Poetry with Serena Alagappan

Rhodes Scholar Serena Alagappan discusses defying genres, translating poetry to ASL, and getting feedback from US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith

Serena Alagappan is a recent graduate of Princeton University, where she studied comparative literature and creative writing. She is currently studying social anthropology as a Rhodes Scholar and working as an editor of the Oxford Review of Books.

College 

Tell us about your college experience

I adored Princeton, and especially creative writing—the writers who taught workshops were extraordinary. My first introductory poetry workshop was with Tracy K. Smith, and I remember being awestruck at the way she read poetry. Her actual reading voice is so beautiful (she has a podcast called The Slowdown where you can hear her read and offer insight into different poems). And of course, I was also inspired by how she analyzed the literature, and what she taught us to see in the language. That class was so formative for my writing and heart in college. 

Why did you choose to study comparative literature in college? 

I chose comparative literature because I was drawn to its interdisciplinary nature. Princeton’s department allowed me to study a huge range of things, from French plays and Latin philosophy, to American Sign Language poetry and German films. I loved how Comp Lit encouraged scholarship across media and did not restrict its students to a single genre. 

How do you pick a genre?

I will usually write a poem if the starting point is an image or particular phrase. I also think because poetry is such an experimental genre, it can feel easier to start with something more impressionistic. Of course, poetry also undergoes rigorous editing, but for me, sometimes it’s easier to write a first draft of a poem than it is to write a first draft of a long essay, especially if I’m being driven by a strong emotion. For a prose essay, I’ll definitely do a lot of research and have an outline before I start writing. 

However, you don’t have to pick just one genre! One author I really admire is Maggie Nelson and her work defies genre: literary criticism, autotheory, memoir, and prose poetry. I am also fascinated by multimedia storytelling. One of my favorite courses at Princeton was with the oral historian and artist Nyssa Chow. She creates digital storytelling projects that have video, audio, and prose components. You can’t scroll down and fast forward and you have to maximize the window with the story, which compels a reader to be more attentive and patient even in a digital realm. 

What do you spend your time on these days? What’s top of mind?

Hmm, these days, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Oxford Review of Books, which is a literary publication I recently became one of the editors of. For fun, I’ve been cooking more, trying to solidify a new running habit, playing guitar, and still writing! What’s top of mind is honestly just being really grateful for health and well-being. I have had a lot of people close to me in precarious health recently, and so I’ve been trying to be more disciplined about acknowledging things we usually take for granted. And one of my favorite poets has been really constructive in that—Ross Gay has a gorgeous collection called Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and a beautiful book of essays called The Book of Delights. Those texts have helped me re-awaken a sense of wonder at all of life’s ordinary miracles. 

Writing process

How do you get into the creative mindset?

Honestly, to answer how I get into the creative mindset is kind of hard, because I feel like I see something every day that makes me want to create something. It’s more about the discipline of actually doing it. And you definitely need to make time for it. I’ve gone months not writing and it’s usually because I’m not sitting down and saying okay I’m going to write. It helps so much to do workshops and have people you share work with for accountability. 

What’s your creative process? 

My creative process depends a lot on the genre and the piece. Sometimes I will be really moved by a particular image or conversation, or even a scientific fact. For instance, I wrote a piece on how pufferfish make these giant sand mandalas on the seafloor, and the creative process for that essay started from randomly learning about this amazing natural phenomenon.

In the poem you read, “Birthing Cave” I was inspired by birthing imagery throughout literature (e.g. the ocean in the Odyssey) and the idea that different trials and places can revitalize you. I was also trying to gesture to the deeper question, how do you capture the feeling of hoping something might change you? The anticipation of some transcendental experience is in some ways more interesting for me to try to write about than a so-called transcendental experience itself. And I’m curious about those quieter moments -- when things stay the same, when there isn’t a thunderous epiphany or turning point. 

How has moving to the U.K. changed you?

I’m not sure if it’s because of recent events in my life or also being in a new place, but I have been thinking more about faith. My mother was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and my father grew up in a traditionally Hindu home. I had a lot of religious influences in my childhood, and I am so grateful for the grounding practice of prayer. There’s something from the Talmud I think is so beautiful that I have been turning to for inspiration lately: “Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.” 

