Jeremy Halinen Interview
October 2008
Jeremy Halinen and Brett Ortler are the editors of KNOCKOUT Literary Magazine, a bi-annual literary magazine published
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2007. It is known for the wide range of styles it publishes and for its dedication to
social causes.
KNOCKOUT'S inaugural issue featured National Book Award winners Robert Bly, former US Poets Laureate Billy Collins,
U.S. State Poets Laureate (Marvin Bell, Iowa; Robert Bly, Minnesota), as well as winners of other major awards, including
the $100,000 Kingsley-Tufts Poetry Prize Thomas Lux and the Lamont Poetry Prize Marvin Bell. In addition, several of
the poets published in KNOCKOUT have been awarded the Pushcart Prize. The second and third issues include work by other
notable poets and award winners, including a Nobel Prize for Literature recipient.
KNOCKOUT features a nearly 50/50 mix of LBGT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual people) and straight
writers in each issue. Discussing this in an interview with The Minnesota Daily, Halinen said, "It's something that I don't
see a lot of other magazines doing, having a diverse group of writers, working to bring them all under one cover."
KNOCKOUT donated 50% of the proceeds from its first issue to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, a foundation that
aims to support educational opportunities for those in Southern Sudan.
Q: Welcome! Please tell us, how did you get started as a writer?
Halinen: I started out, as most of us writers do, by reading voraciously, and at some point decided I wanted to take a more
active part in the magic of storytelling, so I started writing what amounted to imitations of portions of Anna Sewell’s Black
Beauty, etc. at age eight or nine. By age 13, I was writing a few poems, but mainly focused on writing amateur adventure books
with too-dramatic cliffhanger ends to every chapter. I wrote stories throughout high school, but by university was caught up
into the world of poetry, first drawn into it by African American poems (often those of protest).
But I suppose I really started writing at an even younger age, before I could even write, when at the ages of one and two, I
told my mother and brother stories to accompany the Mercer Mayer picture books such as A Boy, A Dog, and a Frog my mother
so kindly supplied me with. My mother really has a lot to do with my love of books, as she read to my brother and me for hours
on end almost every day when we were children.
Q: Have you always been interested in writing?
Halinen: As far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by it. I love language, its possibilities, its rules, and struggling
with it, which seems something like Jacob’s wrestling with the stranger in the night who turned out to be God.
Q: How do you keep your creative juices flowing?
Halinen: By squeezing my creative fruits.
Seriously, though, I don’t think they’re always flowing, but editing KNOCKOUT does help to keep me creative when I’m not writing
my own poems. Oftentimes when I’m not writing out the first draft of a new poem, I’m revising my earlier poems, which is one
of my all-time favorite things to do. Many of my poems take years until they are in something that I consider a finished state.
Other things that keep my creativity alive are conversation, foreign and independent film, music, and painting, all of which I
try to keep myself enveloped in as much as possible, and reading books by other poets, of course.
Q: Tell us about KNOCKOUT.
Halinen: KNOCKOUT started out during a brawl between Brett and me. After I knocked him out one night during our last year of grad
school, I thought, we really should start a lit magazine! And here we are.
KNOCKOUT is one of those literary magazines in which every poem is worth reading more than once. Brett and I have fairly diverse
tastes in poetry and publish what we see to be the best of it that comes our way. We love discovering new poets and sharing their
work with our readers, and we love sharing new work by established poets, as well.
We really want to make a difference in the world with KNOCKOUT, even if it can only be a small one. For me, presenting a nearly
equal amount of work by LGBT poets and straight poets together under the same covers is important. I think it’s important to be
a welcoming place for writers, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. I think we all can benefit and learn from
each other.
Another aspect to our magazine is that we donate a portion of the proceeds to organizations that promote social justice. For
example, we donated 50% of the proceeds from the sales of our first issue to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation.
We’re planning to donate 5% of the sales of our second issue to another organization, most likely The Trevor Project, a 24-hour
suicide prevention helpline for gay and questioning youth. We wish we could give more than 5% this time, but we found that 50% was
more than our budget can allow for, so we’re trying a more modest amount this time, as we want KNOCKOUT to stay solvent and thrive
for years to come. (If anyone wants to help, we welcome new subscribers and donors. Anyone interested can contact me at
knockoutlit@gmail.com, or they can donate or subscribe online by visiting
knockoutlit.org. Every amount helps.)
