Kelli Russell Agodon’s fourth collection of poems, Dialogues with Rising Tides was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2021. She is the cofounder of Two Sylvias Press and lives in a sleepy seaside town in Washington State on traditional lands of the Chimacum, Coast Salish, S'Klallam, and Suquamish people where she is an avid paddleboarder and hiker. She serves on the poetry faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop, a low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University. www.agodon.com / www.twosylviaspress.com

Gerard Beirne: Hi Kelli, one of the great pleasures of my life was spending two years in Washington State, living in Spokane while I completed my MFA at EWU. Can you talk about Washington State/ the Pacific Northwest and what it has meant to you and your writing?

Kelli Russell Agodon: As someone who was born and raised in Washington State, I was not impressed by it as a kid—Who needs all these evergreens and rain when there is sunshine, dazzling palm trees and a giant HOLLYWOOD sign down south in California? my eight-year-old self thought. But around college, this disdain I carried for my hometown Seattle began to change.

As a young writer though, I began to see the gifts of the gloomy weather and how it led to more writing time. The grunge music scene was taking off and others began to notice and appreciate Seattle’s low-key style (and love of flannels). I remember one day I was sitting outside in the Quad at the University of Washington campus under these beautiful Yoshino cherries trees that were dropping blossoms into my hair and on the other students of a poetry class I was taking with Linda Bierds—it looked like pink confetti falling on us, and I thought—What a charmed place. How lucky are we?

Someone told me the constellations over Seattle are the same as they were over Rome in the renaissance. I’m not sure if that’s true, but a lot of wonderful art, music, and writing has been created here. And while nature has always been a source for calmness and inspiration, since that moment in college, I began to see the beauty and benefits of living in the Pacific Northwest.

As a paddleboarder, it is not uncommon for me to paddle out into the saltwater and be surrounded by porpoise, harbor seals, and otters. Blue heron line the shore and there is always a kingfisher squawking by. It’s dreamlike, and these moments continue to roll over into my poems—I mean, how could they not? Though I am probably more inside the poem when I am paddleboarding than writing it, or maybe that is that is what this area has brought to me—an opportunity to live the poem before I write it.

GB: One of the first books of poetry I acquired on arriving in Spokane (in the wonderful Auntie’s Bookstore) was, naturally, Five Poets of the Pacific Northwest: Poems by Hanson, Hugo, Kizer, Stafford and Wagoner. Do you see a common style or ethos between poets from the region, have they had much influence upon you, or do you think this form of “regionalism” is too reductive?

KRA: So many people have no idea about Pacific Northwest poets. David Wagoner was my teacher at the UW and he was tough on our poems. He definitely helped me understand what type of learning style I worked best under as critical classrooms shut me down, but tell me what I did well, and I’ll do everything in my power to do it again and try something else.

One thing I felt starting out as a poet from the Pacific Northwest was that it felt as if it were easy to forget about us over here in the upper left coast. Before the internet, poetry felt very East Coast/NY centered. The internet helped even that out as there is no geography on the internet and we can all exist in pretty much the same spaces.

But what I see with many Pacific Northwest poets, is both a connection to place, landscape, and weather. And while it would be easy to say Pacific NW poets have a narrative accessible style, I think that may be too general to say that. Hugo, Stafford, and Wagoner definitely were about the image and telling the story. But I do believe that by living here, one cannot help but write about the evergreens, or the natural world that surrounds us—there is just so much green.

GB: What about your own style or ethos? Where do you locate yourself in relation to the “intent” of your work? Your most recent book, Dialogues with Rising Tides, for example, seems particularly timely as we deal the environmental catastrophe.

KRA: Dialogues with Rising Tides definitely explores the climate crisis, and my next book, which I am currently working on has even more ecopoems. I live near the water. I have watched neighbors’ yards flood from king tides and a bad storm. I’ve seen dwindling numbers of swallows return to our neighborhood. I think a lot about the environment and the many species we are losing each year, so my work is a small snapshot of a larger concern. I think if I were to locate myself in “intent,” I’d be on a blanket in a park drinking wine somewhere the city of Let’s See What Happens.

I don’t begin a poem with a plan—sometimes all I have is an opening or an image in my head, or sometimes—and these are the best poems—I just begin and the poem arrives like a gift being unwrapped on the page. And as for my style or ethos—I’m not sure. I think my poems are like outfits, some days they are simple to understand—blue button-down shirt, leather loafers, maybe a paisley scarf, but other times they arrive to the page wearing a fedora and carrying a tuba. Mostly, I just hope they entertain and engage the reader—which reminds me of this quote I believe is from Anne Sexton, “One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is ‘Whatever you do, don't be boring.’”

GB: Your latest collection is published with Copper Canyon Press – a press I have greatly admired for a long time. Furthermore, you are a publisher yourself having co-founded Two Sylvias Press. Firstly, how significant is it to publish with Copper Canyon, and secondly, how do you view the relationship between a poet and their publisher?

KRA: Copper Canyon Press was my number one choice as a press. As Pacific Northwesterner, I knew its history, its mission, and have read many beautiful books, so for me, it’s incredibly significant. If you were to find my wish journal I started many years ago, which is basically a list of things I wanted or hoped for (or wanted to manifest—not to sound too woo-woo) I had written down in 2004ish, “To have a book published with Copper Canyon Press”–naming them even back then. So yes, the significance wasn’t lost on me. And I am thankful to be in the Copper Canyon Press family—they really have been a dream to work with.

As a poet and publisher, I do feel I have a better understanding of both sides of the book journey. The relationship between press and poet is a collaborative one and very much a give and take, maybe give and take is the wrong words. Maybe it’s share and borrow. Maybe it’s assist and band together or peanut butter and bananas or sun and comet. It definitely involves teamwork. And when you like who you’re working with, it makes all the difference.

