Christian Teresi is the author of What Monsters You Make of Them (Red Hen Press, 2024). His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in many journals, including AGNI, the American Poetry Review, Blackbird, DIAGRAM, the Kenyon Review, the Literary Review, Literary Hub, Subtropics, and TriQuarterly. His work has been supported by a fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He holds degrees from Binghamton University and George Mason University. Born in Albany, New York, he currently lives in Washington, DC, where he works on educational and cultural initiatives. @christianteresi_
Where were you born and raised? How did it influence your writing and your thinking about the world? I was born and raised just outside Albany, New York. I'm not sure the place I was raised influenced my writing much, except that the odd geographic reference, upstate New York affect or personality occasionally finds its way into my work. The people I grew up around had a much greater influence than the place.
My mother played a significant role in my learning to read. She taught me that it was important to learn about cultures and histories beyond my own. The inquiry into the vast storytelling the world had to offer was an essential influence on my reading habits and writing. So, when I think about place thematically in my writing, it is rarely the place I grew up. And I am the product of a fortunate public education. I had generous and talented public-school teachers who talked about the importance of storytelling and poetry from the time I was first learning to read and write. My grandfather was a journalist and voracious reader who had a passion for 19th-century British poets and early American modernists. He read Poe to me when I was a kid. He had a near photographic memory and could recite all of AE Houseman’s poems. And there were always books around our house. There were always adults around talking about books. We lived a half mile from the public library that my parents allowed me to walk to on my own from an early age.
It was generous and talented teachers who introduced me to Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams. It was teachers who made me read Hamlet and King Lear. So, when I consider how Albany, New York influenced my thinking about the world, I think about how important well-funded public schools are to creating an informed populace. I think how K-12 teachers are not paid nearly enough and how they make real sacrifices to do that virtuous work. I wonder why the significant benefits of a quality K-12 public education are not available to everyone in the United States.
What kinds of stories or genres fascinated you when you were young? I remember being fond of Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter series. And I enjoyed fantasy books by Susan Cooper and CS Lewis. I also read a lot of comic books, National Geographic and Time Magazine. But as a kid I was curious about how books got more elaborate, interesting, and potentially sensational the further I read above my age level. I started reading adult thriller and mystery novels when I was around 11 or 12. Then I read a Stephen King short stories. By high school I was reading Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison.
What does an average day of writing look like for you? I have a one-year-old at home, so there is no typical writing day. I still read a fair amount, but the baby and my professional work do not leave much time for writing. I haven’t written a poem in over a year. I still think about writing all the time. I still sometimes take notes about ideas I have for things I’d like to write. When I have time to write, I prefer to write at night when the world seems quiet and the baby and often my wife are asleep. I like the solitude of writing at night when the rest world is less of a distraction.
When I do write, I work a lot in collage, mixing different ideas and concepts. I enjoy the puzzle-making behind getting disparate ideas to work together to achieve some goal. I’m constantly editing. Often I’ll get stuck at some point and to relieve that stress in the language I’ll go back and edit what I’ve written. There isn’t a whole lot of difference between writing and editing in my mind. For a long time, I’ve thought that real writing happens in the editing process. For me, everything that comes before the editing is just generating ideas and details.
What was the initial spark for What Monsters You Make of Them, and how did it develop over time? I wrote What Monsters You Make of Them over about 15 years. There were lots of fits and starts. There were whole years where I didn’t write anything at all. There were a lot more poems that failed than succeeded. The process involved a lot of research. The person who started that book was not the same person who finished it. There are poems in the book that were written by someone who was very different than the person I am now. For me, the creative process is slow and requires patience.
The project I’m most earnest about now is a book I’m writing about an early 20th-century baseball player who was fundamental to the development of the game but is largely forgotten except for historians. I’m just beginning to research and take notes for the book. I don’t think it is poetry. The writing is more like prosimetrum or what CD Wright called "prosimetric." At this point, I imagine it more as historical fiction in the style of Michael Ondaatje’s "Coming through Slaughter" or "The Collected Works of Billy the Kid."
Do you keep a journal or notebook? If so, what’s in it? I have digital notebooks filled with ideas and fragments for poems and book projects. I also keep one for quotes and another for definitions of uncommon words and phrases. As an example:
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Ursula K. Le Guin
“It is perfectly all right to hate my work. It really is. I have close friends whose work I loathe.” Toni Morrison
Apricity. adjective. The warmth of the sun in winter.
Mono no aware. (Japanese) adjective. Literally “the pathos of things” and translated as “an empathy towards things” or “a sensitivity to ephemera.” An idiom for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
Mamihlapinatapai. (extinct Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego) adjective. A look that without words is shared by two people who want to initiate something, but that neither will start. Or looking at each other hoping that the other will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do.
