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alexandra critsimilios
2021 / interview series / POETS & THE PANDEMIC
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WHAT YOU WRITE?
I write poetry.
WHERE DO YOU CALL HOME?
New York City. I was born and raised between Manhattan and the Bronx, and I live in Harlem now.
WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU DID TODAY?
Made coffee.
WHAT CREATIVE WORK WERE YOU DOING THIS TIME LAST YEAR?
Lesson planning.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OVER THE PAST YEAR IN TERMS OF YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?
Being hyperfocused on stressors which saps my creative energy.
What has been the most startling thing you've learned or experienced since the pandemic began?
I experienced a severe concussion in the middle of last year which led to a slew of mental and physical health issues. Experiencing that on top of the trauma of the pandemic has been incredibly hard.
HAS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECTED YOUR ABILITY TO CREATE? HOW SO?
Absolutely. Less contact with the world overall means fewer opportunities for inspiration. In one of my first therapy sessions last year, my therapist pointed out how the pandemic has robbed us of the “in-between” moments: striking up conversation with your bartender while waiting for a drink; feeling a bassline rumble through your chest at a live concert; watching the hands of your siblings float over dishes at a family dinner; getting blinded by hard sun after leaving a movie in the middle of the day; people-watching from behind the window of a coffee shop humming with life. For me, poetry lives in and blossoms out of these tiny moments. Going without them, for the most part, has really inhibited the way poetry forms out of me. But it’s also challenged me to pull writing out of other places and feelings I haven’t necessarily visited before.
HAS COVID-19 CHANGED HOW YOU VIEW AND/OR NAVIGATE THE WORLD? HOW SO?
It’s waxed me hardcore existential. Witnessing Covid-19 ravage my country, my city… it’s made me very aware of my own mortality. Of futility in general. And I feel like so many people are feeling nihilistic but nobody is talking about it.
Inextricable from this melancholia is also the recognition of my privilege and how it operates in the realm of my community and the world at large. So there’s these overwhelming conflicting feelings of gratitude and dismay at the same time; grateful that I’m well and I’ve managed just fine during this past year, but gutted by the stark reminders of how brutally unfairly the world works. After the trauma of watching the pandemic unfold, I’m kneading my way through the world with more cognizant appreciation for everything it holds.
IN WHAT WAYS HAS THE PANDEMIC CHANGED YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY? HAVE THOSE CHANGES RESULTED IN DIRECT OR INDIRECT IMPACT TO HOW YOU NAVIGATE YOUR WRITING OR YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIFE?
It’s been heartwrenching to watch New York City survive this pandemic with extreme collateral damage. I teach in Mott Haven in the Bronx, which is the poorest congressional district in the USA, and it was absolutely ravaged by Covid. Multiple students in our school lost parents and other family members to the virus.
Across the city, even in wealthy areas, beloved businesses shuttered because they couldn’t bear the financial burden. On top of that, you had most places around the city boarded up during the George Floyd protests when folks were looting and the NYPD was brutalizing communities in the summer. I traveled frequently between the Jersey Shore (where I spend all my summers) and Manhattan during 2020, and every time I came back into the city my heart shattered. It was visibly jarring to see it so empty and quiet.
I think the most identifiable way this all impacted my day-to-day life was what I mentioned before—an increased appreciation for my city. For me and NYC, its always been a “till death do us part” thing, but I’ve never felt that way more strongly than I do now.
REGARDING IDEAS AND INSPIRATION: WHAT COMES FIRST WHEN YOU APPROACH WRITING A POEM OR STARTING A CREATIVE PROJECT?
Usually just a line of a poem surfaces first. Most of the time I’m away from paper or my computer, so I’ll jot whatever it is down on my phone and circle back whenever I feel I’m in a creative enough headspace. Getting that initial inspiration down & out of my head is always the first and most important step.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOUR CREATIVE WORK THIS TIME NEXT YEAR?
I’ll be considering an MFA program in poetry.
WRITING OFTEN INCLUDES DRAWING FROM LIVED EXPERIENCE AS WELL AS OUTSIDE SOURCES, OFTEN BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY AND GENERAL TRUTHS. DO YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN THE PERSONAL AND GENERAL TRUTHS THAT ARE EXPLORED IN YOUR WRITING?
All of my poetry is autobiographical in nature. The poems themselves unravel in lots of different directions, but the nucleus of each poem always has to do with me. Naturally, because I’m a human person, I believe general human truths surface in my poems. The difficulty of maintaining that boundary, or maybe the intentionality of disregarding it altogether, is exactly what I find so riveting and gut wrenching about poetry as a whole; that someone’s personal biography can be a general truth. That Paul Celan, a Romanian Jew writing German poetry during World War II, wrote something that resonates so perfectly with how I, who can claim no commonalities there, felt last Tuesday. That it doesn’t matter how personally biographical Charles Wright’s, or Wendy Xu’s, or Hanif Abdurraqib’s, or Hala Alyan’s poems are because they can wreck me with a line, because they’re writing about their life which is just Life, because they present me to myself. I don’t pay attention to the boundaries between the personal and the universal when I read or write poetry because that doesn’t concern me because I want every poem I read to stab me in the heart with some sort of language about what a mess it is to be human. Poetry that is cognizant of that barrier and intentionally tries to do or not do something with it is uninteresting to me.
