Dancing Backwards Toward Pluperfect
Diode Editions
October, 2024

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is a poetic assemblage of a life sown outside the predictability of middle-class, straight America, one where the aftermath of repeated trauma and loss is allayed by unexpected moments of connection, empathy, and love.

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1) Grief has many layers and isn’t linear. One of the aspects your collection addresses in this process is abandonment, not just of those departed but of those seen as a support system during this time. What was it like approaching this topic? How did you want to shape this discourse?

I guess it feels kind of empowering to talk about abandonment, even if indirectly. Abandonment is, of course, another kind of grief, as you say, and one that can spring up again and again. I think the writing itself gives the shape and form to what has often been unspoken, a vessel for things that are hard to articulate. And there is a way that abandonment might better be conveyed through absence to some extent—unless it becomes expository writing, which it might be in some future. But I am hoping, in this text, the reader can shape their own impressions and associations from the text.

2) Being in crisis or living with someone in crisis is overwhelming. Did you find the formality of poetry beneficial in exploring this? For example, this book has varying poetic forms and many repeat. How does this reflect the process of coping with trauma, and your own writing process?

I think poetry, even the free-form/hybrid way I write it, helps to unravel the stuff that’s relentlessly replaying in my head, and I think this is true for many writers. I notice a lot of writers revisit the same obsessions throughout their lives, including say, Gregory Orr and Sharon Olds, to name a couple. Writing helps direct that obsessive energy, and it can also help establish some needed distance and compartmentalizing of grief and trauma. It’s a great therapeutic tool.

3) Family dynamics are complicated and frequently painful, but you have no issue approaching the gritty nuances of these relationships. What are your thoughts on directly addressing family members in poems in regards to their emotional responses to the work, and what advice would you give to other writers on this? How do you feel once these written sentiments are out in the world?

You’re right, Kristine, as I do tend to dive right into the dirty stuff. I think everyone has different family circumstances, so it’s a bit hard to give advice. It’s important here to point out that some of my book is fictionalized. Autofiction serves a lot of purposes including distancing oneself from their subject matter (or trauma). As for words of caution, I think one needs to be really clear on why they need to write and why they need to publish it because those are two different things. Writing for healing only might not need to be published at all. Questioning whether you are settling a score, trying to force accountability in truth-telling, or writing for some other reason is important. Also, I recommend learning about slander and libel and what those laws look like where you live. So there needs to be some risk assessment.

One might also consider the difference between emotional truth and factual truth, which, again, relates to autofiction (and I think it’s okay to think of poetry and hybrid in this light). For me, personally, sometimes it is sufficient to convey the emotional gist of it without nailing and naming, but I don’t judge people who need to do that—especially in cases of abuse.

Writing under a pen name is another option for writing about personal subjects. Of course, you give up some things in doing this. What works for me might not work for others. Also, I can say about my writing, that it isn’t a substitute for real-life accountability, but with certain people, you will never get that, so the writing needs to serve some other purpose. It is, above everything else, for my personal healing, but I know it is also a way of connecting, however sideways, with others who have lived in similar circumstances. Writing can also help other people (readers) and make them feel less alone. It reconnects us to our humanity in a sense.

I do feel that writing for personal validation from others is not a very realistic expectation, however, but it might happen in smaller writing communities and has for me. And one should expect some pushback when truth telling. I have witnessed backlash even from women in the writing community, because writers are just people after all, and people do love to judge. So, one needs to be emotionally prepared for adverse reactions, gaslighting, etc., and also be able to accept that some relationships might end. It’s important to be safe. And just as important to feel safe and supported.

Lastly, should one choose to publish about trauma, family dynamics, etc., and I learned this the hard way, make sure you are sending to reliable editors and ‘zines. I had around 15 poems about grief and suicide loss unpublished from online journals. They were what I might describe as community-type journals with editors I trusted, and whatever healing was achieved through publishing was completely undone when these editors abandoned their journals, in some cases, with no explanations to the writing community. So do take care out there!

How I feel putting stuff in the world is pretty inconsistent. It has, at times been very emotional—especially when writing about suicide loss, but that has lessened over time. Sometimes publishing feels like an enormous release or saying goodbye to some burdens, and, of course, it’s a bit vulnerable at times. There is such tremendous power in saying, simply, “this happened.”

4) As we know, the body holds memory. How do you think the body grieves the experience of violence and how can the continuing practice of poetry inform this experience?