GB: Now Kelli, forgive me, but what on earth possessed you to start a poetry press? What were you thinking! Seriously, what was the impetus behind it and how has it impacted upon your own writing of poetry? I don’t just mean timewise, but also the act of writing poetry.

KRA: Ha! Starting a press was a total accident!

All Annette Spaulding-Convy and I had wanted to do was publish the first eBook anthology of women’s poetry (Fire on Her Tongue: An Anthology of Contemporary Women’s Poetry). It was around 2008, we both had eReaders and were disappointed there was hardly any poetry books available.

So we created Fire on her Tongue, but what we learned after creating that is that poetry presses were way behind on publishing eBooks and the formatting for eBooks was incredibly complicated, so we realized that if we began our own press, we could publish the eBook exactly how we envisioned it, without having to compromise and to keep the integrity of the poems’ formatting.

After we published that anthology, a friend of ours, Jeannine Hall Gailey’s press went under and her book would now be out of print, we wanted to keep her book in the world so we re-released She Returns to the Floating World. After that, Martha Silano and I had written a book of poetry prompts called The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts for Your Writing Practice and decided Two Sylvias Press could just publish that too.

See the slippery slope? So yes, what’s interesting is that neither Annette or I had ever said, “You know, I’d like to start my own press.” We were both editors at Crab Creek Review and we understood how much work goes into putting together a literary journal. We were also poets ourselves, so we appreciated time for our own work. 

I guess our press evolved organically and grew from there. I’m glad it did. Our mission statement is “Because good writing is great for the world,” so we continue to go on.

GB: I am always intrigued as to which Irish writers make their way into the lives of other writers overseas - and not just the more established writers of the past but contemporary ones too. Are there any Irish writers in particular you have been drawn to or have influenced you in any way?

KRA: As someone with an Irish heritage, when I think of Irish poets, I think isn’t everyone in Ireland a poet? I mean, there’s a rumor here in the states, that you don’t pay full taxes if you’re a poet in Ireland. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but when an American tells me people don’t appreciate poetry anymore, I bring up Ireland and other countries where they do. Or at least, that is my perception from afar.

Of course, when I think of Irish poets, Seamus Heaney comes to mind immediately, and Eavan Boland but also, Salmon Poetry Press, and Geraldine Mills who wrote Bone Road. She was a guest at Poets on the Coast and an absolute delight with her stories. Tess Gallagher lives quite close to me and she showed up in a fedora for a pre-pandemic book party for me—she is a gem.

What you may not know, is many of us in the States adore Ireland and how poetry feels as if it’s part of the community in your country and not this sidedoor only a few know about. A friend told me when he went to a bar in Dublin, he asked a gentleman, “Does anyone here write poetry?” and he answered, “We all do!” which confirmed my belief!

GB: Which contemporary North American poets should we reading now in your opinion?

KRA: I this is the hardest question to answer because I will inevitably leave someone out.

I teach at Pacific Lutheran University’s low-res MFA program called the Rainier Writing Workshop and many of the faculty are poets; so immediately I think of Rick Barot, Geffrey Davis, Peggy Shumaker, Oliver de la Paz, Jenny Johnson, and Jennifer Foerster. But also these poets who have new books out this year such as W. Todd Kaneko, Amorak Huey, Diane Seuss, Maggie Smith, Kelly Cressio-Moeller, Alex Dimitrov, Jennifer K. Knox, Diamond Forde, C. Dale Young, David Woo, Rachel Mennies, Cindy Veach, Kendra DeColo, Meg E. Griffitts, Heidi Seaborn, and Kevin Young…I mean, I haven’t even named my close friends and ecopoets like Camille Dungy, Todd Davis, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil…the list keeps going on and I still only named a few drops of water in an ocean of poets.

I think subscribing to Swwim’s poem-a-day (https://www.swwim.org/) is a wonderful way to find new poets.

GB: From a writing point of view, how have you managed during the pandemic? It must have been difficult launching a new collection into this very different world.

KRA: I spent the first part of 2021 volunteering at mass vaccine clinics trying to get people vaccinated so my book seemed secondary to the issues at large, but I was honestly thrilled it was going out in the world (and while working at a vaccine site, Heather McHugh showed up, and I went all fangirl crazy when I saw her—and she was just a joy!). But working at a vaccination clinic taught me a lot about coming together to make things.

You know, it was strange, but it wasn’t terrible. Zoom readings have made things easier and while I miss the in-person gatherings, as someone who lives in a small town close to nothing, I appreciate not having to travel hours to get to a readings, that I can just pop into my writing shed and connect via internet with others.

But the difficultness is that it doesn’t feel real. There was no cake or big party with champagne once my book was in print—thank goodness for my friends Michele Bombardier and Holly Hughes who threw me a party literally three weeks before we all entered quarantine. It was what I held onto and still do.

But a mixed bag—there’s kind of this strange virtualness that while the ease of not traveling makes my introvert self shine, another part of my tries to reconcile if my book is really out there. So it doesn’t feel real, which is why I appreciate this opportunity to talk about the book. I mean, it makes it feel less like a magical concept and more like a real physical book that happened.

GB: Kelli, any last thoughts on the act of writing poetry in these times, of its importance and relevance?

KRA: I am writing this from a writing residency where I have entire days to focus on poetry. Today I was writing a poem and I thought, The world is dealing with this pandemic, so much is uncertain, but I am writing a poem—that is a hopeful act. And I think that is what struck me, Writing poetry is optimistic.

There is always enough room for another poet and poem in the world. I think that is why I’ve always said, The world would be a better place if everyone woke up and wrote a poem. And I believe it. 

Dialogues With Rising Tides can be purchased here:

https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/dialogues-with-rising-tides-by-kelli-russell-agodon/