I love the idea of mamihlapinatapai. A word that describes something that happens between two people who are communicating without words. It seems magical.
How do you research and what role does research play in your writing? Research plays a significant role in my work. There are poems in my book that took several years to write mostly because the research took so long. This is particularly true about the poems that feature historical figures or places. There was a lot of source material that never made it into the poems, but the research was a rabbit hole of fascination, and it wasn’t unusual for key ideas to reveal themselves the further I labored. Much of my work is based in historical and philosophical research. And that fascination with research is why I avoid writing directly about myself. It’s just a style that’s uninteresting to me. The first person in 21st-century poetry is too often a style that calls attention to an idea of one’s own significance. We tolerate that poetic voice because it informs the reader’s sense of their own meaning, but it’s often an illusion of external importance.
There are, of course, poets like Marie Howe, Louise Glück, Larry Levis, or Audre Lorde who use first person exquisitely and convincingly. But the magic of what they’re doing is that their voice is an invitation. They welcome the reader to consider an informed and generous perspective. It’s not illustrious. It’s not showmanship. It’s not saying look at how smart and sensitive I am about the world. Their voice invites you to speak with them about the complexities of the world and often that’s without offering resolution or answers. Or at least that kind of first-person poetry that works is always asking more questions than providing answers. That voice understands that what’s at stake is in the meaning and messaging beyond themselves. It’s hard to imagine that kind of alluring poetry is achievable without research too. Those poets might not be writing directly about things they’ve researched but they have read so broadly and ardently that, first-person or not, their explorations cannot help but manifest itself in their writing.
Which writer would you most like to have dinner with? James Baldwin or Cormac McCarthy.
Do you draw inspiration from music, art, or other disciplines? I live in Washington, DC, and so am fortunate to have access to many great museums. Music has always been a source of inspiration. These kinds of things are important counterpoints to my writing. All art comes from other art. All art is appropriative. If a writer is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, they are considering lots of different kinds of art. There’s a whole book of Rainer Maria Rilke’s letters to his wife about his passion for visual art, particularly Paul Cézanne. For over 30 years, Wislawa Szymborska published book reviews that are often as fascinating as her poetry. They’re about Napoleon, wallpapering, French humor, opera, yoga, and a great many varied things that have nothing to do with poetry. Those letters and reviews are exquisitely written but also a testament to minds that are endlessly interested in exploring the world. Writing that is only about writing or the writer themself isn’t that interesting to me. Even the essays on writing by, say, Mary Ruefle or Joseph Brodsky are about other things than writing or their personal experiences.
AI and technology are changing the ways we write and receive stories. What are your reflections on AI? What’s at stake when machines become storytellers—and what should remain human? AI is a useful tool, and it does several things well. It generates ideas, can provide detail, and is a passable editor. I’ve used AI for professional communications and marketing work. It’s fast and convenient. But AI is not sentient, at least not yet. Until it is sentient, AI on its own will always lack intimacy, intuition, creativity, and passion, which are essential to good storytelling. For art that’s worth remembering, in the very least AI requires a human conductor. Until recently, Richard Siken curated a fascinating AI visual art project he created titled The Realms Meringue on his Instagram feed (https://www.instagram.com/richard_siken), but Richard’s soul was an indispensable part of the art’s creation.
Unlike Richard, AI can only approximate human empathy. The term “machine learning” is an oxymoron currently. Machines can’t learn. At least not yet. They can only analyze data sets, identify patterns, approximate and mimic what humans do. AI is the greatest plagiarist that ever existed. It approximates originality, but what is ostensibly learning is just the speed and delivery of vast quantified data that’s improving its algorithms. At least in terms of AI writing, the algorithm just sorts through and regurgitates human ideas. It’s digital sleight of hand. And, of course, the algorithm often carries its own biases or homogenized, trite concepts because it steals from humans who have those characteristics.
Tell us about some books you've recently enjoyed and your favorite books and writers of all time.: These are the books on my nightstand that I’ve recently finished or I’m in the middle of reading:
"Erasure" by Perceval Everett
"The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka" edited by Reiner Stach and translated by Shelley Frisch
"Small Things Like These" by Claire Keegan
"Stella Maris" by Cormac McCarthy
"Pathemata" by Maggie Nelson
"A Ghost in the Throat" by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
"The Book" by Mary Ruefle
"I Do Know Some Things" by Richard Siken
At this point in my life, I’m convinced "Moby Dick" is my favorite book, James Baldwin is the best American writer of the 20th century, and Dante’s "La Divina Commedia" is the greatest thing ever written. But ten years ago, I knew very little Dante and hadn’t read any Baldwin; so, ask me again in another ten years and I might give you a different answer.
Exploring literature, the arts, and the creative process connects me to…humility, kindness, and the world.
