Jess Yuan is the author of Slow Render (2024), winner of the Airlie Prize. Her poem “Composition” was previously published in the Kundiman 20th Anniversary Poetry Portfolio in collaboration with The Offing. Q&A conducted by Gauri Awasthi, Q&A Editor.
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Gauri Awasthi: Can you talk about sectioning, especially in terms of the language of architecture? How does the book as an object play with the idea of the blueprint, or what role does that play in the organization of poems for you?
Jess Yuan: Thank you for making this comparison between the book as an object and a blueprint; I really appreciate thinking of it that way, especially because the idea of the blueprint connects with the cover art’s shades of blue and play of light and shadow. It’s interesting to think about moving through the sections of the book like moving through different rooms in a building, and how a blueprint orchestrates that movement. I felt like each section was like a different room, and closing one section and opening onto the next is like crossing a threshold into slightly different spaces, voices, and subjects.
Like many poets putting together first books, I felt like I had so many different voices and registers that I’ve tried on in order to grow as a poet, and so many tangents and subjects to hold together, so the overall organization of the book wasn’t always clear to me. That often felt uncomfortable for my architect brain, where I did want more control and clarity. Ultimately, I thought of the three sections as a progression into deeper intimacy, from abstract renderings of the world into the private world of childhood and memory. I thought of the journey through the book like treating each section as the antechamber to the next. But I also feel that there are often multiple connecting threads between poems and that they don’t necessarily have to be experienced in a specific order. Some buildings guide you through a set procession, while others are better suited to have more free circulation, and I think readers can prefer either way of encountering poetry. I love how individual poems can be shared out of context, and I find what often ends up staying with me in poetry books is all over the manuscript, so that our memory of poetry books is often nonlinear.
GA: I was really invested in your use of brackets, right from the first poem “When The World Was Round” where in the opening when the speaker says, “In those days (when / the world was flat) / though we looked closely” to the last poem of the book titled “I Am Talking About Joy” where the speaker says, “You are stained in the dish also / (and what is this culture / I am a part of?) / Does each cilium know?” They sometimes seem to break the third wall. Could you speak to this choice?
JY: I love digressions and all manner of punctuation marks. There’s something the parenthesis can do that other marks of caesura can’t—even though a comma, em dash, or added space can set an idea apart, the parenthesis kind of treats the utterance as optional, an aside that almost apologizes for itself, for interrupting the flow of thinking. I love digressions and poems that continue and continue to elaborate, and I’m inspired by Robyn Schiff’s celebration of digressions in her long poems in Information Desk: An Epic.
I appreciate the idea of breaking the third (fourth?) wall, and how that implies the speaker is performing in front of an audience. It makes us ask—is that speaker sincere? should we keep listening to her? I feel like the parenthesis creates a speaker who digresses and who asks herself those same questions. That tone of hesitancy and meandering gets punctuated by swerving asides, and that’s the rhythm innate to the speaker’s thinking. Like in your second example, in the book’s last poem, I went through many revisions on how else to make the pun on Petri dish bacterial cultures and social culture, and ultimately felt that the speaker wouldn’t dwell long on the joke but would rush to the next idea. I hope that the reader likes having an inside joke with the speaker, or is shocked by the idea that they’re in a shared cultural landscape with the speaker.
GA: “Slow Render” mirrors itself to another version of “Slow Render” in the book’s layout. But also there is such a focus on transparency in these two(?) titular poems. Could you talk more about how that came to be?
JY: I ended up with some pairs of poems that share the same title because I’d often work in a way where I’d keep trying to write the same poem. I would have an idea that I wrote a lot around, but didn’t feel that there was one approach that was better than another, so I kept each poem and let them share the title. I’m grateful that they ended up on facing pages, and how that implies a confrontation or conversation between the two. I really appreciate that you brought up mirroring, and I’ve been thinking of how that plays with the idea of reflectivity in relation to transparency. When I was writing about rendering, I was working with digital modeling materials where their properties, like opacity and reflectivity, are set as parameters, and the image comes together as the render engine simulates throwing light at the digital material. The two “Slow Render” poems try to take on describing that way of seeing, as they work through the slippery material qualities of water and glass.