Q: Do you have any other projects you’d like to tell us about?
Halinen: I’m currently putting the final touches on my first full-length manuscript of poems, and plan to send it out to
find a home.
Q: What is something you wish other creative artists understood?
Halinen: That having their work rejected by a magazine or publisher doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not good. Sometimes it just
doesn’t fit what a magazine is looking for. But most often it means that the work isn’t finished yet, that it has some
weaknesses that may be hard for the author to spot. If a particular poem or piece of writing keeps getting rejected again
and again, ask a friend you can trust to tell you the truth, whether or not there’s something missing.
Also, an editor only asks to see more work if he or she really wants to see more, so if you’re asked to send more work, do
so. It means someone saw some admirable quality in your work and though they perhaps didn’t feel what you sent lived up to
its full potential, they believe that you have the ability to write well and think there’s a good chance that if you send
more, they’ll find something right for their publication.
Q: What are some of the challenges and obstacles you faced during your career?
Halinen: Overconfidence, at times. Other times, lack of confidence. Also, lack of funds, or time, etc. Things most of us
face.
Q: What is the most rewarding aspect of your career?
Halinen: Being able to introduce to our readership new poems that I very much believe are knockouts.
Q: What inspires you?
Halinen: Existence. I am amazed that anything exists at all.
Q: How do you manage your time when you are working on more than one project?
Halinen: Poorly, sometimes. I can be easily sidetracked. But I can focus for inordinate amounts of time, if necessary,
and often find myself binge working on a particular endeavor.
Q: What do you do to relax and to just have fun?
Halinen: I love to dance, go on dates, paint, play piano, play with my nieces, spend time with friends, walk around
Seattle, watch movies and plays. And all sorts of other things. I always have an overabundance of things I want to do,
but never enough time to do all of them.
Q: What is the number one thing you would like to tell new writers?
Halinen: Read. Find a few good literary magazines that fit your taste, and perhaps one or two that push the boundary of
what you normally would like, and subscribe to them. Support them. They are likely going to be your first avenue to being
published. They’re a great way to find out what’s being written in contemporary times. And they’re doing it to support writers
like you, most definitely not for the money.
But beyond that, don’t let the focus of your writing be on an end result such as publication. Write for the poem (or for the story,
the essay, whatever) itself. Don’t feel like you have to have anything big or important to say. It’s generally better to just start
writing and see what happens, where the words take you.
Q: If, at the age you are today, you could spend a day with you at age seven, what would you take back in time, what would you
say, what would you do?
Halinen: I would bring a digital video recorder and observe my young self, but I don’t think I’d say a word to him, or try in any
way to interfere with or intervene in his life.
Q: When you feel creatively blocked what do you do to get yourself back into the creative flow? When your muse is napping what
do you do to wake him/her up?
Halinen: Sometimes I stand in front of one of my bookshelves, close my eyes and run my fingers along the spines of the books
until I feel like pulling one down at random. Then, with eyes still closed, I flip through the book and stop on a page. Then I
write a poem that imitates the moves made by the poem on the page I stopped on. Sometimes I just start writing and see what the
hell happens. Or sometimes I do something that doesn’t involve writing at all. I don’t feel obliged to write all the time like
some writers seem to.
Q: How do you recharge your creativity?
Halinen: I don’t really think creativity is something that waxes and wanes. I think it’s our energy that does, or our attention.
I think creativity is always there waiting.
Q: What is your greatest inspiration?
Halinen: Visionary poets such as Antler.
Q: What advice can you offer to a creative artist who is struggling with their inner critic?
Halinen: Listen to it. It’s part of you. It’s probably got some good things to say. But listen to it after you’ve finished a
first draft of something, not while you’re in the middle of it, and then use its advice to help you rework what you’ve
written.
Rarely is a first draft what we want it to be, but we can’t get to the finished product without it, and therefore it’s absolutely
essential. Regarding criticism, a critic is one of the most valuable resources an artist can draw from; it’s important to have an
outside perspective on your work.
