Three 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 winter 2022? Applications are due November 1. Learn more.
Meet Kate
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
K: Reading and writing! Reading manuscripts, reading book reviews and interviews, writing summaries, writing reports. Even better: I get to work with people—the staff and my fellow interns—who believe reading and writing are sacred acts. I’ve been studying and living with poetry for years, but interning at Copper Canyon Press has given me a new way to make my obsession useful and to help, in whatever small way, bring more poetry into the world. When I was a kid, my wildest dream was to read for a living. Now, if only for a summer, I get to live that dream.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
K: Since I first encountered his work last year, I’ve been looking forward to Shangyang Fang’s debut collection, Burying the Mountain, forthcoming fall 2021. His poems are lyrical, vivid, and deeply serious in a way that makes the reader feel as though the poems’ existence are essential to the world. When I say his poetry is singular, I mean it in all sincerity. His voice is like no other I’ve read, and I can’t wait to have his book on my shelf.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
K: I’ve been reading a lot of superhero comics this summer, so of course I’ve been thinking about one of my favorite poems: “note, passed to superman” by Lucille Clifton. That ending! “you can trust me, / there is no planet stranger / than the one i’m from.” The speaker’s kinship with Superman—a literal alien in America—speaks to something fundamental about what it means to live in and observe this country—this planet—as an outsider. Superheroes hold a lot of mythological weight in American culture, and seeing Clifton wield that weight in her deft poems—wow. She’s a legend for a reason.
Meet Lily
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
L: How open and welcome everyone is! Even just from attending staff meetings and orientations with individual staff members, I’ve gained so much insight into the world of indie publishing in general. Since Copper Canyon is a small press, it’s amazing to see the real impact we as interns have on the projects we’re involved in—and how eager the staff is to get us involved. I’ve particularly enjoyed working with the production team and learning about all the detailed processes that go into turning a manuscript into a beautiful book.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
L: I’m quite excited to see Jim Harrison: Complete Poems, forthcoming fall 2021, out in the world—it’s such an impressive volume, and appropriately so for paying homage to such an impressive poet. Harrison’s work is both meditative and expansive; in the single line, image, or poem, you often sense that you’re reaching toward something universal. I could flip to any page in this book (and there are many) and learn something new about myself or the world.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
L: While helping proofread parts of the Jim Harrison: Complete Poems, I came across this line from Braided Creek, a long poetic correspondence between Harrison and Ted Kooser: “Dewdrops are the dreams / of the grass. They linger, shining, / into the morning.” I just think it’s a wonderful image—it reminds us that there is beauty to be found everywhere around us, and that even the tiniest of things have their hopes and fears. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a regular old plot of grass in the same way again.
Meet Johnny
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
J: There’s always something new to explore and learn about at the press, whether it’s development & funding, publicity & sales, or other small but necessary administrative programs the press carries out. I appreciate that interns are invited to explore as many different departments as they’re interested in. Every staff member is open to having us work on upcoming books or other projects that cultivate our interests into valuable skills & experience, and it’s so fulfilling to see these manuscripts turn into fully-realized books after all the discussing, researching, and compiling
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon title you’re excited about, and why.
J: I’m excited for Akwaeke Emezi‘s poetry debut, Content Warning: Everything, coming in spring 2022. Their exploration of ontology, holiness, and trauma carries over from their novels, and I find Emezi’s voice piercing but also full of spiritual fortitude. Emezi also makes great use of Igbo deities and other personas which makes the collection more alive and urgent in its heightened stakes, but haunting too in some its inevitable and long-lasting effects. As the title says, the book deals with some heavy and traumatic experiences, but Emezi’s fiery resolve pushes forward. I can’t wait for readers to see their poetry.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
J: The end of Ada Limón’s “Instructions on Not Giving Up” goes, “Fine then,/ I’ll take it, the trees seem to say, a new slick leaf/ unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.” Just saying that one sentence here doesn’t do the poem justice, I feel—the culmination is part of why I think it’s so beautiful. It’s lush and transformative, a soothing resilience as we move out of the “winter” that is the pandemic. Maybe it’s just too fitting of a poem as I go outside more often now in a “post-pandemic” world.