Back in college, I was the editor of the Nass and I felt really comfortable publishing my poetry there but I had never submitted poetry to other journals. Now, I’m getting more comfortable sharing poetry more publicly and just putting it out there. 

Any tips for our readers? 

Read things that make you marvel!I had an amazing workshop instructor who once said, “Reading is inhaling and writing is exhaling -- you have to do both to breathe.”

What’s your timeline of writing? 

It definitely depends on the piece. I might write one piece in ten minutes and another one of the same length I’ll fiddle with for like three years.  

Do outline and drafts play a role?

Yes, I draft. I don’t really outline poetry but I do outline longform nonfiction. 

Sharing your work publicly seems daunting! 

My mantra is to cast the net wide and see where the chips fall. Which means, I get about ten rejections a week. A lot of young writers do. I am sort of numb to rejections now. Since I do believe and hope sharing work can be meaningful to someone, I still put myself and my work out there. 

Feedback 

Do you ever seek out feedback on your work?

Yes! Feedback always! I have never in my life published something without showing someone. The two people who have read every single thing before I publish it are my older sister Visala and my best friend from high school, Rachel McMahon. I also am still very close with writers from Princeton and editors of the Nass who I still exchange work with. There are also various people I’ve met through writing workshops, publications, and friends who I also often share writing with. 

What does that look like? 

I probably have one workshop every week -- I am constantly getting feedback. V and Rachel are kind of my ride-or-die readers. They’ll send stuff back in 12 hours. If they’ve read it, it feels like a stamp kind of, some sort of armor no matter what happens. The generosity of those women! Feedback ranges from “try moving this phrase to the next line” to “this imagery feels blurry” to really high altitude comments like “cut this in half” or “try losing this whole theme,” or “lean into this one stanza.”

What’s the most memorable piece of feedback you have received?

Tracy K. Smith read one poem of mine freshman year, and she said, “I don’t think you earned this last stanza.” I really appreciated that honesty. The language of her feedback was also really interesting to me. The idea that if you’re going to have rhetorical flourishes you have to bring your reader there. You can’t just expect your reader to jump there.  

Background

How do you learn how to write? 

I learn to write from teachers, and of course I’m still learning so much. I have been blessed with wonderful teachers. I am deeply grateful to my teachers from my kindergarten teacher Ms. DeWinter who bound these little stories I wrote about animals, and made me feel like my words were worthy, to my high school English teacher Ms. Mulvihill who nurtured every artistic instinct of her students in any form and just gave so much grace to creativity even in more typically rigid environments. My creative writing workshop leader from the Iowa Young Writer’s studio: Amy Butcher, who is now a dear friend and just a rockstar writer. And of course, my Princeton professors oh my word. From Tracy K. Smith to Nyssa Chow, A.M. Homes, John McPhee, Yiyun Li, and academic professors who encouraged creative work, like Barbara Nagel, Joshua Kotin, Jonathan Gribetz, Rebecca Rainof, and Karen Emmerich. 

Role of apprenticeship? 

Apprenticeship…that’s an interesting question. I have amazing mentors, I wish I could count myself as an apprentice, but I think I’m more of an admiring student. :) 

Who/What is your literary inspiration?

My inspiration I literally can’t pick. But some inspirations: Maggie Nelson, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Ilya Kaminsky, Durga Chew-Bose, Svetlana Alexievich, Nyssa Chow, Gabriel García Márquez, Ben Bahan, Carl Phillips, Aneta Besecker, Anna Deveare Smith, Justin Torres, oof the list is getting longer, this is incomplete.

Future 

If you were not currently writing, what would you be doing?

If I were not writing…hmm well I’ve wanted to write since I was six. So in terms of longstanding dreams, this is mine. I actually had a diary when I was in second grade and it said in all caps: MY DREAMS: 1. Get a pet giraffe. 2. Read every book in the world. And 3. Become a writer. So that’s still what I dream of doing. But, I think I could be happy doing a lot of things. Hopefully, something connected to storytelling. 

What is a subject you have wanted to write about or a topic you want to explore but haven’t had the chance to get around to?

