Robin received 2nd place in the IUSB Undergraduate Poetry category for their piece, “To Make Your Bed and Lie in It”, along with 3 other awards. Learn more about him through this interview, and check out an excerpt from one of his winning poems at the end!
Interviewed by Belle Becker
What does winning these awards mean to you?
I’m incredibly honored to win these awards. Analecta is my first experience having my work published, so I wasn’t expecting to win any awards, let alone to have every one of my submissions recognized. Honestly, I’m still shocked, but very grateful.
How would you describe your writing? What themes, ideas, and styles do you find recurring throughout your work?
I write both poetry and fiction, but primarily poetry. I try not to confine my poetry to a certain genre or structure, but stylistically it’s both conversational, interpersonal, and a little whimsical. I tend to revisit themes of nature in a lot of my poetry, and draw from my own personal experiences as well.
What are some of your favorite authors? Do you see these authors as influencing your writing?
My favorite contemporary poet is Jennifer Espinoza. I’ve been following her work since I was a teenager, and it continually serves as a source of inspiration for my own poetry. I also really enjoy Mary Oliver’s work, and the way her writing centers around nature is something I incorporate into my poetry as well. I took David Dodd Lee’s poetry class last semester, where all of these poems were written, and there I was introduced to Mary Ruefle. Out of all the poets we read during the class, I was drawn to her poetry the most.
What is your writing process like? Can you talk about one of your pieces a little; how did this particular piece come about? What was your inspiration?
My writing process has always been very disorganized, and I’m not sure if you can call it a process at all. Sometimes, like with “Apprehension is My Middle Name” and “Sand Castle, Erased by the Tide”, one or two lines will just come to me and the poem slowly takes shape in my mind over the course of a couple of days, even before I’ve written it down. I keep a journal on me for this purpose and try to write whenever inspiration hits me. My second place poem, “To Make Your Bed and Lie in It”, began as a sort of creative exercise in response to Dean Young’s poem “The Usual Decision-Making Process”. It was honestly really challenging for me, and when I finished the first draft I was really unhappy with it, but it’s grown on me a lot since then.
Excerpt from “To Make Your Bed and Lie in It“
(After Dean Young’s “The Usual Decision-Making Process”)
Your final task is to open the hole in your torso
for the river and let it swallow what you’ve grown.
If you thought this heart belonged to you,
you’re mistaken. Your body is not your own
but rather the property of a community
of roots beneath the soil. In ten years,
come back to see what kind of fruit the tree bears.
The Deadline 