Q: You’ve described ‘Gurlesque’ poetry as ‘avoiding the sharpness of overt messages’ and poems that ‘revel in the cuteness.’ One of your darker poems, “Me and Peter Lorre down by the Schoolyard,” contains an element not seen very often in your poetry, rhyme. With the mention of ‘pederasts’ in the first line and ‘a toy ferris wheel full of knives,’ did you employ the use rhyme to try to stay within the bounds of ‘gurlesque’ poetry?

A: There's a lot of different parts of this question to answer! First of all, even though I write about the Gurlesque as a way to think about other women's poetry, I don't generally consider my own work to be Gurlesque. I did recently write one poem that's trying overtly to be Gurlesque, and I sort of "stay within the bounds" of the Gurlesque, for fun. But because the Gurlesque is an aesthetic of rule-breaking, there aren't actually too many "bounds" that apply!

But also, I do sometimes use internal rhyme in poems, but I don't think of rhyme as "cute," if that's how you're thinking of rhyme as being Gurlesque. I don't actually have any theories as of yet about how rhyme fits into the Gurlesque—it's used in some Gurlesque poems, but it's certainly not a formal element I think of as either necessary to or antithetical to the Gurlesque.

Q: I noticed that some of your poetry tends to have consistently long lines. This interests me because in my own writing, I find it difficult to figure out where to make line breaks. Is this done consciously in your creative process or is it more of something that is organic to your writing?

A: I think anything I do consciously in my creative process is also organic to my writing! But I'm wondering if you are thinking of my prose poems, which don't have line breaks at all, but look like paragraphs on the page? I love using the prose poem form. It is sort of an organic thing for me—as I write the poem, the poem tells me what form it should be in: short lines, long lines, prose poem, all over the page, whatever it might be. I could probably explain why some of those choices are made, but not in every case. Sometimes it's just intuitive. But I am certainly always mindful about form, about the way a particular poem takes shape.

Q: You proudly wear the label of being a feminist, something that, sadly, can be misunderstood to be a bad thing. I’m aware that this aspect of your life has great influence on your writing, but do you ever feel like you have to censor your poetry so you don’t become stereotyped? Also, how long has feminism shaped your poetry?

A: Maybe I'm naive, but I honestly don't understand why or how being a feminist could be understood to be a bad thing. I mean, are there really people in the world who don't think women should be taken seriously and treated equally? (Because that's all that feminism really means, at the most basic level.) The opposite of being a feminist, to my mind, is being a sexist, and who wants to be a sexist?! I guess those people are out there, but I don't get them, and luckily, I hardly ever meet them in person. I mean, I know there are people like this in the world, but I just think they're ridiculous.

I don't censor my poetry. I am interested in being as truthful as possible in art, and I also feel very grateful to live in a country where there is freedom of expression, and to take advantage of that. And I would certainly not be a very responsible feminist if I censored my work to avoid seeming feminist! Being a feminist means speaking up, without fear, about my own experiences as a woman, and for the rights of women, and for women's experiences in general. Besides which, if I am stereotyped as writing about women's issues, that's fine with me: I do write about women's issues. Those issues are important to me, and they're also important to the culture and the world at large. In the same ways that racism holds a culture back, sexism holds a culture back. No culture can really move forward if it is oppressing its own people with hatred and ignorance and injustice.

I think I've always been a feminist. My mom is a feminist, and she raised me with it. So I imagine my poetry has always been feminist, too.

Q: I noticed the adorable picture of you and your daughter, Willa, on your website. When Willa was born, did you notice a shift in your writing? Be it the style, subject matter, the creative process you go through, or just having less time to write.

A: Yes, all of the above! I definitely have less time to write, and also just less brain space for poetry, than I did before I had Willa. And when I do write, it tends to be about motherhood, or the many ways in which my sense of myself has shifted since becoming a mother. The process and style have also changed: since I have less time, I tend to work faster when I do have an idea, and the poems tend to be more direct, more urgent, more narrative. I have something to say, and I need to say it somewhat plainly, whereas I think I used to play around a lot more. I miss that playfulness sometimes, but I feel like eventually my kids will be grown-ups and I'll have access to that part of my imagination again, so I'm trying to be patient.

