In “séance”, there are many objects that the narrator associates with their mother and with childhood. Can you speak to why you chose these specific objects?

Most people have a few objects that inspire strong memories, but I think this is also true the other way around. When I wrote this section of “Séance,” I started with a set of personal memories and worked backward, eventually distilling the memories into domestic objects. What I wanted to achieve was less a description of the physical and more an impression that the narrator is veering backward, the past returning to him all at once. Ultimately, I think the memories/associated objects are less important than the feeling they combine to create: a sense of being overwhelmed. This is what I really wanted the objects to invoke.

At the height of the narrator’s memory, they are transported back to being fifteen. What is the significance of that age for you, and why might it be a notable age for children and their relationship to their parents?

While many fifteen-year-olds are on the verge of acquiring a driver’s license/job and thus an impression of independence, they are still very much tied to their parents. There’s freedom here, but that freedom is conditional. Fifteen-year-old me was acutely aware of this tether, and, like any stubborn teenager, I tugged against it. “It was good. And nothing,” is a pretty accurate synopsis of how conversations between me and my parents went. I’m not sure what I was trying to achieve by putting distance between us, but I returned to distance when I wrote this poem. There is an uncrossable distance created by time, separating childhood and adulthood, the present and the absent, but there is also distance that we self-impose. The narrator deeply misses their mother—yet, when they were fifteen, they didn’t engage with her questions fully. This is all to say that fifteen is an age where (deliberate) rifts may develop between children and their parents, and it is therefore an age that leaves behind guilt. My fifteen-year-old self reminds me that certain barriers I’ve created should be torn down. If not, I may come to regret them.

The memory of the narrator’s mom closes the poem, as if each preceding memory calls her forth. How do we learn to live with memories that affect us so profoundly?

Wow, what a question. Honestly, I haven’t exactly figured this out yet. One very unsurprising answer (especially coming from a writer) is to write. I really do believe that turning your thoughts into physical, observable words is an exercise in not only confrontation, but articulation. By deliberating over a memory’s wording, syntax, imagery, etc., you are able to clarify what is important about it, what you want to keep and what you want to leave behind. The memory may even transform to inspire a whole different set of emotions after such close scrutiny. It may not solve any trauma or lingering regrets, but it helps with understanding both yourself then and yourself now. Otherwise, I like to cook. It’s a relaxing process (for me at least) that leaves just enough headspace to think about my life and all that’s happened in it.

There's a lot of emotion felt in your poem "séance". Can you speak to your writing process and how you achieve great depth within a few lines?

“Séance” went through a few drafts, all of which were longer than the form it’s in now. I ended up cutting out quite a bit of introduction to the mother’s room, as well as paring down the conclusion to a short moment between the narrator and their mother. When I write, I very often fear that my message will get lost in the language, so I tend to overcompensate by explaining myself. Therefore, most of what I edited out had already been repeated elsewhere. I think that, sometimes, depth is not a matter of what is said or how it’s said, but of how much is said—being brief allows for most of the work to happen inside the reader.

You're currently studying literature. What or who influences your writing the most?

One of my favorite hobbies is going online and reading through random literary journals. It’s something I do whenever I want inspiration or feel like I’m stuck on a current piece. In this way, a wide variety of often lesser-known authors influence my work, including Lu Han, Gustav Parker Hibbett, and Stella Lei, to name just a few. I also really adore K-Ming Chang and Ocean Vuong’s work as well—any piece with strange, lyrical, or inventive language draws my attention, since that’s how I want my writing to sound as well.

What first drew you to poetry and what keeps you writing poetry today?

Until relatively recently, I considered myself an exclusive prose writer. Not that I scorned poetry—I just thought I didn’t understand it. This changed during my sophomore year in college, when I took an intro to creative writing course. I was tasked with writing a sonnet and an ode, two forms of poetry I had heard of but never bothered to familiarize myself with. Through the arduous process of writing these poems, I learned that poetry is just another way of telling a story, which immediately opened so many doors for me writing-wise. I was given the opportunity to play with language and form in ways that short stories had never really allowed me to. Very few things excite me more than coming up with a surprising but creative line that shifts a reader’s perspective or causes them to reconsider something. Writing has power in that way—inspiration exists inside and between every word.

Read Marcus’ poem, “séance” in Dulcet Literary magazine, vol. One, Issue No. 1