Art by Rana Roosevelt
Interview Questions by Claire Tang and Grace Marie Liu
Interview Answers by Annette Lin, Chloe Lin, Giya Agarwal, and Emi Maeda
Polyphony Lit's Volume 20 Fall Issue is now live, and for this issue, we're offering an exclusive behind-the-scenes look! Join our editors for conversations with Annette Lin (the author of "Just watching ducks with you"), Chloe Lin (the author of "A Conversation"), Giya Agarwal (the author of "i pray to angry goddesses"), and Emi Maeda (the author of "Magnitude").
Interview with Annette Lin
Author of "Just watching ducks with you"
Claire: I love the way “Just watching ducks with you” begins and ends with ducks, with the narrator watching ducks in the beginning and then imagining becoming one in the end. I have to ask: Why ducks? Is there a reason why you chose eider ducks in particular?
Annette: I love using seemingly commonplace symbols to describe the complexities of the human experience. The ducks in “Just watching ducks with you” are accessible, beautiful, natural parts of the speaker’s environment, part of an everyday magic that I wanted to celebrate through the background and framing of this piece. The speaker yearns to be a perfect duck, admiring the fluffy adorableness of the eider hatchlings and forgetting the age-old adage about ducks swimming: their action may look graceful and effortless, but their paddling feet tell a different story beneath the water’s surface. Mature eiders dive for their food, going as deep as 250 feet underwater to eat clams and other invertebrates. I was thrown into deep sympathy when I learned this fact. From my imagined perspective of a newborn duck, that distance seemed insurmountable. Though eiders have evolved to thrive in deep waters, getting started must be terrifying. This seemed an appropriate parallel to the queer experience, which is full of scary leaps that help us become our best selves in environments built for us. I was looking for a mundane, beautiful image that could convey the feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty toward the future that young queers frequently experience, and, thankfully, the eider ducks gave me the opportunity to explore all these ideas in one poem.
Claire: The line “we’re two ducks in a queer, celestial lake” felt beautifully confessional after the subtlety regarding the speaker’s queer identity throughout the piece. I’m curious as to what the process of weaving queerness throughout your piece looked like. How did you decide which details to include to flesh out the speaker’s queerness?
Annette: I appreciate poems about queerness that acknowledge it outright and explore related emotions and experiences in harsh candidness, but I find myself unable to address the topic so directly. To me, my queerness is only one part of a deep and complex human experience, and I like to make that clear when I explore identity in my poetry. As such, I didn’t want to focus too heavily on the speaker’s life as a queer person, and relied more on metaphor to explore the context behind this moment of queer joy. The result is a more subtle exploration of identity, reflecting how queerness does not define the speaker’s story but rather enhances it.
Claire: I noticed that toward the end of your poem, you begin to intertwine the imagery of ducks with the imagery of space, ultimately weaving the two images together with the line “perfect eider duckling stars.” What is the significance of space within your piece? And why did you choose to intersect it with the imagery of ducks?
Annette: It’s a rare sight in light-polluted suburbia, but on the surfaces of deep waters at twilight, there’s a brief moment when the last rays of the setting sun and the first emerging stars are both reflected. During this period of less than a quarter of an hour, the ducks appear to be diving into the sky. The water’s movements under a light breeze suggest entire worlds of infinite possibilities, just out of reach. It’s sometimes difficult to find community as a queer person, but in these worlds reflected on the water’s surface, there’s a promise: a reminder that such spaces do exist, and they are ready to welcome us with open arms. I wanted to include this message of hope to underscore the joy in finding those worlds that embrace us for who we are.
Claire: The narrative voice here is all so powerful, but I’m especially awed by the line “if you say something too beautiful we’ll both just vanish.” What does this line mean to you? How did you come to include this particular line?
Annette: To me, this line is a confession of uncertainty. In my experience, the dizzying sensation of being on the cusp of a momentous declaration carries a strange fear of being disregarded, and, in that way, “vanishing.” I wanted to depict this hopelessly terrifying side of interacting with and acknowledging beauty in our lives, holding fear close even while stepping over the edge. Including this line was my way of exploring the delicate balance between fear and wonder, and the courage it takes to embrace transcendence despite the risk of losing it.
Thank you so much!.
Claire: “Just watching ducks with you” is as confessional as it is genuine. How has writing served as catharsis and a tool in navigating your identity?
