Kimiko Hahn Talks Science, Dickinson, and More at The Rumpus

Kimiko Hahn talks to The Rumpus about her tenth collection of poems, Foreign Bodies (W. W. Norton, 2020). Hahn also spoke with interviewer Mackenzie Singh about "her interest in science, Japanese poetics, and breaking open drafts to unleash electricity." From their conversation:

Rumpus: I wanted to ask you about your interest in science, your research of scientific articles. What is the point where your exploration meets an emotional connection? And then, how do you manifest that emotionality on the page?

Hahn: I’m attracted to articles in the science section of the New York Times because of the language or because of some little hook. I’ll start with those words or a kind of talking back: “Why isn’t Pluto a planet anymore? Why can’t we just keep it a planet?” I’ll start mucking around in thoughts or playing with words. I play with drafts. This is the fun part, the discovery part, when you’re not in control of the material. Then, at some point as I’m looking with more of an editorial eye, I have to ask myself, what is at stake for me?

I then decide on a thematic direction, that is, how I want to deepen or heighten those themes, where in the poem I can break something open with one word. I’m very proud of the poem “The Ashes” in Foreign Bodies. I think I’ve been wanting to write that poem for a long time. It began as a kind of exercise and in early drafts it wasn’t working. It was dull. Around the same time, I was reading Emily Dickinson and I thought, I’m going to try one of her tricks, to personify these objects. So I came up with images like “circumspect mothballs.” All of a sudden, the poem started to pop with more electricity.

Read on at The Rumpus.