Seek out others who will give you feedback about what is and what is not working in your work. And listen to their advice, even
if you don’t like what you hear. Learn from them. Not every work is, or will be, a masterpiece. One doesn’t start out a master;
one continues to strive toward such a state all one’s life.
Q: Many artistic people struggle to develop a routine that allows them time for their creative work. What advice can you give
that will help them create a balance between work and social life?
Halinen: I’m not sure I believe balance exists—it’s possible in theory, perhaps, but in reality, I rarely see it, and certainly
don’t practice it. I don’t think writing is about balance, but about excess. I think one should take all the time they can
(or want) for writing. But life is about far more than writing. Writing should enhance and enrich one’s life, not be one’s
life.
Writing should be a delight, a byproduct of curiosity, not a chore. One should play at writing, not work at it. Often a
solution to a problem in a poem comes to me when I am out and about doing something “completely unrelated” to writing. I
think it’s about being open to whatever one can (and cannot) sense wherever they are in the universe.
Q: What creative individuals do you admire?
Halinen: I’ve already mentioned the poet Antler.
There are many others, though I won’t mention most of them here. Some of the living poets include
Ronald H. Bayes,
Jeffery Beam,
Denver Butson,
CAConrad,
Dennis Cooper,
Mark Doty,
Theodore Enslin,
Edward Field,
Carol Guess,
Christopher Howell,
Charles Jensen,
Thomas Meyer,
Carl Phillips,
Richard Siken,
Larissa Szporluk, and
Nathan Whiting.
Some of the poets who’ve left us but thankfully left behind their oeuvres include:
Jon Anderson,
Edward Estlin Cummings,
Emily Dickinson,
Robinson Jeffers,
Etheridge Knight,
Reginald Shepherd,
Jonathan Williams, and
John Wieners.
I’ll mention just a few fiction writers, not because there aren’t more I admire,
but in the interest of not listing too many, and also because I don’t read very much
fiction:
Aimee Bender,
Albert Camus, and
Ted Wojtasik.
Other creative individuals I admire include comedian
Margaret Cho; composers
Edward Grieg,
Gustav Mahler and
Erik Satie (my favorite composer ever);
filmmakers
Pedro Almodóvar and
Richard Linklater; playwright
Tennessee Williams; and many of the surrealist painters.
Q: What is your favorite first sentence in a book?
Halinen: It’s a tossup between the following two:
“On my twentieth birthday, I bought myself an ax.”
—An Invisible Sign of My Own,
Aimee Bender
“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was
coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo …..”
—A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
James Joyce
Q: Are you listening to music as you answer these questions? If yes, what are you listening to?
Halinen: I started out listening to blues, gospel, and soul on a variety show called Preachin’
The Blues that plays every Sunday morning
on KEXP, an amazing listener-supported
radio station here in Seattle, which broadcasts worldwide
on kexp.org. It’s by far
my favorite radio station ever. I am constantly discovering great new music on it.
It’s a station where the DJs have complete control over what they play. They are
not controlled by commercial donors. The station does a great service for the
community, and the entire music world.
Q: If you only had one more day to live what would you do with the 24 hours?
Halinen: I would play with my nieces one more time, spend time with my family
and my friends, play the piano, read a few poems, probably some of
Antler’s poems,
and watch the sun set and rise one more time. I would die staring into the sun.
Q: What traits, if any, do you think that creative people have as compared to people who are not
creative?
Halinen: I think everyone is creative. Some people just don’t explore their creativity,
perhaps, but I think everyone has it.
Q: When do you feel most energized?
Halinen: Usually at night, but as long as I get enough sleep, I tend to have lots of energy all day long.
Q: Who is the most creative person that you have ever known?
Halinen: That’s a very difficult question. I am not sure I’ll answer it correctly. I have been
lucky enough to know so many incredibly creative people.
Perhaps some of the most creative were the late Black Mountain poet and publisher
Jonathan Williams, and his
partner, poet and chef extraordinaire Thomas Meyer, who is one of the most aware, peaceful, and generous people
I know.
