The Creative Independent Interviews Precious Okoyomon

The Creative Independent interviews Precious Okoyomon about finding poetry in everything, her book Ajebota (Bottlecap Press, 2016), her writing process, the internet and being a contemporary poet, her recommended reading, and more. An excerpt:

Your last book ends with a poem that’s like text messages between two people. I’m curious what you feel like is the relationship between your work and the internet and cell phones.

I’m on the internet quite a bit. It almost makes me insane. Ben [Fama] has this line in a poem, “The internet is my home/ where it’s easy to be beautiful.” I agree with that like to the max. I’m constantly on my phone. I read my poems off my phone. I write on my phone. My phone is constantly in my hand. Being a contemporary poet and being on the internet go hand in hand. A tweet is a little poem. I send my friend a text—that’s a love poem! I want literature that’s not made from literature, like let’s destroy this idea of a pure form… everything is cross mutation of particles that merge with one another.

Some people feel like tweeting or texting friends can steal the energy that would otherwise get put to their work.

No. That’s all my writing. You can’t steal something that’s a part of everything, if it’s all connected and it’s all the same thing. What makes it different? I write it on paper so it’s more holy than if it’s on my phone or in a tweet or a text to a friend? No. The space your words are in shouldn’t matter more than your words. Some of my best lines will come from a manic Facebook post when I’m pissed off at someone. Little things that I don’t even think about, and I go back like, “Oh, that is a good line.” Everything is one big great poem. Why pretend otherwise?

Read the full interview at The Creative Independent.