Ai Li: Emma, your poem is so atmospheric and cinematic: it shifts easily from gardens to gouache to a "shadow so dense it harmonizes," and this movement drives the narrative and reveals tenderness to its full extent. Much of your work gains its momentum through montages, and you're an aspiring filmmaker, so I'm curious how these mediums intersect for you and influence each other. How do you decide what visual is the catalyst for a narrative, and how do you create an image that resonates

Emma: It’s interesting that you compare this poem to cinema, because this is a poem which I consider an attempt at fauvism, an -ism in art history that is defined by bright colors and bold brushstrokes. Think Matisse. It comes from a period in my life where I spent hours staring at google image searches of “Le bonheur de vivre” (1905), wondering which thumbnail had the most accurate colors. In the long run, the color correction on each still image didn’t matter. I clicked on one and realized my life was not so dissimilar from what I was looking at. It was bright and lovely and crazy. It was overwhelming.

I am more aware of what my poetry lends to my filmmaking, and don’t often think about it the other way around, but when I’m looking at such dense paintings, it is almost as if I have to make up a movie to wrap my head around it all, to direct my eyes from one detail to the next to the next. I watch more movies than I read poetry, anyways, and no matter what form I’m writing in, I aspire to cinematic qualities. I am looking for movement in my poetry. I never want to linger too long in any one spot, and I think I have a lot to learn from jump-cuts, montages, and the ways our brains fill in the gaps of editing. 

I think these sharp turns are important for creating resonance. There are two different kinds, right? Some images feel accurate, and some feel like you just can’t get them out of your head. Like the ringing that comes from a finger circling the lip of a wine glass. Anyways, sometimes I work very hard to describe something in front of me accurately and I get stuck. It’s harder to strike, but I like the second type of resonance more. So I ask myself what description would surprise me here instead? I’m not looking for an opposite, but a way to change the angle or sharpen the sound. Something strange to cut to. 

Ai Li: I love the prints included on your site! I was so struck by their intimacy, which is mirrored in your poem, and how that line between romance and friendship disappears in physical proximity, a theme that you explored in your poem as well. Can you speak on the overlap between female friendships and sapphic relationships and how that absence of clarity provokes your work?

Emma: I really do believe that the line between romance and friendship is thin, blurry, hazy, and hard to follow. When I wrote this poem I was confused. I was spending every day with someone who I am now deeply in love with, and have been in love with for three years. But it was a very slow lead up to where we are now, and I didn’t know what to make of what I was feeling. Why was I lying just close enough for our elbows to brush? Was I at risk of destroying our friendship with my carelessness, with not knowing how to sort through my emotions efficiently? I think that this absence of clarity––that absence of clarity in general, too––is why much of my work exists. The overlap prods me to the point of spilling over, and I start a poem or a print with the hope that I will find either clarity or calm in the process.

Ai Li: Could you tell me about one piece of art—this could be anything from other poems to TV show scripts—that has been deeply formative in creating the spaces your work exists in? In what ways does it continue to compel you towards new understandings?

Emma: It has to be the work of Aimee Bender. In highschool, I was introduced to her story “The Rememberer” and years down the road, this faint memory of feeling both tickled and ravaged by a one page story led me to The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a novel which I think about when I bake in my kitchen or at my cafe, when I work to establish the world in an essay or illustration, when I ask myself if something in my writing is too abrupt, and when I think about the balance necessary between whimsy and logic. AKA all the time. It’s the story of a young girl who realizes she can taste the emotions of whoever has prepared her food, and through this curse she discovers her mother’s affair! I don’t have such a miraculous palate, but I think Bender understands girlhood in a way very similar to me, and she has taught me a lot about strangeness. My work often starts as a concept, and the narrative follows. I don’t know what comes first for her, but when I read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, I imagine it is also the concept that drives the story. But her mastery over voice is what compels me to keep reading, and as such, her work pushes me to better understand my characters and speakers. Bender works within a boundlessness that clicks tight like the lid on a jewel box––I want to write with the same sense of certainty.

Ai Li: No matter how seemingly common or unusual, what is your favorite part about your own writing process? Even if this varies from one piece to the next, what continues to surprise or delight you? What about writing, or delving into that headspace, allows you to appreciate it?

Emma: I love rereading my work a few days after I’ve finished it. Writing feels like a subtle fugue state, and with just a little bit of distance, the poem gets hazy for me. While I know that I wrote every line with intention, I love when I am able to surprise myself with my own language both in the writing process and in the rereading. I love reading a poem through and finding myself confused and in awe, wondering how I tapped into the language, how I turned something into a new verb, or how I knew where to break the line.