I think how and even where the body holds violence can depend on the person, but I also think there is some universality in this. Early trauma, I believe, is apt to reside in the lower chakras, but grief energy can center in the lungs, heart center and throat… I think writing and speech, finding an expression for the grief is one good way of moving/processing the energy, but I think the sonics of reading poetry aloud, is REALLY POWERFUL for moving energy, and makes for a deeper healing experience provided one is comfortable doing it. Also, performance poetry, expressive dancing, and Feldenkrais, when done creatively, are great. Expressive movement, sound, and visual art are all great for treating/healing early childhood trauma when prelingual and environmental factors might not give rise to verbal expression. So writing, yes, is important for processing with your head, but there are many other dimensions poetry can take…

5) I noticed subtle religious undertones in some of your pieces in Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, and sometimes with geographic regions, particularly the Midwest. How did you navigate incorporating scriptural references into current writings as a critique or reflection? What were your concerns and/or wishes to accomplish? Do you think location matters when it comes to grappling with faith in art?

I think when you grow up in a mostly Protestant area, even if you’re not religious (which I’m not), it can pervade your thinking a bit. I noticed Christian-like origin references in “The Fall of Toby and Lady,” but only after I read it. It’s part of my subconscious, for sure, even while I’m not Christian, and it is part of the political landscape where I live (it’s Trump country here also). I was raised Reorganized Latter Day Saint, actually, and here, especially to certain Christian denominations, that might get you labelled as a Satanist. Anything that isn’t Protestant is bad. And if you’re queer, well, you’re going to hell and need to be fixed or erased.

In poetry and fiction, I mostly write what I know and want to convey my own experience in a way that might be relatable to others—including, of course, other queers, as we have been so persecuted by religion (most religions, not just Christianity). I feel like this text just begins to explore it, and I exercised a lot of restraint. But undeniably, I am writing about how religion can harm. I have come to think, given years of political activism by the right in this country, that faith and spirituality are separate from religion—often incidental to it, even.

6) Perspective is so important in art. There is an undercurrent of class in relation to mental health here. Much like Cynthia Cruz’s Melancholia in Class, your work strives to examine this deeply embedded relationship. How would you like your reader to enter this conversation in your book? What indicators on the page would you like them to take note of?

I’m not familiar with Cruz’s work, but that particular book sounds interesting. I identify as working class and write to reflect my personal experience, and, as such, it will find a certain audience, so I don’t have a specific message to deliver about mental health and class as much as I want people to have their own experience with my work, and maybe think about and use it as a springboard for further thought.

I think “My Therapist Sez” speaks to some of what you identify, but indirectly, as what a queer might experience trying to get help in a non-urban/rural area (I can’t imagine most of the country is a lot more progressive than where I live). And, of course, if one doesn’t have access to money, they are at a disadvantage, but this is bigger than just an economical problem. It’s cultural. It’s systemic and much larger than can be deeply addressed in such a short space.

That said, it does bother me when my writing seems to reinforce people’s stereotypes about the working class, and in the lit world, or the American lit world, I believe “working class” has come to mean something synonymous with Trumpism, white male supremacism, etc. An example of this was someone referring to “those uneducated people” as an explanation for some of my trauma writing. Abuse, addiction, and mental health issues occur in all classes, but, of course, privileged people have greater access to resources for addressing these things. And there are also, as mentioned, the systemic issues that put certain populations at greater risk for certain health and mental health factors such as suicide ideation. The stress poor and working-class people experience in just trying to survive/subsist is certainly a contributing factor to mental health. When states were issuing pandemic relief, the national suicide rate went down, surprisingly, when you would have thought it would have increased given the loss and bleakness of COVID. But for a 48-page book, I think I could only touch on these things. But certainly, these are things that I care about.

So, the risk in writing about class is in not really wanting to reinforce those stereotypes, but also, avoiding romanticizing working-class people. I can only write from the perspective of a queer who grew up working-class, and who also had a fondness for some of the people, and respect for labor, and for what I thought were the values of the community around me and my grandparent’s generation. There is discomfort for me in writing about a group I belong to, but maybe have felt I don’t belong to as a queer, and my own cognitive dissonance around the values of the people around me. My perceptions have been completely uprooted in recent elections. So, my work does touch on this, but not in a didactic kind of way, but, rather, the storytelling and poetic ways that I’m better at. Writing about class, especially right here and now, is really tricky terrain, and it will also likely be uncomfortable for a reader (and definitely, for a publisher). Ask me how hard it is to publish some of this work.

