You\u2019ve described <\/b>Cherokee Rose <\/b>as \u201ca tiny revolution.\u201d Could you share a little more about that? What does the book address, how did you develop the concept, what do you hope readers will take away from it?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think any act of writing is pretty revolutionary. I remember writing an article for<\/span> The Words<\/span> (when I was an editor) about Gary Snyder\u2019s 2018 visit to campus when he said that poetry has no role in social change. I tried to be impartial in my article, but I didn\u2019t agree with him at all! I\u2019m thinking about Danez Smith\u2019s poem \u201cmy poems\u201d from <\/span>Homie<\/span> here, too. They say what I want to say to Gary Snyder: that a poem can do so many things. It\u2019s an act of radical communication even when we think of reading as a fairly isolated experience. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cherokee Rose<\/span> seems to address both meanings of \u201crevolution.\u201d I looked it up just now, and it can mean both change in systems or ideas <\/span>and <\/span>revolving\/turning <\/span>around. I attempt to comment on growing up in the American South, the joys and pains around the collective memory of Southerners, and some of the stereotypes and complexities that come with it all. When I was writing my Master\u2019s dissertation, I found a phrase describing Southern Appalachia as America\u2019s \u201cinternal Other.\u201d<\/span> And any time an Other speaks, they speak a revolution (not that I\u2019m super marginalized or anything, don\u2019t set Said\u2019s ghost on me). <\/span>Cherokee Rose<\/span> also involves a lot of reflection on the past\u2013\u2013both mine and my family\u2019s\u2013\u2013so I am revolving, so to speak, to write about that past. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n But I don\u2019t know if I ever sat down and decided on a concept for the collection. I\u2019m pretty confident I didn\u2019t. I\u2019ve talked about this with other poet friends from the South and it seems that anyone who has roots down there has almost a compulsion to write about it and process it. Natasha Tretheway is my favorite example of this. I\u2019m hoping that Southern readers will see some of themselves in the collection, and readers from elsewhere will add a little nuance to their perceptions of the American South. I have a flashbulb-like memory of being in a car with a Mac student during my first year. They turned to me and said \u201cwhat\u2019s it like being from a place that\u2019s so racist?\u201d Maybe 30 seconds later, they looked out the window and locked the doors as a Black man crossed the street in front of us. I\u2019m not saying the South is free of all sins. Nothing like that. But it\u2019s been used as a scapegoat for so many universal issues, and I\u2019m so over it. I want Cherokee Rose to be both a love letter to where I\u2019m from, and a force that holds it accountable for its actions.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n What has publishing been like now, in the midst of the pandemic? Are there any particular experiences that have shed new light on any aspects of writing and\/or publishing for you? <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n I do have these cute little publicity postcards that my publisher made me, and usually I would deliver them by hand, but I\u2019m having to mail them all so I\u2019m spending a lot more money on stamps and postage than anticipated. That\u2019s one difference. It\u2019s weird! Getting the book deal was pretty standard (I actually had three offers for the manuscript, so I got to choose my publisher and feel like a very hot commodity), as was the editing process, but figuring out publicity when I can\u2019t actually be public with it? I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. I\u2019m wondering if I should have a Zoom release party? It\u2019s possible that doing everything virtually means that I can reach more geographic areas that I wouldn\u2019t otherwise, like all my friends from Cambridge, all my family in Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, etc., but who is realistically craving an evening of events on their screens after staring at them all day?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking back, did any of your experiences at Macalester play a big role in shaping this book and\/or your trajectory as a writer?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n The artist for the cover art, Coco Banks, is also a fellow Mac alum, which is pretty cool. We were on Chanter staff together, and I don’t think I would have a cover design quite as beautiful without that connection.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n I only took one creative writing class at Mac, which was my FYC with Peter Bognanni, and I don\u2019t think I wrote anything good at all. Peter was great, I was just cocky and read too much Vonnegut–just kidding, there\u2019s no such thing as too much Kurt. Reading poetry seems to be the primary way that I write it. I wrote one of the poems in the collection during a Chanter meeting after reading a submission that reminded me of something (though I promise I was very focused in Chanter meetings otherwise). So I think those kinds of little moments shaped <\/span>Cherokee Rose<\/span><\/i> more than any class did.<\/span> <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Cherokee Rose <\/span><\/i>is available for pre-order now through March 19 and will be released May 14. <\/span>The Words<\/span><\/i> extends a massive thank you to Miriam and congratulates her for her success!<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Dalton Greene ’22 Macalester\u2019s English majors tend to get up to a lot after graduating and moving into the always-looming real world. One such busybody is Miriam Moore-Keish \u201819, who, having earned an MPhil at Cambridge just last year, is now preparing for the release of her new book, Cherokee Rose. The collection of poetry, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":483,"featured_media":3239,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3230","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/483"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3230"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8905,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3230\/revisions\/8905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/603\/2021\/02\/0001-2-200x300.jpg\")