Elisa Gabbert and Cindy Juyoung Ok on Self-Pity, Death, and the Internet

This week, Cindy Juyoung Ok speaks with Elisa Gabbert, who joins us from Providence, Rhode Island. Gabbert is the author of six, soon to be seven, collections of essays and poems, including Normal Distance (Soft Skull Press, 2022) and the forthcoming Any Person Is the Only Self (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024). Ok writes, “For Elisa, seemingly no field, no form, no fondness, is exempt from her thought or, lucky for us, her writing. She is a lover of surprising etymology and misunderstood quotes. She works toward clarity in play and in study.” Today, the two discuss Gabbert’s essay “On Self-Pity: Go Eat Worms,” which is part of a new series called “Hard Feelings” that makes its debut in the July/August 2023 issue of Poetry. Gabbert explains why she was excited to write a “spirited defense” of self-pity, and more.