More Than Just a Nostalgic Nose: Interview With John Sakkis (!!) at SF Weekly

Poet, editor, translator, and Internet-hater John Sakkis was interviewed this week for "The Write Stuff" at SF Weekly! We here at Harriet have been tremulous with anticipation for Sakkis' new book, The Islands, which just came out from Nightboat Books and is, as those books are wont, beautiful. Evan Karp waxed all nostalgic with Sakkis--here's a thimbleful:

If someone said I want to do what you do, what advice would you have for them?

I’d tell them the same thing Anne Waldman told me years ago at Naropa, that if you want to be part of a literary community, an active participant, it’s not enough to just write your poetry or prose, you need to put in work towards the community; that means attending readings, curating readings, publishing a magazine, starting a little press, supporting small presses by purchasing books (poetry is a gift economy, but you gotta buy the books sometimes too), writing and writing and writing and reading reading reading, that’s the initiation, no way around it.

[...]

What is your fondest memory?

Depends on what part of my life I’m thinking about right? But what comes immediately to mind would be goofing off in the back of my Mom’s minivan with all my best friends heading to the Benicia skate park on a warm summer weekend, the anticipation growing as we pass the landmarks designating how much closer we’re getting to the park: the Shell Martinez Refinery (cut to) the Carquinez Straight (cut to) the Benicia Bridge (cut to) the Taco Bell behind the park, and then boom, the SKATEPARK, we’re home free.

How many times do you fall in love each day?

I fall in love with moments, not every day, sometimes people too, but not very often.

What are you working on right now?

I’m working on a new poetry manuscript called MIRROR MAGIC, also a new chapbook called Fiend Folio. I continue to put out my little flipchap magazine BOTH BOTH intermittently, going on 10 years now. I also just had a new book published (The Islands from Nightboat Books), so I’ve been thinking about how to read from that, I have some upcoming readings in the Bay Area and Los Angeles in support of the book, keeping busy with various projects overall: music, photography projects with friends, poetry.

Read it all at SF Weekly; and yes, you can purchase The Islands at SPD.