Annette: Writing has always been my method of exploring myself and my relationship with the world. My drafts of poetry know parts of me that the world will never see, offering a private space where I can process emotions, thoughts, and experiences that are otherwise difficult to articulate. As I write, I sift through these fragments of my identity, finding clarity in the chaos. Poetry has served as a mirror, reflecting back the complexities of my emotions, fears, and desires, and helping me navigate the challenges of self-discovery and acceptance. It’s a means of affirming my existence and celebrating the beauty and struggle of living authentically.
tion about the written word later feel prepared for their future relationships, work, and academic life. I would say to students: sometimes you get a piece that’s hard to crack and feedback that’s difficult to write, but that work involved in doing it and knowing there’s someone at the other end is always followed by a real satisfaction. In the long run, alums are telling us the experience was valuable.
Annette Lin is a current senior at Arcadia High School and a collector of outdated dictionaries. When she isn’t annotating her favorite poems or playing the piano, she can be found haunting her local bookstores, museums, and botanical gardens.
Interview with Chloe Lin
Author of "A Conversation"
Claire: “A Conversation” reads exactly like its title: a conversation. Both of the voices are so distinct and bounce off each other dynamically. Would you say these two voices are two distinct entities? Or, are they the voices within a singular person? How would you characterize each voice? And what is their relation to each other?
Chloe: They are the two distinct voices battling in the narrator’s mind—the narrator and their sexuality. The narrator’s voice is jarring and distraught; the poem opens with them asking for their hands to be cut off. This conveys the feeling of wanting the questioning phase to end because of how confusing it is. The sexuality’s voice is both blunt and gentle; in the beginning of the poem, it reacts to the narrator’s panic in a matter-of-fact manner, stating that if they do like lip gloss, they are queer. However, it becomes a mentor figure in the second stanza, reassuring the narrator that sexuality is not always so black and white. They are depictions of the mindsets I had when I was trying to figure out my sexuality. I thought that if I exhibited certain signs, I had to be queer. However, my relationship with my sexuality evolved, as does the narrator’s; the rules no longer feel so rigid, and rather than an expectation, my sexuality is patient, reminding me that no matter what I choose, it’s okay.
Claire: Your poem is teeming with colors: grape-soaked bruises, silver linings, crushed carmine, right colors, wrong colors. What do colors mean to you within this piece? How do you think they can be used to characterize certain aspects of the queer experience?
Chloe: While brainstorming for a queer poem, colors instantly popped into my head. Colors are such a distinct trait of the queer experience, most notably, the flags. However, as I thought about my own experience, it was not the positive image I initially thought of. So, I wanted to find a way to use a queer trait to depict my own pain and confusion surrounding it. I believe the first line I wrote was, “If you hate red/we can paint a silver lining.” After that, I was able to associate the carmine and bruises with the red, and the rest just fell into place.
Claire: “A Conversation” delves headfirst into the queer experience, exploring themes of queer confusion, restlessness, and acceptance. Are there any themes, listed here or not, you find yourself gravitating toward and returning to while writing? If so, what are they?
Chloe: Since writing “A Conversation,” I don’t find myself writing a lot about the queer experience anymore. Writing this poem, as well as a few others, has healed the part of me that constantly wrestled with my sexuality. Now, I write mostly about relationships and what they reveal about my identity. Oftentimes, I write about things I struggle with and parts of myself I don’t like; I find that poetry humanizes them, and I become more accepting of myself. Currently, the themes that show up in my work are saying goodbye, love, and changes.
Claire: The conversations throughout this piece were all so beautiful, but what really hit me were those last three lines – they’re so powerful! Did you ever envision this poem ending in a different way?
Chloe: That line came to me extremely naturally; I truly could not picture this poem ending differently. I wanted this poem to reflect my current relationship on sexuality and the growth it took for me to get to this point. Those last three lines depict the biggest epiphany I had while trying to figure out my sexuality. I remember coming across a video of someone responding to a comment about his sexuality; he said that he didn’t need to label himself, and that in his opinion, his sexuality was not the most important thing about him. When I heard that, something clicked in my head. I realized I had been spending all this time stressing out about something that didn’t necessarily need an answer, at least, not at that very moment. I had the rest of my life to figure myself out! The ending of this poem is the end of my initial mindset on sexuality and the start to my new way of living.
Chloe Lin is a writer based in New York. She is the Grand Champion of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association’s 36th Annual Student Poetry Contest, recognized in Narrative Magazine’s Seventh Annual High School Writing Contest, and is published in Rattle, Ice Lolly Review, and elsewhere. When Chloe is not writing, she enjoys going to cafes and folding paper cranes.
Interview with Giya Agarwal
Author of "i pray to angry goddesses"
Grace: I’m interested in hearing more about your journey with creative writing. What was the catalyst for your venture into this sphere?
Giya: Like many, before I was ever a writer, I was a reader. I picked up the Percy Jackson & Harry Potter series in kindergarten and that’s what got me hooked. After that, I went through pretty much every fantasy or dystopian series that was even somewhat age appropriate. For me, reading was like exploring little universes in my head where I could do anything and be anything. It was special. Years later, the pandemic came and I needed something to spend the endless amount of time at home. I think that’s when I started writing– because as amazing as exploring universes was, I wanted to spend time creating them.