7) As a fellow poet and artist, I am always fascinated with the lapse of time and the repetition of cycles especially when it comes to abuses. How did these concepts influence this work? How long did it take for you to be able to approach these topics in your artwork? And, what are your thoughts on waiting until the “right time” emotionally to complete this work?

I think that when living in a misogynistic world as a woman, non-binary person, or queer, there are certain abuses that feel inescapable, but also, when one is abused, it can be hard to get to a place of forging your own life plan (or a writing plan around abuse). Healing for me is like a lifelong spiral, not a station to arrive at. I wish it were otherwise. But, hopefully, we get better at recognizing things in ourselves and others—in order to be more safe, happier, or more fulfilled. In writing trauma, or any creative work, I’m not at all a planner, and, as with life and how things are revisited, I return again and again to things in writing. It’s obsessive and natural, albeit probably a bit unhealthy.

Also, there was no “right” time to complete the work. I just continually write and piece things together in a way that makes a certain sense and, also, as I need to. It is all very organic, inspired, and intuitive to me.

8) This book illustrates how we are constantly surrounded by death both externally and internally. Because of this, we are constantly asked to consider its reach. In your opinion, do we ever accept death in any of its forms?

I think how one experiences grief is unique to each person, although many, if not most, religions try to control the process, just as they try to control other things. I have known people with what I would call inhibited grief, who never went through a process at all. I also have known men who could only feel and express rage. And I’ve known suicide-loss survivors also, especially when losing parents in childhood, who stayed angry forever. You read about the “stages” of grief (such as the Kübler-Ross stages) as if it they are pat, sequential, and universal, and I think most people experience many of these, but it isn’t sequential, it’s like the spiral I’ve been describing. And it can be a roller coaster. It can be short or long depending on the grieving person. There’s no correct timeframe. Everyone is different.

But I can say, for me, when I’ve lost people, there is one very distinct stage that I’d describe as a passage in that my entire being accepted that the beloved was no longer on this plane. And when I passed through this acceptance stage, the grief was less overwhelming and all-consuming. At this stage, the bargaining, the obsessive replaying of events, and the constant “if onlys” subsided. But still, there are bad days, anniversaries, and loss is just something we carry.

And it can change you in dramatic and surprising ways. I think there’s an art to grieving and an art to supporting those in grief, and it’s something Westerners are not very good at. As for the other deaths, loss is loss and grief is grief. And a breakup, lost friendship, or even a job ending can be really intense to people who have abandonment in their stories. Whatever the source, I think grief must be lived and processed both. There are no shortcuts through it.

Thank you, Kristine for the thoughtful interview questions, and for your generosity in doing this.

Koss (she/they/them) is a mixed-race, queer poet, writer, and artist with publications in Chiron Review, Michigan Quarterly (Mixtapes), Cincinnati Review (miCro), Spillway, diode poetry, Five Points,  MoonPark Review,  Sage Cigarettes, Spoon River Poetry Review,  Gone Lawn, Variant Lit, San Pedro River Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Bending Genres, Prelude Magazine, Reckon Review, Midway Journal, and others. They have work in anthologies including Best Small Fictions 2020, Get Bent, Red Ogre Review’s ’24 Anthology, Secrets in the Garden, Beyond the Frame, Dead of Winter III, Thin Places and Sacred Spaces, and Querencia’s Winter ’24 Anthology. They won the 2021 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest and the ’24 Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist. In ’24 they had a finalist placement for art in Best of the Net and won a bursary for Granta’s memoir workshop. Their chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is available from Diode Editions as of October ’24. Learn more at: https://koss-works.com. Connect on Twitter @Koss51209969.

KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ is a Maltese descendent raised in the Chicagoland area, who is also queer, a cult escapee, GED holder, and author of EXHIBIT: an amended woman, depose with FlowerSong Press 2021, 2024 and a forthcoming collection, face-to-faces, with ThirtyWest Publishing House in 2026. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Saturday Evening Post, TriQuartly, Five Points, a TEDx Salon, and more. She is the co-founder and organizer/host of the monthly experimental artist series, Adverse Abstraction, in New York City’s East Village. You can follow KRISTINE’s art on her substack, Carnations & Car Crashes.