Q: With your two poetry anthologies, Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections written with Rachel Zucker, and Gurlesque, with Lara Glenum, not to mention editing an anthology of contemporary poetry on girlhood aimed at teenage girls, what do you hope to teach your daughter through your pieces of work?

A: It's funny: I don't think of my own daughter as being the audience for my work. She's only three, and she has a whole bookcase full of wonderful books she loves and reads, and I'm indebted to the enormous wealth of great (and girl-empowering) children's literature out there. But I am certainly trying to write and edit projects that document the important contributions women and girls make in poetry and in the world at large. My daughter will make her own contributions, and I hope to encourage her and support her however I can, to be self-confident, intelligent, creative and compassionate. Right now she loves poetry and words, but I don't know whether or not she will want to read about poetry when she gets older, and if she has other interests, that's fine by me. But if my books help her or any other girls to feel like there is a bigger place for them in the literary world, or make them feel comforted or excited or befriended by another woman's words, that would make me very happy indeed.

Q: Name a writer who is currently making you jealous.

A: Hmm. I try to fight tendencies toward jealousy of other writers. I don't like feeling jealous—it's an icky, unproductive feeling. There are lots of other writers whose work I adore and admire, though. There was a wonderful, long review of a new young adult novel by my friend M.T. Anderson (Tobin) in this morning's New York Times Book Review, and it basically said that Tobin's a genius and the book is a masterpiece, and I totally agree, and am so glad to see him recognized and noticed in this way. I've never been reviewed in The New York Times, and I doubt I ever will be, and while I'd love to be, that doesn't take anything away from my feelings of admiration for Tobin. I'm thrilled for him.

Q: What kind of child were you?

A: Pretty typical, I suspect, of a child that grows up to be a poet: always had my nose in a book; interested in weird things; very sensitive and observant; never really fit in with the popular kids. I loved everything old—arcane slang, vintage clothes, old movies, historical societies, stuff like that. But I also liked playing Barbies and riding my bike and making snow cones and normal kid stuff.

Q: What is your relationship with rejection like?

A: Usually it doesn't bother me that much, unless I think it was for really wrong-headed, mean-spirited reasons. I am very thankful for most things in my life, and a little rejection now and then is humbling, and I tend to need humbling. I can get pretty cocky.

Q: What book did you suffer for the most, and why?

A: Good question! I think the textbook I edited, Youth Subcultures, which is a collection of essays that gets taught in college composition classrooms, caused the most suffering in some ways. It was a lot of hard work, tedious work, and it almost didn't get published and had to be completely overhauled, and it took years and years and was not in any way creative, and I got very little money to do it. But you know what? I'm still really proud of it and glad I did it and so gratified when students or instructors say they used it and liked it. It was an unusual project for a poet to take on, of which I'm also proud. But I may never try to edit a textbook again—then again, I may. I tend to like hard work.

Q: What was the greatest surprise for you in your most recent writing?

A: Lately, I've not been really writing poems per se—I'm mostly writing essays and little mini-essay/prose poems. And they've been very direct. So that's a change for me. I'm sort of done with them for now, though, so I have no idea what I'm going to start writing next.

Q: What writerly habit would you most like to break?

A: I don't have many writerly habits, other than that I write my poems in silence, preferably lying down across my bed and by hand (though not always). In general, I try not to give in to too many writerly habits. I read somewhere recently about the practice of saying what you do for work rather than letting your work define who you are: for example, "I write poems" rather than "I'm a poet." I'm trying to remember that idea: I think it's a good one. I don't like to be too mystical or precious about making poems. It's lovely and indeed sometimes magical work for me, personally, but I don't have an interest in being too pretentious about it.

Q: Lastly, one random fact to top it off—what did you have for lunch today?

A: A delicious quinoa chowder soup my husband made, a slice of bread from a good local bakery, and an organic pear. My husband is a great cook, especially of soup, which is one more thing for which I am grateful!