Sophie Yu

The Interview

Each of these poems feels like a part of a larger series. Is this the case? If so, can you tell us more about where this series goes beyond the pieces we’ve read? What are the larger narrative threads? How many pieces currently make up this series? Are you working on a narratively and thematically linked chapbook or full-length collection in which these form part of the backbone?

I’ve found that these past few years, without realizing it, my pieces have always ended up narratively synchronized. Although they weren’t meant to be a series per se, they share themes of cultural identity and familial struggle. As a boarding school student learning to navigate belonging in a foreign space, I dissected the relationships and spaces that have been constants in my life through poetry. My family, my Houston communities, and my Chinese heritage acted as grounding factors—tethering me to a sort of familiarity that made my initial years of high school feel a little less unbearable.

However, as I continued writing, the underlying nuances of these relationships began to surface in my poems, turning into one of my writing obsessions in a way. Poetry became an attempt to untuck memories that had long been folded into silence, to preserve fragments of a world half-gone.

Although I’m not currently working on publishing a chapbook or collection, it’s something I definitely aspire to do in the future. I would hope to make it thematically consistent, likely dealing in the realm of language and cultural memory.

How do you balance your heritage (and touches of Chinese language) with the (somewhat formal) New England literary environment? Do you hope to open readers’ minds and hearts and imaginations to what your family and others have experienced in this country?

During my writing process, I’ve never thought much about how my work would be received by the New England literary community. Rather, I spent more effort developing my own voice and documenting my culture and heritage through verse. Poetry has been a platform for my continued struggle with identity, but also a medium in which advocacy and preservation thrives. Though I think many perceive the community to be quite rigid, many of the poets and writers I’ve interacted with and read have been doing so much work to transcend some of the barriers and stereotypes surrounding race, culture, and language. Poetry is an excavation, and I hope that by unearthing, piece by piece, the buried memories of both my family and my own struggles living in this country, more communities can feel understood and become more willing to understand.

These poems are consistently emotionally devastating while never falling into sentimentality. You are always walking that tightrope between narrative clarity and approaching intimate subject matter from the side, from a less linear perspective. How did you work to balance emotional clarity with unique metaphors?

Something that I always try to keep in mind when writing is that metaphors and descriptions in my piece shouldn’t subtract from narrative clarity. This was something I struggled with for a while during my writing process, and I’ve found that having a fresh pair of eyes to read my work really helps. The symbols I’ve thrown into the piece might not be understood by others, as they are often extremely personal, so it’s crucial to recognize when a comparison or reference becomes something worth sacrificing for clarity.

However, the level of specificity one can reach through metaphors is what I think makes the literary device so incredibly special and powerful. Most of the time, metaphors strengthen emotional clarity, providing a multitude of pathways to convey feelings. They allow the writer to take a nonlinear and sometimes very eccentric or abstract approach to tell their story or unfold a scene. For me, a significant part of piecing together a poem that stays grounded in my own unique voice while also feeling cohesive to others lies in being able to differentiate between excessive personal and specific metaphors and just the right amount.

You employ a variety of structures, from couplets and more traditional forms to white-space-heavy indents to sort of broken prose poems and indented white space to more traditional stanzas. How do you decide which structures and punctuation styles to use for a poem?

Structural experimentation is something I’ve engaged with quite a lot lately, with special attention to the manipulation of negative space. When it comes to deciding how to construct a piece visually, there are definitely a few points that I think have been most crucial for me to consider: the subject(s), the voice, and the storyline or narrative in which the piece progresses. For instance, I arranged “Little Cities” as a contrapuntal, splitting the poem into a plethora of bodies that match the different identities and personas brought about in the piece. The use of slashes and italicized text is both for emphasis and to introduce new voices.

I like to ensure that the subjects addressed in the poem align with the structure, though this requires lots of playing around and rearranging. When shifting even the tiniest structural elements, a poem’s cohesiveness and rhythm can transform drastically. Sometimes, I go into writing a poem with a form already in mind, so rather than my voice informing the structure, the structure ends up informing the voice. For me, it all boils down to what works for you as the writer and what visions or ideas you want to highlight.

How do you balance your work as co-founder/editor of the international journal Nova Literary Magazine and your own writing? Do you find your editorial work impacts the way you write or that your own writing passions and preferences impact your editorial work?

Creating and running Nova Literary Magazine has been one of my dreams for a long time. Finding a space to house one’s voice and poetry as a young writer can be extremely difficult at times, though I believe the presence of these voices is beyond significant. Having now pieced together this wonderful platform and community, I can confidently say that the influences between craft and editorial processes go both ways.

My writing passions as a young poet go hand in hand with the visions and values that are at the very core of our literary magazine. Although my individual writing process has had an influence upon various editorial decisions, I’ve found that the place where its impact is the greatest is within the magazine’s mission statement itself. My friend and I wanted Nova Literary to be a safe and expansive space specifically for teen writers to experiment and express freely—a vision that ties directly with our own writing passions as teen writers.

Constructing this literary magazine has gone far beyond the logistics of website, media, and editorial management, as it has countlessly introduced me to tremendously kind and passionate writers and creatives. From the pieces that we’ve received and reviewed for Nova Literary to the newsletters, magazines, and posts we’ve been introduced to since beginning this journey, there has been an abundance of work and content to draw inspiration from. Being connected with such a driven community invites more ambition and support into my own life and writing process.

This may sound vague, but we’d love to hear your story. As a teen with such incredible successes (published poems and books, Academy of American Poets internship, New Hampshire Teen Poet Laureate, literary journal founder), you must be exceedingly busy and deeply passionate about poetry. When did you fall in love with poetry and when did you write your first poem? What drove you at such a young age to be such an active part of our shared literary community?

I began to love poetry when I was eight years old. My class took a trip to the school library, and I recall stumbling upon Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends. Immediately, I was hooked. His fantastical art style paired with comedic rhymes differed greatly from the traditional lines I was used to. From singing shoes to licorice rain, Silverstein’s poems were bizarre and unpredictable, offering infinite perspectives. From then on, I began to write my own pieces, expand my literary palette, and, naturally, connect with young creative writers like myself. The writing community is truly such a warm space, and it has taught me to explore, reflect, and be open-minded, always. From writing workshops I’ve attended, such as The Sewanee Young Writers Conference and Adroit Online Mentorship Program, to literary groups like the New Hampshire Teen Poet Laureate Team and Exeter clubs, I’ve met so many wonderful peers and mentors who have had great influences on my writing career. My passion for writing has been continuously nurtured by the people around me, and I’m beyond grateful for their presence in my life.

Though at the beginning, poetry was (and still is!) a means for me to preserve and cherish memory, it’s transformed into a way of observing and understanding the world. Poetry is everywhere, and learning to shift my perception of reality has allowed me to imagine, understand, and create more freely than ever.