Faster, Annihilators! is an evocative anthology of poetry chronicling sexual awakening within the LGBT community and confronting societal norms through a blend of raw emotion and thought-provoking themes. How did you decide which experiences and emotions to include in this book?

Good question, because, naturally, any experience a poet writes about is one we find worth chronicling. Ultimately, a lot of it was intuitive. Simply, “this poem is stronger than this one” so I’d include one and not the other, and go back to tinkering with the other one. I write multiple poems about the same experiences looked at from different angles, if they were formative enough, so most of the important stuff will eventually make it into a poetry collection.

As for emotions included, I just feel what I feel and try to be honest about it when I write.

“Fact-proof” and “Die Trying” are particularly compelling pieces in your anthology. Can you share some insight into the inspiration behind these poems and what you hoped readers would take away from them?

“Fact-proof” is a composite of different experiences with different people in my past who, let’s just say, have certain narcissistic qualities, because I’m not a psychiatrist.

It’s not about any one person exclusively, but it is largely about this one friend I had who would act like something I said was stupid or not worth replying to when I said it to him, then I would overhear him repeating it verbatim to other people later. Like he was trying to impress people by appropriating things I said about my emotions and my life. That’s when I felt irritated and creeped out enough to write “your suppurating empty narcissism is gnawing my very identity”. For anyone else whose dealt with that kind of thing – which can really throw you, as far as knowing how to respond – I hope it makes them realize they’re not alone.

“Die Trying” is largely about how most of my family (with the exception of my incredible dad) has always treated me. Because they think it’s irresponsible of me to want to be a poet and writer. Because when I was sidelined by mental health issues they wanted to believe I was just making excuses to cover up the lack of a work ethic. For who knows what other possible reasons?

I’m sure lots of people can relate to getting relegated to black sheep status without anyone ever telling you exactly why, and you find your family either not talking to you at all or doing so only to scold you. If you’ve been there or are there, “Die Trying” is for you.

Your poems range from personal experiences to broader societal and political themes. Can you speak to how you balance the micro and macro perspectives within your work?

Alanis Morissette said “I believe the microcosm is the macrocosm” in an interview once when asked something similar, and I really agree with that. A lot of my poems try to demonstrate that. They’ll start out in my own microcosm of being a gay man living in the south, on my porch wrestling with a certain issue, and then they’ll kind of keep panning out into more and more of a macrocosm the longer I write. And that just happens naturally. So again, it’s just intuitive as far as me knowing when to reign that instinct in or just let it ride. How we all affect each other is something I try to keep in mind, though. The fact that we are all going through heartbreak, and life isn’t fair no matter who you are, and endstage capitalism exacerbates that for most people. And on top of all that, no matter how tired and jaded that threatens to make us, it is still each and every one of our responsibilities to also think about big problems like oppression in all of its intersectionality. And do our part to oppose it.

Your work invites readers to question societal norms and think unconventionally. How do you hope they change after reading your anthology?

Like I say in the introduction of the book, I mainly hope I give people something to think about, or that compels them to keep thinking about things they already do. For straight people, if it shows them how their behavior towards the LGBTQ+ community looks to us a lot of the time, and how angry and hurt that can make us feel, then I’m gratified by that.

I guess I hope my work helps people become a little braver in confronting things, too, and allowing themselves to feel anger about systemic injustice, and allow that to compel them to do something about it (non-violently, of course). Rage Against the Machine says “Anger is a gift” and that can be true, but only if channeled correctly. Which isn’t easy to do with anger, but worth it when it comes to art.

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