While reading All The Knack of Useless Talents by Michael Chang, I felt like I was getting coffee with my best friend and saying all the things I know only they understand. I also felt the distance and the closeness that somehow exists all at once in every kind of relationship. The loneliness and the desire and the fullness of connection. This book of poems refuses easy answers, easy views, this or only that. It exists in the forever middle, the uncomfortable present, the unending certainty of being alive
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:26
To get started. I thought it would be great to hear you either read one of the poems from Almanaca Useless Talents or maybe even just a section of one of them. I read some of these poems aloud to myself when I revisited them and I think they're experienced so beautifully and sometimes hilariously allowed. So I would love to hear here, you read one for us
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:35
I write a lot and think a lot about failure in relation to the writing process and publication and all of the challenges and opportunities that it presents. And I'm curious if you could speak to a bit about the process of not only writing this book, but also publication and if you experienced any failure along the way and if you've learned anything from that that has come to impact the work that you're currently doing or went on to do after finishing Almanac of Useless Talents
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 0:43
After reading this collection. I was so excited to see that you have another book coming out soon, I believe, in March Synthetic Jungle. The COVID is amazing. I'm so excited to see and hear and read all of these poems, and I was wondering how you've come to view Almanac of Useless Talents now that you've had some more space from it and have another book forthcoming. And what's something you hope readers take from these collections of poems. Who did you write these poems for?
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 1:29
This was just one of the many moments throughout the collection where I just felt like the poems are so very gay and queer and made me so deeply happy and I'd be smiling while also feeling kind of heartbroken at the same time. And I'm wondering if you could speak a bit to how you think about poetics and queerness now that your many books out have written so many poems. Are poems inherently queer or what differentiates them from dominant white heteroculture?