Grace: “i pray to angry goddesses” is rich with spiritual language, down to its very title. Simultaneously, this is a piece brimming with unapologetic rage and pride. As a writer straddling multiple facets of identity, how do you approach the intersection between (and reconciliation of) queerness and faith?
Giya: I’m not as devout as I should be– but these stories about deities are a part of my up-bringing. I celebrate every festival. Faith is a part of me and so is my queerness. I will never trade one for the other. I love both. Maybe I’m over-simplifying, but that’s how I see it.
Grace: I’m enamored by your usage of blank space in a piece that speaks to the divine, the unsayable. What was your intent for the spacing of this poem, and how did you go about incorporating it?
Giya: I think I wanted to frame queer joy in memories– in snippets of life from wishful thinking to desperation to anger to feeling whole. That’s why I chose the line breaks and spacing; I could feel a thousand feelings and remember a thousand things at once. I wanted to take my reader (and myself) through a fragmented journey which made the catharsis at the end shine.
Grace: Something I picked up on in this piece was the recurring image of mouths, specifically lips. Which leads me to my question: why mouths? And what do mouths mean for you, the speaker, and the poem?
Giya: This one is kind of embarrassing actually… but I just really like writing about the imagery of teeth & lips. It scratches an itch in my brain. Also, I feel like we always talk about how things look or sound but we never talk about how they taste.
Grace: If you could offer one piece of advice to an aspiring young writer, what would it be?.
Giya: Honestly, above anything, just keep writing. It’s hard, reading emailed rejections upon rejections. I know the regret-to-inform-you’s hurt. But your time will come. Hone your craft. Learn to love your work despite what others say. Write. Because one day, someone will see what you do in the words you pain-stakingly typed and retyped. One day, your writing will speak to someone and they’ll tell you that they’ve never felt so heard. That’s really the best feeling of all.
Giya Agarwal is a rising junior at Interlake High School. Her work has previously been recognized by The New York Times, the Pulitzer Center, and Hollins University. She loves to write, especially about global issues such as climate change or women’s rights and believes that art is one of the truest forms of advocacy. Outside of writing, she spends her time competing at Speech & Debate or DECA, dancing, and listening to ABBA on repeat.
Interview with Emi Maeda
Author of "Magnitude"
Claire: “Magnitude” begins and ends with the same line: This is what happiness looks like. I love the cyclical yet resolute feel this gives the piece. Why did you choose to structure your piece in this way? And what does the narrator learn about happiness throughout the poem?
Emi: I think happiness is often considered to be a “pure” emotion, as the simple antithesis to sadness. Still, in this poem, I wanted to explore happiness and its raw, overwhelming, and harsh parts that surround the queer experience. I also wanted to express my admiration for humanity and how we find happiness in imperfect situations simply because something, or in this case, someone, is there with them. So, I wanted to begin and end my poem with happiness as a reminder that relationships, especially queer ones, have begun with joy, experienced uncertainty and difficulty, and finished with happiness again, regardless of the form it takes.
Claire: How did you come to choose the title of this piece? What does “Magnitude” refer to?
Emi: I’ve always been fascinated with the magnitude of things; those video graphics that compare the size of humans and the universe to scale enrapture me. As someone who can’t help but fall into my head and question my identity repeatedly, knowing that I will never compare to the magnitude of the earth was like letting go. There’s also something romantic about how, despite our insignificance, we hold love in such a high regard and cherish it only because it matters to our tiny hearts.
Perhaps it’s also a bit of an “f you” to those people overinflating queerness as a threat when the world is much larger than that.
Claire: Your poem features a lot of imagery related to earthquakes, including tectonic plates and entropy. How do earthquakes relate to your poem’s themes? In what ways do you think earthquakes can be used to characterize the queer experience?
Emi: Until I moved, I lived in a state with many earthquakes. The earth rumbles beneath your feet, but you’re powerless to do anything. People tell you to cover your head, so you do, but there’s nothing else to do other than wait for it to stop. In some ways, I think that reflects the queer experience--how forces out of your control may make things uncontrollable, and all you can do is protect your head. In this poem, though, I don’t fight it, and I let it wash over me because all that mattered at that moment was “you” and “I.”
Claire: Is there anything you hope readers take away from this piece?
Emi: You’re going to be okay. Even though the world is large and loud, happiness will always somehow begin and end it all; at least, that’s what I like to tell myself.
Emi Maeda is the 2024-2025 Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rising Phoenix Review, Eunoia Review, and the NY Seikatsu Newspaper. She writes in both Japanese and English, and is a graduate of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio.
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