Dante Di Stefano: You have an exquisite poem called “My Body is a Library” published in Diode, that ends with the following stanza:
I’ve renamed every flower
For the women who came before me
I’ve rewired the plane, redrawn the key
And untied the ribbon from my neck
Without dropping my head at my feet.
If all it takes to lose myself is burning the history that
Brought me here, then hand me the match.
A story beginning with self-immolation
Doesn’t always end in ashes.
Reading these lines, I was struck by how they parallel the PANK mission to publish poetry from “a place inhabited by contradiction, quirk and startling anomaly, where the known is made and unmade, and where unimagined futures are born.” Could you begin the interview by riffing on that mission and your own words?
Jessica Fischoff: I think PANK’s mission statement really encapsulates itself. I’m not sure I could phrase it any better, but I can say the raw spaces writers allow themselves to access when creating is the place I aim to put myself in with my own work.
DD: How did PANK Books come into being?
JF: In 2016 John Gosslee started PANK Books to publish diverse and important full and short length books that deserved attention. In conceptualizing the press aspect of PANK it was important to him that all books the press published had the full support of all of the editors regardless of which editor brought the book to the press. As of 2019, Chris Campanioni, Maya Marshal, and Ashley M. Jones have all chosen books for publication alongside John Gosslee.
DD: Tell us about the books in the PANK catalog.
JF: PANK Books has a very strong eight title catalog of little and big books that range in orientation, voice, craft, and genre. The main thread of our books is that they are inclusive in their support of all marginalized voices. We’ve published new writers, veteran writers, and in 2019 we published a book by a writer who had never published a creative work. We’re always reading, we’re always interested in publishing work we know is important to read.
DD: What are some of the unique opportunities and challenges for women-run presses?
JF: I’d like to answer with questions I ask myself, and that any editor and writer should ask themselves at least once.
How does the curation of a publication change amongst editors of different genders and backgrounds?
Do women editors read differently than editors who are not women?
Do different topics and styles of writing resonate with me differently than non-female editor counterparts, or does it come down to my personal taste?
How do I know whether what I’m publishing and how I’m managing as an editor is because I am a woman, or because I’m drawn to certain writing styles and management techniques?
How much of the writing I’m drawn to is because I am a woman and how much is because I am myself?
At the end of it, I think the personal inclination towards any kind of specific work is likely based on who we are as individuals first.
DD: Tell us about some of the forthcoming titles from PANK Books.
JF: We’ve slated a number of publications as 2020 releases. The titles include short essays, choreo-poems, and a book that plays with the incorporation of music as text. Our book contest runs through September 1st, and we’re selecting potential full-length manuscripts in poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, and little books for publication alongside the contest winners. Our judges are press authors and our Reviews Editor. The winning authors will judge next year’s contest, which keeps the thread of our mission in the PANK family.
DD: How has being a cellist influenced your work as a writer and editor?
JF: I’ve played in a number of indie bands over many years, and collaborated with other musicians, practiced, recorded, scheduled tours, promoted, and designed albums. The processes mirror managing a publication and press. I work with people to produce something beautiful and creative, something I am excited to share with the world, something I love.
As a writer, I think musically. I read everything out loud and listen to the rhythm. I admit I tap my foot to some lines to hear the beat. Music influenced the way I write, where the line breaks, where the rhythm rests, and the arc, and turn.
DD: Could you end the interview by giving us a poem from a PANK poet?
JF: I’ve picked two poems I love.
Regala un huevo con una mano y con la otra, mata la gallina
By Steve Castro
Some people are encyclopedias.
I’m more like the ashes after a book
is burned. Every burned tome dissap-
pears. The Apples will also vanish.
If the sun that devours books
got caught in a gargantuan
Library of Congress mousetrap
and died with a broken neck as a result,
then I would bury the sun in the cemetery
reserved for vanishing apples and book ashes.
My father once stole the spotlight
and ended up doing two months in jail.
My papá is malo. He’s the type
to give you an egg with one hand
and kill the chicken with the other.
YOU’RE ONLY HUMAN WHEN SOMEONE IS LOOKING
By Joanna C. Valente
Some of the women in town
thought Mary ought to be punished.
Her belly grew to a hearse.
She prayed for a sailboat
to carry her uterus on a milk sea.
Dragonflies swarmed her flamingo-pink
plumage. She watched
boys shred guitars. May
the distortion mince all
the tired women
inside her. A doctor suggested
lime in tea—an exorcise. May she
shoot wind to hear grass buzz,
to know which she is sprouting
inside her.
Jessica Fischoff is the Editor of [PANK] and author of the upcoming little book of poems, The Desperate Measure of Undoing (Across the Margin, 2019). She has a degree in English and Journalism from University of Iowa, where she studied the lyric essay under the mentorship of John D’Agata and went onto the Creative Nonfiction MFA program at The University of Pittsburgh where she served as an Editorial Assistant at Creative Nonfiction and began to write poetry under Dawn Lundy Martin, and Ben Lerner. Her writing appears in Diode Poetry Journal, Fjords Review and The Southampton Review.
Jessica's little book, The Desperate Measure of Undoing (ATM 2019) is available for preorder.