Four amazing new interns have joined the Press this spring—remotely, from around the country—and it’s our pleasure to introduce you to each of them here. We’ll share their 60-second Q&As every #MeettheInternMonday in the coming weeks, so check back!
P.S. Interested in an internship with us in summer 2021? Applications are due March 15. Learn more.
Meet Winniebell
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
W: Everyone’s door is wide open for the interns: their knowledge, their time, their hearts and ears. I never dreamed of learning so much about all aspects of the book-making process so fast: production, marketing, social media, author/donor relations, just to name a few, and everyone has expressed their openness for us to pitch new projects or meet with them for in-depth conversations. I appreciate our team’s devotion to make interns feel valued and heard.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
W: The Essential June Jordan, forthcoming May 2021. I just came across June Jordan through Copper Canyon, and it was an instant, easy, and intense love. The terrifying fact that history remains still in the relevancy of her poetry haunts me. I can’t wait for this essential book to reach more of the young generation and guide our civil activism moving forward.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
W: I go back to this line all the time: “God, God, what do I do / after all this survival?” (from “Vive, Vive” by Traci Brimhall).
Meet Claretta
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
C: My intern experience has given me the opportunity to pull back the curtain and see for the first time what it takes for a manuscript to become a polished book of poetry—how many hands touch the manuscript; how many minds are churning to show the manuscript in its best light, before and after publication; how many dollars are sought out and donated so that this work can continue; and on and on. Before my internship, I had had no real idea of the work involved. I am thankful to have been granted this experience, to learn, to contribute.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
C: I am looking forward to Tishani Doshi’s A God at the Door, forthcoming in fall 2021. As a production intern, I have had the privilege of working on this title, coding it in preparation for the next stage of its development. In reading the manuscript, I was inspired by Doshi’s use of the page’s white space, the poems’ varied justification; I was drawn in by the poet’s alternately forceful and playful voice. I am honored to have had a part in this book’s entrance into the world and can hardly wait to read the final product.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
C: Ever since I read his poem in high school, I have been haunted—haunted in the best sense of the word—by the final lines of Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”: “What did I know, what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices?” This question is spoken with such desperation; in asking it, Hayden has seen me and seen right through me. I carry this poem always in back of mind.
Meet Marisa
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?M: Copper Canyon Press has opened my eyes to publishing! I had no idea about the different aspects and levels of collaboration that go into creating a book. Learning about the publication process and each person’s role in the Press’s connected web is illuminating. Additionally, it truly is an honor to be working closely with beautiful works from incredible poets and with a staff that puts a lot of care into making each aspect of the Press’s works real, polished, and intimate.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
M: There is so much at stake in Laura Kasischke’s Lightning Falls in Love, forthcoming in fall 2021. The work is all encompassing with roughly delicate images capturing the crux of vulnerability and healing. When I initially read it, I was gripped into the poetry and physically felt the collection move its way into my memory. It reminded me of heat shimmering; stagnant with tension and moving with warmth. I am happy it will stay with me, and I cannot wait for others to read it as well.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
M: Since reading The Essential Ruth Stone, I am constantly thinking about the poem “Green Apples” and the fleetingness of moments. “The wind came up the mountain into the orchard / Telling me something; / Saying something urgent. / I was happy.” The longing to hold on to happiness and willfully acknowledging its existence in the past was painful and breathtaking. And it brought me to the questions: do I know a feeling when it is in front of me? Or is feeling an essence of the moment? Thank you, Ruth Stone.
Meet Kristin
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
K: I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the workings of a small literary press, and I was immediately struck by how staff members are so deeply and necessarily familiar with the day-to-day tasks of one another. But perhaps the happiest surprise for me has been the pleasure I’ve found in working alongside other readers and lovers of poetry. This contrasts with my teaching job at a very small college where most of my interactions are with faculty in other disciplines or students who are reading and writing via a required class. It’s great to be immersed in a community so committed to poetry.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
K: In preparation for the Winter Launch Party Livestream, I spent time with Erin Belieu’s Come-Hither Honeycomb, and then at the livestream itself I had the opportunity to meet her and listen to and watch her read. I’ve been thinking about her poetry since. I discovered through these encounters that we’re about the same age, have just-grown sons, and grew up on the Great Plains. While I’m thrilled to be reading through this internship so much new-to-me poetry from all kinds of folks whose lives are very different from mine, I’ve found Belieu’s poetry resonates in a reassuring way because we’re thinking about the same kinds of life-stage issues.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
K: The Erin Belieu poem Copper Canyon Press has posted on its website, “As for the Heart,” begins “I am come to the age/ of pondering my lastness:/ … of nearly doneness.” She goes on to describe her son as a “Shiny, kvetching creature.” It’s a poem that’s both funny and sad, my favorite kind, but it also reminds me of a poem I love by Wendell Berry, which begins “No, no there is no going back./ Less and less you are/ that possibility you were./ More and more you have become/ those lives and deaths/ that have belonged to you.”