Right now, I’m brainstorming something about this Hindi film called The Lunchbox. I watched it over the holidays with my family and it was so brilliant and tender. I loved how its climax was negative space. No spoilers, but it’s reckoning with what doesn’t happen, not what does. I love that. 

If you could get dinner with anyone who would it be and why?

Probably right now, it would be Krista Tippett. I think her podcast and whole project with On Being is stunning, and such a beautiful mix of faith practice, interviewing, journalism, storytelling, art, awareness, social healing, and wonder. Her work has given me so much solace and joy!

Have you considered writing in languages other than English or translating your work?

I had a friend and ASL teacher who taught me a lot about Deaf culture, who did translate one of my poems into ASL — it was one of the most humbling and beautiful experiences because it made me remember the memory that spurred the poem in a new way. Besides that, I’ve written a couple bad poems in French, but those were for school, and I hope no one ever reads them haha. 

Here is an excerpt from my thesis on my experience with ASL poetry, in case you’re curious:

I once tried to translate a poem of mine into ASL. The text of the poem read: http://nassauweekly.com/stained-glass/

I asked Shelly, my ASL teacher at the time, to help me think through how the poem would look in ASL. She first signed, What is it about? What was your intention in writing it? How did you feel? Her line of questions reminded me what poetry is supposed to be about—delivering an emotional effect in a reader, being intentional about an image that stirred the composition in the first place. She asked me what image made me decide to write a poem, and what the experience of being in a church meant to me in that moment. I told her that I was struck by the candles that day, and I was also struck by the position of me and my friend in one of the pews. I remember thinking "we are almost like wings," and I liked the image of the two of us, with all the space between us, suddenly a part of a larger body, a greater undivided entity.

She nodded, and then she showed me how I might think about representing those lines in ASL. The two I was most struck by were her translations of "There were so many candles by the altar, / the wax dripping down the sides like lace" and "our bodies folded like wings." Naturally, the lines she focused on were the images that I had recalled as the most poignant for me. 

The translation was extraordinary. She took the line about the candles and condensed it into a single image. She waved the fingers of her right hand, cupping her wrist with her left thumb and pointer. Then after wriggling her right fingers in the air, she let her pointer finger twirl and drip down the outside of her left hand, which was now signifying the curved side of a candle. There was no "like lace," but a viewer certainly didn't need the simile. The image was represented in motion.

The final lines of the poems in translation struck me too. "We gazed out mirrored closed windows," was portrayed with two "V" shapes pointing away from each other. The sights of the people not represented ran opposite from each other, and the gaze implied extended beyond the confines of a church, or a page. Suddenly, the gaze was represented as it was meant to be—in space. The sign for "fire" to describe the windows, ablaze in the dim glow of a cathedral, transformed into a motion like sparks shuddering in the air. The sign is repeated more than usual in the poetic translation so that it captures the sense of the fire's glow permeating the whole room. Then, comes color, so much color, that the face must show it, the forehead and eyebrows must crinkle and wonder with humility. And finally, the bodies, folded like wings.

When I wrote the poem, I was thinking about how our bodies were splayed, away from each other, but attached to the same bench. When Shelly showed me how she would represent that in ASL, I never thought about my own memory the same way. She demonstrated how when I first introduced the image of two people seated on a bench, I should curl the knuckles of my pointer and middle finger on both hands, then demonstrate with some extra emphasis how we were stationary on either side of the church pew. Then later in the poem, when I wrote, "our bodies folded like wings," Shelly returned to that image of the curled knuckles, but then swept them away from each other, as her hands flapped into wings. The two people represented by two hands in the translation transform into wings of the signing person's body. So, the metamorphosis I sought to allude to in my poem, of two people becoming connected, two disparate souls relating to some larger whole, explicitly played out on one human being's form, on the signing human being's form. This translation, for me, took the ideas of signed language and art from an abstract truism to a concrete display.

Obviously one can not predict the twists and turns of the future, but 10 years from now from the perspective of today - what do you want to be doing?

I would be writing for SURE, hopefully I’d also be teaching. It would be a dream to teach or work in an editorial capacity, and still dedicate myself wholly to various artistic and storytelling projects. I am open to living anywhere in the world—I’m just waiting for something to pull my heart somewhere, and that’s where I’ll go.