Q&A with Duy Doan, author of Zombie Vomit Mad Libs (2025), published by Alice James Books  in November 2025. Q&A conducted by Gauri Awasthi, Editor, Q&A.

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Gauri Awasthi: From the very first epigraph of the book that interestingly precedes the title page, which reads “CLIMATE CHANGED,” and declares further, “We’re already dead,” you set the readers in a sense of post-apocalypse, which is telling of our times. Could you speak to that choice to set the overall tense of the book and the places in that manner? 

Duy Doan: I did want to start by establishing some sort of setting, but I only wanted to give a quick glimpse. I liked the idea of dropping us right down into a world but then never circling back to give any further details about that world. The rest of the book: the zombies are just kinda there, meandering, doing their own thing. Then we have stories about artist suicides, human connection, and horror movies. But I wasn’t interested in doing any world building about zombies. It’s a principle I took from one of my favorite movies, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, by Ana Lily Amirpour. It’s a vampire movie — horror and romance (Wiki says also a western?). When watching it, I feel like all we know is that this girl is a vampire; Amirpour doesn’t seem concerned with myth-making about vampires or creating her own variations of tropes. No focus on garlic, mirrors, or stakes to hearts. It’s an amazing film, and I love that she just gets us on our merry little way.

GA: I love that movie as well — to take something incessantly made horrible by society and to turn it on its head. So brilliant! There are so many images and moments like that in your book as well, and many returns to film/play characters. There are the “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – First Kissing Scene” poems, but there are also poems like “Let the Right One In – First Meeting Scene (in rewind)” or “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror – First Goodbye Scene (intertitles remix).”  I guess selfishly, as a poet and filmmaker, I am interested in your carrying of image from one form to another — what attracted you to these stories, and what, in particular, are the things you wrestle with when making a poem which is in direct conversation with a movie. Is it different?

DD: You’re a writer and a filmmaker? That’s awesome. I’ll look up your work.

I think any wrestling I had came from the fun in finding solutions to formal challenges. There’s also the pleasure of sharing what you love with others. I once heard Kay Ryan describe the epigraphs in her poems as a way of preserving language she cherished. That resonated with me. If readers take anything from my book, I hope it’s the films I write about — movies that have profoundly shaped me, whether through the directors’ formal principles and technical moves or simply because I’m mesmerized by the brilliance and beauty of their work.

I have three poems about what I consider the first kiss scene in A Girl Walks Home Alone. It’s an incredible moment — probably my favorite scene in all the movies I’ve seen. The scene lingers with tension, building gradually, no dialogue — only music on the record that’s spinning and the characters’ slight, slow movements.

Here’s a YouTube link to the scene. Spoiler alert: when their eyes finally meet, it happens at the exact moment the record plays the lyric, “I close my eyes” — cosmic timing. Right now, the video only has 515K views (when I rewatched it over and over years ago, it only had 100K-something views). We have to do Amirpour justice and watch this scene millions and millions of times.

GA: Zombie Vomit Mad Libs as a title and even in the poems involves literal play. For readers who might be unfamiliar with Mad Libs, it is a game where one player prompts a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story.  You employ the game to engage the readers with specific words, such as in “Mad Lib with Anne Sexton” where the blanks are filled with “garages,” “vodka” and so on, and in other cases like “Mad Lib with ___ in it”, there is the blankness of the person. What prompted the use of such play, especially when the book talks about memory loss and the deep loss of planet and people.  

DD: It was interesting to think about different ways to create elliptical moves. Elliptical doesn’t have to be leaps across white space on the page. Mad lib blanks can also provide ways to experience the elliptical. Readers can participate whether the writer provides white space or hits [Shift key + Underscore key] multiple times.

For the Anne Sexton mad libs: Sexton died of carbon monoxide poisoning in her garage, sitting in her car. I read that before she died, she took off her rings, put on her mother’s fur coat, and poured herself a glass of vodka. It’s hard for me not to perceive these acts as symbolic gestures, especially because Sexton was a poet. Poets often move through the world attuned to symbols, interpreting them, creating them, even re-enacting them in their writing. So of course I find myself asking: what was she seeing as she passed? What does anyone see in those final moments? And what were they doing right before they died?

It seems to me that every suicide involves a decision about the method. I wonder about the details that frame it. What does carrying out that method actually look like? What surrounds it? For Sexton, it was vodka. For someone else, it might be water from the tap.

This particular mad lib was taken from text from Mayo Clinic about eye floaters. I slipped in “fur coats”: “The fur coats you see / are called floaters.” It’s possible that one of the last things Sexton’s eyes took in while they were open was her mother’s fur coat. Maybe when her eyes closed, she saw floaters.

GA: You’re contending with suicide throughout the book — be it in “Poet Suicides, Thirteen-Pentameter Sonnet,” or Leslie Cheung’s mention in later poems. What are some things you’re thinking about when writing about suicide, which is often hushed? 

DD: It’s often hushed, yes. I feel the empathy in your saying that.

“You can’t put a judgment on suffering.” I resisted this idea for many years. But thinking about the deep suffering that people who commit suicide must have endured was the only thing that helped me accept — like, feel it in my body — that you can’t put a judgement on suffering. That was an important thing for me to understand.