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WHAT THEMES OR REOCCURRING THREADS DO YOU TRY TO EXPLORE IN YOUR WRITING? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO PURSUE THESE THEMES? HOW HAVE THESE CHANGED IN LIGHT OF THE 2020 PANDEMIC?
Usually I write about whatever thoughts or emotions arise that I need to work through. That will always remain a constant for my writing. It’s important for me to pursue my selfhood in writing because it helps me to make sense of and peace with the elements of my life that are particularly difficult or complex.
During the pandemic, I started writing a lot about mental health. It wasn’t something I struggled with significantly before 2020, but that changed starkly amongst all the trauma that occurred last year. Poetry’s allowed me to confront and explore my own struggles with mental health in a way I can’t in therapy or with meds or through other forms of self care. I find it a bit easier to be kinder and more gracious and patient with the struggling me that exists in my poetry rather than the struggling me that is my regular self.
I’ve also started writing a lot about being in love, which I’m doing for the first time. And it’s so much harder to say the thing that I want to say. Usually I’ll write a line and be like, “okay I like that, those words marry well, that metaphor makes sense,” but when I’m writing about being in love… I can never get it quite right. It’s its own universe of subject matter, of language. I think it’s why a lot of poets also wrote love letters, because they were just like… I fucking love you and I can think of a million ways to say it in a poem but I don’t want to deal with the agonizing artistry that comes with writing a poem right now. Nevertheless, it is important for me to try.
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD WILL LOOK LIKE 5 YEARS FROM NOW? 10 YEARS FROM NOW? HOW DO YOU THINK THAT WILL AFFECT CREATIVE FIELDS SUCH AS WRITERS, ARTISTS, AND THE LIKE…
I hope that, for most people, being starved of so many channels of art—museums, theatre, live concerts—has fostered a recognition of how essential art is to survival and fulfillment. I hope it fosters growth in consumption of & investment in art.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST REWARDING PART OF THE PAST YEAR?
Getting the vaccine early because I’m an essential worker. Acting as a source of love, consistency, levity, thought, connection, and community for my students. Working through my health traumas after my concussion. Making progress in therapy. Having an absolutely steadfast support system of loved ones rally around me when I was at my worst and understanding how lucky I am to have that. Nurturing a really incredible relationship. I’ve also gotten into watercolor painting and exploring that very foreign outlet & source of creativity has been one of my favorite things about this past year.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AND YOUR CREATIVE WORK IN 5 YEARS?
I really don’t know. I’ll be 31 in five years and the only things I am dead set on accomplishing are getting a masters degree (which may or may not be an MFA program in poetry) and traveling as much as I can. I would love to eventually publish a collection of poems, but I don’t know when that will be.
WHAT NEW SELF-CARE HABITS OR PRACTICE HAVE YOU PICKED UP SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE PANDEMIC?
Therapy and buying a bunch of new skincare products.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE GENRE TO READ AND WHAT’S A GENRE YOU FIND DIFFICULT TO ENGAGE WITH AND WHY? HOW HAS THAT CHANGED SINCE THE START OF THE PANDEMIC?
I’m an English teacher so I can’t pick one favorite genre. When I read I always do one fiction book, one non-fiction book, and alternate that way so my next book is always the opposite. For nonfiction, I’m partial to essay collections, memoirs, and anything science-related. I love every genre of fiction and don’t avoid or dislike reading one particular type of book. The pandemic hasn’t impacted my reading habits or preferences.
WHAT’S ONE THING (OR LESSON) YOU HAVE LEARNED IN THE LAST YEAR FROM YOUR WRITING PRACTICE THAT IS APPLICABLE OUTSIDE OF WRITING?
Patience. It’s frustrating when I’m struck with that familiar feeling of inspiration but nothing comes out of it. Or when I haven’t felt inspired for so long. I’m terribly impatient in general and this year has demanded patience from me in so many ways. Allowing myself grace with my creative process has translated to patience with healing, with people, with the world to become itself again, and most of all, with myself.
WHAT'S AN UNDERRATED (OR LITTLE RECOGNIZED) BOOK YOU LOVE?
Sula by Toni Morrison. My boyfriend got me a signed copy for my birthday and I was completely inconsolable, just sobbing on his couch. But yeah, everyone should read Sula.
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO UNPLUG: BOOK: MOVIE: ETC.
Right now, watercolor painting. I have very little talent when it comes to visual art, but I’ll sit down with an idea and get sucked in for six hours and come out of it with something pretty cool. It requires all of my focus. Usually I’ll put music on in the background and it’s so calming.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR MOST RECENT WORK AND WHERE PEOPLE CAN FIND IT..
Nothing right now, but you can find me on instagram at alexandrapoetry.