Poets
Ronald H. Bayes and
Denver Butson
are certainly in the running, too. It’s too hard to judge who is the most creative, though.
Here is a great
Denver Butson
interview in
Lily Literary Review. A new (and much
more detailed and extended) interview of Denver Butson conducted by Brett and me will be published in KNOCKOUT's
second issue. We may even post a digital film version of the interview (which was conducted in Butson's Brooklyn
apartment earlier this year) to our website at some point.
Q: Can you see your finished project before you start it?
Halinen: No. I don’t usually have any plan when I start to write, or when I start to paint, or to play the piano.
I just start and see where the language, the music, or the paint and brushstrokes take me.
Q: Do you feel that you chose your passion, or did it choose you?
Halinen: Oh, I think piano and poetry found me, and I’m glad they did. I feel like I’m a medium when I play and write. As
I’ve said before, I don’t plan what I’m going to write. The part of it that’s me, when it comes to writing, at least, is
the revision, the crafting of what comes from somewhere both mysteriously inside and outside.
Q: What book are you reading right now?
Halinen: Antler: The Selected Poems (Soft Skull Press, 2000).
It’s an incredibly book. Some of the loveliest, most life-affirming poems I’ve ever read, and some of the best protest
poems, too. If you hate work and feel that it’s a waste of your lifetime, you should definitely read his poem “Factory”.
I’m also reading dozens of other books, probably. I often start a book and before I finish it, start several more. I do
finish some of them, but not all. And it’s usually not because I lose interest in one, but because I gain interest
in another.
Q: What is the last movie you watched?
Halinen: Battle in Seattle. It explores the protests
against the WTO talks in Seattle in 1999. I was born in Seattle, but never lived in the city limits until this year, and I
watched the film to learn more of the history of my birth city. I recommend it to anyone interested in human rights.
Another movie I saw recently is
Chris & Don: A Love Story,
which playfully and passionately explores the relationship between writer
Christopher Isherwood and painter
Don Bachardy. It’s one of the most moving films
dealing with human love and death I’ve ever seen; it brought me to tears, and although I’m a fairly sensitive individual,
it’s very rare that a film can make me cry. I highly recommend it.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Halinen: To read Nathan Whiting and
John Wieners.
Q: Your famous last words, will you share with us a piece of advice, a favorite quote, a tip, whatever you wish?
Two quotations from Antler's poems
should suffice.
First, from his poem “Unbrainwash Work Ethic!” in his collection Antler:
The Selected Poems (Soft Skull Press, 2000):
The freer people are, the more they think,
the more mortality dawns on them,
the more they realize
their whole lives could be spent
meditating on the ripples
from the stone of their brief existence
thrown into the still lake.
And lastly, from his poem “The Dark Inside a Life” in his collection Last Words (Available Press, 1986):
To learn how to die cut down a tree,
Watch how so many years fall.
You don’t need to have planted it for it to be your life.
*******
Brett Ortler Interview
October 2008
Q: Welcome! Please tell us, how did you get started as a writer?
Ortler: I started seriously writing after doing some student journalism, first at my high school, and thereafter
at a university paper. By then, I was discovering all my favorites
(Hemingway,
Fitzgerald,
and that gang), and I started writing as a way to copy them and to try to figure
out how stories and poems worked.
Q: Have you always been interested in writing?
Ortler: Yes. In third grade, we were asked to fill out a form with our favorite activities, books, movies, and so
on. My top three future career choices were: Second baseman for the
Minnesota Twins, astronaut, and writer.
And while I’m quite happy settling with my third choice, I’m obsessed with outer space, the space program, and baseball.
These interests manifest themselves in strange ways; among others, an attempt to live vicariously through
Nick Punto and the
always-underdog Minnesota Twins.
Q: How do you keep your creative juices flowing?
Ortler: Alcohol. Actually, no that never works. I keep them flowing, so to speak, by reading, and particularly, reading work
that I really enjoy. Enjoy so much that it makes me jealous. Damn jealous. This is especially the case with poetry. I’ll read
something and then find that I simply have to write immediately after reading it. Sure, the work usually turns out to be
simple emulation, it gets me writing, and usually when I get going, I can keep going. Getting started is the hard part. There
are always so many other options.