Many of the poems in the book are remembrances of artists who committed suicide. Actor and singer Leslie Cheung appears the most. There are also many poets. “Poet Suicides, Thirteen-Pentameter Sonnet” is a list of fiftey-six poets who committed suicide, referred to by first name across thirteen pentameters straight. Setting the names out this way was a personal way to remember these poets.

Suicide is hushed in the same way that mental illness is hushed. I think for a lot of people, suicide is just too painful a subject, too scary to think about, so they don’t want to talk about it. I don’t take issue with that. But I do take issue with any judgment or shaming directed at people who commit suicide, or even at suicidal thoughts and ideation. I just don’t see how someone could be judged or shamed for suffering or for mental illness. And I’m not just talking about active or aggressive shaming. I mean passive shame, too. As an emotion we feel when we talk about suicide.

I do hope that artists can be more open about the subject of suicide. I think that it’s just being more open about suffering. Maybe if we can think about other artists who suffer, we can be more open and accepting.

GA: I really appreciate your openness to acknowledging the passive shame of suicide and mental illness — especially as a working artist. On a more personal note of your own artistic practice, what are things you do as a poet to continue dedicating yourself to poetry?

DD: I’ve always kept things fun and lively, and made sure that, at its core, any pursuit of the craft comes from a sincere place. For me, poetry has always been a vehicle for truth-finding. It’s remarkable what the craft can reveal when you come to it with purity, not for achieving success.

One of my favorite moments about poetry in movies is from Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus. In the Greek myth, Orpheus is both poet and musician. In the movie, Cocteau reimagines Orpheus, removing the lyre and having him defined entirely through poetry.

When Orpheus descends to the underworld to bring back Eurydice, his wife, he’s questioned by a tribunal of ominous men in dark suits. The exchange goes like this:

Judge: Your name.
Orpheus: Orpheus.
Judge: Your profession.
Orpheus: Poet.
Court Stenographer: The card says “writer.”
Orpheus: It’s almost the same thing.
Judge: There is no “almost” here. . . What do you mean by “poet”?
Orpheus: . . . To write, without being a writer.

Beautiful.

During class visits and Q&As, when young writers, musicians, dancers, and visual artists ask this question — or questions very similar to yours — I tell them not to worry about accolades, attention, or even having your work published. All of that is trash compared to the gift of discovery and the bond you have with your craft. When you pursue your craft without thinking about success, you’ll continue to be rewarded with something deeper. And it’ll be fun. I can’t stress all this enough.

GA: You won the 2017 Yale Younger Poets Prize for your first book of poems, We Play a Game, and this is your second book of poems. What was the process like? Were there any pressures that were different from the first time? And not to be annoying, but what is next?

DD: Haha! Not annoying at all. I’d be glad to answer your question about what’s next, but first I’ll answer your question about  pressure — great question.

I didn’t feel pressure about writing a second book. What I felt instead was a deep fear that I’d give in to temptation. Winning a prize like the Yale meant many doors would open for me: getting breaks, getting published, receiving recognition. I worried that I wouldn’t write honestly anymore — that I’d start writing to sustain attention rather than because I valued a pure spirit.

The pressure I did feel came from well-meaning teachers and friends who, in essence, advised me to capitalize on the prize and rush to gather more success — like landing a tenure-track job. The temptation was big, and it was a difficult time. Eventually, though, I cut myself off from that kind of thinking. Because once you start thinking that way, you start believing you must rely on the advantage of a prize or a platform. But I knew I had to believe that I could do it again myself — the same way I had believed the first time.

What’s next? Continuing to build my life outside the institution of poetry — outside academia, publishing,  and the literary circuit. I’ve been moving in this direction for years now, finding more balance, and I’m much happier and more open to the world because of it.

In the institution, there’s a lot of petty jealousies, which have nothing to do with the craft or connection or supporting others, but everything to do with desiring the attention that someone else in the community happens to be enjoying. The energy and the writing can become stagnant, too. I’ve always thought poetry should be a little more rock and roll, with more risk taking (and more risky behavior outside the classroom), not endlessly stewed in universities. It’s more exciting to see writers go through astonishing transformations.

But when the system is so deeply propped up by academia, it’s no surprise when someone can win a major prize like the Pulitzer for writing the same book over and over for decades. And beyond the boring energy, there’s also plenty of exploitation and abuse of power.

Of course, it’s a tricky situation we face. I don’t object to teachers working in academia. I know how important it is to have a positive impact on young people. There are so many great teachers who give that kind of energy generously, making a real difference in their students’ lives. I know this personally as a student and a teacher. I had teachers who saved me and because of them I live a fulfilled life… I also get that writers need jobs to feed themselves and their families. Many of us are teachers. We need to be employed and valued for our work as we support students.

But for me, it feels better that I step back. Because of all the reasons I listed above, I always figured I’d put out a second collection from a press I believe in and then peace out. I’m still writing, of course. Maybe next I’ll continue to try my hand at translations —bringing Vietnamese poetry into English. That’s exciting to me.

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