Revisiting Old Work

I recently finished the longest poem I've ever written modeled after one of my very favorit poems, Li-Young Lee's The City in Which I Love you. It's a poem that breaks down the moments before my wedding and cracks open the relationship I've had with my husband up until that moment. I’d been working on it for over a year. 20 years ago, I was obsessed with fractals about and before I took the long (13-year!) pause from writing, my work was kind of fractal-heavy and science-y. And while I was doing some cool things, the poems lacked a heart and a soul (which is why I put it all away and stopped writing). The work I was generating back then was kind of show-offy but still had great bones. I’d wanted to go back to some of that work and see if past-poet-KB had anything to say to today-poet-KB. I got this long poem out of revisiting those pieces. And I'm still working with those old poems. I’m loving this strange communion with her. Who knew that bits of these souless (but impressive!) poems using science and fractals to make sense of my life that I wrote in the wee hours of the 2000's would have something to say to the moments before my wedding. Those moments felt huge and I spent a lot of time contemplating the whole of our relationship in the process of writing it. Anyway - all of this to say that I loved mining these old poems through the lens of my marriage. It’s been a really cool process! It’s been really enjoyable to dig into that work!

Me at the Launch of Undress at White Whale Books