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“I
feel completely flooded,” says Etruscan author H. L. Hix, “I can’t
write fast enough to keep up with the stuff that wants to come out.”
Hix
is no stranger to writing. With Etruscan Press alone, he’s released 12
books of both poetry and essays. His most recent release, a collection
of poetry titled American Anger, was released in February.
When it comes to the things that inspire him to write, Hix explains
that there are so many things that he can’t work fast enough. “I have so
much that wants to come out, and I just don’t have time to do it all.
There’s always a list of projects backed up ready to go if something
stalls out.” He believes that this constant desire to write has, at
least in some part, to do with his personality traits.
Writing
for Hix often starts with a text of some sort. “Text invokes some other
language or asks to be manipulated, but very often it’s some piece of
sound or fragment of text that imposes itself on me in some way. Then
the process becomes a kind of listening, trying to attend to the
language.” After being captured by something inspiring, he generates
writing that very often doesn’t make the cut. “I run through a lot of
drafts…and experiment with things and try to make up silly little rules
of language and generate text,” he explains. “Most of it is not
interesting and gets thrown away, but something that comes up will spark
an idea or generate more language or associate itself with other
language.”
The works that were generated into what composes American Anger has
certainly struck a chord with audiences. For Hix, while the writing
process itself is for the words and words alone, audiences are something
to consider both before getting to writing and after finishing the
writing process. “For example, with American Anger, I
imagined a very broad audience; broader than the usual poetry audience.
And I’m conscious of audience afterwards because I have an obligation to
the work to try to help it find its audience.” Considering the broader,
atypical poetry audience has certainly paid off for Hix. The collection
has garnered reviews from outlets such as Library Journal,Publishers Weekly, and NPR.
For the full interview, go to etruscanpress.org
Emily
Leonick served as an editorial associate at Etruscan Press during the
Spring 2016 semester. She has completed her B.A. in English at Wilkes
University.
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