Writer’s Statement

I write at the point where nonfiction and poetry meet, relying on sense, image, and memory more than narrative arc or plot. I throw scientific fact, logic, and reason to the side, centering an emotional resonance that Audre Lorde references when she says “we learn…to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and therefore lasting action comes” (Poetry Is Not a Luxury, 1985). I situate myself among spiritual writers who employ free verse in their poetry and fragmented sensory image in their prose, playing with multiple clauses to achieve a measured process of slowly peeling back layers of human existence. I admire Annie Dillard’s and Rebecca Solnit’s ability to simmer in the imprecise nature of things, mindfully and ever-lengthening letting us hang in the unknown while gradually uncovering the truth about the world. The flashes of insight creep up without realizing that the revelation is complete – I live for that final release of air, those goosebumps.  

I offer jaggedness next to the slick, with some discombobulated structure that represents my neurological landscape of head trauma. I invite my readers into a hall of mirrors, shining light on multiple facets of a story so that they experience a splintered whole, the fractalized aggregate more important than each constituent unit. As Gloria Anzaldúa writes,  “We don’t want to be /Stars but parts /of constellations.” I aim to represent this kind of web of collective consciousness through intimately personal narrative. I learned this technique through many authors and cherish Natalie Diaz’s talent, in particular, of taking a single moment to expose the complex and universal.