GA: In “Work Song as a Silkworm” I was taken aback by the use of soft sounding syllabic language to ask very hard questions. Like when the speaker says, “on the cusp of transformation, then boiled / and boiled to such soft uses, / bending the used to the user, / and we are meant to live with, build the entirety / of our cultivations upon / these antagonisms?” and this happens throughout the collection, the questioning of cruelties and understood ways of work, as in the latter poem “But To Work” where the speaker says, “…at night I fantasize / performing anarchy as if I were alive”. I couldn’t help but think of these ideas in the context of the work of poetry and the other kinds of work we are supposed/ought to do. What were some of your starting points on these poems and thoughts on this, in general?
JY: I wrote a lot about work because I was overworked and overwhelmed while writing Slow Render. But who isn’t overworked and overwhelmed in their twenties? Most of the book’s poems were written while I was working and studying as an architect; I’d write poems in odd moments between classes, or during midnight shifts at the library reference desk, or jot down thoughts in email drafts, time-thefting from desk jobs. My attitude towards work is grounded in my upbringing as an immigrant, and for a long time I decentered my poetic practice because I was so caught up in being useful to others, chasing institutional validation, producing concrete results, gaining mastery, etc. I was initially drawn to architecture for how it melds utility and discipline with creativity, and how the open-endedness of a design problem means work can always continue towards other possibilities. The architects I’ve worked with, studied with, and the students I’ve taught are some of the hardest-working people I know. I hope they take care of themselves and rest like poets.
“Work Song as Silkworm” was one of the last poems I wrote that made its way into the book, at a time when I was pretty burnt out. I was reminded of how silkworms must be boiled alive to harvest an intact silk thread, and I tried to see beauty and art-making from the perspective of the silkworm who sacrifices its life to be woven into something precious. It’s absolutely horrific to think of that as a metaphor for all labor and human endeavor; I suppose that’s the “hard question.” But I hope there’s a way to protect the poet-self from the worker-self. The beautiful thing about poetry is that it isn’t hard work; it’s definitely work, and it’s valuable labor, but I mean that there’s no point forcing yourself to write a poem. At least I hope not. It can take as long as it takes, which is something we don’t get in a lot of what we do. And in doing so, I’ve found extraordinary freedom and abundance, and I feel that’s what’s sustained my poetry practice under the pressures of other kinds of work.
GA: And lastly, how has your experience been of winning a book prize? Any suggestions for writers applying to contests? Or sustain the writing practice? Or community?
JY: I’m truly grateful to Airlie press and the contest readers for taking a chance on Slow Render. I had been revising and sending the book out for about two years while I was working as an architect, and I was often unsure if it’d make its way into the world. I’d definitely encourage folks to keep forging ahead after dozens of rejections; I’m glad I did. But I do want to say that the insecurities and anxiety for external approval that drove me to Submittable speed runs didn’t really come from a healthy place, and it’s so hard to strike a balance between numbing yourself to rejection or overthinking it. Because I don’t come from a family that encouraged writing, I threw myself into proving myself to institutions and powering through rejection. Everyone has a different relationship with external validation though, and you should do what works for you, whether that’s having a support system to keep you accountable or privately going at your own pace. Contests are expensive, and so’s the emotional attrition, and sometimes it’s good to step away and to recover your relationship with poetry.
Community has been so important in sustaining my relationship with poetry. I feel so energized when the same thing which thrills me thrills others. It’s the best feeling, and I’m inspired by so many brilliant poets writing today. I’m especially grateful for poets who are open and generously vulnerable about our writing journeys and struggles. It’s difficult to make space for creative practice in a world with so many other demands on our time and attention, but we have made space, and we’re never alone. Poetry is built on feeling generously, and I love how that balances out the institutional side of our careers.
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