What first drew you to the medium of poetry?

In middle school I composed my first poem and felt I’d discovered how to express things too unsafe or unacceptable to say otherwise. To this day, I am drawn to poetry for similar reasons—because poetry is an especially concise and potent form for writing ideas and experiences too delicate or edgy to express in prose. For example, I recently wrote a poem called Curses, in which I declare curses against certain unnamed people. This is something I would only do in a poem.

What experiences inspired this poem in particular?

“Michoacan” is a narrative poem capturing a brief time in my history that was glistening and tenuous all at once. Perhaps the time and relationship were especially charmed in part because they were so fragile. I wanted to notice everything beautiful about the Michoacan experience because I knew in my gut—in a way I was not acknowledging to myself at the time—that it would fall apart.

In this poem, you use lovely imagery to bring to life the picture of Michoacan. Do you often imbue your writing with such clear images, or do you ever tend to the abstract?

I try whenever possible to use concrete imagery in poetry—the more specific the better. However, at times, things need to be said about abstract concepts like deception or grace. But I wonder if a writer must earn forays into abstraction by arriving there on pathways paved with specificity.

Do you often pull from the personal in your poetry? What do you find most draws you to start writing?

Personal narrative figures prominently in my own poetry (and prose) and in the poetry of those I most like to read, such as Sharon Olds. I want to read and write the experiences/emotions we feel so intensely that they scare us. Often these experiences lose their frightening power once we get them out of the heart-mind and onto the page.

As an editor and writer on projects for the National Park Service, do you ever see an intersection between the material you write for them and your personal poetry?

My involvement as an editor and co-writer of materials for the National Park Service relates to Native tribes. In the course of this work, my learnings underscore a belief in the power of storytelling. Indigenous storytelling reveals the explanatory power and guidance inherent in story-telling traditions. They underscore for me the importance of my own story, and the stories of my own traditions (family traditions, religio-spiritual traditions, cultural traditions). We are constantly influenced by story in ways modern non-Indigenous people are less conscious of. I appreciate how exposure to Native oral tradition has raised my consciousness of this influence and imperative. 

What do you hope readers take away from this poem, and the rest of your works in general?

I desire that my work, including the poem “Michoacan,” encourages people to adopt wonder and courage as lenses through which to examine their lives and tell their stories. Especially the hard parts.

Read Tricia’s poem, “Michoacan” in dulcet Literary magazine, vol. One, Issue No. 1.