Jill Michelle’s debut collection, Underwater, is now available for pre-order! We interviewed her so you could get to know her a little bit!
How long did it take you to write Underwater? What was your process for pulling it together?
Thanks to a sabbatical leave from Valencia College, I spent the glorious days of the fall 2022 semester steeped in the practice of poetry, instead of teaching five sections of college composition. Weekdays began with hours of reading and drafting time, and then afternoons were spent exploring the 32 composition notebooks I’d filled with poetry from 2013-2022, revising pieces from these to send out for publication and include in the collection I wanted to build over the break from teaching. Going through the notebooks allowed me to recognize the water imagery, running through many of the poems, specifically ones dealing with sexual assault, losing babies when their water broke at 21 weeks in 2007 and 2008, and then watching my dad, a retired Navy officer and submariner, be taken in stages by early-onset Alzheimer’s from 2007-2012. My goal in building the Underwater collection was to weave these poems together in a way that would say something larger about traumatic grief and PTSD, to try to share how the memories can make one feel like a stone repeatedly skipped across water, helpless to stop the momentum of the grief journey, all the while aware, there will be a point of unavoidable sinking.
As far as the manuscript’s creation process, from August through September of 2022, I gathered together all of the possible poems for the book draft and made final revisions to them; then from October to November, a good amount of time was spent studying the craft of building and revising a full-length poetry collection during a Brooklyn Poet’s manuscript workshop. It was an amazing opportunity. The group met for three hours on Zoom each week, the course challenging us with graduate-class levels of work in terms of reading, writing, and peer reviewing. The manuscript was revised again in early December after a one-on-one critique by the great poet and teacher, Eugenia Leigh, who designed and led the Brooklyn Poets workshop. Additionally, a number of the poems in Underwater were begun on sabbatical, when gaps in the narrative became apparent, and the work to revise those newer pieces and the collection as a whole continued throughout 2023.
What’s a favorite poem from the collection? Why?
“My Dad Adored Coffee” is definitely a personal favorite. Never has a poem continued to give me chills like this one. There’s something magical in the palpability of my dad’s presence in it. He feels so alive in memory every time. From drafting through revisions and subsequent readings of this poem, it’s felt special, like a well of his love, happily stumbled upon, to which I can keep returning—what a gift.
What’s your writing routine look like?
Step one of my writing routine is always reading, steeping my mind and ear in other’s poetry. To avoid being overly influenced by one artist, I usually have five poetry books going—two full collections, a collection by either Sylvia Plath or Wisława Szymborska and two literary magazines. After dipping into each of these over the course of an hour or so, I duck into my current composition notebook to tackle whatever poetry job feels pressing. It might be to look at drafts currently under revision, reading them aloud to see if they’re finished, reach the caliber of the poems in the literary magazines just browsed, or I might work on a new draft, based on a creative assignment we’re playing with in the poetry class I teach at Valencia. One of the things I love about this poet gig (not the pay, lol) is that there are so many varied jobs, one to suit whatever mood the artist finds him/her/themselves. I could start the day wanting to put together submission packets and while researching, find a themed-call that leads me to revise a poem in an unexpected way. I love the surprise and journey of it all and have found that embracing writing opportunities, whenever in the day they might arrive (even outside of one’s usual routine), can do fabulous things in terms of growth and productivity.
Who are your favorite poets?
Unsurprisingly, considering the answer to the previous question, Plath and Szymborska have made the favorite-poet cut. What’s exciting to someone raised in an era of worry over the demise of poetry is that there are so many wonderful living poets right now whose names on a literary mag’s table of contents will thrill me. Some that immediately come to mind are Hanif Abdurraqib, George Abraham, Mosab Abu Toha, Kim Addonizio, Franny Choi, Jessica Cuello, Natalie Diaz, Rita Dove, Melissa Fite Johnson, Terrance Hayes, Charles Jensen, Joan Kwon Glass, Eugenia Leigh, Clint Smith, Diane Seuss, and Jane Wong.
What are you reading right now?
The reading stack right now includes Margaret Atwood’s Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems 1961-2023, The Best American Poetry 2024 (guest edited by Mary Jo Salter), Wisława Szymborska’s Map: Collected and Last Poems (translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanisław Barańczak), The Iowa Review and Zone 3.
What’s your favorite non-writing activity?
A favorite activity that isn’t (yet) linked to writing is music—from playing tenor ukulele and singing to collecting vinyl and going to concerts, I adore it all. I’ve performed as a singer since childhood church and theatre days; however, learning an instrument was something tackled in my forties, and as a bonus to the mental workout, I’ve been grateful to discover daily music practice helps with anxiety and PTSD. Who knows, perhaps there will be some songwriting happening in the future too.
