often lately, particularly as we are seeing more and more instances of censorship and the policing of language, and as I see the words that describe my own identity—Latinx, woman, queer, disabled, multicultural—being flagged for removal. As I watch this erasure unfold, I am struck by the weight of words, and the impact of seeing language excised from the American lexicon in real time. 

Lorde writes: “Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” I keep holding onto that. I think poetry—in its capacity to transform language, to awaken and expand the boundaries of expression—has a unique and important role to play. At the same time, I think we need to be attuned to the very real possibilities of our words being exploited, hollowed out, or turned into weapons. This is a time to be vigilant but also to keep giving voice to resistance. 

KARAN

As someone who works across multiple forms – poetry, essays, cultural production – how do these different creative practices inform one another? Does your approach to poetry differ from your approach to other forms of writing?

NINA

When I was working in museums and studying art history, I definitely found myself at times wanting to write poems rather than critical essays but now that I am more often writing poetry, I feel the influence of my academic background making its way in through research, intertextuality, citation, and critical theory. I am also very attuned to the visual world and continue to find a great deal of inspiration from other forms of art—across all media— that I encounter through my work. Along those lines, I do have many poems written after works of art, including the poem “Motherland”. 

I am actually starting to lean more into creative nonfiction and am beginning work on a series of essays that blend memoir, cultural criticism, and literary analysis to look at the archetype of the unmothered child across myth, fairy tale, folklore, and popular culture. It is absolutely an extension of my poetic project, but also feels very distinct and exciting to embark on. 

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?

NINA

In my collection, I have a poem titled “Ekphrasis for an Impossible Image,” which imagines a photograph of my birth mother and I that was never taken. 

I invite you to imagine a photograph that does not and perhaps could not exist, for whatever reason. Write a poem describing it as you would a work of art. Picture the image in your mind's eye. Try to get as detailed and vivid as you can. What colors (if any) do you see? Who is there, if anyone? What are the textures? What is taking place? What is and isn’t in focus? How does the photograph look and feel in your hands? Treat the imagined image as if it were being seen through the adoring eyes of a curator or held in the careful hands of an object conservator.

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.

NINA

I love this question—so hard to choose just one! I am going to say Hieronymous Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (including the outer panels which are incredible)—I recently spent a few days writing from this piece and it continues to surprise me each time I return to it. It rewards close and extended looking.

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.

NINA

There are so many! The first poets whose work I remember encountering as a child (or rather, having my mother read to me) were Edna St. Vincent Millay and Kahlil Gibran and both of their work has stuck with me all these years. I really came to poetry in High School where I encountered and loved the work of Elizabeth Bishop, Kimiko Hahn, Yusef Komunyakaa, Langston Hughes, Li Young Li, and Sylvia Plath. As a young adult Lucille Clifton, Seamus Heaney, Anne Carson, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, Rachel Zucker, and Louise Glück were revelations to me. Some poets who are perennial favorites of mine include Victoria Chang, Nick Flynn, Natasha Trethewey, Paisley Rekdal, Kevin Young, Kaveh Akbar, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Leila Chatti, Ocean Vuong, Ada Limón, Natalie Diaz, Dulce María Loynaz, and CD Wright. And of course, the fabulous teachers and mentors I have had over the years including Carmen Gimenéz, Craig Morgan Teicher, Jenny Boully, Mark Wunderlich, Monica Ferrell, Emily Moore, Nathalie Anderson, and Millicent Borges Accardi have all been so important in so many ways. And of course, W.S. Merwin, whose words I spend time with every day, continues to be an essential teacher. I am so grateful for all the writers whose work I have encountered.