Q: Tell us about KNOCKOUT.
Ortler: KNOCKOUT has been a little like raising a kid. It’s messy (and I’m disorganized to begin with), it’s expensive (or was at
first), and it’s plain damn hard, but it’s about as rewarding as anything I can think of—everything about making an issue is fun,
from deciding what goes into to it to finding a printer, as it all goes into a finished product, something that one can hold in
their hands and hopefully appreciate.
More than that, KNOCKOUT has a lot to offer, in terms of poetry, literature,
and social issues. In short, we popularize poetry, make art, and help others. I couldn’t be happier. And so far, it has
worked.
Q: Do you have any other projects you’d like to tell us about?
Ortler: I’m an editor at
Adventure Publications, so I’m involved with several books there, and I’ve got a poetry manuscript I’ve
been kicking around and hope to send out pronto.
Q: What is something you wish other creative artists understood?
Ortler: German? I suppose I wish there was less specialization in terms of art. I mean, many fiction writers I know don’t read poetry
and many poets I know don’t read fiction. The same can be said of painters, photographers, sculptors, and so on. While I understand the
impulse to narrow down a field of study in order to make it more manageable, too much is lost if one takes this too far.
Q: What are some of the challenges and obstacles you faced during your career?
Ortler: Money.
Q: What is the most rewarding aspect of your career?
Ortler: My work with KNOCKOUT, Willow Springs, and my smattering of publications.
Q: What inspires you?
I’m rarely struck by inspiration (which seems a little like being struck by the plague or leprosy or something along those lines), and
I try to make writing a relatively regular occurrence. Usually, if I’m compelled to write, it’s because of another author’s writing.
Q: How do you manage your time when you are working on more than one project?
Ortler: A lot of coffee, and late nights. Really it’s just a matter of effort.
Q: What do you do to relax and to just have fun?
Ortler: I watch a good deal of baseball. I hike, kayak, work out, and I read some books simply for pleasure.
Q: What is the number one thing you would like to tell new writers?
Ortler: Don’t worry about being “a writer,” focus on writing.
Q: If, at the age you are today, you could spend a day with you at age seven, what would you take back in time,
what would you say, what would you do?
Ortler: I’d spend the evening with my grandparents.
Q: When you feel creatively blocked, what do you do to get yourself back into the creative flow? When your muse is napping,
what do you do to wake him/her up?
Ortler: I usually simply try to bear down and keep going. If I start writing and then stop, I find I won’t get anywhere if I
begin again and have to start over a different day.
Q: How do you recharge your creativity?
Ortler: By taking breaks. And by reading.
Q: What is your greatest inspiration?
Ortler: The work of others I admire. Nature’s no slouch either.
Q: What advice can you offer to a creative artist who is struggling with their inner critic?
Ortler: Ignore the inner critic while writing. Writing and revising are two different processes and should take place at different
times. Yes, the inner critic has a say, but the inner critic will be out of a job if you don’t get any writing done.
Q: Many artistic people struggle to develop a routine that allows them time for their creative work. What advice can you give
that will help them create a balance between work and social life?
Ortler: Insist upon working. There are any number of ways to do this (scheduling, attending workshops), but it’s essential to make
time available, no matter how busy you are. If you don’t, you’ll stop working.
Q: If you only had one more day to live what would you do with the 24 hours?
Ortler: I suppose I’d try to say goodbye.
Q: What traits, if any, do you think that creative people have as compared to people who are not creative?
Ortler: I think all people are inherently creative, and we all have the capacity to recognize and perceive beauty. It seems to
be part of our perceptual hardware. I don’t think there are separate traits for artists and non-artists. Everyone could,
in theory, be an artist. And everyone really is, when you think about it.
Q: When do you feel most energized?
Ortler: Late at night.
Q: What book are you reading right now?
Several. At work, I’m editing Wild Fruits and Berries of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. At home, I’m reading
Maps and Legends
by
Michael Chabon, and several poetry books.
Q: What is the last movie you watched?
Ortler:
Batman.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Ortler: To keep writing.
Creative Artists Commnity
