“What I say here might be counterintuitive. If I am looking for writing inspiration, I do the opposite: I refuse writing (easy to do if one is busy). In fact, I try and refuse the impulse to write for as long as possible until I feel that I am physically going to puncture and blow up. This ‘process,’ or anti-process, takes a certain amount of patience, and patience is not something we value in our culture of rushing to get published, rushing to make a splash in the literary world, rushing rushing rushing (I’m also guilty). There are so many opportunities to be upset at the literary world, but I believe that the act of being upset is the antithesis of poetry. The desire for attention is the antithesis of poetry. I believe poetry requires slowness; have you ever seen how homemade slime (a big thing amongst kids now) quietly and slowly molds to the space it is placed on? Whenever I want to write, I wait, like the slime. Then I wait some more. And I live my life. And I read a lot (I’m currently reading many books at once but am rereading a wonderful book, Mary Ruefle’s Madness, Rack, and Honey). There comes a point where what I end up writing is stitched with threads of blood from patience. That’s the kind of poetry I want to read. And that’s the kind of poetry I want to write.”
—Victoria Chang, author of Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017)